The teaching of critical thinking (CT) has become an important requirement in many English language classrooms at different educational levels, yet little is known about how teachers promote the learning of CT. This article reports on a qualitative study examining the ways in which two university English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in…

This classroom study evaluates the effectiveness of pre-teaching communication strategies before learners undertake an information-gap speaking task. A convenience sample of 67 first-year students taking mandatory English classes at a private Japanese university was subject to one of two instructional approaches. The experimental group (n=37)…

This quasi-experimental study investigates the effects of pre-writing (Pre-EI) and post-writing explicit instruction (Post-EI) on L2 learners' overall writing accuracy and errors at different severity levels. Situated within process-genre-oriented writing classrooms, a total of three intact groups (N = 101) were designated as two experimental…

As student creativity is increasingly emphasized in English as a Foreign Language education, it is necessary to consider instructional techniques to encourage it. This study examines the effectiveness of two instructional techniques on creative writing performance of English as a Foreign Language students in a South Korean university. These…

The languaging curriculum involves learning to strategically make use of available tools and resources to successfully do things with English for real-world purposes. In this article, we describe how languaging was implemented in a task where students communicate about a hobby of their choice on Reddit discussion forums. Over three weeks, the…

Pragmatics in the field of English language teaching has recently received increasing research interests, but studies on teachers learning to teach pragmatics are limited. The present study extends this research agenda by investigating how well second/foreign language preservice teacher education (SLPTE) prepares teachers to teach pragmatics.…

The spread of English throughout the world has led to the language acquiring the status of an international language and has also led to the emergence of many varieties of English in different parts of the world, commonly referred to as world Englishes (WE). In this regard, WE advocates are making efforts to raise awareness of English diversity…

This study investigated the efficacy of varying degrees of written corrective feedback (WCF) explicitness on the accuracy of revised drafts and new pieces of writing among learners of different proficiency levels. A total of 130 learners of English were divided into three proficiency groups (basic, independent, and proficient users), with learners…

Developing learners' intercultural communicative competence is considered to be one of the responsibilities of English language teaching professionals. This responsibility has become ever more challenging in today's globalized world, in which most intercultural communication occurs in English as a lingua franca (ELF) contexts, where a target…

Reflective practice (RP) has been widely promoted in many second language teacher education programs to foster pre-service teachers' pedagogical competence. However, the effectiveness of RP has often been questioned and challenged due to its lack of authenticity in practice. This Viewpoint paper focuses on the issue of authenticity of RP and how…

Peer review has been promoted for decades in order to engage students in the assessment process which then leads to better learning outcomes. This teaching pedagogy is relatively innovative in the Hong Kong language classroom because English as a Second Language (ESL) students are not aware of their responsibility in the language learning process…

This study investigates the effects of three word-focused exercise conditions on vocabulary learning. The exercises were developed based on the involvement load hypothesis. This study also explores how individual differences (e.g. second-language English proficiency level and working memory) affect vocabulary learning outcomes. A total of 180…

The growth of English medium instruction (EMI) programs at universities worldwide has raised questions about the implications of teaching through L2 English on students' content learning outcomes. This study examined the impact of four factors on students' academic success (e.g. content learning) in the Turkish EMI context: (1) students'…

Despite a growing focus on positive psychology in recent years, negative emotions have not ceased to play a crucial role in learning additional languages in the classroom. This paper reports a study that investigated one such negative emotion -- boredom -- as experienced by 115 advanced learners of English. They were asked to write a descriptive…

This article introduces the use of Internet-mediated joint construction (JC) to engage second language (L2) writers to participate in virtual classroom activities in an online teaching environment. Affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, schools and universities in the People's Republic of China were required to rapidly transit to remote…