Feature Article

Teaching Formulaic Sequences

in the ESL Classroom
SARVENAZ HATAMI
University of Alberta

In both second language (L2) research and pedagogy, individual

words have been considered the basic lexical unit; this is not
surprising, because individual words are convenient to identify,
teach, and work with (Schmitt, 2010). However, there is a grow-
ing awareness that language users do not always process lan-
guage word by word, but also make use of formulaic
sequences. In fact, it has been estimated that formulaic
sequences constitute more than 50% of spoken and written Eng-
lish discourse (Erman & Warren, 2000) and that these sequences
are strongly associated with fluent, communicative, native-like
language production (Pawley & Syder, 1983; Schmitt, 2010).
This means that in order to appear proficient, English as a sec-
ond language (ESL) learners also need to gain mastery of these
sequences. However, formulaic sequences are particularly diffi-
cult for L2 learners to acquire (Scarcella, 1979; Yorio, 1989),
which further emphasizes the need to focus on and teach these
sequences in the ESL classroom. This article, based on previous
research findings on formulaic sequences in the L2 literature,
provides a series of steps and strategies for the teaching of
formulaic sequences through all four language skills in the L2
classroom.
doi: 10.1002/tesj.143

For the majority of teachers of English as a second language

(ESL), vocabulary instruction tends to mean the teaching of
individual words; most ESL learners also tend to think of
vocabulary acquisition as the learning of individual words
(Schmitt, 2010). Moreover, much of the second language (L2)
vocabulary literature has treated vocabulary in terms of individual
words. This is not surprising because, as Schmitt (2010) points out,
individual words have been considered the basic lexical unit as

112 TESOL Journal 6.1, March 2015

© 2014 TESOL International Association
they are convenient to identify, teach, and work with. For
example, in languages like English, individual lexical items have
clear boundaries and are easily identifiable in texts by the spaces
placed before and after them. However, there is a growing
awareness that language users do not always process language
word by word, but also make use of formulaic sequences. In fact,
in recent years there has been an increasing interest in targeting
formulaic sequences in L2 research and instruction, because
formulaic language has been shown to be a very important
component of L2 language acquisition and production (e.g.,
Meunier & Granger, 2008; Schmitt & Carter, 2004; Weinert, 1995;
Wray, 1999, 2002).

DEFINITION OF FORMULAIC SEQUENCES

Formulaic sequences can be very diverse, ranging from simple
fillers (e.g., kind of) and functions (e.g., thank you) to collocations
(e.g., take an exam) and phrasal verbs (e.g., fall apart) to idioms
(e.g., kick the bucket) and proverbs (e.g., waste not, want not) and
lengthy standardized phrases (e.g., there is a growing body of
evidence that . . .; Boers, Eyckmans, Kappel, Stengers, &
Demecheleer, 2006). This diversity is also reflected in the
literature; Wray and Perkins (2000) identify well over 40 terms
for formulaic language, some of which include formulaic
sequences, chunks, conventionalised forms, fixed expressions, formulas/
formulae, holophrases, lexical phrases, multiword units, preassembled
speech, prefabricated routines and patterns, ready-made utterances, and
sentence builders. Because of such range and diversity, it is a
major challenge to categorize formulaic language into discrete
classes because one could be “in danger of misrepresenting the
nature of the native speaker’s knowledge” (Pawley & Syder,
1983, p. 212). For this reason, Wray (1999) adopts a single cover
term, formulaic sequence, and defines it as follows:
a sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other
meaning elements, which is, or appears to be, prefabricated: that
is, stored and retrieved whole from memory at the time of use,
rather than being subject to generation or analysis by the lan-
guage grammar. (p. 214)

Teaching Formulaic Sequences in the ESL Classroom 113

PERVASIVENESS OF FORMULAIC SEQUENCES
According to Nattinger and DeCarrico (1992), formulaic
sequences are ubiquitous in language use. Foster (2001) found
that 32% of unplanned English native speaker speech consists of
formulaic language. Erman and Warren (2000) calculated that
58.6% of the first language (L1) spoken English discourse and
52.3% of the L1 written English discourse that they analyzed
consisted of formulaic sequences, meaning that on average
slightly more than half of both the spoken and written texts
were formulaic. Some researchers have given formulaic language
even greater significance. Altenberg (1998) estimates the amount
of formulaic sequences in native speakers’ speech to be more
than 80%.
Although such findings lack solid empirical basis and vary
widely, mainly due to differences in units and procedures of
counting and the nature of texts, the fact that formulaic language
constitutes a large part of any English discourse is well
documented. This means that native speakers know a large
number of formulaic sequences, which in turn means that ESL
learners need to acquire and use these sequences if they are to
appear as proficient and native-like. According to Cowie (1992), “it
is impossible to perform at a level acceptable to native users, in
writing or in speech, without controlling an appropriate range of
multiword units” (p. 10). However, as Swan (2006) rightly points
out, “the size of the formulaic lexicon makes it totally
impracticable to take native-speaker phraseological competence, or
anything approaching it, as a realistic target for second language
learners” (p. 6), and indeed, not all L2 learners aspire to native-like
ability. In fact, for the majority of L2 learners, “a limited, and
therefore flawed and inaccurate lexicon may, as well as being
inevitable, also be perfectly adequate” (Lewis, 1997, pp. 187–188).
Therefore, more realistically, to function effectively in English, ESL
learners need to acquire those high-priority formulaic sequences
“which are appropriate in as wide a range of situations as possible
both linguistically and socially” (Lewis, 1997, p. 188) as well as the
specific formulaic sequences of their academic discipline or
professional group.

114 TESOL Journal

ROLE OF FORMULAIC SEQUENCES IN LANGUAGE
USE
It is no wonder that formulaic sequences are so widespread in
discourse, because they play some very important roles in
language use. Formulaic sequences are known to increase fluency
or decrease processing effort (Pawley & Syder, 1983) “by
providing a short cut to production and comprehension” (Wray,
1999, p. 213). According to Pawley and Syder (1983), formulaic
sequences appear to be stored in the long-term memory as single
memorized units (i.e., prefabricated chunks or ready-made
wholes) and can therefore be processed and accessed more quickly
and easily than the same sequences of words when generated
creatively. In fact, this claim, that formulaic sequences are
represented, processed, and accessed holistically, has been directly
and indirectly supported by several studies (e.g., Jiang &
Nekrasova, 2007; Kim & Kim, 2012; Kuiper, 2004; Underwood,
Schmitt, & Galpin, 2004).
For instance, Jiang and Nekrasova (2007) conducted two online
grammaticality judgment experiments consisting of formulaic,
nonformulaic, and ungrammatical sequences. The formulaic and
nonformulaic sequences were matched for word length and
frequency. In both experiments, native English speakers as well as
high-proficiency nonnative English speakers had to decide
whether a sequence was grammatical. The results reveal that both
the native and nonnative speakers responded to the formulaic
phrases significantly more quickly and with fewer errors than to
the nonformulaic phrases. However, the degree to which
formulaic sequences are stored and retrieved holistically during
processing is shown to be affected by the frequency level of the
formulaic sequence (Kim & Kim, 2012). Kim and Kim (2012) found
that for both native speakers and nonnative speakers, high-
frequency multiword units result in shorter reading times than
low-frequency units. Kuiper (2004) also provides indirect support
for the holistic view of formulaic sequences and their role in
increasing fluency, by showing that speakers such as auctioneers
and sports announcers who have to operate under heavy time
constraints use a great number of formulaic sequences.

Teaching Formulaic Sequences in the ESL Classroom 115

 Another role of formulaic sequences in language use is in
achieving communicative goals (Schmitt, 2010; Wray, 1999).
Most speech acts such as expressions of apologies (e.g., I’m
[very] sorry. . .), requests (e.g., could you [please]. . . ?), compliments
(e.g., I [really] like your. . .), greetings, thanks, and condolence
tend to be achieved using formulaic sequences. Furthermore,
formulaic sequences are commonly used in conversation
management (e.g., you know; I mean; you’ll never believe this,
but. . .) and in marking discourse structure (e.g., on the other
hand, as a result). The technical vocabulary in a particular field
can also be formulaic (e.g., “Your blood pressure is X over Y” is
a technical formulaic sequence in the medical field; Schmitt,
2010; Wray, 1999). Formulaic language, therefore, plays a
fundamental role in communicative competence. As Widdowson
(1989) stated two decades ago,
communicative competence is not a matter of knowing rules. . . .
It is much more a matter of knowing a stock of partially pre-
assembled patterns, formulaic frameworks, and a kit of rules, so
to speak, and being able to apply the rules to make whatever
adjustments are necessary according to contextual demands.
(p. 135)

WHY DO FORMULAIC SEQUENCES NEED TO BE

TAUGHT?
Considering the significant role of formulaic sequences in
facilitating fluent language production and achieving
communicative purposes, it is not surprising that mastery of these
sequences can help learners come across as generally proficient L2
speakers (Schmitt, 2010). In fact, these sequences—at least those
which have been memorized correctly—can help learners achieve
linguistic accuracy, as they provide zones of safety where learners
are less likely to make errors (Boers et al., 2006). Formulaic
sequences also allow learners to be confident that they will be
understood by their interlocutor in the way they intended
(Wildner-Bassett, 1994).
However, mastering formulaic sequences is extremely
challenging for L2 learners (Scarcella, 1979; Yorio, 1989).

116 TESOL Journal

L2 learners, even at the higher levels of proficiency, know and use
fewer formulaic sequences than native speakers (Foster, 2001;
Howarth, 1998). Noticing and acquiring formulaic sequences can
be particularly challenging for English as a foreign language (EFL)
learners (as opposed to ESL learners) whose primary source of
second language input comes as text (Wible, 2008). While
phonological features such as speech rate, pausing, and stress
patterns are possible indicators of formulaic sequences in spoken
input (Read & Nation, 2004), “there is no indication in [written
input] that a particular string of words constitutes a chunk”
(Wible, 2008, p. 173). For instance, Altenberg and Granger (2001)
found that their EFL learners, even at an advanced proficiency
level, had great difficulty with a high-frequency verb like make.
Not only did delexical uses of make (e.g., make a decision) prove to
be particularly problematic, but also causative uses (e.g., make
something possible); as a result, both categories were used
significantly less by the learners than by the native speakers. In
another study, Durrant and Schmitt (2009) found that, whereas
nonnative writers (in both ESL and EFL contexts) rely heavily on
high-frequency collocations (e.g., hard work), they tend to underuse
less common, strongly associated collocations (e.g., densely
populated).
Moreover, L2 learners do not always use formulaic sequences
accurately or appropriately (Howarth, 1998; Nesselhauf, 2003).
Nesselhauf (2003) analyzed the use of verb-noun collocations (e.g.,
take a break) by advanced German-speaking learners of English in
free written production. She found that almost a quarter of the
combinations produced by the learners contained one or more
mistakes. She also found that the learners’ L1 influenced 45% of
the mistakes in L2 collocation production. These mistakes were not
only the result of combining words in an inaccurate, non-native-
like way, but also due to the inappropriate use of native-like
combinations.
The importance of formulaic sequences in language use and
the above-mentioned difficulties in the L2 acquisition of these
sequences imply that formulaic sequences need to be emphasized
and taught in the language classroom. As Schmitt (2010) states,
“formulaic language is as important as individual words” (p. 8),
Teaching Formulaic Sequences in the ESL Classroom 117
and therefore it is necessary for ESL teachers and learners to focus
on both single- and multiword vocabulary items.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ESL CLASSROOM

To date, pedagogic research in the area of formulaic language
instruction and its impact on learners’ L2 proficiency has been
scarce. This is primarily due to “the difficulty of defining and
operationalizing this rather elusive language phenomenon at the
level of precision that is required to serve as an effective
theoretical foundation to build on” (Dornyei, 2009, p. 298).
Nevertheless, some studies have addressed the learning of
formulaic sequences through classroom practice and have found
positive impacts on learners’ awareness of formulaic sequences
(Jones & Haywood, 2004), the number and range of formulaic
sequences they can produce over time (Taguchi, 2007; Wible, Liu,
& Tsao, 2011), and learners’ oral proficiency development (Boers
et al., 2006).
In the next section, pedagogical implications from the findings
of L2 research on formulaic language are gathered to help raise
learners’ awareness of and interest in formulaic sequences and to
effectively teach these sequences in the ESL classroom. Most of the
strategies and techniques presented are adaptable to all levels,
including English for academic purposes (EAP). The strategies
have been selected with an attempt to incorporate the three
important psychological conditions for successful vocabulary
learning: noticing, retrieving, and generating (described in more
detail below), as according to Nation (2001), “chunks can be most
effectively memorised by following the same learning guidelines
as for isolated words” (p. 343).
As one reads through the strategies, a natural question arises:
In teaching formulaic sequences in the language classroom, how
can we determine which sequence of words is formulaic and
which is not? As previously mentioned, unfortunately there is no
straightforward answer to this question. However, this should not
shatter one’s confidence in teaching these sequences, because the
prime concern in the ESL classroom is not to identify what
precisely constitutes a formulaic sequence, but to help learners
notice and remember unanalyzed strings of words as well as
118 TESOL Journal
individual lexical items. This point is well stated by Conzett
(2000):
The single most important thing for teachers, more than worry-
ing whether or not something is a collocation, is to shift their
and their students’ focus away from individual words to chunks
of language. These chunks improve the fluency and accuracy of
the English students produce. (p. 80)

Raising the Awareness of Learners

It is the teacher’s responsibility to raise learners’ awareness and
make clear to them that formulaic sequences are just as important
as individual words, and to boost learners’ motivation to learn
these sequences by emphasizing that these sequences have an
intrinsic connection with fluent, communicative language
production. This is very important because some learners may
simply think, “Why learn two words together when learning one
seems hard enough?” (Coxhead, 2008, p. 149). This awareness
raising, which could be done by conveying research findings and
corpus statistics on formulaic language to the class and also
through classroom exercises, is considered the most critical task
for the language teacher.

Selecting Appropriate Formulaic Sequences to Teach

In the limited class time, it is not practical to equally treat all the
different types of formulaic sequences, such as fillers, functions,
collocations, phrasal verbs, idioms, and proverbs. Considering
such diversity, how do teachers know which sequences or types of
sequences should be taught in the classroom? Indeed, any “useful
chunks in the samples of English discourse at hand” (Boers et al.,
2006, pp. 250–251) could be considered for teaching (see the
noticing activity below as an example); however, the degree to
which a chunk is useful and deserves class time is a judgment that
needs to be made based on the goals of the language classroom.
That being said, one very practical criterion in selecting which
sequences to include for instruction is frequency of occurrence.
The sequences selected must be frequent in general English as well
as any specific English that is of use to the learners. A very useful

Teaching Formulaic Sequences in the ESL Classroom 119

frequency list created by Martinez and Schmitt (2012) for
pedagogic purposes is the PHRASE List, which focuses on the
most frequent formulaic sequences in English. The top 10 most
frequent formulaic sequences from the total of 505 formulaic
sequences listed in the PHRASE List are have to, there is/are, such as,
going to (future), of course, a few, at least, such a(an), I mean, and a
lot.
The Academic Formulas List (AFL) developed by Simpson-
Vlach and Ellis (2010) can also be very helpful, especially in an
EAP course. The AFL is a pedagogically useful list of formulaic
expressions occurring frequently in academic discourse, compiled
from both spoken and written corpora. The top 10 formulaic
sequences common in both spoken and written academic language
are in terms of, at the same time, from the point of view, in order to, as
well as, part of the, the fact that, in other words, the point of view of,
and there is a.
Another list of most frequently used formulaic sequences
which teachers can consult is one compiled by Liu (2003). This list
is based on three different corpora of spoken American English
(i.e., professional, media, and academic corpora). The top 10 most
frequently used sequences across the three corpora are kind of
(meaning somewhat), sort of (meaning somewhat), of course, in
terms of, in fact, deal with, at all, as well, make sure, and go through.
Unlike the AFL, in which only strings of three, four, and five
words have been included in the data set, in Liu’s list, two-word
strings have also been considered.
It should be noted that although such frequency lists can be
useful tools for teaching purposes, one must be cautious about the
size and representativeness of the corpus or corpora on which
such lists are based. For instance, the PHRASE List (Martinez &
Schmitt, 2012) is based on the British National Corpus (BNC). The
BNC is a 100-million-word collection of samples of written and
spoken English, and although like all other corpora it has some
limitations (e.g., it represents only British English; 90% of the BNC
is written and only 10% is spoken), it is indeed a large and
balanced corpus.

120 TESOL Journal

Teaching Formulaic Sequences
Noticing. The first major process to encourage the learning of
a lexical item is noticing (Nation, 2001), that is, directing learners’
attention toward a formulaic sequence and making them aware of
its usefulness. One way to do this is, after learners have become
familiar with a particular text in class through normal reading
activities, the text can be given to the learners again to read, but
this time with the target formulaic sequences made salient (i.e., by
using underlining, bold letters, italics, and/or glossing; Jones &
Haywood, 2004; Nation, 2001). This noticing exercise can also be
done in conjunction with listening. Recorded monologues,
conversations, and (if an EAP course) academic lectures could be
played in the classroom. The transcripts of the recordings in which
the formulaic sequences have been made salient can be provided
to the learners so that they can pay attention to the target
formulaic sequences as they listen to the recordings. Learners
could then be asked to try to guess the meaning of the formulaic
sequences from context and/or have the sequences explained to
them. A point worth mentioning here is that knowing the meaning
of all the individual words in a formulaic sequence (e.g., by and
large) can lead learners to overestimate their knowledge of the
meaning of the actual sequence and thus make them think that
they have understood the text better than they actually have
(Martinez & Murphy, 2011). This emphasizes the importance of
explaining the meaning of such deceptively transparent sequences
to learners and drawing their attention to this frequent
characteristic of formulaic sequences. On the other hand, not
knowing the meaning of the individual words constituting a
formulaic sequence can make it relatively harder to fully
understand the chunk and to remember its form; therefore,
encouraging learners to look inside the chunks and helping them
notice aspects of both meaning and form can optimize the learning
process (Lindstromberg, 2010). According to Lindstromberg (2010),
looking inside the chunks has two main advantages:
1. Imagistic, word-based understanding of a chunk fosters memory not only of
its overall meaning but also of the meanings of its key words, especially its
key content words.

Teaching Formulaic Sequences in the ESL Classroom 121

2. Noticing patterns of sound repetition can foster recall of the wording of a
chunk in detail. Note that this second point can apply even to chunks which
are low in image potential (e.g., powers of persuasion; if you say so).

Moreover, the input to which we expose learners should be

interesting, because interest and involvement are important
enabling conditions for noticing (Nation, 2001). Input should also
be fluent, natural, and native-like (Wood, 2010). Currently, there
are native speaker corpora made up of recordings of spoken
discourse and their corresponding transcriptions which could be
used for this purpose. A good example of such corpora,
particularly useful for the EAP classroom and available online for
free, is the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English
(MICASE; Simpson, Briggs, Ovens, & Swales, 2002). The website
(http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micase/) allows access to a large
number of authentic recordings and their corresponding
transcripts from a wide range of academic speech events. The
following authentic passage is from MICASE, from the beginning
of a philosophy seminar. The formulaic sequences have been
underlined to provide an example of the type of noticing activity
described above.
Okay, well just to um reiterate, last time we agreed that we’d
push back the paper due dates from this Wednesday to the
Monday after break, so that’s Monday, um March eighth, due
in class um, and . . . I want to reiterate that I’m, I’m glad to meet
with people if you want to come to my office hours today after
class or this week. So I’m happy to make appointments. Um
and I want to thank you guys for filling out the survey, it was
really very helpful. . . . Um and I, as I said at the beginning of
class, a couple of people mentioned that it, it might be easier to,
to speak up, in the whole class setting if we actually moved clo-
ser together. I was just wondering if, um if people, thought that
was a good idea.

Retrieving. “Noticing may be a prerequisite for learning, but it

does not necessarily guarantee the acquisition of every single
element that gets noticed” (Boers et al., 2006, p. 257). The next
major process that may help with learning and remembering
vocabulary is retrieval (Nation, 2001). Learners should be
provided with repeated opportunities to retrieve the lexical item

122 TESOL Journal

that is to be acquired, because each time an item is retrieved, the
memory of its form–meaning link will be strengthened (Baddeley,
1990). Retrieval could be receptive (when the form of the formulaic
sequence is encountered in listening or reading and learners have
to retrieve its meaning) or productive (when learners wish to
communicate the meaning of a particular formulaic sequence in
speaking or writing and have to retrieve its form). An effective
way to provide learners with opportunities for receptive retrieval
is to read the same story or listen to the same passage several
times. If it is a longer story, it could be presented part by part,
because the same vocabulary is very likely to recur in longer texts
(Nation, 2001).
For productive retrieval, teachers can require learners to reuse
the formulaic sequences they have been taught or have previously
encountered in subsequent speaking or writing activities. For
example, the disappearing text (adapted from Nation & Newton,
2009) is an oral production activity which can be useful for this
purpose. In this technique, the teacher selects a passage of
approximately 50 to 60 words containing a number of formulaic
sequences, writes it on the board, and asks a learner or two to read
it aloud. Then the teacher deletes some of the formulaic sequences
and asks another learner to read the passage aloud, supplying the
missing formulaic sequences as he or she reads. Then more
formulaic sequences are deleted, and this continues until there is
nothing at all on the board and the learners are repeating the
passage (and the formulaic sequences) from their memory
(Rossiter, Derwing, Manimtim, & Thomson, 2010). A more
communicative strategy is to give learners a context or scenario
and ask them to orally exchange information using the target
formulaic sequences. This approach, known as role play or exchange
structure, can be particularly helpful in teaching speech acts. For
example, one learner extends an invitation (e.g., Would you like to
come to my party?), and another learner accepts the invitation (e.g.,
Yes, thanks a lot). Another example would be an assertion (e.g., It’s
a fact that. . .), followed by a disagreement (e.g., I don’t [really/quite]
agree with. . .; Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992).
Writing activities such as gap-fill exercises could also be used
to elicit formulaic sequences (Jones & Haywood, 2004). Teachers
Teaching Formulaic Sequences in the ESL Classroom 123
could also ask learners to make sentences using target formulaic
sequences (Liu, 2008) and to ultimately incorporate these
sequences into their essays. However, for essay writing, teachers
should teach not only the formulaic sequences, but also how they
can be connected. For example, if one is teaching sequences for
openings in an academic essay, an example would be: For a long
time, many researchers have believed X. This paper will demonstrate
(that) Y, by comparing and contrasting Z, and recommending (that)
W. In this way, students are able to create a skeleton structure for
their essay and later fill in the arguments for X, Y, Z, and W
(Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992, p. 171).
Generating. The third and most effective process for
establishing vocabulary knowledge is generation, which “occurs
when previously met words are subsequently met or used in ways
that differ from the previous meeting with the word” (Nation,
2001, p. 68). For instance, a lexical item is used generatively when
its meaning is extended, or when it is met or used in a different
grammatical context, or in a variety of inflected or derived forms.
Meeting or using an item in multiple contexts helps “illustrate and
refine its meaning” (Jones & Haywood, 2004, p. 272).
For receptive generative use, teachers could ask learners to
read or listen to longer stories, because long texts allow the same
vocabulary to reappear in different contexts (Nation, 2001).
Teachers could also provide definitions for target formulaic
sequences using example sentences, and if the example sentences
are different from those encountered in the textual input, this
would then be generation (Nation, 2001). In addition,
concordancing is a useful tool for receptive generation, because
concordance lines and corpus extracts provide the opportunity for
numerous encounters with a lexical item in various contexts and
help to reveal its typical usage. Learners should be encouraged to
study concordance lines extracted from native corpora and to pay
attention to the grammatical and meaning contexts in which target
formulaic sequences typically appear (Jones & Haywood, 2004).
To encourage productive generative use, learners could be
asked to isolate target formulaic sequences in sentences and
create new texts around them (Coxhead, 2008). Paraphrasing,
summarizing, and quotation practice can also be useful strategies
124 TESOL Journal
for the generative use of formulaic sequences (Coxhead, 2008).
Discussions (Stahl & Vancil, 1986) and negotiation (Nation, 2001)
may also provide opportunities for target formulaic sequences to
appear in a variety of forms and contexts.

CONCLUSION
Formulaic sequences are just as significant as individual
vocabulary items and should be given equal attention in the
language classroom. As Martinez and Schmitt (2012) state, “it is
mostly to the advantage of all interested parties that formulaic
vocabulary be eventually seen as simply being ‘vocabulary’”
(p. 317). However, further investigations into this area would
be of considerable value because, due to insufficient amount of
empirical data, knowledge in this area is quite constrained, and in
fact many fundamental questions about the acquisition, use, and
in particular teaching of formulaic sequences still remain
unanswered.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their very
helpful suggestions on this article.

THE AUTHOR
Sarvenaz Hatami is a PhD candidate in the TESL program at the
University of Alberta, in Canada. Her main research interests are
second language vocabulary teaching and learning, pragmatic
development, and individual differences in second language
acquisition.

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