Automaticity of lexical access and executive control in Croatian-German bilinguals and second language learners
Journal Title: Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching - Year 2018, Vol 8, Issue 4
Abstract
The aim of this study was to explore automaticity of lexical access and executive functions of language learners and bilinguals while considering their language automaticity. Three groups of youths aged 14 to 18 were tested: Croatian-German early bilinguals, Croatian high school students who participated in a German immersion programme at school and Croatian high school students of German as a foreign language. The participants were tested on a modified version of the Stroop test (i.e., a Stroop-like test). It presented pictures of an animal or an object with names of an animal or an object written over the picture. The names were written in Croatian or German and were either congruent or incongruent. Lexical access was slower for the bilinguals in both Croatian and German, which suggests that they used more of their cognitive resources because both of their languages were highly active, and more executive control was required to complete the task.
Authors and Affiliations
Kristina Vujnović Malivuk, Marijan Palmović, Lovorka Zergollern-Miletić
Promoting EFL students’ accuracy and fluency through interactive practice activities
This study examined the effectiveness of interactive activities at facilitating EFL students’ production of English relative clauses. Thirty-seven EFL learners in Chile carried out interactive activities designed to elic...
Higher education teachers’ attitudes towards English medium instruction: A three-country comparison
We report on a small scale study carried out in Austria, Italy and Poland which investigated the attitudes of university teachers engaged in teaching their academic subject through the medium of English. The data consist...
Unconscious motivation. Part I: Implicit attitudes toward L2 speakers
This paper reports the first investigation in the second language acquisition field assessing learners’ implicit attitudes using the Implicit Association Test, a computerized reaction-time measure. Examination of the exp...
Interwoven: Culture, language, and learning strategies
Culture, language, and learning strategies form a grand tapestry, which is this article’s theme. The authors explain each part of the tapestry, provide ideas for teaching all parts in a smoothly united way, a...
Global trends and local realities: Lessons about economic benefits, selves and identity from a Swiss context
Inspired by the unexpected results of a standardized questionnaire survey of Swiss university students’ motivation and attitudes toward English, the paper discusses the influence of global and local contexts on language...