The first goal of this study was to examine how individual differences in initial L2 proficiency help explain L2 grammar development in oral production during short-term immersion abroad. The second goal of the study was methodological, and evaluated challenges that can result from operationalizing learners’ initial L2 proficiency as pretest performance on outcome measures (as opposed to independent proficiency measures) in analyses of L2 change. L2 Spanish learners participating in summer study abroad completed an elicited imitation task and two oral production tasks. Production data were analyzed for changes in relevant grammatical complexity and accuracy dimensions. Results indicate that learners with higher initial L2 proficiency experience greater L2 grammar advancement from short-term immersion, and that pretest performance can be an unreliable operational estimate of initial proficiency when analyzing L2 gains. We discuss findings following cognitive accounts of SLA, and highlight methodological implications for further research in immersion contexts and beyond.

Lexical tones are widely believed to be a formidable learning challenge for adult speakers of nontonal languages. While difficulties—as well as rapid improvements—are well documented for beginning second language (L2) learners, research with more advanced learners is needed to understand how tone perception difficulties impact word recognition once learners have a substantial vocabulary. The present study narrows in on difficulties suggested in previous work, which found a dissociation in advanced L2 learners between highly accurate tone identification and largely inaccurate lexical decision for tone words. We investigate a “best-case scenario” for advanced L2 tone word processing by testing performance in nearly ideal listening conditions—with words spoken clearly and in isolation. Under such conditions, do learners still have difficulty in lexical decision for tone words? If so, is it driven by the quality of lexical representations or by L2 processing routines? Advanced L2 and native Chinese listeners made lexical decisions while an electroencephalogram was recorded. Nonwords had a first syllable with either a vowel or tone that differed from that of a common disyllabic word. As a group, L2 learners performed less accurately when tones were manipulated than when vowels were manipulated. Subsequent analyses showed that this was the case even in the subset of items for which learners showed correct and confident tone identification in an offline written vocabulary test. Event-related potential results indicated N400 effects for both nonword conditions in L1, but only vowel N400 effects in L2, with tone responses intermediate between those of real words and vowel nonwords. These results are evidence of the persistent difficulty most L2 learners have in using tones for online word recognition, and indicate it is driven by a confluence of factors related to both L2 lexical representations and processing routines. We suggest that this tone nonword difficulty has real-world implications for learners: It may result in many toneless word representations in their mental lexicons, and is likely to affect the efficiency with which they can learn new tone words.

This study investigated the potential of phonetic symbols and keywords as response labels for perceptual training of L2 sounds. Seventy-one Spanish learners of English were assigned to three groups: symbols, keywords, and control. Students in the symbols and keywords groups followed a 4-week High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) program based on identification tasks. The target aspects addressed were eight English vowels that tend to be problematic for Spanish EFL learners (/iː ɪ æ ʌ ɜː e ɒ ɔː/). Training stimuli consisted of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) nonwords featuring these vowels on a range of phonetic contexts. Overall, the results revealed significant differences between the perception gains made by the two experimental groups, which performed similarly, and the control group. Both experimental groups were able to transfer gains to untrained nonwords, and to untrained voices. Moreover, gains were maintained over time. Improvements were also made in real words, especially by the symbols group, although no significant differences were found between groups. The results suggest that both phonetic symbols and keywords are effective labels for perceptual training and the creation/consolidation of perceptual sound categories. The study offers further evidence of the effectiveness of HVPT for pronunciation training as well as implications for perceptual training studies and language teaching.

Little research has been done on the effect of learning context on L2 listening development. Motivated by DeKeyser’s (2015) skill acquisition theory of second language acquisition, this study compares L2 listening development in study abroad (SA) and at home (AH) contexts from both language knowledge and processing perspectives. One hundred forty-nine Chinese postgraduates studying in either China or the United Kingdom participated in a battery of listening tasks at the beginning and at the end of an academic year. These tasks measure auditory vocabulary knowledge and listening processing efficiency (i.e., accuracy, speed, and stability of processing) in word recognition, grammatical processing, and semantic analysis. Results show that, provided equal starting levels, the SA learners made more progress than the AH learners in speed of processing across the language processing tasks, with less clear results for vocabulary acquisition. Studying abroad may be an effective intervention for L2 learning, especially in terms of processing speed.

This study explored the interaction between learning conditions, linguistic complexity, and first language (L1) syntactic transfer in semiartificial grammar learning by conceptually replicating and extending Tagarelli et al. (2016). We changed the L1 background, elicited production data during debriefing, and added a binary mixed-effects logistic regression analysis to compare variability at learner and item levels with group-level variation on exposure condition, linguistic complexity, and their interaction. Our results replicated those of the original study regarding the comparative efficacy of explicit instruction; however, we also found a condition × complexity interaction absent in the original study. Debriefing sentence-production data suggest that the changed L1-L2 typological distance may have leveled off the advantage of explicit instruction in the learning of the complex V2-VF structure. Finally, our mixed-effects modeling analysis revealed that variability at learner and item levels accounted for a larger proportion of the variance of the outcomes than all the predictors combined.

Learning a second/foreign language (L2) is a long process and L2 learners certainly will encounter setbacks and discouragements during this process. However, their reactions to these failures might be different based on their perceptions of L2 learning ability and their subsequent effort put into L2 learning. Based on this, the present study aimed at exploring two underresearched constructs within the field of applied linguistics, namely grit (continuous effort and interest for long-term goals) and language mindset (individuals’ perceptions of their language learning ability). We had five main aims: to examine (a) the factor structure of grit, (b) the factor structure of language mindset, (c) whether there are gender differences in grit or language mindset, (d) the relationships between language mindset and grittiness, and (e) the roles of grit and language mindset as predictors of L2 achievement. To address these aims, a total number of 1,178 university students who were taking general English courses took part in our study and completed the questionnaires. Results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the two-factor structure for both grit and language mindset fit the data better than the single-factor structure. We also tested several structural equation models and found that a growth language mindset weakly, but positively, predicted one component of grit (perseverance of effort, or POE), but not the other (consistency of interest, or COI). A fixed language mindset did not predict POE, but did negatively predict COI. Finally, only growth language mindset was a weak, positive predictor of L2 achievement. At the end, theoretical and pedagogical implications regarding the role of grit and language mindset in L2 learning are presented.

This study examines the second language (L2) development of variable /s/-weakening in the spontaneous speech of L2 learners of Spanish who studied abroad in either Dominican Republic, where /s/-weakening is widespread, or central Spain, where /s/-weakening is much less common. Learners’ realizations of /s/ were coded impressionistically and acoustically by measuring voicing, center of gravity, and duration. The results show that regardless of the study abroad location, students did not change the amount of sibilance they produced over time. However, they became more nativelike with respect to /s/-voicing and duration. Additionally, whereas some linguistic factors were found to significantly constrain /s/-weakening across groups, learners did not gain sensitivity to all factors that constrain native-speaker /s/-weakening. Findings suggest that exposure to /s/-weakening during a semester abroad is insufficient for learners to adopt this sociolinguistic variable and other social and cognitive factors likely mitigate its integration into the L2 learners’ phonological systems.

This study examined the effect of choice on EFL learners’ task engagement. Twenty-four Thai university students completed two opinion-gap tasks. In one, they discussed and agreed on three items among given options (+constraint). In the other, they discussed and agreed on three items among the options they generated (−constraint). Spoken interaction and questionnaires were analyzed for behavioral (time on task, words produced, turns), cognitive (negotiation of meaning and form, self-repairs), social (overlaps and turn completion, backchannels), and emotional engagement (anxiety, enjoyment), based on Philp and Duchesne’s multifaceted model. The −constraint task had positive effects on all the cognitive engagement measures, but only one of the behavioral measures (turns) and one of the social measures (overlaps). Learners reported higher anxiety and enjoyment in the −constraint task. The findings highlight the interrelated multidimensional nature of learner task engagement while suggesting pedagogical implications and avenues for future research.

Monolingual English speakers and Chinese–English bilinguals were compared on their lexical decision performance in a masked priming experiment where the prime and target ended in the same embedded word. All primes were nonwords where the letters in addition to the embedded word did not form a morpheme (e.g., the sab of sabagree or the ple of plerough). The targets were of two types. In one condition they were prefixed words (as in sabagree–DISAGREE) and in the other they were nonprefixed words (as in plerough–THOROUGH). With an unrelated prime as the baseline, the native speakers showed priming for the prefixed words but not the nonprefixed words, whereas the nonnative speakers showed priming for both types of word. It was concluded from these results that nonnative speakers focus more on the individual letters of a complex word than do native speakers when reading, and the specific processing mechanisms that might underlie this are discussed.