Portuguese language students in the United States typically also speak Spanish, and Portuguese programs, influenced by ideologies of linguistic purism, ceaselessly battle against its interference. This article describes a qualitative study of the treatment of Spanish utterances--called "taquitos" by participants--in a beginner-level…

While many elementary-level children in the United States still do not have access to a second/additional language (L2), an increasing number are educated via Foreign Language Exposure (FLEX) tracks. Our two-semester study examines elementary-level L2 learners' engagement, emerging L2 Spanish vocabulary use, and awareness of the arbitrary nature…

Research on incidental focus on form (FonF) has established associations among the nature of learner error, corrective feedback (CF), and effectiveness of CF measured through uptake. In this line of research, the analysis of learner error has been limited to errors with grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, and spelling (nonformulaic). Consequently,…

This study combined evidence from survey, interview, and classroom observation data to better understand the amount and type of pronunciation instruction and corrective feedback practices in French and Spanish introductory language courses (i.e., the first four semesters) at the university level in the United States. Data consisted of responses (n…

This study draws upon activity theory to better understand the implications of corrective feedback (CF) as an artifact on (1) the coconstruction of knowledge and (2) the action-oriented decisions of 10 mixed pairs comprising a foreign language learner (FLL) and a heritage language learner (HLL) of Spanish. To this end, the dyads were divided into…

This classroom study investigated the effects of oral teacher and peer corrective feedback on the acquisition of the German present perfect tense, including auxiliary verb selection (a rule-based structure) and past participle formation (an item-based structure). Intermediate learners of German were assigned to a teacher feedback condition, a peer…

It is well established that learners transfer sounds from their first to their second language when speaking (see Major, 2008, and references therein). Recent work also indicates that learners may transfer their perception of sounds from the first to the second language. In some cases, errors in production and perception are explicitly corrected…

This study describes the effect of grades on second language writing performance. Do students write better when their essays are graded, and what implications might this have for foreign language instruction? This study compares three different types of student writing: graded compositions; for-credit online discussion boards; and ungraded,…

This study explores the effectiveness of instructor-written corrective feedback for the improvement of writing accuracy by beginning college-level learners of German. The researcher investigated changes in error rates in six error categories in essay writing in correlation with three different corrective feedback types administered consistently…

The communication pattern of Initiation/Response/Follow-Up (IRF) has long been an important instructional sequence in language classrooms. When language teachers combine IRF with the Response to Intervention (RTI) approach, they create a powerful model to evaluate student oral practice and self-assess effectiveness in creating language communities…

This paper examines contemporary trends in the error correction literature. Emphases are on types of errors and methods of correction that affect second-language acquisition. (54 references) (JL)

This article reports on the results of a research study that investigated the effectiveness of using an algorithmic approach to error correction to help Hong Kong English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learners overcome persistent lexico-grammatical problems. Ten error types were selected for the experiment, and one set of remedial instructional…

Some personal observations are offered about second-language teaching where nonnative speakers of Portuguese participated in class discussions via real time computer networks. Preliminary observations suggest that computer-assisted class discussions may promote student participation, reduce anxiety, and increase identification of language errors.…