This study compares two leadership styles, emergent leader (EL) and assigned leader (AL), to explore effective leadership in second language (L2) group work. ELs were spontaneously chosen by the group, while ALs were pre-assigned by teachers before the task. The study involved 45 university students, who were divided into seven EL groups (n = 21)…

This study quantifies second language (L2) knowledge of aural single words and aural phrasal verbs (PVs) and investigates their relationship with L2 listening comprehension. An aural first language (L1) meaning recall test format was used to measure knowledge of 81 single-word and 81 PV target items (with equivalent frequencies of occurrence)…

This research and development study aimed to develop the prototype of virtual learning implemented in flipped classrooms and evaluate its effectiveness as a tool for developing Thai undergraduates' English receptive skills. To assess if the designed prototype is effective, a quasi-experimental method was employed. The experimental sample group…

This paper studies the use of Reinforcement Learning (RL) policies for optimizing the sequencing of online learning materials to students. Our approach provides an end to end pipeline for automatically deriving and evaluating robust representations of students' interactions and policies for content sequencing in online educational settings. We…

University classrooms are increasingly populated by students with diverse nationalities and native languages (L1). The growing number of students in English-led classrooms who speak English as a second or lower language (L2) may face added difficulties in understanding the specific task objectives or directions, as explained by native-…

Many university students in Taiwan have complained that the general English class is not very exciting nor useful for the workplace due to its exam-oriented and teacher-centered instruction focus. Such negative impressions often lead to a low motivation toward learning English and affect students' learning outcomes. This study aimed to establish…

English is increasingly being used as a medium instruction in business education at the tertiary level, with its growth fueled by university internationalization. As a result, many students enrolled in English medium business programs are learning through a second or foreign language, with variant levels of prior knowledge and experiences. This…

This study examined the effects of bottom-up instruction (BI) on a high-stakes listening test for second language (L2) listeners and compared these effects with those of strategy instruction (SI) in relation to their proficiency levels. Two intact classes (48 L2 listeners) of different L2 listening proficiency levels received five weeks of BI and…

Few studies on higher education focus on how English as a Foreign Language (EFL) college students may enhance their global literacy through cross-cultural communication. This mixed methods research reports on a blended learning program with cross-cultural communication to foster EFL college students' global literacy. A sample of 97 EFL college…

The present study investigates South Korean university students' personal computer (PC) and smartphone usage patterns on an online Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) website using learning analytics. A total of 107 students taking a "College TOEIC" course participated during one academic semester and records of their…

This study adopts a qualitative method in comparing EFL students' development of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive strategy use in a university flipped classroom, as opposed to a regular classroom context. A total of 8 students (4 from each class) were each interviewed twice, once at the beginning and again at the end of the semester, in…

Purpose: This study builds a new system for automatically assessing learners' speech elicited from an oral discourse completion task (DCT), and evaluates the prediction capability of the system with a view to better understanding factors deemed influential in predicting speaking proficiency scores and the pedagogical implications of the system.…

The issue addressed here concerns how second language (L2) speaking strategies mediate the relationship between L2 writing strategies and the social presence component of the community of inquiry (CoI) framework within the context of fully online courses that combined learning management system (LMS) for writing tasks and videoconferencing for…

This study investigated phase transitions in EFL students' speech fluency development using a complex dynamic systems perspective. Two students with different proficiency levels were selected from an intact speaking class. These students learned and practiced specific strategies to improve their speech fluency. Phase transitions were analyzed…

The purposes of this study were to (1) investigate the language learning strategies used for improving English language skill of the high achieving non-English major lecturers at Kalasin University and (2) investigate the motivation used for improving their English language skills. The sample comprised eight non-English major lecturers. They were…