Despite an increasing number of studies that explore language learning beyond the classroom (LBC), research examining LBC activities in relation to in-class learning is very limited. This paper investigates what kinds of LBC activities university students of Chinese and Japanese in Australia engage in and how they connect these activities to…

"The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment" (CEFR) (Council of Europe. 2001. "Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) has been widely accepted as a reference for aligning curricula, learning…

This study reports on the findings of a questionnaire administered to 93 students studying Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) at British universities, focusing on their views of the role of grammar in their learning of Japanese. Learners' views are important because mismatches with their teachers' views can affect their learning negatively.…

Recent research has studied teacher emotions vis-à-vis teachers' learning, practice, and identity development and called for teacher-learning practices to include an intentional focus on emotions. Responding to this call, I designed a teacher-learning activity called 'critical autoethnographic narrative' (CAN). I coached teacher candidates (TCs)…

The present study explores the effects of distributed practice by extending this area of research to L2 learning from audiovisual input. A total of 96 L1 Russian elementary to advanced learners of English watched five episodes of captioned TV series under three viewing distribution conditions: longer spacing of viewing once per week; shorter…

That 'a picture can stimulate a thousand words' aptly summarises the role of the visual in the field of language learning and teaching. The power of the image to generate language output has been widely acknowledged in the field of second/foreign language acquisition. Posters, diagrams, symbols and pictures are often found in language classrooms;…

The motivation to learn a third language (L3) has received increasing attention in research, especially with regard to how it evolves dynamically during the learning process. Underpinned by the L2 Motivational Self System [Dörnyei, Z. 2005. "The Psychology of the Language Learner: Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition."…

As language acquisition research supports the value of the interactive scaffolded environment and awareness-raising communicative tasks for the development of pragmatic knowledge, the present study attempted to investigate the effect of Collaborative Translation Task (CTT) on learning and retention of request speech act strategies. The main…

Collaborative dialogue has been seen as an important aspect of L2 learning. However, the extent to which collaborative dialogue contributes to learning depends very much on the context in which it takes place. Informed by a sociocultural perspective of learning, this study investigated the nature of the collaborative dialogue between complete…

Despite English being a core and compulsory part of the curriculum for Chinese English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learners, it is nevertheless often highly challenging for them. This is partly due to the discrepancies between English's citation and spoken form and the lack of recognition this pronunciation receives within ESL classrooms. With this…

This study looks into the effect of L2 learning context and different types of L2 exposure on changes in the use of communication strategies (CS). Previous findings on the possible effects of study abroad (SA) experiences on the development of CS do not allow for a clear conclusion on the issue. The present study specifically compares the effects…

This study of second language idiom acquisition investigates the interaction of two factors, the L1 effect and the effect of supportive context in the L2 input, when both are available to learners. An experiment consisting of a pretest, a computer-assisted instructional treatment session and a posttest employed three idiom types that differed in…

The concept of learner engagement has traditionally been examined in the field of education and it has been found to be associated with positive educational outcomes. While several studies in second language acquisition have looked at learner engagement with corrective feedback, there is a dearth of research investigating its relevance to…

This study measured the effectiveness of three tasks (cloze, editing and writing) on the learning of phrasal verbs for students learning English as a foreign language (EFL). A total of 72 low-to-intermediate EFL learners were recruited. This study employed pre- and post-test designs. The performance of the learners who completed the three tasks…

Video viewing can be a valuable resource to expose students to large quantities of input so they can improve their vocabulary and content comprehension. Most studies so far have used short clips and have not explored in much detail the effects of individual differences (IDs) such as aptitude, listening skills and vocabulary size. This paper aims…