Research on age and second language acquisition (L2A) is vast, but inconclusive. Such research has mainly been motivated by the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH), which postulates that language acquisition becomes extremely difficult after the onset of puberty. Also, there is a l…
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The King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Programs gives thousands of young Saudi Arabian women the opportunity to study abroad, learn English, and earn advanced degrees. How do students from this religiously conservative nation, studying at two Washington universities, construct ca…
This master's thesis investigated realizations of typologically marked structures (word final stops) in the interlanguages of 15 ESL learners across Arabic, Brazilian-Portuguese and Japanese first languages (L1s). In general, previous theories of markedness (see Eckman's MARKEDN…
This thesis investigates the representation and acquisition of word-level stress in Turkish. Two general proposals are made in the thesis, one related to formal phonology, the other about second language (L2) acquisition of word-level prosody. The first proposes that the presenc…
This dissertation examines whether enhanced executive function plays a role in successful second language acquisition (SLA). Specifically, I examine learners' performance in language learning tasks and in three tasks argued to reflect components of Miyake et al.'s (2000) model o…
This thesis explores how learner independence was implemented as a curricular goal at a tertiary level Preparatory Programme (PP) in the United Arab Emirates. This exploratory-interpretive case study shows how students and teachers at the English programme responded to an Indepe…
The aim of this study is to investigate the motivational orientations affecting ESL learers in learing English and to identify learners' learning strategies when dealing with CALL instruction at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Specifically, the study seeks to investigate: Cl) Mot…
Recent research has claimed that the presence and/or absence of a morphological marking of causative/inchoative verbs in the learners' respective native language results in difficulty in the acquisition of these verbs in languages such as English, Spanish, and Turkish (Montrul 1…
This action research deals with the NETA Hebrew language program and language learning disabled students' ability to answer inference and recall questions. The study was conducted in Orthodox and Conservative Jewish day schools in the New York Metropolitan area. Sixty seven stud…
The present study compares the relative effects of two types of instruction (Grammar-Translation Method and Processing Instruction) on the acquisition of the Qal perfect in Biblical Hebrew with students at Christian colleges and seminaries. The Grammar-Translation Method uses ex…
This study examines the efficacy of academic preparatory course interventions on the success rates of foreign language learning. Specifically, this study assesses the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center’s (DLIFLC) Introduction to Language Studies (ILS) preparatory…
The present study aimed to compare the effects of semantic and thematic clustering on learning English vocabulary by Saudi students. It investigated whether thematic grouping or the use of meaningful context facilitates vocabulary learning. It was also conducted to shed light on…
Scope and method of study . The purpose of this study was to examine the perceived vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) of Turkish university students and to find out whether certain variables such as studying a foreign language other than English, gender, self-reported English…
Second language acquisition research has sought to identify socio-psychological factors underlying language learners' degrees and rates of acquisition. Studies have shown that learners with autonomous motivation orientations and positive attitudes towards the L2 community (Donit…
The international student population in higher education institutions in the United States has been increasing steadily in the last decade. A high percentage of these students enrolled in English as a Second Language (ESL) courses or in the English for Speakers of Other Language…
Odlin (2003) observes that there is no consensus among researchers regarding the importance of L1 transfer in second-language acquisition (henceforth SLA). To test whether L1 transfer is a significant factor in SLA of English relative clauses (RCs), an English-language acceptabi…
L2 motivation has evolved since Gardner and Lambert introduced the socioeducational model and highlighted the importance of attitudes and affect to the SLA process. Though the field expanded focus, little work has been done into L2 teacher motivation; instead, most studies have …
Dynamic assessment (DA) is based on Vygotsky's (1978) sociocultural theory and his Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). ZPD is the range of abilities bordered by the learner's assisted and independent performances. Previous studies showed promising results for DA in tutoring sett…
Recent studies in the acquisition of a second language (L2) phonology have revealed that orthography can influence, both positively and negatively, the way L2 learners come to establish target-like lexical representations. The majority of these studies, however, involve language…