A sense of audience is important in the development of student writing (Many & Henderson, 2005). Research shows students need to consider an audience's attitudes, beliefs, and expectations to be effective writers (Midgette, Haria, & MacArthur, 2007). Therefore, students need learning opportunities in L2 classrooms to develop this ability.…

Rating scales for writing assessment are critical in that they determine directly the quality and fairness of such performance tests. However, in many EFL contexts, rating scales are made, to certain extent, based on the intuition of teachers who strongly need a feasible and scientific route to guide their construction of rating scales. This study…

In the literature of second language teaching and learning, the use of students' first language (L1) has been an issue of debate for many years. Despite the changing state of teaching and learning aspects over the years, the belief that L1 should not be used in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms has stood the test of time.…

This study mainly investigates the motivational characteristics of Chinese college students learning English for Specific Purposes (ESP). By critically examining and comparing Gardner's (1985) Integrative-Instrumental model and the Self-determination Theory (SDT) by Deci and Ryan(1985), the researcher finds out that the latter one is more…

In the epoch of globalization it is urgently important to draw attention to the problem of the formation of national self-awareness of school students. Numerous researches in the Russian Federation show that there is a tendency of cultural level decreasing, according to which a great many school students are not aware not only of the world's…

Chinese EFL learners may have difficulty in speaking fluent and accurate English, for their speaking competence are likely to be influenced by cognitive, linguistic and affective factors. With the aim to enhance those learners' oral proficiency, this paper first discusses three effective models of teaching English speaking, and then proposes a…

The present study is based on a previous pilot study (Gutiérrez-Colon, 2008). The present study aimed at widening the scope of the pilot study increasing the sample size in number of participants, degree courses and number of universities. This time, four Spanish universities were involved, and the number of participants was 197, who were…