The performance characteristics of a new synchrotron x-ray powder diffraction beamline (I11) at the Diamond Light Source are presented. Using an in-vacuum undulator for photon production and deploying simple x-ray optics centered around a double-crystal monochromator and a pair of harmonic rejection mirrors, a high brightness and low bandpass x-ray beam is delivered at the sample. To provide fast data collection, 45 Si(111) analyzing crystals and detectors are installed onto a large and high precision diffractometer. High resolution powder diffraction data from standard reference materials of Si, alpha-quartz, and LaB6 are used to characterize instrumental performance.

While L2 vocabulary acquisition research is no longer ‘a neglected area’ (Meara, 1980), a lack of progress remains on some basic questions. One concerns the number of times a word must be encountered in order to be learned. Even using similar learning criteria, estimates range from six (Saragi, Nation, & Meister, 1978) to 20 (Herman, Anderson, Pearson, & Nagy, 1987). Another question concerns the types of contexts that are conducive to learning. Some studies have reported that rich, informative contexts are the most conducive to acquisition (Schouten-van Parreren, 1989), others that rich contexts divert attention from the lexical level and produce little acquisition (Mondria & Wit-De Boer, 1991). These phenomena were investigated in a vocabulary acquisition study with Quebec school-aged ESL learners at five levels of proficiency. First, learners read a text and were tested on its new vocabulary. Then, learned and unlearned words were compared for frequency of occurrence and level of contextual support. Frequency needs were found to be related to learner level, and contextual richness was unrelated to learning.

This study applied systematic meta‐analytic procedures to summarize findings from experimental and quasi‐experimental investigations into the effectiveness of using the tools and techniques of corpus linguistics for second language learning or use, here referred to as data‐driven learning (DDL). Analysis of 64 separate studies representing 88 unique samples reporting sufficient data indicated that DDL approaches result in large overall effects for both control/experimental group comparisons (d = 0.95) and for pre/posttest designs (d = 1.50). Further investigation of moderator variables revealed that small effect sizes were generally tied to small sample sizes. Research has barely begun in some key areas, and durability/transfer of learning through delayed posttesting remains an area in need of further investigation. Although DDL research demonstrably improved over the period investigated, further changes in practice and reporting are recommended. Open Practices This article has been awarded Open Materials and Open Data badges. All materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/jkktw. Learn more about the Open Practices badges from the Center for Open Science: https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki.

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The study explores the usefulness of the word family as the unit of counting in studies of lexical coverage and comprehension. It determines the proportion of texts covered by the various members of a word family, that is, basewords, inflected words, and derived words, and analyzes the contribution of the affixed words to lexical thresholds. This exploration was performed by a text analysis computer program called Morpholex that analyzes the entire lexis of an entered text, pulling out all words bearing prefixes and suffixes and counting the unaffixed words as basewords. We analyzed a variety of texts, academic and narrative, authentic and simplified, and calculated the number and percentage of basewords and affixes in each text. We also located the most frequent affixes in our text corpus and demonstrated which affixes and how many contributed to 95 per cent and 98 per cent text coverages. Our results show that reaching the lexical thresholds for reading does not require the knowledge of most of the derived words in a word family since a small number of frequent affixes will provide the necessary coverage together with the basewords and inflections.