Achieving a sufficient IELTS band score for academic purposes has been a major goal of many L2 learners around the world, especially those in Asia. However, IELTS writing scores were consistently reported to be the lowest when compared to the scores in speaking, reading, and listening. Despite a growing body of research in IELTS writing, little…

Business schools in Asia frequently use English as the medium of instruction. One such school is the School of Business and Management (SBM) of the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) which is recognised as one of the leading business schools in Indonesia. Doubt had been expressed whether under current English language (EL) entry requirements…

This paper reviews the International English Language Testing System's speaking sub-test in the East Asia region with reference to theoretical and practice-based perspectives and identifies future research opportunities to enhance the measures of test qualities found. The test's construct validity was seen to accurately measure the abilities…

A writer's L1 is generally believed to influence their L2 English writing significantly. However, the extent to which L1 backgrounds influence Asian learners' L2 English writing has not been wholly elucidated due to the lack of data covering various learners in Asia. Therefore, this study analysed more than one-million-word essays written by 2,318…