Metaphors situated within critical reflections provide powerful insight into how preservice teachers (PSTs) understand their experiences and the world around them, particularly in areas like writing which is consistently understudied in teacher education programs. The present qualitative study uses metaphor data from Fall 2021, Spring 2022, and…

In spite of the fact that task-based language teaching (TBLT) has been extensively researched in both experimental and authentic contexts, there is a scarcity of research on TBLT in the area of pre-service teaching. Our current study seeks to help fill this gap via the examination of the attitudes of thirty-nine pre-service teachers -- after an…

English as a lingua franca (ELF), a shared contact language of communication for speakers from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, has become a common phenomenon in a globalized world. Central to ELF interactions is the ability to negotiate meanings drawing on a broad range of cultural repertoires and linguistic resources. Helping ELF…

Little is known about the integration of current neuroscience knowledge to classroom teaching, although many teachers rely on neuromyths to shape their pedagogies. Through a professional development approach, the learning study, we explored how teachers learned to apply neuroscience to teaching instruction. The teachers collaborated to design,…

There are grounds for believing that prompting language learners to infer the meaning of new lexical items is beneficial because inferring the meaning of lexical items and verifying one's inferences invites more cognitive investment than simply being presented with the meanings. However, concerns have been raised over the risk that wrong…

Metaphors are well-known tools for teaching statistics to novices. However, educators might overlook metaphor theoretical developments that offer nuanced and testable perspectives on their pedagogical applications. This article introduces the notion of metaphor types--"correspondence" (CO) and "class inclusion" (CI)--as…

Idioms are a colourful and fascinating aspect of English which are commonly used in all types of language, formal and informal, spoken and written. Despite the emerging theoretical accounts of idioms up to now, little attention has been paid to teaching and learning idiomatic expressions in English as a Foreign Language, English for Specific…

The current study examines the cognition of reading instruction held by teachers of Japanese as a second or foreign language (L2 Japanese) working mainly in Japan, New Zealand, and the US. The study reports findings obtained from two data collection methods: interviews and metaphor elicitation contained in a questionnaire. The researcher…

Within the currently diverse UK higher education environment, one important aspect of learning is the development of intercultural competence. The study that informs this paper investigated the ways intercultural competence was perceived as being enhanced or inhibited through current language and educational practices at a university that…

It is evident from the PISA 2018 results that a trend in mean performance in reading has been declining in the Slovak Republic. The KEGA Project "Idioms in Business Communication", run at the Department of English Language, aims at improving reading literacy, widening formal and informal vocabulary and facilitating business…

This pilot study explores the effectiveness of a strategy for overcoming post-primary students' misconceptions within the topic of algebra. Although central to the study of mathematics, algebra can be an area of difficulty for many students. A misconception is typically classified as flawed understanding of a concept causing repeated errors, and…

This study of second language idiom acquisition investigates the interaction of two factors, the L1 effect and the effect of supportive context in the L2 input, when both are available to learners. An experiment consisting of a pretest, a computer-assisted instructional treatment session and a posttest employed three idiom types that differed in…

Languages differ in their preferences for particular intensifying constructions. While intensifying adjectival compounds (IACs) (e.g. "ijskoud, ice-cold") are productively used to express intensification in Dutch and English, in French this construction is hardly productive. Consequently, French-speaking learners may encounter…

This paper examines the motivations of Chinese learners of Japanese across three different grades through Elicited Metaphor Analysis and semi-structured interview. Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 Japanese majors (55 in total) in a Chinese university were asked to produce metaphors that reflected their motivations to learn Japanese. The metaphor data…

Political, socio-economic, ideological matters of a new century set special requirements to immediate change of traditional approach to studying foreign languages. Academic mobility, integration in world scientific-educational space, creation of optimal educational system and programs allow efficiently solve the tasks aiming at qualitative…