Highly proficient German users of English as a second language, and native speakers of American English, listened to nonsense sequences and responded whenever they detected an embedded English word. The responses of both groups were equivalently facilitated by preceding context that both by English and by German phonotactic constraints forced a boundary at word onset (e.g., lecture was easier t...

Abstract The role of EFL lecturers’ first language (L1) in the EFL courses has been an ongoing debate. A monolingual approach to EFL suggests that the use of the target language solely in foreign language (FL) classroom improves learning of the target language. Accordingly, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the attitude of Iranian lecturers and EFL learners towards using L1 as...

Interest plays a key role in education and language learning. This study investigated if selecting and using interest-based instructional materials could impact learners' performance in L2 reading. It also examined whether there were meaningful differences between male and female learners' performance, concerning the use of interest-based materials. Sixty first-grade university students partici...

Although 1.4 million people speak Northern Khmer in Thailand, they are aware that their language is still in decline. To deal with this threat, native speakers have cooperated with linguists from Mahidol University to work on a community-based research project since 2007. Teaching the Northern Khmer language as a subject in the formal school system was the first project which started at Ban Pho...

There is insufficient rigorous research examining which features of EFL/ESL learners’ writing can be improved through their awareness/knowledge of collocation. This study, therefore, addressed this issue and examined the effect of this awareness on Iranian EFL learners’ writing performance with respect to the specific features of each writing sub-component (i.e., content, organization, vocabula...

Speakers who live in an L2 environment for an extended period of time often experience change in the way in which they use their L1, a process referred to as L1 attrition. This article provides an overview of language attrition phenomena at various linguistic levels. However, attrition cannot be trivially or linearly related to factors such as the frequency of use of the L1. It is argued here t...

There is insufficient rigorous research examining which features of EFL/ESL learners’ writing can be improved through their awareness/knowledge of collocation. This study, therefore, addressed this issue and examined the effect of this awareness on Iranian EFL learners’ writing performance with respect to the specific features of each writing sub-component (i.e., content, organization, vocabula...

For many English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers working contingently with language learners’ problematic learner contributions in classroom interaction still remains a challenge. Drawing on conversation analysis methodology and using sociocultural and situated learning theories, this longitudinal case study traces the progressional changes in one Iranian English language teacher’s repairi...