Volume 63, Issue 3 - Special Issue: Young L2 Learners in Diverse Instructional Contexts; Guest Editors: María del Pilar García Mayo and Masatoshi Sato

L2 researchers increasingly agree that task-based teaching, combined with timely form-focused instruction, offers an ideal environment for L2 learning. However, the timing of form-focused instruction is debated, with concerns that pre-task interventions may distract learners from focusing on meaning. While some studies address this issue for adults, little is known about children. Hence, this study examined the impact of post-task explicit instruction on children’s task-based interactions in an online EFL setting. Thirty-three Korean EFL children aged 7–11 participated in seven online lessons using Zoom and Padlet. They read a storybook and completed a collaborative post-reading task. The +Explicit Instruction group (+EI) received a three-minute grammar explanation before the task, while the −Explicit Instruction group (−EI) did not. The children’s interaction was analysed for language-related episodes (LREs). Although the number of LREs was small, the −EI group generated significantly more and more elaborate LREs than the +EI group. Regardless of group, the participants attempted to address the majority of linguistic issues raised, but importantly, LREs related to the target form hardly ever occurred. Overall, the analyses of task-based interactions revealed that participants’ primary attention remained on meaning, regardless of whether or not they received explicit instruction.

In this pilot study we investigated whether metalinguistic explanations (ME) could help young learners (YL) boost their metalinguistic awareness (MA) and, in turn, improve their accuracy at the time of using two grammatical features. Although previous research has established a positive correlation between MA, metalinguistic knowledge (MK) and better learning outcomes in a foreign language (FL), few interventional studies have been conducted in this regard. Using a pretest/post-test design, an intact classroom ( N  = 20) of L1 Spanish 10-year-old students of English as a FL (EFL) was divided into an experimental and a control group. First, both groups completed an individual pen-and-paper MA test. Then, they were paired up according to their proficiency level and asked to carry out a dictogloss task, in which they had to negotiate their final written output. Before the post-test phase, the experimental group was asked to engage with a learning sequence of ME concerning two problematic English grammatical features: third person –s and his / her . These explanations also included the definitions of metalinguistic terminology. Additionally, an individual three-step verbal protocol was carried out after the post-tests to triangulate collaborative data. The results showed a moderate effect of the treatment in MA scores. Likewise, ME had a large effect on the use of third person –s during the interaction, as well as a moderate effect on the accurate use of his/her. Also, the treatment group dyads produced significantly more episodes of noticing during the post-test task and at a higher resolution rate than during the pretest stage. These findings support the use of explicit learning devices such as ME with YL of EFL, as they seem to promote MA and increase their accuracy even in input-limited learning conditions.

This classroom-based observational study explored the relationship among young adolescent L2 learners’ self-regulated learning (SRL), SRL behaviours, and L2 use during group work. Although recent research has examined SRL concerning specific L2 skills (e.g., listening) via questionnaires, learners’ actual behaviours during interaction have rarely been investigated. Participants were Grades 7 and 8 (12–14 years old) EFL learners in Chile. First, participants answered an SRL questionnaire. Then, they engaged in a group project (20 groups in total) whose objective was to create a newsletter for the school. Their interactions during the group project were video-recorded (over 300 min in total). A coding scheme for SRL behaviours was developed by focusing on both verbal and nonverbal cues related to SRL. Their L2 use was analysed by focusing on the number of words, turns, and language-related episodes (LREs). The correlational analyses showed that the more SRL behaviours, the more L2 use, implying that when learners engage in SRL behaviours, it is more likely that they would benefit from group work for their L2 learning. Implications for pedagogical interventions for SRL are discussed.

This study investigated the development of discourse features in young learners of a foreign language (YLLs), focusing on their complexity, accuracy, fluency (CAF), and vocabulary. The study also examined the relationship between CAF and communicative adequacy, and the influence of YLLs’ socio-economic status (SES) on discourse development. The participants were Grades 5, 8, and 10 learners of English in China (32 students in each grade level) who were selected through a stratified random sampling from a larger project and 15 advanced adult learners of English as a comparative group. They engaged in a story-telling task using a wordless picture book. The participants’ communicative adequacy was operationalized as the narrative structure based on story grammar, and 17 discourse features representing CAF were examined across grade levels and SES groups. A series of ANOVA and correlational analyses found that CAF measures generally showed significant differences by grade with some varied patterns reflecting the multidimensional natures of CAF constructs. SES effects appeared in secondary school levels. CAF measures were not interrelated significantly in Grade 5 but showed greater interrelatedness within and across dimensions among students in higher grades. Fluency contributed most to the communicative adequacy measured by story grammar, followed by vocabulary.

This study employed a micro-evaluation approach to investigate a task-based lesson in a Japanese secondary school with low-proficiency learners of English. A Japanese teacher implemented a task-based lesson in her four regular classes, which typically followed traditional teacher-centered instruction prior to the current investigation. The evaluation involved three components: response-based evaluation by examining language-related, meaning-related, and task-related episodes and their functions in the interactions; student-based evaluation through a questionnaire; and teacher-based evaluation via an interview. The results indicate that students valued the lesson, finding the task enjoyable and beneficial for their learning, though some found it challenging due to their limited proficiency. Students who viewed the task as an opportunity for communication in L2 tended to value the lesson, whereas those who saw the task as exercises for specific grammatical features felt otherwise. The teacher was surprised by how well her students communicated in English and expressed a desire to incorporate more tasks in the future. However, she also identified issues with the task materials and felt that pre-teaching vocabulary would have been necessary. Based on these findings, we propose several strategies to enhance the implementation of task-based lessons for young, low-proficiency students in Japan.

In TBLT research, there is a noticeable lack of attention to the use of tasks with whole classes. This study seeks to address this gap by investigating the discourse of whole-class task-based teacher-student interaction compared to other types of teacher-student interaction in EFL classrooms in a primary school in China. A total of 223 pedagogic sequences from 16 EFL lessons taught by Chinese teachers to Grade 1 to 5 primary school student were recorded, transcribed, and coded as tasks or non-tasks using the four defining features of tasks proposed by Ellis and Shintani (2014. Exploring language pedagogy through second language acquisition research. London: Routledge ). The analysis revealed that 95 sequences were task-based, 44 were non-task-based (i.e. they contained none of the four task features) and a further 84 sequences were also non-task-based but contained some but not all the four task features. In terms of the discourse features of task versus non-tasks sequences, task sequences had a higher ratio of teacher talk to student talk, a higher frequency of IRF exchanges, a lower frequency of teacher-class interaction, a lower frequency of teacher-initiated exchanges, a higher frequency of FoM exchanges and a lower frequency of FoFs exchanges, and a higher frequency of both display and referential questions. Overall, the findings provide process-oriented evidence for the distinctiveness of task-based teacher-student interaction.

This study was undertaken at a Mongolian community language school which aims to support Mongolian heritage children to learn their home language and culture. The learners were aged 4–15 years with diverse abilities in the Mongolian language. Informed by both purpose-developed Needs and Interest Analyses, a task-based language teaching (TBLT) program was developed and implemented over a six-month period. To evaluate the usefulness of this, two methods were utilised. Firstly, learners’ task-based interactions were recorded regularly, transcribed and qualitatively analysed. Secondly, stakeholder feedback was elicited via interviews. The findings showed that the learners interacted in ways facilitative of second language acquisition (i.e., they received abundant input, used a variety of interactive strategies, provided peer scaffolding, and modified their output according to the feedback). They also engaged in translanguaging to support their understanding and meaning making. Stakeholder feedback pointed to some challenges, but also many positive outcomes.

This paper presents a case study of a Black Spanish-language teacher and her 4th-grade students using Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) six years after a teacher-training program. We describe the program and the teacher’s understanding of tasks and TBLT. Using a bottom-up approach, we then explore the teacher and students’ implementation of TBLT six years later in a socioeconomically resilient 4th-grade classroom in Miami, Florida, where 95 % of the students are Black. Task-as-process was assessed with classroom observations, handouts, task outcomes, and interviews. Findings revealed that the teacher continued using TBLT, highlighting both its opportunities and challenges. Opportunities were driven by her beliefs, reliance on “Black students’ linguistic gifts,” and access to sample tasks. Challenges included time constraints, COVID-related logistics, and professional loneliness. Her innovative TBLT implementation was influenced by shared cultural artifacts considered “fun” to incorporate. Using Love’s framework of abolitionist teaching, we explore how the teacher and students resisted ideologies of culturelessness through Black cultural unity. Six years post-training, the teacher’s use of tasks and students’ success in TBLT were mediated by their shared Blackness. We conclude by arguing for more world language studies focusing on Black teachers and young learners as innovators in TBLT.

Learners of Korean are increasing globally, but this growth can only be sustained by training local non-native teachers. To address this issue, this paper identifies the subjective perspectives of Korean language teaching professionals about the main competencies needed by non-native Korean teachers. Following a Q methodology protocol, 35 teachers sorted 42 statements about non-native Korean teacher competencies. The analysis identified four perspectives. Factor 1 stresses the ability to adapt teaching to the learning context and Korean language proficiency. Factor 2 stresses the importance of pursuing continuous professional development without deeming a near-native language proficiency essential. Factor 3 stresses the need to love the language and the ability to maintain advanced language skills. Factor 4 again stresses the need to love the Korean language, the profession, and the importance of a strong sense of responsibility as an educator. Results are discussed with reference to teacher training program design.

The present study investigated the effects of two usage-related factors – modality (written vs. spoken) and language learning contexts (EFL vs. ESL) – on lexical sophistication in second language (L2) production. We measured 14 features of lexical sophistication in written and spoken texts produced by EFL and ESL learners with matched proficiency. The results showed significant interactions of modality and L2 learning contexts in several indices. In three indices, the EFL learners used more sophisticated words in writing than in speaking. In six indices, the gaps of lexical sophistication scores between writing and speaking were greater for the EFL than the ESL group. The conjoined effects of these factors are argued to stem from disparity in the amount and type of L2 input provided in EFL and ESL contexts.

We investigated the predictive capacity of second language (L2) sentence processing speed measured using reaction time (RT) and automaticity captured using the coefficient of variation (CV) on the accuracy of L2 use in receptive and productive tasks. A total of 74 Chinese English-L2 learners completed a maze task, an elicited imitation task (EIT), and a timed grammaticality judgment task (TGJT) using comparable sentences. RT and CV from the maze task were used to predict the use of L2 morphological markers in the EIT and TGJT. The findings revealed that there were no significant effects of RT and CV in the EIT. However, in the TGJT, the effect of CV was significant. These results highlight the predictive power of L2 processing automaticity in the receptive task involving L2 morphological use.

This study investigates how distance-invoked difficulty, proficiency level and cross-linguistic similarity affect error occurrences by analysing 240 English compositions from Chinese and Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). Dependency distance was used as a metric to measure distance-invoked difficulty and four major types of dependency relations were investigated. The findings reveal that low- and middle-level Chinese and Japanese EFL learners have higher error rates with long-distance dependency relations, but high-level learners can overcome the distance-invoked difficulty and make fewer errors. Chinese and Japanese EFL learners make more errors in long-distance adverbial and relative clauses than in short-distance ones, which are L1-dissimilar dependency relations. They make fewer errors in L1-similar relations, i.e., long-distance subject-predicate dependency relations. Japanese EFL learners, however, showed no significant differences in error rates between long- and short-distance predicate-object dependency relations. The results indicate the complex interaction between the EFL learners’ cognition, proficiency and L1.

Despite the growing interest in emotions in L2 writing education, empirical research on teachers’ emotions as feedback providers is limited. With 288 English writing teachers from 120 universities in 23 provinces of China, this study developed a 17-item scale to measure Chinese university English writing teachers’ feedback-giving emotions. Exploratory factor analysis revealed five kinds of emotions: cheerfulness, contentment, frustration, anxiety, and anger. Latent profile analysis identified four groups of teachers according to their diverse patterns of emotions: slight-positive-emotional teachers ( N  = 118, 40.97 % of the total sample), negative-emotional teachers ( N  = 35, 12.15 %), positive-emotional teachers ( N  = 50, 17.36 %), and mixed-emotional teachers ( N  = 85, 29.51 %). Most demographic variables, including teaching experience, student background, and institution prestige, had no correlation with teachers’ feedback-giving emotions. Only professional training experience had minimal influence on teachers’ group memberships concerning feedback-giving emotions. This study contributes to the literature on teachers’ emotions during the provision of feedback by developing an instrument for large-scale quantitative studies. It also confirms the complexity of feedback-giving emotions, particularly the identification of mixed-emotional teachers.

This study examined general auditory processing, Mandarin L1 prosodic and phonological awareness, and the relations with English L2 word learning. Participants were 61 Mandarin-speaking children who learned English as an L2 in Taiwan. They received the following tasks: general auditory processing (i.e., amplitude envelope rise time, pitch contour and interval), Mandarin L1 prosodic and phonological awareness, and English L2 word learning (at Time 1 and 2). The results revealed that (1) only amplitude envelope rise time discrimination, independent of years of English learning, predicted English L2 word learning at Time 1, (2) Mandarin L1 phonological awareness, relative to Mandarin L1 prosodic awareness, made more contributions to English L2 word learning after controlling amplitude envelope rise time discrimination, and (3) successful English learners outperformed their unsuccessful peers on Mandarin L1 phonological awareness. Taken together, beginning English learners might use amplitude envelop rise time cuing syllable boundaries and rely on L1 prosodic and phonological awareness for English L2 word learning.

Despite receiving more attention and obtaining a well-established status in second language (L2) teaching research during the last three decades, L2 pragmatics remains an excluded topic in English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching in many investigated contexts. Adopting a qualitative case study design, this paper examines what seven EFL teachers from different Vietnamese high schools perceive about L2 pragmatics and instructional pragmatics and reflect on their teacher preparation programs in these regards. The findings reveal that the participating teachers were not taught about L2 pragmatics and instructional pragmatics during their professional education, resulting in their little content and pedagogical knowledge of L2 pragmatics. This leads to their general exclusion of L2 pragmatics teaching in their classroom practices. The uncovered stories from these teachers provide essential implications for teacher education programs in Vietnam and its similar contexts. Importantly, they add more understanding to the relationship of teachers’ knowledge and their practices of L2 pragmatics teaching, a current understudied research area with specific reference to teacher cognition of L2 pragmatics.

This study investigates the impact of metacognitive knowledge on vocabulary learning among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learner, involving 776 university students in China. Its primary goal is to develop and validate a scale for assessing metacognitive knowledge in vocabulary learning. The scale is structured around three sub-dimensions: person, task, and strategies, identified through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. These sub-dimensions serve as independent variables in analyzing their influence on incidental vocabulary learning outcomes from reading, which includes knowledge of word form, meaning, and use. The study’s results validate the scale and reveal that the three factors – person, task, and strategies – have varying impacts on learners’ incidental vocabulary learning performance. The findings emphasize the crucial role of metacognitive knowledge in EFL vocabulary acquisition, offering insights for enhancing learning strategies. Additionally, the study provides important implications for educational practices in vocabulary teaching and learning.

Despite the prevalence of emotion-centered studies in foreign language classrooms, there are scant studies focusing on one specific task, the oral presentation task. This research utilized questionnaires to measure 25 Chinese Business-English major sophomores’ Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) and Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) in a group oral presentation task. It aimed to unveil the relationships between FLCA/FLE and oral presentation performance, and to dig out factors affecting FLCA and FLE in oral presentations through self-reflective journals. It was reported that most participants generally enjoyed delivering oral presentations rather than felt anxious. Participants exhibited better performance in the content of their presentations as opposed to the delivery manner. Unlike the limited influence of FLE on oral presentations, FLCA showed significant negative correlations with overall presentation performance, particularly in participants’ vocal delivery, enthusiasm, and eye contact. Qualitative data revealed that participants’ FLCA and FLE in oral presentations were predominantly influenced by personal and peer-related factors. Based on the major findings, pedagogical suggestions were put forward to enhance learners’ oral presentation skills and promote academic oracy in higher education.

Language contact is widely recognized as a factor that can have a significant impact on second language (L2) learners’ oral proficiency. However, the existing literature on this topic lacks consistency regarding the extent to which language contact can affect L2 oral outcomes. To address this issue, the present study investigates the role of ethnic identification as a mediating factor in the context of Chinese as a second language (CSL). By utilizing structural equation models (SEMs), this study reveals that: (1) language contact can directly affect Chinese oral proficiency, with interactive contact having a particular impact on oral fluency; (2) language contact indirectly affects CSL learners’ oral acquisition through ethnic identification, especially in terms of oral complexity and accuracy; and (3) language contact significantly influences ethnic identification. By constructing models that explore the relationships among language contact, ethnic identification, and Chinese oral proficiency, this study contributes to current theories of language contact in the L2 acquisition domain by highlighting the crucial role of ethnic identification.

Employing the Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) as a theoretical framework, this study explores the interconnectedness of cognitive and affective components within the Willingness to Communicate (WTC) among eight undergraduate students in a university classroom in China. The eight students were divided into four pairs, engaging in a communication task in English, followed by self-ratings of WTC using software and stimulated recall interviews. Interconnectedness was examined on a per-second basis. Analysis of these interconnected interactions revealed five patterns across three states of WTC. Among the rising, stable, and declining states of WTC, cognitive issues (e.g., discrepancy in viewpoints, vocabulary retrieval, self-monitoring) dynamically interacted with affective instances (e.g., anger, excitement, and emotional dependence on the partner), influencing the pattern of interconnectedness. The findings suggest that interconnectedness in WTC exhibits reciprocal interaction and nonlinearity. Speculation within these intricate cognitive-affective interactions suggests that affective components may have a greater influence on determining the level of L2 WTC. These insights highlight the dynamic interplay between WTC components and the system as a whole, revealing their uneven influence on the WTC system.

The present study explores Austrian pre-service EFL teachers’ language awareness. The negative polarity properties of ‘any’ are investigated. These are informative since some of the grammatical constraints are taught in EFL instruction while others are not. The research question addresses whether pre-service teachers’ knowledge is constrained by pedagogical rules. 66 pre-service EFL teachers rated eight sentence types illustrating varying grammatical constraints on the occurrence of ‘any’ by means of paced acceptability judgement. Then knowledge of metalinguistic was assessed through untimed sentence pair assessment, open rule verbalisation, and recall of rule teaching. Results suggest that ability to distinguish grammaticality as indexed by judgements was generally high but most robust for taught properties. Metalinguistic knowledge was similarly restricted mainly to the taught pedagogical rules. Based on these results, ramifications for the role of language knowledge in EFL teacher training and avenues for further research are discussed.

Drawing on a proposed theoretical framework that integrates a social cognitive perspective of self-regulation and a process genre approach to L2 writing, this research describes the development and validation process of a new instrument, Questionnaire for Self-regulated Learning Writing Strategies (QSRLWS). QSRLWS was validated with satisfactory psychometric qualities. Nine hundred eighty Chinese university EFL learners participated in the study ( N  = 960 after data screening). The study first described the questionnaire development process and adopted exploratory factor analysis to validate the factorial structure with half of the sample ( n  = 480). It further confirmed the structure with confirmatory factor analysis with another half of the sample ( n  = 480). Model comparisons confirmed a four-factor second-order structure in which QSRLWS comprised 12 SRL writing strategy types into four dimensions of strategy groups, i.e., metacognitive, cognitive, social, and motivational/affective regulation. Predictive validity of these strategies on students’ English writing performance was also reported. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed.

Distinct from English, Mandarin verbs are not inflected to encode Past Tense, but perfective aspect is typically marked by aspectual markers -le and -guo . Moreover, resultative verb compounds are often viewed as accomplishment verbs, denoting telicity of an event. This study attempts to examine whether such linguistic properties transfer to the acquisition of English. We tested 22 English learning Chinese adolescents in two experiments, respectively using a Story Restatements Task and an Elicited Production Task. Overall, the experiments generated three major findings. First, the participants marked irregular verbs 13 % higher than regular ones. Second, the participants used bare verbs to express English Past Tense 12 % of the situations. Third, the participants adopted Mandarin-like RVCs to denote English Past Tense 10 % of the cases. Taken together, the findings indicate that besides morphophonological transfer, English learning Chinese adolescents adopt Mandarin word-formation rules to encode English Past Tense, which is new evidence of cross-linguistic transfer. We discuss the implications of our findings.

For young learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), the initial acquisition of English vocabulary is crucial to English proficiency. This study conducted a systematic review of studies of primary school students’ EFL vocabulary learning to identify types of activities for learning new vocabulary. A total of 57 vocabulary learning activities from 22 studies were coded, yielding ten types of intentional and eight types of incidental learning activities. The intentional learning activities involved more psychological conditions than the incidental ones. Following the involvement load hypothesis (ILH), we identified activities encompassing various combinations of psychological conditions inducing the highest and lowest involvement loads (ILs); the more such conditions an activity encompasses, the deeper the vocabulary learning processes, and the higher the IL, the better the retention. The comparison between the activity types provides useful information for teachers and researchers to design age-appropriate English vocabulary learning activities.

While the use of cohesive devices has received considerable attention in L2 writing research, scant attention has been devoted to exploring local, global, and textual cohesive features across two genres at different time points using indices generated by the computational tool for automatic analysis of cohesion (TAACO). Inspired by this gap, this study attempted to: (a) identify TAACO indices that are predictive of human ratings of essay organization, (b) investigate which of the identified TAACO indices differ between narrative and argumentative genres, and (c) explore which of the identified TAACO indices might change over time. To achieve these purposes, 270 narrative and argumentative essays were collected from 45 L2 writers in counterbalanced order at six different time points. The results of mixed-effects modeling revealed textual cohesive devices to be significant predictors of human ratings of essay organization regardless of genre and indicated sustained development in the use of textual cohesive devices over time. This study has important implications for L2 writing assessment including the potential to enhance assessment practices by incorporating computational tools like TAACO. The findings emphasize the importance of considering textual cohesive devices as significant predictors of essay organization, regardless of genre.

This study attempted to extend Jung and Lee’s (2023. Incidental collocational learning from reading-while-listening and the impact of synchronized textual enhancement. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching .) study to gain further insight into the pedagogical potential of text-audio synchronized enhancement on L2 collocation learning from reading-while-listening. Eighty-seven Cantonese ESL speakers read two English stories under one of four conditions, i.e., reading-only, reading-while-listening, reading-while-listening with colouring, and reading-while-listening with synchronized colouring. The stories contained 12 target adjective-pseudonoun collocations, and participants’ learning was assessed with immediate and one-week delayed posttests that consisted of recall and recognition tests. Lastly, two participants from each group produced stimulated recall comments. The results revealed that both colouring techniques significantly promoted receptive knowledge about the target collocations in the immediate posttest. Synchronized colouring, in particular, was also effective in improving immediate pseudonoun meaning recall scores and reducing reaction times to collocation recognition tests. Stimulated recalls indicated that synchronized colouring allowed for more uninterrupted processing of the stories in close alignment with the audio.