Cognitive Approaches to Second Language Acquisition

ACLC members participating in research group

Sible Andringa
Marjolein Cremer
Arjen Florijn
Lotte Henrichs
Jan Hulstijn (coordinator)
Nivja de Jong
Folkert Kuiken
Elisabeth van der Linden
Marije Michel
Nomi Olsthoorn 
Rob Schoonen
Margarita Steinel
Mirjam Trapman
Catherine van Beunigen
Ineke Vedder
Ahmed Zekhnini

External participants

Paul Leseman (University of Utrecht)
Ton Vallen (University of Tilburg)
Paul Bogaards (University of Leiden)
Lydius Nienhuis (University of Utrecht)
Tine Greidanus (Free University Amsterdam)

Description

Fluent use of a first or second language, in all its modalities (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), consists of the online integration of many types of knowledge, ranging from the level of sound or letter representation to the levels of semantics, pragmatics and world knowledge. The nature of this complex integration process differs depending on the characteristics of the language, the individual’s stage of language development, and the communicative situation (task factors). Furthermore, the ease or difficulty with which language users manage to perform a verbal task may depend on individual characteristics, such as working-memory capacity, grammatical sensitivity, and personality. What the projects in the CASLA research group have in common, is their focus on the acquistion and use of a second (or first) language as an attempt to cope with several types of information at the same time and on how task performance may be affected by mediating factors such as proficiency level, task constraints, and individual psychological differences.

Projects

links to the individual project pages can be found below 

• What is speaking proficiency? Unraveling second language proficiency (Nivja de Jong, Margarita Steinel, Arjen Florijn, Rob Schoonen, Jan Hulstijn)
• The co-construction of academic language skills of 3-6 year-old Dutch children in communicative contexts at home and in school (Lotte Henrichs, Rob Schoonen, Folkert Kuiken).
• Design features and sequencing of L2 tasks (Marije Michel, Folkert Kuiken, Ineke Vedder).
• Cognitive task complexity and linguistic output (Folkert Kuiken, Ineke Vedder).
• Developing a test for deep word knowledge of French (Elisabeth van der Linden).
• Assessing Lexical Development(Rob Schoonen, Marianne Verhallen, Marjolein Cremer).
• Acquisition of Dutch as a second language in and outside the classroom (Ahmed Zekhnini, Folkert Kuiken)
• Towards a theory of second-language proficiency: The case of segmenting and comprehending oral language (Andringa, Olsthoorn, Schoonen, Hulstijn).
• Literacy-related attributes of at-risk students in grades 7-9 (Mirjam Trapman, Jan Hulstijn)
• The effect of feedback on written output in content-based second language instruction (Caterine van Beunigen, Nivja de Jong, Folkert Kuiken)
• Studies in listening proficiency (Nomi Olsthoorn en Sible Andringa)