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…

Many learners of English as a foreign language often feel that learning spoken English is frustrating and quite difficult, especially when they have to talk to English-speaking foreigners. In general, because they are unfamiliar with the spoken mode of English and are worried about making grammatical errors, they often feel very scared to speak…

As intercultural learning has been increasingly regarded as essential in higher education, researchers have promoted it through integration of digital storytelling into cultural exchange activities. However, most studies have focused on the utilization of only one language whereas the effects of multilingual digital storytelling on students'…

With advances in technology, intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) have become available to assist users with a variety of tasks using voice commands. Because IPAs may induce dialogic interactions, researchers speculated that they may benefit second language learning, especially regarding pronunciation, listening and speaking skills. So far, very…

With the goal of enhancing the competitiveness of students in the workplace, nearly two-thirds of technical universities in Taiwan have adopted a variety of standardized English proficiency tests as exit requirements, including the widespread use of TOEIC. However, employers still name "insufficient English proficiency" as one of the…

This research sought to investigate EFL nursing students' use of vocabulary learning strategies to learn medical terminology and further assess strategies used in relation to learning outcomes measured by two types of vocabulary knowledge: meaning recall (passive recall) and meaning recognition (passive recognition). The participants, 138 EFL…

This study examined the effectiveness of guided data-driven learning (DDL) activities on helping technological university students with a lower-intermediate proficiency level to learn grammar and vocabulary topics for the TOEIC test. The question of whether inductive learners make more progress than deductive learners was also addressed. A total…

This study, an 18-week comparative experiment, examined the effects of instruction in test-taking strategy in English as a foreign language reading class. It involved an experimental group (68 students) taught test-taking strategies and a control group (66 students) that did not receive the instruction. Various means were used to investigate the…

This study uses online surveys and phone interviews with Taiwanese college students to investigate their perceptions of using the "TOEIC"® test scores to meet an English-language graduation requirement. Results indicate that students have positive views about the use of the TOEIC test scores for graduation and believe that preparing to…

The aim of this study is to investigate Taiwanese undergraduate students' perception of using computer-mediated communication (CMC) in a TOEIC preparation course and determine if using an online format motivates them to succeed. As a result, five factors are addressed in the study, namely, attitude, motivation, study habit, feedback, and…

This paper investigates college students' English language learning through use of Dr. Eye Android handheld mobile Internet device (MID). Compared to related studies, students' English learning using MIDs has not been evaluated and fully understood in the field of higher education. Quantitatively, the researchers used TOEIC pretest and posttest to…

This paper reports the compilation of a corpus of Taiwanese students' spoken English, which is one of the sub-corpora of the Louvain International Database of Spoken English Interlanguage (LINDSEI) (Gilquin, De Cock, & Granger, 2010). LINDSEI is one of the largest corpora of learner speech. The compilation process follows the design criteria…

The study aimed at investigating TOEIC score distribution patterns and learner satisfaction in an intensive TOEIC course and drew implications for pedagogical practice. A one-group pre-test post-test experiment and a survey on learner satisfaction were conducted on Taiwanese college EFL students (n = 50) in a case study. Results showed that the…

In much of the world, the issue of accountability and measurement of educational outcomes is highly controversial. Exit testing is part of the movement to ascertain what students have learned and hold institutions and teachers to account. However, compared to the large number of teacher washback studies, learner washback research is lacking…

Current literature points to the importance and benefits of extensive reading. Extensive reading provides contextualized clues for better reading comprehension (Krashen, 1982), and substantial linguistic input (Bell, 1998) needed for language development. Several studies have found a correlation between extensive reading and specific linguistic…