The current paper intends to exploit the Many Facet Rasch Model to investigate and compare the impact of situations (items) and raters on test takers' performance on the Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) and Discourse Self-Assessment Tests (DSAT). In this study, the participants were 110 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at…

This study explores the effectiveness of Virtual Reality (VR) in Chinese as a second language (CSL) vocabulary learning from the international students' perspective. A new theoretical framework of VR-based vocabulary learning was designed and verified to serve the investigation. A total of 30 international students learning CSL in a Chinese…

In most universities in South Africa, English is still preferred as the medium of instruction. However, most schools in South Africa have adopted a home-language education approach. Those school students then have a lower English proficiency compared to other students from English schools. Providing these students with instructional assistance…

Given the significant global influence of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (CEFR) on English language education, this study deals with aligning a university's academic reading tests to the CEFR. It aimed at validating the test construct of the academic reading tests in relation to the…

Metacognitive awareness of listening strategies has a supporting role in explaining L2 listening comprehension. Although metacognitive awareness is language-independent, language proficiency may determine whether learners can utilize such a cognitive resource during multiple language development. The current study explores the listening strategy…

In recent decades, there has been an attempt to introduce the concept of "assessment for learning" into English language classrooms based on a belief that assessment can be utilized to assist learners in the learning process, not just for teachers to make judgments and decisions. In so doing, the learning-oriented assessment frameworks…

Language placement tests (LPTs) are used to assess students' proficiency in a progressive manner in the target language. Based on their performance, students are assigned to stepped language courses. These tests are usually considered low stakes because they do not have significant consequences in students' lives, which is perhaps the reason why…

Various examinations are administered at universities across the US as a means of assessing bilingual/multilingual international teaching assistants' (ITAs') proficiency in spoken English before they are permitted to teach. While such exams are taken by students in a range of academic disciplines, recent research suggests that communicative…

The article considers teaching English phonetics to future interpreters with mobile learning in the light of the competence approach. The authors analyse the possibilities of applying mobile learning as an additional source and demonstrates the feasibility of its implementation in teaching English phonetics. The primary aim of this research is to…

The study investigated the effect of marginal glossing and frequency of occurrence on the incidental learning of six aspects of vocabulary knowledge through reading in the second language (L2) Chinese. Participants were 30 intermediate L2 Chinese learners in an American public university. The MACOVA tests indicated that the treatment group who…

The teaching and learning of a foreign language is a complex process; since there has been a change in the pedagogy of the foreign language from a specific foreign language method to the measurement of linguistic performance and competence. In all areas of learning, motivation is essential to succeed. The aim of this study is to analyze the…

Although research about the effectiveness of second or foreign language collaborative writing for jointly written products has proliferated in the last few decades, there has been less examination of whether and how pre-task preparation could maximize the language learning opportunities that collaborative writing can afford learners. Informed by…

The study investigates to what extent English as a second language (ESL) learners develop explicit and automatised explicit knowledge of two target-forms (third person singular 's' and future conditional if-clause) after input and output based instruction and whether learning effects differ depending on the target forms. The study follows a…

This study investigated the efficacy of explicit lexical collocation instruction via the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). To improve competence in lexical collocation and writing performance and to examine whether collocational competence and writing performance have a linear interrelation, 16 international English for Academic…

This study aims to generate an analysis of how to encourage extensive listening in an English Preparatory Program with listening worksheets in an enjoyable way, to identify the learners' responses, and to establish the feedback from students which could provide more productive activities. For many of the students listening in target language is a…