Second-language (L2) acquisition is generally thought to be constrained by maturational factors that circumscribe a critical period for nativelike attainment. Consistent with the maturational view are age effects among learners who begin L2 acquisition prior to, but not after, closure of the putative critical period. Also favoring the maturational account is the scarcity of late L2 learners at ...

This study examines the roles of proficiency and working memory (WM) capacity in second-/foreignlanguage (L2) learners’ processing of agreement morphology. It investigates the processing of grammatical and ungrammatical shortand long-distance number agreement dependencies by native English speakers at two proficiencies in French, and the relationship between their proficiency and WM capacity in...

The present study was planned to investigate the efficiency of explicit teaching and adequacy of the L2 learners' exposure to L2 input in academic contexts in Iran. The case at hand was the acquisition of referential, quasi and expletive subject pronouns, as three different types of obligatory subjects in English. 96 Iranian EFL learners were selected from two universities in Isfahan. They were...

In this study an attempt was made to construct a multi-factor model predicting the development of reading literacy in the upper grades of primary school in the Netherlands for subgroups of 729 first language (L1) learners and 93 second language (L2) learners. Following a longitudinal design, it was explored to what extent the variation in reading literacy development in L1 and L2 from grade 4 t...

We investigated the influence of English proficiency on ERPs elicited by lexical semantic violations in English sentences, in both native English speakers and native Spanish speakers who learned English in adulthood. All participants were administered a standardized test of English proficiency, and data were analyzed using linear mixed effects (LME) modeling. Relative to native learners, late l...

Strategies play an important role in learning a second or foreign language (L2). The aim of the current study was to develop and evaluate a co-sharing-based strategy learning system for L2 vocabulary learning known as “Mywordtools.” Mywordtools is designed specifically for lexical learning, enabling learners to use the currently available vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) as well as e-tools...

In the Simple View of Reading proposed by Hoover and Gough (1990), reading comprehension is conceived as the product of word decoding and listening comprehension. It is claimed that listening comprehension or the linguistic processes involved in the comprehension of oral language strongly constrain the process of reading comprehension. In several studies, evidence for this theoretical framework...

although the majority of linguists believing in chomskyan revolution have no doubt about the presence of ug in ll acquisition, its availability in l2 acquisition _in general, and in adult l2 acquisition in particular, is controversial. on the one hand, there are proponents of the access to ug in l2 acquisition, lidia white for example, says: therange of option available to the second language l...

Lewis (1993) recognized significance of word combinations including collocations by presenting lexical approach. Because of the crucial role of collocation in vocabulary acquisition, this research set out to evaluate the rate of collocations in Iranian EFL learners' writing production across L1 and L2. In addition, L1 interference with L2 collocational use in the learner' writing samples was st...

This study was designed to explore the relation pattern of cultural intelligence, cultural identity, autonomy, and self-efficacy and second language achievement of Iranian EFL learners. The participants were 247 undergraduate students. Data were collected nationwide, from different parts of Iran; that is, from Kerman, south of Iran; Hamadan, west of Iran; Mashhad, east of Iran; and Gorgon, nort...