Many adults learn languages with written forms that differ from their first language(s). Empirical research has demonstrated the influential role of written input on developing L2 phonology. However, existing studies are limited by (1) focusing on learning languages that share the same orthographic script, predominantly the Latin alphabet, (2) small sample sizes, and (3) limited consideration of L2 proficiency. This study investigated the influence of Arabic and English written input when lexically encoding the difficult /f-v/ phonological contrast for L1 Arabic-speaking learners of L2 English. A word learning study was completed by 114 L1 Arabic speakers, with varying English proficiency, and 117 L1 English-speaking controls. Mixed-effects modeling of L1 Arabic accuracy revealed an inhibitory effect of any written input when learning words differing by the difficult contrast. Performance improved with increasing L2 proficiency; however, the inhibitory effect of written input for words differing by /f-v/ persisted into high levels of L2 proficiency.

Recent research has shown that adult learners can rapidly acquire novel words of a foreign language by tracking cross-situational statistics, but learning is substantially reduced when the target words are phonologically similar and contain non-native contrasts. We expand on this research by investigating whether perceptual discrimination training on non-native target contrasts facilitates cross-situational learning of new words (CSWL). Our design combines perceptual training and CSWL to test the transfer of perceptual gains to lexical learning—an approach that integrates methods from L2 speech and statistical learning. In two studies, we tested English-native and Portuguese-native speakers’ learning of 24 Portuguese pseudowords via a CSWL task. In Study 1, we examined baseline learning in both language groups without prior training. In Study 2, English-native speakers were assigned to one of three conditions: phonetic training with an AX discrimination task, phonetic training with an oddity discrimination task, or no phonetic training prior to the CSWL task. Results confirmed that adults can learn non-native words from cross-situational statistics, and that phonological overlap between words decreases learning. Perceptual training improved the discrimination of target contrasts, but this did not transfer to statistical learning of words that contain these contrasts. These findings suggest that phonetic training alone may not be sufficient for vocabulary acquisition, suggesting the need for instructional approaches that integrate phonetic training with more explicit teaching methods or meaning-based practice.

In this commentary contextualizing the complexities at the nexus of disability and applied linguistics (AL), the authors highlight the paucity of conscientious attention to disabled populations in AL research, explore the intricacies of choosing appropriate terminology to describe disability and disabled people, challenge scholars in the field to reflect on and make explicit their emic or etic positionality vis-à-vis disability in their research, and call researchers to consider researching with, rather than merely about, disabled second language learners. The authors (a) illustrate how a collection of emergent research studies illuminates critical considerations at this underresearched interdisciplinary intersection in the field, and (b) demonstrate, via example studies in other areas of AL, how scholars may choose to center the disabled second-language learning experience rather than relegate it to the far corners of the field.

This paper reports a study that investigated how first language (L1) reading comprehension, L1 low-level skills, working memory capacity, and reading anxiety are related to the accuracy of responses and completion time in a second language (L2) reading test. The data obtained from Hungarian secondary school learners of English showed that anxiety related to processing the L2 reading text, time pressure, and the response tasks as well as L1 reading comprehension scores and backward digit span were significant predictors of L2 reading scores. L1 low-level skills did not contribute significantly to L2 reading accuracy. Higher levels of reading-related anxiety were associated with slower reading, and L2 learners with concurrently lower levels of L1 and L2 reading ability needed more time to complete the reading test. These findings highlight that L2 reading tests should be flexibly timed so that everyone, including test takers with literacy-related difficulties such as dyslexia, can demonstrate their abilities.

Knowledge of academic collocations is important for academic communication. Examining its relationship with knowledge of academic words and general high-frequency words should provide insights into the relative value of prior knowledge of different kinds of single words for the development of collocational knowledge in academic contexts, thus expanding our understanding of vocabulary knowledge beyond the current conception of individual word knowledge. Yet no studies have addressed this issue, mainly due to the lack of validated tests for academic words and collocations. This study employed three pairs of newly developed tests to measure Vietnamese EFL learners’ knowledge of academic collocations, academic words, and general high-frequency words. Results showed that at the form-recall level, both academic word and general high-frequency word knowledge were positively associated with academic collocation knowledge, with academic words having a stronger relationship. At the form-recognition level, only academic words and academic collocations were positively correlated.

This meta-analysis aimed to determine whether Chinese-English bilingual children with reading difficulties (RD) have significant deficits in morphological awareness (MA), phonological awareness, and word reading, in both their first and second languages (L1 and L2). It also evaluated the influence of RD severity, age, diglossia context, and methodological design on effect sizes. The study included 29 samples (N = 4,516) from 14 studies on children with RD in L1 morphosyllabic Chinese and L2 morphophonemic English. Results showed medium effect sizes for MA (g = −0.722) and PA (g = −0.625), and a large effect size for word reading (g = −2.042) in L1 Chinese. In L2 English, medium to large effect sizes were found for MA (g = −1.083), PA (g = −0.857), and word reading (g = −0.730). Age was the only significant moderator, with larger deficits observed as age increased. These findings align with studies on monolinguals with dyslexia and bilinguals with normal abilities or disabilities, recommending MA tasks in assessments.

The role of morphology in complex word acquisition was examined in Chinese (L1)–English (L2) bilinguals. Participants learned words consisting of two novel constituents, by pairing them with pictures. Items either belonged to large (torbnel, torbilm, torbla, torbiph) or small morphological families (torbilm, torbla). After training, participants completed recognition and spelling tasks with novel words that either included or excluded a trained morpheme. Results revealed robust stem-training effects, showing that items including a trained constituent were harder to reject and easier to spell than items including two untrained constituents. There was also a significant effect of morphological family size, with greater training effects for items belonging to large than small families. Effect sizes were overall smaller in L2 than in L1. These findings point to the important role of morphological structure in L2 word acquisition and suggest that large morphological family-clusters lead to better learning outcomes.

Prior research has reported vocabulary learning benefits from reading while listening (RWL), but few testable predictions have been made regarding an underlying mechanism for benefits. In this study, reading ahead of the audio was examined as a potential source of benefits during RWL. Fifty-nine participants had their eye movements tracked during a contextualized RWL task embedded with 25 pseudowords 10 times each, followed by three learning outcome measures: form recognition, meaning recognition, and meaning recall. Results indicated that (a) reading ahead facilitated initial form decoding as indexed by gaze durations, especially during early instances; (b) it only predicted the deepest level of vocabulary knowledge tested—meaning recall. These findings indicate that reading ahead may reflect the critical alignment between auditory input, orthographic decoding, and phonological encoding processes during reading, thereby facilitating faster processing when reading ahead than not reading ahead, as well as form-meaning mapping for new words.

This study, grounded in critical disability studies, explores ableism in language education and its impact on Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students learning English as a foreign or third language (L3). Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, the lived experiences of 14 Iranian DHH undergraduate students, proficient in Esharani (sign language used by the Iranian Deaf community) and Persian, were analyzed. Participants recounted their experiences with ableism in English education through interviews. Analyzing interviews resulted in the emergence of three key themes: a) lack of awareness of (dis)ability and ableism throughout their English education, b) the prevalence of overt and covert ableism viewing deafness as a marker of “otherness,” and c) the need for advocacy and more inclusive practices and environments for DHH learners acquiring L3. This study highlights the challenges DHH learners face in L3 acquisition and calls for more inclusive language education policies to better support disabled students.

This study investigates whether the second language (L2) development of d/Deaf and hard of hearing (d/DHH) learners in comparison to the L2 development of hearing learners, based on the processability theory (PT) developed by Pienemann (1998, 2005) in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). Thirty-eight d/DHH and 32 hearing secondary school learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) completed a series of speaking tasks designed to elicit specific morphosyntactic structures that, according to PT, align with L2 developmental stages. Implicational scaling revealed that although d/DHH learners followed a similar developmental sequence to their peers, they displayed a noticeable delay. They also appeared to require additional time and practice to fully produce the entire target structures after reaching certain developmental stages. The results provide stronger empirical evidence for d/DHH learners’ L2 development, supporting the qualitative similarity hypothesis in the field of special education, which posits that despite quantitative delays, d/DHH learners exhibit qualitatively similar L2 development to their hearing peers.

Statistical regularities can be acquired from usage. To examine language speakers’ statistical metacognition about multiword expressions (MWEs), we collected ratings for frequency, dispersion, and directional association strength of English binomials from L1, advanced and intermediate L2 speakers. Mixed-effects modeling showed all speakers had limited speaker-to-corpus consistency but significant sensitivity to statistical regularities of language, supporting usage-based (Gries & Ellis, 2015) and statistical learning theories (Christiansen, 2019). Their statistical metacognition was also shaped by word-level cues, consistent with dual-route model (Carrol & Conklin, 2014). Despite similarities, frequency metacognition showed the strongest speaker-to-corpus consistency, while dispersion metacognition was the hardest to develop. Advanced L2 speakers showed the greatest speaker-to-corpus consistency and sensitivity, while lower-proficiency speakers relied more on word-level cues in metacognitive judgments, supporting the shallow-structure hypothesis (Clahsen & Felser, 2006). Overall, L1 and L2 speakers develop diverse statistical metacognition, with L2 speakers not necessarily inferior, suggesting that statistical metacognition is not solely shaped by usage-based experience.

This study explored the effects of repeating a video-lecture-based task on second language (L2) learners’ input processing and the relationship between online processing patterns and lecture comprehension. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The comparison group (n = 30) performed the task once, whereas the repetition group (n = 30) repeated the same task three times, with each group completing a free-recall test after their last performance. The stimulated-recall participants (n = 15) completed the task once, twice, or three times and described their thought processes during their last task performance. The lecture featured an instructor introducing fundamental concepts of neurobiology with labeled diagrams. Participants’ visual attention to the instructor and diagrams was captured using an eye-tracker. Results revealed an increase in learners’ visual attention to the instructor and a decline in their visual attention to the diagrams across repetitions. Additionally, more visual attention to the instructor was related to lower comprehension.

Visual impairment (VI) affects around 2.2 billion people globally (World Health Organization, 2019). VI language learners need strong vocabulary knowledge as much as sighted (SI) learners, yet little is known about how different instruction types impact their vocabulary development. In this study, 16 VI and 16 SI learners of English were taught 60 vocabulary items counterbalanced through two aural input methods: codeswitching (CS), giving first language (L1) explanations, and aural input manipulation (AIM) with CS (AIMCS), where increased volume emphasized words alongside CS explanations. Pre-, post-, and delayed post-tests indicated that AIMCS led to better short-term vocabulary retention for both groups, with no significant differences longer term. VI learners benefited more overall, and learners with lower initial vocabulary showed the greatest gains. Listening proficiency moderated the effects, with AIMCS offering greater short-term benefits for learners with higher listening proficiency. The study suggests AIMCS enhances short-term vocabulary learning, particularly for VI learners, but listening proficiency is critical.

Research on how cognitive and affective factors shape bilinguals’ moral judgments in their first (L1) and second (L2) languages remains limited. This study advances our understanding of both language-related variables (L2 proficiency, age of onset of L2 acquisition, length of L2 immersion) and nonlinguistic variables (emotional intelligence, executive functions) in relation to the moral judgments and emotional intensity experienced by 90 Chinese–English bilingual speakers. Participants read five moral dilemmas and completed a set of questionnaires and cognitive ability tests. Mixed-effects models revealed no evidence of a moral foreign language effect, raising questions about the robustness of this phenomenon. Specifically, neither language-related variables nor emotional intelligence had a significant effect. However, participants with stronger updating ability made more deontological judgments in both their L1 and L2, while those with better inhibitory control also made more deontological decisions, but only in their L1. These findings offer new insights into the relationship between language and cognition.

This study examined whether the contribution of memory systems that play a role in second/additional language (L2/A) learning in adults with neurotypical cognition differs in L2/A learning in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Participants (N = 154) learned an artificial L2/A with morphophonological rules and completed assessments of working, declarative, and procedural memory, as well as an ADHD questionnaire. Our results did not find evidence for differences in L2/A learning between participants diagnosed with ADHD and neurotypical controls. We also did not find that the role of memory differed among learners based on ADHD symptomatology, although we tentatively interpreted an interaction between declarative memory and ADHD symptomatology. We did find evidence for a general role of working memory on learning for one type of morphophonological rule. Overall, the results contribute to a broader understanding of the role of memory systems in L2/A for both neurodivergent and neurotypical language learners.

Listening ability in second language (L2) assessment is elicited through test methods that often require other abilities, which may introduce construct-irrelevant variance and threaten the validity of the test. While previous research has examined the effects of item presentation and item format on test performance, studies on test-takers’ cognitive processing remain exploratory. This study investigates the effects of two test method variables, item presentation (operationalized as while-listening performance [WLP] vs. post-listening performance [PLP]) and item format (operationalized as multiple-choice questions [MCQs] vs. open-ended questions [OEQs]), on test-takers’ cognitive processing, using gaze behaviors as real-time indicators. A Graeco-Latin square design was employed to administer four psychometrically validated short-talk listening testlets across the test conditions. Eye-tracking data were collected while controlling for word count and typing speed as covariates. Linear mixed-effects modeling revealed higher total fixation duration, fixation counts, total visit duration, and visit counts in the WLP condition than in the PLP condition. Interaction effects for all four metrics further indicated that these differences were more pronounced for MCQs than for OEQs. Additionally, typing speed and word count contributed to the variance in eye-tracking measures. The findings contribute to our growing understanding of how test methods shape listening processes and offer implications for the design and interpretation of L2 listening assessments.

This study investigated the beliefs about additional language learning and use and knowledge of additional languages of 226 multilingual adults with Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with Polish L1. The data were collected via an online questionnaire with Likert-type statements. Data were analyzed using mixed models (GLMMs). The findings show that a) individuals with ADHD hold a neutral view of their additional language learning and use experiences; b) the hyperactivity/impulsivity ADHD presentation may positively affect additional language learning; and c) Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or dyslexia has no impact on additional language knowledge in the context of ADHD. The discussion points to the importance of attention in additional language acquisition and the possible compensatory role of ADHD and ASD in the context of dyslexia and language learning.