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Abstract-After years of neglect, vocabulary has now been accepted as crucial to be able to interact in the target language. However, it may also become a challenge for learners to master a sufficient amount of vocabulary. It is argued that the use of vocabulary learning strategies leads to effective vocabulary learning. Addressing this relationship, different studies have focused on probing the dynamics of vocabulary learning. In this sense, the current study attempts to examine this issue for EFL university students who are also preservice English teachers. It aims to investigate the relationship between their vocabulary learning strategy use and vocabulary size. For this purpose, a cross-sectional and mixed research design was adapted and 80 ELT majors from 1st to 4th year participated in the study. In the three-week data gathering process, three instruments were used to measure the participants' vocabulary size and vocabulary learning strategy use. The results demonstrated that the most frequently used strategy category was determination strategies although it did not have any effect on the participants' vocabulary size. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the participants' vocabulary learning strategy use, in general, significantly explained 17.8% of the variation in their vocabulary size.

In Turkey, first-year preservice English teachers learn L2 writing in at least two compulsory courses throughout their undergraduate ELT programs. This study, conducted in this context, intends to investigate preservice English teachers' perceptions about L2 undergraduate writing difficulty and their causal attributions for these difficulties. It also aims to examine the relationship between density/variety of perceived difficulty in L2 writing and writing scores. For these purposes, the case study approach was adopted. In order to answer three research questions, in-depth interviews were conducted with 26 first-year preservice teachers studying in the ELT department of a Turkish state university, and their firstmidterm writing scores were collected. According to the findings, firstly all the interviewees agreed that students in the program had difficulty while writing in L2. Secondly, the correlational analyses revealed a negative relationship between density/variety of perceived L2 writing difficulty and writing scores. Lastly, three main sources of perceived writing difficulty were identified: 1) student-based sources, 2) educational practices and tendencies and 3) lecturer-based sources. After all, the related inferences, discussions and suggestions about learning and teaching of L2 writing have been addressed based on the current findings.

Research in literature reports the importance of L2 vocabulary and syntactic knowledge on the learners' reading comprehension. In this regard, the current study investigated the role of vocabulary knowledge that is disunited into depth and breadth dimensions and syntactic knowledge in the reading comprehension scores of an advanced cohort of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. In particular, this study examined the relationship of vocabulary knowledge (with its two dimensions) and syntactic knowledge with reading comprehension scores of 30 Turkish EFL learners and the extent to which these knowledge types explain the variance in reading comprehension scores. Measures of vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, syntactic knowledge and reading comprehension were used. The data analysis procedure included the descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlations and multiple regression analysis. The results showed that the depth of vocabulary knowledge predicts the L2 reading comprehension the best when the effect of vocabulary size and syntactic knowledge is controlled. These findings are discussed at the end of the study with future research suggestions and limitations.

The processability account anticipates that learners will make more underpassivization errors than overpassivization errors since passivization entails more processing. Although one study on psych-verbs and a few on unaccusatives examined Turkish L2 learners’ acquisition, no research compared a single set of learners’ acquisitions of these verbs together from a processing point of view. In this regard, the current study aims to investigate whether the processing complexity of passivization influences acquisition of psych and unaccusative verbs. It also questions whether general accuracy levels in Grammaticality Judgement Task (GJT) and degree of familiarity with target verbs are related to their level of accuracy with individual psych and unaccusative verbs. 33 undergraduate-level university students performed on the GJT and a Word Familiarity Rating Task (WFRT). The GJT included 38 items with 12 sentences for psych-verbs, 12 sentences for unaccusative-verbs, 12 sentences for distracters and 2 sentences for examples. The WFRT was a survey questioning familiarity with 6 psych and 6 unaccusative verbs. To analyse the data, a set of nonparametric tests and descriptive statistics were used. The results revealed that learners performed mor The processability account anticipates that learners will make more underpassivization errors than overpassivization errors since passivization entails more processing. Although one study on psych-verbs and a few on unaccusatives examined Turkish L2 learners’ acquisition, no research compared a single set of learners’ acquisitions of these verbs together from a processing point of view. In this regard, the current study aims to investigate whether the processing complexity of passivization influences acquisition of psych and unaccusative verbs. It also questions whether general accuracy levels in Grammaticality Judgement Task (GJT) and degree of familiarity with target verbs are related to their level of accuracy with individual psych and unaccusative verbs. 33 undergraduate-level university students performed on the GJT and a Word Familiarity Rating Task (WFRT). The GJT included 38 items with 12 sentences for psych-verbs, 12 sentences for unaccusative-verbs, 12 sentences for distracters and 2 sentences for examples. The WFRT was a survey questioning familiarity with 6 psych and 6 unaccusative verbs. To analyse the data, a set of nonparametric tests and descriptive statistics were used. The results revealed that learners performed more accurately on unaccusatives than on psych-verbs. They did more underpassivization errors by accepting ungrammatical active constructions of psych verbs. Their performances on psych and unaccusative verbs went parallel with their general accuracy levels in GJT while their degree of familiarity with and accuracy level for two verbs do not correlate with each other.The results suggest that such factors as processability and L1 transfer seem to impact the acquisition. Keywords:Second language acquisition; psych verbs; unaccusative verbs; underpassivization; overpassivization. e accurately on unaccusatives than on psych-verbs. They did more underpassivization errors by accepting ungrammatical active constructions of psych verbs. Their performances on psych and unaccusative verbs went parallel with their general accuracy levels in GJT while their degree of familiarity with and accuracy level for two verbs do not correlate with each other.The results suggest that such factors as processability and L1 transfer seem to impact the acquisition. Keywords:Second language acquisition; psych verbs; unaccusative verbs; underpassivization; overpassivization.