There now exists an established body of work outlining the challenges international students can face as part of the acculturation process, including a range of academic and non-academic pressures to overcome. For many students, writing essays in academic English for the first time is problematic. This article considers pedagogical approaches for…

Over the decades, extensive research efforts have been directed towards classifying and evaluating motivational teaching behaviours. Recent calls in motivational research, however, have emphasised the need to investigate teachers' perspectives on how they develop effective motivational strategies so that implications for motivational teaching are…

This study investigates washback effects of IELTS test on university teachers' adoption of teaching materials in the classroom in China and see how a high-stake language exam affects their teaching practices and how they and their students perceive the effectiveness of the pedagogic adjustments. To this end, individual interview to five teacher…

High-stakes language tests are used around the world as a gatekeeping tool under the internationalization of higher education. However, the predictable aspect of the high-stakes language tests is seldom discussed, especially from students' perspectives. This study aims to address this gap by aiming to better understand how certain factors and…

This paper adds an organizational dimension to the body of literature on international student mobility. Existing studies examine push/pull factors and student motivations, neglecting that students' motivations and demands are not necessarily spontaneous, but can be shaped by external forces. Drawing on interview, archival and observation data…

This study explored the role of vocabulary breadth and depth in second language learners' performance in IELTS academic reading tests in China. Sixty-two Chinese learners of English as a foreign language completed a vocabulary size test, a vocabulary depth test, and an IELTS reading test. Results showed that vocabulary breadth and depth both…

An assumption underlying speaking tests is that scores reflect the ability to produce online, non-rehearsed speech. Speech produced in testing situations may, however, be less spontaneous if extensive test preparation takes place, resulting in memorized or rehearsed responses. If raters detect these patterns, they may conceptualize speech as…

This study used eye-tracking, in combination with stimulated recalls and reflective journals, to investigate L2 learners' engagement with automated feedback and the impact of feedback explicitness and accuracy on their engagement. Twenty-four Chinese EFL learners revised their writing through Write & Improve with Cambridge, a new automated…

In China, memorizing model texts from various sources including textbooks and other reference books is usually considered a legitimate learning practice by both teachers and students, especially when the students are preparing for high-stakes language tests, such as IELTS (International English Language Testing System). However, very little…