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Idioms are highly conventionalized expressions that allow users to express beyond literal meanings. Despite the language difference, counterparts of idioms may overlap cross-culturally due to similar origin, social habits, and experiences. It is therefore interesting to probe whether L2 learners may benefit from deliberate instructions built on shared counterparts existing in both L1 and L2, known as cross-language overlaps. Although the phenomenon of cross-language overlap has been reported by lexical and collocation processing research (e.g., Carrol & Conklin, 2017; Hubers et al., 2020), it is yet uncertain whether its impact is influential for L2 idiom learning with the absence of semantic or syntactical similarity. To address this gap, the current study attempted to investigate whether raising English as a foreign language learners' awareness of cross-language overlap may facilitate L2 idiom teaching and how such overlap-enhancement instruction may change over different congruence conditions (congruence-available and incongruence conditions) and time. The study collected L2 idiom learning data from forty-five Chinese English learners, following a pretest-posttest design. While the experimental group (n=26) learned twenty-eight target L2 idioms with an enhancement instruction emphasizing the overlaps, the control group (n=28) learned these idioms with a conventional instruction method. Findings of this study revealed that participants were able to benefit from cross-language overlaps from both conditions, and the enhancement instruction on the semantic overlaps would result in significant learning improvement. It is therefore pedagogically advisable for language teachers to marry up L1-L2 idiom phrases containing similar counterparts and deliberately focus on the semantic congruency.

Autonomous learning in EFL refers to learner involvement, reflection and target language use. Teachers play a vital role of mediators and facilitators in self-regulated method. Thus, their perception of self-regulated practices dictates their implementation of this approach. While research has predominantly focused on inadequate management of autonomous learning in school mostly due to lack of appropriate teacher training, this study examined whether novice teachers who were exposed to extensive autonomous practices were likely to implement this method in their teaching. Twelve novice teachers were interviewed to examine their perception of learner autonomy and their management of this method. It was found that three-thirds of the respondents experienced a gap between familiarity with autonomous learning and a favorable attitude to this approach and their deficient integration of self-regulated learning. Although learner-related and institution-oriented factors played a role in this gap, it was mostly caused by the respondents' not being genuinely autonomous. This may be due to indirect exposure rather than explicit introduction of the learner autonomy approach. The insights of this research may assist curriculum designers and heads of teacher training programs to rethink course composition to guarantee the transfer of methodologies into EFL classes.

Concurrency is a complex to learn topic that is becoming more and more relevant, such that many undergraduate Computer Science curricula are introducing it in introductory programming courses. This paper investigates the combined use of Sonic Pi and Team-Based Learning to mitigate the difficulties in early exposure to concurrency. Sonic Pi, a domain-specific music language, provides great support for "playing" with concurrency, and "hearing" common problems such as data races and lack of synchronization among different concurrent threads. More specifically, the paper focuses on students' misconceptions regarding concurrency in Sonic Pi and compares them to those arising in traditional concurrent programming languages. In addition, it preliminarily explores knowledge transfer from Sonic Pi to C/C++. The approach has been applied in two teaching experiments with undergraduate students in our University involving 184 participants. Our investigations bring out the need to address misconceptions through targeted interventions for a clear understanding of concurrent programming concepts. Sonic Pi's simplified abstraction and domain-specific flavor has demonstrated to be effective, especially for first-year students.

The relationship between tutoring and teaching has been a recurrent topic of interest among writing center directors and writing program administrators. While scholarship agrees tutoring experience aids composition teachers with implementing process pedagogy and fostering a collaborative classroom, the relationship between tutoring and assessment of student writing is less clear. This qualitative study uses interviews with eight graduate teaching assistants with tutoring experience to examine how they transfer and juxtapose knowledge, practices, and values for response between the writing center and the classroom. Like previous scholarship, this research finds writing center tutoring contributes to teachers' enactment of constructivist, student-centered pedagogy and enhances their understanding of students' relationship to writing and feedback, standard language ideology, and systemic inequities in education. However, evaluation led these instructors to experience tension between their values and preferred respondent roles, with many reporting anxious grading processes and some experimenting with alternatives to traditional grading. The article concludes with suggestions to build bridges between tutoring and teaching contexts, particularly through explicit attention to antiracist pedagogy and alternative assessment practices.

Although the issue of learning transfer has been given much attention in English-for-academic-purposes (EAP) research, the factor of transfer climate could be investigated further. The current study examines what the instructors of EAP perceive can be done to prepare students for the transfer climate. The transfer climate refers to the nature of the target context of instruction and the support for learning transfer perceived by a learner in that target context (Burke & Baldwin, 1999). The target context in EAP education is the discipline courses that students take alongside or after EAP courses. The transfer climate may be supportive or unsupportive depending on whether such discipline courses accommodate for students' transfer of EAP skills. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with 22 EAP instructors and, subsequently, three of them were observed to see what actually happens in their EAP courses (Borg, 2015). The findings outline eight steps that can be taken to prepare students for the transfer climate, seven within EAP courses, and one within discipline courses. From what was observed, few of the steps that participants mentioned in the interviews were actually implemented in the classes. Both practical implications and implications for future research are outlined.

This paper aims to assess the impact of the reciprocal teaching strategy on the academic performance of student-teachers enrolled in the Higher Professional Diploma (HDE) program at Ajman University, United Arab Emirates. The study adopts a quasi-experimental design, employing pre- and post-tests and a control-experimental group configuration. The sample comprises 80 student-teachers selected from Ajman University during the second semester of the academic year 2022-2023. An academic achievement test in a multiple-choice format serves as the research instrument. The study's outcomes reveal noteworthy differences, indicating significant mean variations in the post-test scores between the experimental and control groups, favoring the control group in the context of the Reciprocal Teaching strategy. These results hold implications for international students, prompting considerations about the transferability and generalizability of teaching strategies across diverse cultural and educational settings. The findings suggest the broad effectiveness of the reciprocal teaching method, emphasizing the necessity of aligning teaching strategies with international students' specific needs and preferences. The research underscores the importance of tailoring teaching approaches to meet the unique requirements of a diverse cohort of global learners. It suggests that reciprocal teaching demonstrates efficacy across varied groups of international students, emphasizing the importance for instructors to select instructional methods that cater to the distinct needs of their diverse international student body.

Current theories about learning a second language might not fully explain why people want to learn languages other than English (LOTE) in the context of globalization and multilingualism. This study adopted and adjusted Huang's (2021) motivational dimensions for LOTE learners, specifically focusing on those who learn LOTE as a third language (L3), as is common in Thailand. It aimed to explore the motivations of 167 Thai students in higher education when choosing to study Japanese, using a questionnaire and a focus group. The findings indicate that Culture/Community Interest and Instrumentality-Promotion significantly influence motivation. On the other hand, Instrumentality-Prevention and Intended Learning Effort are closely related and exhibit the least influence. The findings also showed that students' motivations change depending on their year of study. Third- and fourth-year students valued practical benefits the most, while second-year students were more interested in the culture and community of the target language. In addition, the research also examined students' perceptions of multilingual learning. This research helps educators, linguists, and policymakers understand why students want to study Japanese and to create effective teaching strategies tailored to students' interests.

Supporting nontraditional students within the student lifecycle is one of the major challenges faced by urban universities. This study presents a pedagogical intervention in which a group of Hispanic students participated in an engaged learning project with a bilingual newspaper. Findings indicate that this project motivated students to complete their degree, helped them develop transferrable skills, led to higher academic engagement, and increased their sense of belonging to the local Hispanic community. These results highlight the importance of engaged learning as one of the tangible tools teachers can use to support nontraditional and minority students in urban tertiary institutions.

Comparison is an important mechanism for learning in general, and comparing two worked examples has garnered support over the last 15 years as an effective tool for learning algebra in mainstream classrooms. This study was aimed at improving our understanding of how Modified for Language Support-Worked Example Pairs (MLS-WEPs) contribute to effective mathematics learning in an ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) context. It investigated a novel instructional approach to help English Learners (ELs) develop better understanding in mathematical reasoning, problem solving, and literacy skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking). Findings suggest that MLS-WEPs not only enhanced ELs' ability to solve algebra problems, but it also improved their written explanation skills and enabled them to transfer such skills to different mathematical concepts. Moreover, when controlling for ELs' prior knowledge, the effectiveness of the MLS-WEPs intervention for performing and explaining calculations did not vary by their English proficiency.

The study examines a corpus of 306 request emails written by 32 English-speaking (ES) teachers and 121 L2 learners from distinctive L1 backgrounds (i.e., Chinese, French, Spanish) and with different levels of L2 proficiency. Pragmatic competence is analyzed through the coding of direct and indirect request strategies used in formal and informal email writing. Findings reveal the influences of communicative situation, L1 background, and L2 proficiency on pragmatic competence in email writing. First, L2 learners show a significantly lower degree of situational variability compared with ES teachers. Second, L1 backgrounds have a significant impact on L2 writing performance. Third, L2 learners with higher English proficiency tend to use more indirect request strategies, but they have not developed pragmatic competence to adjust their usage across written contexts. Findings are discussed in relation to pedagogical implications for developing writing competence of L2 learners, which should be attuned to diverse rhetorical expectations and individual needs.

Despite the widely recognized importance of metacognition in language learning, relatively few empirical studies have investigated the role of metacognitive strategies with a cross-linguistic perspective. Drawing on the mixed-method design combining questionnaire and interview data, this study systematically investigated the effects, the transfer potential, and the cross-language facilitation of metacognitive strategies between L1 and L2 contexts. Structural equation modelling (SEM) and multigroup analysis results revealed that metacognitive strategies afforded a more prominent predictive role in English (L2) writing than in Chinese (L1) writing; such strategy use transferred between the two writing contexts, which kept invariant between lower- and higher- L2 proficiency groups and between English and non-English major groups; and there was a cross-language facilitation effect of L1 writing metacognitive strategies on L2 writing performance via the mediation of L2 writing metacognitive strategies. Complementary to the quantitative results, the qualitative interview data was analyzed to provide deep insights into the participating students' metacognitive strategy use in the two task-situated writing. Findings are extensively discussed to offer theoretical and pedagogical implications in this domain.

Mixed-reality simulation (MRS) is a new and advanced technology implemented in Educator Preparation Programs (EPP) across the United States. However, more research is needed on the effectiveness of MRS in EPPs and its impact on beginning teacher candidates. This study sought to determine the effect of teacher candidates after utilizing MRS and its impact on acquiring teaching pedagogical skills. Forty-five surveys collected from teacher candidates revealed two themes: the beneficial experience of MRS in an EPP and technology concerns.

This interdisciplinary paper brings together scholarship from the fields of education, psychology, sociology and performance to shed light on three pedagogy and learning strategies to support learners recontextualise knowledge between higher education and work contexts. These strategies include offering multiple different types of performance activities and modes of engagement with different types of people (learners/experts, different cultures, ages, etc.). Secondly, it provides spaces to fail and enables testing of personal strategies with limited risk. Finally, it supports students in connecting ideas and experiences from the past, across educational experiences of different performance practices and into wider contexts such as professional work. The research, which is a pilot, recognises the ways in which these strategies align with and operationalise Guile's (2010) concept of recontextualisation, offering pedagogues tools to support learning in a similar way in which the concept of scaffolding might be seen to operationalise Vygotsky's notion of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This pilot study uses semi-structured interviews and a thematic analysis approach with five graduates from an undergraduate drama degree programme in London. We recognise drama as a practical degree subject and as such consider our findings as generalisable to wider practical fields and disciplines, such as engineering and nursing education, and as having international relevance. The work offers a novel approach to conceptualising and evaluating the ways in which students deploy taught knowledge beyond the classroom, in work. It offers and augments arguments around the ways in which students bridge practice and learning from within the HEI and beyond it.

This study aimed to investigate the effects of Storytelling Narrated Videos (SNV) on students' knowledge retention and transferability. A total of 56 students from a university in Indonesia were randomly assigned to a quasi-experimental research design exposed to SNV and to Lecture Narrated Videos (LNV). Two videos were created to deliver content on Bloom's Taxonomy, one using a lecture-style format and the other adopting a storytelling approach. Data were collected through tests, questionnaires, and essays. The findings revealed that participants exposed to SNV had higher retention memory scores, indicating a positive impact on knowledge retention compared to those who watched LNV. Moreover, the storytelling videos facilitated cognitive skill progression, enhanced understanding through engaging visuals, and fostered a strong connection with a familiar narrator, resulting in a more dynamic and memorable learning experience. The study also examined knowledge transfer and found that participants who watched the storytelling videos performed better in applying Bloom's Taxonomy concepts to planning teaching objectives in the essay test. This suggests that the incorporation of storytelling narration and promoting transfer knowledge activities can enhance students' understanding, retention, and practical application of the learned material. Overall, the findings highlight the potential of incorporating storytelling in narrated videos to improve students' knowledge retention, transferability, and engagement in educational settings.

As one type of the most extensively used sentences, English questions are must-learn grammatical structures for learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). However, it is commonly seen that English learners across proficiency levels produce ungrammatical English questions. To determine the source of learners' erroneous production, we conducted a written test to collect hands-on data of four types of English questions produced by 81 Chinese EFL preliminary learners. Learners' achievement scores showed that learners from both higher and lower proficiency groups had similar difficulty producing questions. The statistics also showed morphosyntactic inconsistencies in learners' production were congregating on auxiliaries' choice and tense variation. Cross-linguistic transfer from first language (L1) in English question acquisition for Chinese EFL learners was measured against the three dimensions of Jarvis' (2000) methodological model. Influence from learners' L1 was found to be related to preliminary learners' morphosyntactic inconsistencies. The findings suggest that practitioners in an EFL context should raise learners' grammatical consciousness, and design production-oriented tasks, to improve learners' morphosyntactic accuracy in English question formation.

To investigate whether a creative writing unit in upper secondary education would improve students' creative as well as argumentative text quality and to examine whether it would change students' writing behavior, we tested a creative writing unit based on encouraging writing in flow by using divergent thinking tasks. Four classes (Grade 10) participated in a switching replications design. Students received either creative writing instruction (CWI) or argumentative writing instruction (AWI). Key stroke logging software recorded students' writing processes, their Creative Self-Concept (CSC) was measured, and text quality was rated holistically. Students were positive about the design of the creative writing unit and the lessons. The effects varied per panel. The first panel showed that CWI had an effect on creative text quality compared to AWI, while AWI had no effect on argumentative text quality, compared to CWI. This pattern indicates a transfer effect of creative writing instruction on argumentative text quality. The transfer effect was moderated by CSC, with larger effects for relatively high CSC-participants. The second panel did not replicate this pattern. Instead, a crossover effect was observed of CWI in panel 1 on the effect of participating in the unit on argumentative writing in panel 2, most pronounced in high CSC-participants. Students' creative writing speed decreased in the first panel, except for students with a relatively high Creative Self-Concept, and then increased in the second panel. Our findings may guide decisions on incorporating creative writing in the curriculum.

This case study describes how two librarians transformed an international information literacy course by creating a scaffolded open pedagogy experience for students to build transferable skills while exploring how information is produced, disseminated, and interpreted across the world. The authors discuss how we collaborated on the project to incorporate open pedagogy, tools, and strategies to enhance learning. The result was a scaffolded course using open pedagogy to help students engage with global information issues. Using Pressbooks, students published multimedia content exploring topics including global news media, censorship, misinformation, and digital divides. Then students chose to either openly license their work, share it publicly while retaining their copyright, or hide it from public view. Additionally, students used Hypothesis to socially annotate reading assignments outside of class. We reflect on our experience revising this course, what worked and what did not, and how we will adapt the course in the future.

Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly recognized as a promising tool to enhance learning, yet research on the use of VR instructional approaches for online learning remains limited. The present study aims to address this research gap by examining the effects of VR instructional approaches and textual cues on learning. We conducted an educational VR study using a 2 x 2 + 1 between-subjects design involving 67 secondary vocational students. Participants learned computer assembly online and were exposed to either vicarious experience or direct manipulation instructional approaches, with or without textual cues. A control group received traditional online instruction using slides. We collected retention, transfer learning outcomes, cognitive load, and learning experience of students. The findings indicated that while vicarious VR had no effects on long-term retention, transfer, and learning experience, there were significant positive effects on the immediate acquisition of knowledge. Textual cues did not affect learning in general. However, for immediate knowledge gain, they did provide a positive boost to learning in VR involving direct manipulation, while they were unnecessary in vicarious VR experiences. This study contributes to how the cueing principle can be extended to educational VR contexts and expands the knowledge of vicarious VR learning.

An external focus of attention and autonomy support are identified as key factors to optimize motor learning; however, research in children is limited. Moreover, research has failed to examine these factors in ecologically valid motor learning settings, like physical education. Therefore, the present study examined the effects of external focus of attention when delivered using autonomy-supportive or controlling instructional language on children's motor learning. Thirty-three novice participants (10.30 ± 0.52 years) practiced a land-based curling task under supportive (external-focus instructions delivered with supportive language), controlling (external-focus instructions delivered with controlling language), or neutral (external instructions embedded in the task aim) conditions before completing a retention and transfer test. The supportive group produced higher positive affect after practice and greater accuracy in the retention test compared with the other groups. The findings provide support for the OPTIMAL (optimizing performance through intrinsic motivation and attention for learning) theory of motor learning that combining an external focus and autonomy support conditions improves motor learning.

A main goal of academic courses is to help students acquire knowledge and skills that they can transfer to multiple contexts. In this article, we (i) examine students' responses to test question templates (TQTs), a framework intended to facilitate transfer, and (ii) determine whether similar transfer-promoting strategies are commonly embedded in published biology lessons. In study 1, in surveys administered over several academic quarters, students consistently reported that TQTs helped them transfer course content to exams and the real world; that multiple (two to five) examples were generally needed to understand a given TQT, leading >40% students to create their own additional examples; and that TQTs would be helpful in other science courses. In study 2, among 100 peer-reviewed lessons published by CourseSource or the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS), less than 5% of lessons gave students advice about exams or helped students create additional practice problems. The latter finding is not meant as criticism of these excellent lessons, which are a boon to the biology education community. However, with TQT-like prescriptions generally absent from peer-reviewed lessons, biology instructors may wish to supplement the lessons with TQT-like strategies to explicitly connect the material to subsequent exams.

Cultivation of students' higher-order thinking ability has become the main agenda of the education curriculum. The transfer of knowledge pertaining to higher-order thinking by teachers to the students can prepare the latter with the necessary attributes for the 21st century. The present study is aimed at exploring Malaysian secondary ESL (English as a Second Language) school teachers' self-assessment of, and perceptions on the higher-order thinking skills practices for teaching writing. Using a mixed-method research design, the validated 30-item five-point Likert scale questionnaire with an open-ended question was administered to a group of respondents consisting of 72 ESL teachers. The findings indicated that the overall mean score of ESL teachers' self-assessment of using higher-order thinking skills practices for teaching writing was at a high level. Meanwhile, their perceptions on the integration of higher-order thinking skills in the teaching of writing include the concern of students' low proficiency, difficulties in implementing HOTS in writing, poor participation by passive students, and teachers' attitude towards using HOTs for teaching writing. This study suggests that fostering and creating awareness of mastering the elements of HOTS can benefit both the teachers and the students. Teachers have to be creative and innovative in their teaching so that the students can be given the opportunity to showcase their knowledge, skills and abilities in the quest to imbue them with the 21st century life skills.

In this study, the effect of Online Learning and Digital Conversation-Based Activities method on students' achievement, attitudes and perceptions of cultural values in language and literature courses was examined. The study group consisted of 2 branches studying in the 3rd grade of a high school in Astana province in the 2022 academic year. 64 high school third grade students participated in the study. In the study in which quasi-experimental research model was used, post-test control group design was used. In this context, Online Learning And Digital Conversation-Based Activities in the experimental group and traditional teaching activities in the control group were applied for 6 weeks. As a result, when the two classes were considered independently of each other, it was found that the students in the group applying the Online Learning And Digital Conversation-Based Activities program achieved higher academic achievement, attitude towards the course and cultural value perception gains compared to their peers in the control group.

This study explores the effect of categorically different pre-reading activities in learners' L1 on reading comprehension and learning of focus-on-vocabulary. The participants were sixty Turkish EFL learners attending a state high school, and the data was gathered from their achievement test scores. We analyzed the data through one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and implemented t-test statistical procedures. The findings revealed that the treatment group, who were exposed to pre-reading activities in L1, obtained better results both in reading comprehension and focus-on-vocabulary activities than the control group. The positive effect of implementing the "short-circuit" L1 use in pre-reading activities for reading comprehension and focus-on-vocabulary exercises was observed. It was also seen that categorically different pre-reading activities enhanced EFL learners' reading comprehension and vocabulary learning.

This study revisits and extends McManus and Marsden (2019a) to better understand "how" and "why" providing additional explicit information (EI) about learners' first language (L1) alongside EI and comprehension practice in the second language (L2) improved the accuracy, speed, and stability of L2 comprehension of the French "Imparfait," a functionally complex and late-acquired target feature. Building on previous L2 research that has provided instruction about L1 without analyzing L1 knowledge/use, the current study examines learners' item-by-item comprehension of L1 sentences that was completed during the L2 instruction to better understand the learning mechanisms at play in McManus and Marsden's (2019a) findings. Two groups of English-speaking learners (L2+L1, L2+L1prac; N = 36) received the same EI about aspect in French, followed by comprehension practice of French and English sentences. The L2+L1 group received additional EI about aspect in English. Results showed no impact of the instruction on L1 accuracy in either group, but the speed of L1 comprehension changed over time in the L2+L1 group. It is argued that the L2+L1 instruction directed attention to and clarified crosslinguistic differences in how L2 and L1 express the same meanings, which rendered the L2 practice more effective for noticing "Imparfait" and developing appropriate strategies for processing L2 forms. Implications for theory-building and instructional design are discussed.

This study was conducted to examine the lexical bundles used by nonnative speakers of English and explore any potential L1 influence on L2 lexical bundle use. Following a corpus-based approach, the frequency and types of English four-word lexical bundles in the postgraduate academic writing of Turkish and American students were analyzed, and the bundles unique to the Turkish students were compared with Turkish lexical bundles produced by Turkish post-graduate students. For this purpose, three sub-corpora were compiled: English MA/PhD theses by Turkish, English MA/PhD theses by American, and Turkish MA/PhD theses by Turkish students, all from the area of language teaching. Data analysis showed that the Turkish students used twice as many types of four-word lexical bundles in their English theses (N = 125) as the American students (N = 69). Moreover, 62 lexical bundles were significantly overused by Turkish students, and 37 of these lexical bundles never occurred in the theses of American students. With respect to cross-linguistic influence, the findings showed that Turkish postgraduate students were likely to transfer 24.8% of lexical bundles from their native language, Turkish, to a foreign language, English. Moreover, four-word lexical bundles that were very frequent in Turkish theses were also found to be very frequent in English theses of Turkish students. These findings are discussed in light of previous studies, and pedagogical implications are offered.

This paper highlights the concept of constructivism that underpins the theory and practice of foreign language teaching. The dominance of this pedagogical movement in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century has been particularly important for the study and understanding of digitally supported forms of learning. Constructivism can provide a response to the analysis and practice of new forms of learning: it is based on the premise that knowledge transfer and the role of the teacher are undergoing intense change. Its implications in the classroom define and influence the pedagogical models and traditions of our time. The paper traces the emergence and dimensions of constructivism in today's digitally infused education, providing a theoretical and literature overview.

In the Indian academia, at the undergraduate and graduate levels, the focus on teaching "writing" is relatively new; traditional focus has been on teaching the English language or Communication Skills. The novelty of academic writing has called for rigorous efforts in its operation in the Indian context. In addition, the virtual learning environment required by the pandemic posed the serious challenge of adopting the academic writing pedagogy to the new format of the virtual classroom. This article showcases successful strategies adopted for graduate and undergraduate foundation writing courses at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, which ensured maximum engagement and minimum distraction, and knowledge transference. The graduate and undergraduate courses differed in their goals of writing, including expected learning outcomes and practicality, as well as in terms of the disciplinary backgrounds of the students. The graduate course was concerned with the applicability and transferability of the knowledge and skills acquired in the course to varied discipline-specific and professional writings of the advanced students; the undergraduate course was conducted on the basis of general writing with intensive discussion components. In this article, we first focus on the pedagogical practices adopted in the graduate course to ensure knowledge and skill transfer to discipline-specific scholarly writing and professional writing as a whole. Thereafter, we discuss the undergraduate writing curriculum aimed at laying the foundation for practical academic communication and development of critical thinking.

The study addresses the research gap of how being a speaker of a Slavic language influences the ability to convey tempo-aspectual meanings in Romance languages by examining personal and impersonal narratives delivered in written and spoken mode by learners of L3 Spanish and L3 Italian with L1 Slovak and L2 English. Narratives are analysed following the methods of interlanguage analysis proposed by Ellis and Barkhuizen [(2005). "Analysing learner language." Oxford University Press] and Salaberry and Comajoan [(2013). "Research design and methodology in studies on L2 tense and aspect." De Gruyter Mouton], such as coding for grounding, frequency analysis of tense forms and lexical aspectual classes, etc. Following the ideas presented by Bayley (2013, Data analysis: Quantitative approaches. In M. R. Salaberry & L. Comajoan (Eds.), "Research design and methodology in studies on L2 tense and aspect" (pp. 357-390). De Gruyter Mouton), binomial logistic regression models were built which showed that (a) the combination of discourse grounding and lexical aspect is of predictive power regarding the appropriateness of participants' choices of morphological marking; (b) the distributional characteristics of morphological marking on telic predicates differs from activities and statives. One of the main differences compared to the results of previous studies, conducted on speakers of Germanic languages, is that the data did not provide enough evidence for morphological marking being used to convey primarily temporal distinctions (see Salaberry, 1999, The development of past tense verbal morphology in classroom L2 Spanish. "Applied Linguistics," 20(2), 151-178. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/20.2.151; Wiberg, E. (1996). Reference to past events in bilingual Italian-Swedish children of school age. "Linguistics," 34(5), 1087-1114. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.1996.34.5.1087]) and presented the marking of telic predicates in foreground with perfective morphology as consistent, disregarding the level of participants' performance.

This research investigated the impact of processing instruction (PI) on the acquisition of the English third-person singular present tense by Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners and whether this effect would extend to the acquisition of other language components. This study featured the pretest-immediate-posttest design and participants were required to participate in all tests (pretest, immediate posttest, delayed posttest). Two classes were assigned to receive PI and Traditional Instruction (TI) respectively, while another class served as the control group. A language background check was conducted 2 weeks before the main experiment. And after three consecutive class hours, there is an immediate posttest and a delayed posttest in 2 weeks. By comparing the results of the three tests, the study measured and compared the primary effects, secondary transfer-of-training (TOT) effects, and cumulative TOT effects of PI and TI. The findings showed that both PI and TI had significant effects, although they differed in the extent and duration of improvement in acquisition effectiveness. PI was found to be superior to TI, which could be reflected in primary and two TOT effects except the interpretation tasks related to passive voice. This study suggests that PI can be utilized in grammar teaching due to its efficacy in teaching specific linguistic structures and its transfer-of-training effects on other grammar rules.

In the last decade, explorations into the work of volunteer educators, titled "docents," within art museums revealed turbulent circumstances that led some institutions to alter their volunteer programs, if not end them entirely. How did art museums come to rely on volunteers to undertake such an important responsibility -- that of engaging and connecting with visitors -- thereby functioning as the face and voice of their institution? The memory of Anna Hyatt Huntington's 1953 sculpture "The Torch Bearers" frames an exploration into docent history to tease out interpretations, questions, and ideas to inform contemporary practice.

The current study examined the effectiveness of a reading curriculum of explicit instruction on the letter-sound knowledge of a sample of elementary-aged students with Down syndrome. The procedures were adapted from prior research (King et al., 2020; Lemons et al., 2018; Lemons et al., 2015). Three participants between 9 and 11 years old participated in the study. Participants were provided with five lessons or 5 tiers of data points on letter-sound knowledge, wherein they practiced identifying initial letter-sounds from highly imageable and decodable words. Unique to this study was the addition of explicit instruction procedures in spelling and measurement of improved spelling skills for both taught and untaught words. We used a multiple probe design across intervention lessons. Letter-sound accuracy increased for all three participants. Results for the spelling outcomes were mixed, with most students making minimal progress. Improvements in letter-sound knowledge did not naturally transfer to the spelling outcome, supporting the idea that explicit instruction may be necessary to support the transfer of skills for children with Down syndrome.

This study explored the effects of learning activities which encouraged positive crosslinguistic influence from L2 Spanish to L1 English grammar in young learners. The learners (N = 82) were studying Spanish as their compulsory foreign language at an English state primary school in the UK. As part of ten timetabled Spanish classes over a period of six months, 40 pupils, aged 10-11, engaged in self-study activities involving aspects of Spanish grammar. The activities incorporated thematic content and metalanguage based on the grammar, punctuation and spelling exam (GPS), a national English grammar test taken at the end of primary education. A control group of 42 children engaged in self-study activities with no focus on grammar. L1 English grammar knowledge pre- and post-intervention was assessed using GPS scores. At post-test, a small, non-significant positive effect on attainment in L1 English grammar was observed. Although preliminary and involving only a small effect, the results are promising, showing that engagement with Spanish grammar activities might lead to better performance on English grammar. These findings are consistent with recent research which has established that the cognitive maturity required to develop and deploy metalinguistic awareness is present in children at a younger age than previously assumed.

Purpose: Children make spelling errors despite classroom instruction on phoneme-grapheme connections and spelling rules. We examined whether additional practice helps to decrease the number of spelling errors for a morphological spelling rule. We distinguished explicit practice in applying a spelling rule from implicit exposure to correct word forms. Method: After a dictation task, Dutch second graders (n = 139; 46.8% girls) were matched and randomly divided over explicit, implicit, and no-additional practice conditions. Additional practice was based on evidence-based exercises and encompassed five sessions. The dictation task included target words that were practiced, as well as transfer words that were not. Results: Both explicit and implicit practice resulted in better performance on target words (large effect) as well as transfer words (medium to large effect) compared to no-additional practice. There were no differences between implicit and explicit practice. Conclusion: These findings indicate that spelling performance can be improved by additional practice, both by telling and showing. Using evidence-based explicit or implicit exercises after classroom instruction has taken place can (further) improve children's spelling of rule-based words.

All anatomical educators hope that students apply past training to both similar and new tasks. This two-group longitudinal study investigated the development of such transfer of learning in a histology course. After 0, 10, and 20 sessions of the 10-week-long course, medical students completed theoretical tasks, examined histological slides trained in the course (retention task), and unfamiliar histological slides (transfer task). The results showed that students in the histology group gradually outperformed the control group in all tasks, especially in the second half of the course, [eta-squared] = 0.268 (p < 0.001). The best predictor of final transfer performance was students' retention performance after 10 sessions, [beta] = 0.32 (p = 0.028), and theoretical knowledge after 20 sessions, [beta] = 0.46 (p = 0.003). Results of eye tracking methodology further revealed that the histology group engaged in greater "visual activity" when solving transfer tasks, as indicated by an increase in the total fixation count, [eta-squared] = 0.103 (p = 0.014). This longitudinal study provides evidence that medical students can use what they learn in histology courses to solve unfamiliar problems but cautions that positive transfer effects develop relatively late in the course. Thus, course time and the complex relationship between theory, retention, and transfer holds critical implications for anatomical curricula seeking to foster the transfer of learning.

Second language (L2) writing plays an important role in improving the learners' language skills of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in terms of language expression and linguistic thinking. Therefore, improving writing skills is still a focus area for EFL learners. To enhance EFL learners' writing ability and optimize their writing quality, an intelligent-based cognitive diagnostic feedback (I-CDF) strategy is proposed based on the Intelligent Writing Critique System (IWCS). IWCS can provide feedback on students' English writing learning components, including lexical, syntactic, rhetorical expression, chapter structure, and discourse intention. Hence, the study intends to assess the effects of feedback strategies based on students' writing scores, self-efficacy, epistemic network structure, and transferability. A quasi-experiment was conducted in two classes at a university in southeastern China, where students were randomly divided into two classes. One (N = 32) was considered an experimental group conducted using the proposed I-CDF strategy, while the other (N = 30) was the control group using the score-based teacher corrective feedback (S-TCF) strategy. The writing experiment lasted for seven weeks. The students would be interviewed at the end of the writing learning activities. The results indicated that the I-CDF strategy improved students' writing scores and self-efficacy. Furthermore, the epistemic network analysis showed that, compared to the control group, the I-CDF strategy encouraged the students to devote more energy to focus on high-level applications of writing skills such as rhetorical expression and sentence structure collation, optimizing the students' writing epistemic network of the writing of the students. The interview revealed that the I-CDF strategy supported the experimental group students' accurate understanding of writing, strengthening the logical structure of the writing. At the same time, the students in the experimental group were satisfied with the I-CDF strategy.

This study explores English-dominant speakers' and English learners' knowledge of (in)formal stylistic variants, their choice of (in)formal styles in relation to social context, their preferences in the use of select (in)formal stylistic variants, and their beliefs about the influence of their other languages. Ten English-dominant undergraduates in Canada, 10 international English-as-a-second-language undergraduates in Canada, and 11 English-as-a-foreign-language undergraduates in Slovakia completed a questionnaire and composed 6 short e-mail messages, each embedded in a unique social context defined by the intended reader (ranging from completely unfamiliar to extremely familiar) and the communication purpose (ranging from completely transactional to completely interactional). Differences were found among the groups in their knowledge of (in)formal stylistic variants, their choice of style, their use of some (in)formal variants, and reported effects of their other languages. This study concludes that primarily classroom-instructed English learners who wish to learn how English-dominant speakers approach expression of formality would benefit from explicit instruction. It further concludes that more research is necessary to identify factors driving individual knowledge of (in)formal variants and preferences in their use, particularly in relation to overall communicative competence and the context of language acquisition and use.

A total of 169 Chinese college students were divided into high proficiency and low proficiency learners according to a College English Test, and watched one of three short fully captioned English videos, thus producing six groups: (1) High proficiency + L2 (n = 25), (2) High proficiency + L1 + L2 (n = 24), (3) High proficiency + L1 (n = 33), (4) Low proficiency + L2 (n = 29), (5) Low proficiency + L1 + L2 (n = 30), (6) Low proficiency + L1 (n = 28). The participants' retention and transfer were assessed first. SPSS analyses revealed that L1 + L2 caption group with high proficiency performed the best retention, while L2 caption group with low proficiency achieved the highest retention, and there was no significant difference in transfer. Afterwards, a factor design was employed and three dimensions of student engagement were evaluated with the same participants, suggesting significant results in cognitive student engagement with a median effect size, represented by investment in learning and positive attitude as indicators. This research attempts to explore the incorporation of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive student engagement when measuring learning effectiveness of content-based instruction video learning, highlighting the significance of cognitive student engagement in the studies of captioned videos.

This article reports on the design of interdisciplinary units in five International Baccalaureate schools in Norway and Denmark, each with fewer than 100 students in their Middle Years Programme. The mixed methods study describes subject combinations and time frames of 37 enacted units and 111 hypothetical interdisciplinary units, and the qualitative perspectives of nine teachers, representative of the curriculum frameworks' eight subject groups, on the contribution of these school-based units to student learning. In the special context of schools with logistically simple staffing structures, interdisciplinary units were consistently conceived and enacted as substantial units, typically implemented over 8 weeks. Subjects were usually paired using a common Key Concept and differentiated by Related Concepts. Although framing and classification were considerations in interdisciplinary planning, the quantitative data found nearly every pairing of the subject groups was feasible. Interdisciplinary units were consistently valued by teachers for helping students connect disciplinary knowledge and developing metacognitive skills that supported their future learning, and for enriching teachers' own pedagogical practice. As a pragmatic, sustainable approach that resolves the tensions posed by assessment of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, the strategies reported in this study suggest a 'middle way' for countering the disciplinary fragmentation associated with junior secondary education.

The effect of first language transfer on second language acquisition and learning has been a major theoretical concept in second language research and pedagogy since the 1950s. In order to give a historical perspective, the authors offer a brief presentation of some of the major topics from the broad spectrum of issues that have been examined by the applied linguistics research community during the past six decades and some significant developments in neuroimaging and cognitive science that have allowed researchers to investigate the role that first language plays in transfer to second language during neural activity and cognitive processing. The paper concludes with some pedagogical implications for second language instructors.

'Translanguaging' has become the most popular term in discussions about how to use learners' languages as resources for target language teaching/learning, but it has also become ambiguous because it is being developed in proposals adopting different perspectives on multilingualism. The first aim of this article is to offer an overview of the two main current proposals of translanguaging together: García and colleagues' 'spontaneous translanguaging' and Cenoz and Gorter's 'pedagogical translanguaging'. 'Spontaneous translanguaging' argues that languages in the mind are represented as one single system and that the notion of transfer, consequently, must be rejected. This article argues that this view may not be practical because it makes it difficult for teachers to conceptualise what they are doing when raising awareness of similarities between learners' languages. 'Pedagogical translanguaging', by contrast, centres around transfer. Whereas transfer is traditionally seen as unintentional 'interference', pedagogical translanguaging considers it a phenomenon that learners can use intentionally and creatively, and which teachers could promote by raising learners' awareness of similarities between their languages. However, very little is known about how learners use transfer unintentionally versus intentionally. This article discusses key findings and implications from Fuster's (2022) initial study on intentionality in lexical transfer within pedagogical translanguaging.

This intervention study examined the effectiveness of instructional support tailored toward two techniques (i.e., random associations and constraint identification) to strengthen children's creative problem-solving skills within upper-elementary science education. Five inquiry-based science lessons with ample opportunity for creative problem-solving (i.e., divergent and convergent thinking) were provided. Children were assigned to a condition with instructional support (n = 107) or without (n = 134). Domain-general and specific measures of divergent and convergent thinking were included, and reading comprehension as well as mathematical ability were taken into account. Repeated measures multivariate analyses of covariance revealed how all children improved in terms of domain-general convergent thinking, with a larger increase for children who performed better in mathematics. This shows a promising premise for future research focusing on the domain generality of convergent thinking and for the potential of transfer across domains. No additional improvement based on instructional support was found and children did not improve in terms of divergent thinking. The constraint identification and random associations technique might not be suitable for elementary school children, yet future research is necessary to validate such claims. Meanwhile, teachers could possibly support convergent thinking by simply providing exercises for divergent and convergent thinking.

This article focuses on the effects of a 21-hour Romance Intercomprehension (RIC) module on the plurilingual competence in Romance languages of no prior knowledge and EFL reading comprehension skills of a group of Italian schoolchildren aged 10-11. Data were collected pre- and post-training through a simple language identification and comprehension questionnaire (within subjects, n = 19), and an EFL reading comprehension test (between subjects, RIC group n = 15; control n = 23), to answer the following questions: 1) What type of plurilingual reading strategies and competence can a short RIC module develop in a school con-text? and 2) Do the competences and strategies acquired through such a RIC course affect proficiency in EFL reading comprehension? Comparisons of pre- and post-test results indicated not only that the RIC-trained group did develop an initial level of plurilingual competence in Romance languages, but also that their EFL reading comprehension skills improved more than those of the control group. Further research is needed to substantiate these data and confirm this strategy transfer. However, alongside validating Intercomprehension methodology for quick development of plurilingual reading competence, this study seems to indicate that such competence can be extended outside a language family even in young learners.

According to an aptitude-treatment interaction experiment (Lehmann et al., "Metacognition and Learning, 11," 89-105, 2016, N = 47, published in "Metacognition and Learning"), perceptually disfluent texts facilitated retention and comprehension performance (but not transfer performance) only for learners with higher working memory capacity (WMC). No effects of WMC for a fluent text were found (albeit theoretically, fluency may be more advantageous for learners with lower WMC). The findings of our (pre-registered) direct replication (supervised online sample of N = 96) show a substantial deviation from the original results: In contrast to the interaction effect (disfluency and WMC) of the primary study, we obtained null results for disfluency, WMC, and their interaction for all learning outcomes. Our replication data are not indicative of WMC as a boundary condition moderating the disfluency effect on learning. We discuss discrepancies in the results of the primary study and our direct replication regarding particular methodological and analytical decisions, questioning the robustness and generalizability of Lehman et al.'s results beyond their primary study.

During category learning, students struggle to create an optimal study order: They often study one category at a time (i.e., blocked practice) instead of alternating between different categories (i.e., interleaved practice). Several interventions to improve self-study of categorical learning have been proposed, but these interventions have only been tested in learning tasks where students "did not" create the study order themselves. Instead, they decided which type of study order to follow. This pre-registered experiment examined whether an intervention that combines refutations and metacognitive prompts can enhance students' engagement in interleaved practice, specifically when they organize the learning materials themselves. Ninety-one undergraduate students were randomized into the intervention and control condition and learned visual categories. Prior to the intervention, students used more blocked practice. After the intervention, the use of interleaved practice significantly increased in both immediate and delayed-transfer tasks. More interleaved practice was associated with better classification performance. Our findings indicate that refutations and metacognitive prompts form a strong intervention that corrects students' erroneous beliefs and increases their engagement in interleaved practice.