This report examines the potential impacts of task and proficiency on listener judgments of intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness in L2 Spanish. This study extends Huensch and Nagle [Language Learning, 71, 626–668, (2021)], who explored the partial independence among the global speech dimensions for speech samples taken from a picture narrative task. Given that the type of speaking task used to elicit speech samples has been shown to impact the strength of the linguistic features contributing to the global speech dimensions and to explore the impact of task on the relationships among the dimensions, the current study followed the same procedure as Huensch and Nagle but employed a task in which participants responded to a prompt based on NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements. The speech samples were elicited from instructed L2 Spanish learners of varying proficiency (n = 42) and were rated by a group of native-speaking Spanish listeners (n = 80) using Amazon Mechanical Turk. In general, the results were consistent with those reported in the initial study indicating a significant, positive, and consistent relationship between comprehensibility and intelligibility and a null relationship between accentedness and intelligibility. The limited differences between the studies’ findings are discussed considering the potential impact of task.

This study conceptually replicated Huensch and Tracy-Ventura’s (2017) analysis of the relationship between L1 and L2 utterance fluency with adult L1-English learners of Spanish. Data from 88 participants were analyzed to explore the proportion of the variance in L2 fluency measures that can be attributed to the corresponding L1 measures, and the relative weights of L1 fluency and L2 proficiency as predictors of L2 fluency. This study applied the same fluency and proficiency constructs and operationalizations as the original study, but differed in task type and learners’ L2 proficiency. Results were most similar for speed and repair frequency, and for silent pause duration. Findings concerning silent and filled pause frequency differed. Combined, the studies show that some L1-L2 fluency relationships are relatively stable across proficiency levels, task type, and learning context.

This study replicates Felser and Roberts (2007), which used a cross-modal picture priming task to examine indirect-object dependency processing in classroom L2 learners. The replication focuses on early L2 learners with extensive naturalistic L2 exposure (n = 22)—an understudied group in the literature—and investigates whether these learners, in contrast to those in the original study, reactivate the moved element at its original position in the sentence. Bayesian multilevel regression is used to analyze the data. The results suggest that higher-working-memory participants did reactivate the moved element at its structural origin. By extending previous research to an understudied group, the study contributes to our knowledge regarding sensitivity to abstract syntactic structure in L2 processing.

This study is a replication and extension of Morgan-Short et al.’s (2018) investigation into the role of attention in input processing by L1-Polish learners of L2-Spanish, with proficiency and language of assessment explored as two key methodological factors. Our aims were twofold: to investigate learners’ comprehension in different conditions with their L2 proficiency controlled for, and to examine this process when learners were tested using different languages. Data from three trials (N = 136) were analyzed: Trial-English, Trial-Polish, and Trial-Spanish, where comprehension was tested in English, Polish, or Spanish, respectively. Results showed that both L2 proficiency and language of assessment significantly affected learners’ performance, with their scores being lower in the -n morpheme condition but only when comprehension was tested in English or Spanish. We discuss these findings both theoretically and methodologically, making recommendations on designing future replication studies and improving the generalizability of L2 findings across multiple research sites.

As survey research in second language acquisition grows in popularity, the adherence to best practices associated with questionnaire quality is critical for a better understanding of factors that influence second language (L2) development. To ensure that a self-report scale targets the construct of interest and does it consistently and accurately, authors of primary research should demonstrate that their instrument possesses acceptable evidence of validity and reliability. To this end, this methodological synthesis focused on the state of scale quality in L2 anxiety and willingness to communicate (WTC) research by examining key methodological issues of quantitative survey research and offering empirically grounded suggestions for future studies. A close examination of 232 peer-reviewed articles that used 385 L2 anxiety and WTC scales demonstrated, among other findings, the lack of evidence for scale content and construct validity. The implications of this study contribute to concurrent attempts at methodological reform in applied linguistics.

Our study proposes the use of a free classification task for investigating the dimensions used by listeners in their perception of nonnative sounds and for predicting the perceptual discriminability of nonnative contrasts. In a free classification task, participants freely group auditory stimuli based on their perceived similarity. The results can be used to predict discriminability and can be compared to various acoustic or phonological dimensions to determine the relevant cues for listeners. The viability of this method was examined for both a segmental contrast (German vowels) and a nonsegmental contrast (Finnish phonemic length). Perceptual similarity data from the free classification task accurately predicted discriminability in an oddity task and separately provided rich information on how the perceptual space is shaped. These results suggest that a free classification task and related analyses are informative and replicable methods for examining nonnative speech perception.

This article reports on the development and validation of the Informal Second Language Engagement questionnaire (ISLE) for capturing various aspects of learner engagement with informal second language practices. Whereas other questionnaires have primarily focused on learner behavior (the frequency, quantity, and diversity of informal activities in which learners engage), the ISLE additionally targets affective, cognitive, and linguistic aspects of engagement. Consequently, this questionnaire has the potential to help second language acquisition researchers better understand individual differences and variability in informal language engagement, how it changes over time, and the ways in which engagement affects language learning. The ISLE was developed and evaluated in three stages with a total of 382 German secondary school learners of English as a foreign language. The initial instrument development was informed by qualitative findings from focus group interviews. Subsequently, the questionnaire was piloted, and Exploratory Factor Analysis was applied to the data to uncover the underlying factor structures and reduce the number of items per construct. Finally, the revised instrument was evaluated further using Confirmatory Factor Analysis.

Research on input processing and processing instruction has often employed a scoring method known as trials to criterion to observe the effects of instruction that emerge during training. Despite its common use in this research (see Fernández, 2021) this metric has never been evaluated critically. The present study first discusses several challenges associated with trials to criterion, including issues with its conceptual and methodological implementation. The study then introduces three alternative approaches for analyzing accuracy data collected during training sequences: trials to accuracy threshold, growth curve analysis, and bootstrapped differences of timeseries. For each approach, advantages and disadvantages are discussed and example analyses are presented using data from previous research. This discussion shows how these alternative approaches can supplement current trials-to-criterion-based analyses, expand the methodological choices available to researchers, and permit new and interesting research questions.