The present study reports reading strategies of Arabic L1 EFL college-level learners at three reading ability levels: high, medium, and low. Thirty students were asked to take the reading section of the TOFEL to determine their reading abilities. Then two participants from each level were selected randomly to go through the think-aloud protocol…

English articles are thought to be complex, ambiguous and not salient in spoken language, which is why second language (L2) learners of English exhibit usage variability. Much of the L2 acquisition literature seems to agree that L2 learners are affected, one way or another, by their first language (L1). However, the debatable and controversial…

This study examined the relationship between negative pragmatic transfer and language proficiency with reference to the refusal speech acts as realized by Yemeni learners of English as a Foreign Language (henceforth referred to as YLEs). Forty Yemeni learners of English (20 of low proficiency level and 20 of high proficiency level) and 2 baseline…

This study investigates two models of L2 vocabulary acquisition at an advanced L2 level: L1 lemma mediation and the revised hierarchical models. Proponents of the L1 lemma mediation model postulate that advanced L2 learners map L2 words to L1 meanings or concepts, whereas proponents of the revised hierarchical model argue that the increasing…

This study investigated the effectiveness of integrating Student Team Achievement Division (STAD), a structured cooperative learning method, and "WebQuest," an inquiry-based technological model (IBTM) on developing university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students' advanced-level argumentative writing skills and enhancing…

The present study examined the reliability of the reading, listening, speaking, and writing section scores for the TOEFL iBT® test and their interrelationship in order to collect empirical evidence to support, respectively, the "generalization" inference and the "explanation" inference in the TOEFL iBT validity argument…

This study set to investigate the critical importance of integrating Student Team Achievement Division (STAD) and "WebQuest," STADIBTM for short, on developing the advanced-level argumentative writing skills of L2 English university students. The study employed a pre-posttest comparison of the experimental group (N=54) versus the control…

This study discusses the construct of oral reading fluency and examines its relationship to reading comprehension among adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners of four first language (L1) backgrounds. One hundred and forty-nine adult learners of English with Arabic, Japanese, Spanish and Chinese language backgrounds participated in this…

This study investigates the value of reporting the reading, listening, speaking, and writing section scores for the "TOEFL iBT"® test, focusing on 4 related aspects of the psychometric quality of the TOEFL iBT section scores: reliability of the section scores, dimensionality of the test, presence of distinct score profiles, and the…