Pair and small group work is infrequently welcomed in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes under the assumption that students tend to use their first language (L1), which is considered detrimental to learning the new language. From sociocultural perspective, however, students’ first language is claimed to play the role of an important psychological tool and can facilitate the learning pr...

This paper reports on a study of metaphor comprehension and production in a multi-lingual setting using a translation task. Subjects were asked to translate sentences to and from their native language (Turkish) and their second language (English). The proportion of metaphors transferred between the languages during translation was examined. The results do not support forward transfer between L1...

A response signal, speed–accuracy tradeoff (SAT) variant of a same–different category task was used to examine how experience affects the speed and accuracy of retrieving conceptual information in first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Conceptual retrieval was evaluated in three bilingual groups: 10 balanced bilinguals with equal proficiency in Russian (L1) and English (L2); 9 Russian-dominant b...

Bilingual speakers are confronted with a unique challenge when learning language as they must learn to express the same concept in two separate languages. Here, we examine whether learning number words in one language (i.e., L1) facilitates the acquisition of analogous number words in a second language (i.e., L2) or whether extensive experience and familiarity with numbers within the second lan...

The objective of this study was to determine how bilinguals' age at the time of language acquisition influenced the organization of their phonetic system(s). The productions of six English and five Korean vowels by English and Korean monolinguals were compared to the productions of the same vowels by early and late Korean-English bilinguals varying in amount of exposure to their second language...

We used functional magnetic resonance adaptation (fMRA) to examine whether intra-voxel functional specificity may be present for first (L1)- and second (L2)-language processing. We examined within- and across-language adaptation for spoken words in English-French bilinguals who had acquired their L2 after the age of 4 years. Subjects listened to words presented binaurally through earphones. In ...

Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess inter-subject variability in the cortical representation of language comprehension processes. Moderately fluent French-English bilinguals were scanned while they listened to stories in their first language (L1 = French) or in a second language (L2 = English) acquired at school after the age of seven. In all subjects, listening to L1 alway...

The purpose of the study is to compare the writing proficiencies of firstand second-language learners and to examine their teachers’ beliefs about the writing students produce. The four fifth-graders were nominated by their teachers as either strong or weak writers. Text analysis methods were used to analyze the writing proficiencies manifested in the compositions and interviews with the teache...