World language teachers have historically relied on the notion of teaching methods to inform elements of design and procedure in their instructional practice. Teacher beliefs about teaching methods, however, have been shown to be significantly influenced by their context, including their institution and their learners. This phenomenon has led some…

This article recounts my experience in enhancing my students' boredom regulation by designing, implementing, and evaluating a strategy instruction project. The project was undertaken with 25 Thai university students enrolled in my English oral communication course for 15 weeks. The project began with exploring how and why my students experienced…

Needs analysis (NA) has long been argued to be the prerequisite for the design of language curricula or syllabi and the selection of tasks. According to Long (2005), a one-size-fits-all approach should be substituted by a careful examination of learners' needs in a particular domain or learner community. Despite the increasing practice of carrying…

Flow represents a state of complete involvement and heightened intensity that leads to improved performance on a task (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, 1990). The notion of flow has the potential to provide worthwhile insights into the area of task engagement, yet the construct has received relatively little empirical attention by second language…

A teacher's assessment literacy refers to her or his demonstrated understanding of the principles behind selecting and designing tasks, judging student work, and interpreting and using assessment data to support student learning. This study examines the development of the task design aspect of assessment literacy in 12 Chinese language teachers as…

Ability grouping--defined as a practice that places students into classrooms or small groups based on an initial assessment of their readiness or ability--has received considerable attention in educational research for years in many countries (Ireson & Hallam, 1999, 2001; Slavin, 1987). In Korea, ability grouping has been implemented in…