Intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) are a valuable tool in language learning because they provide opportunities for authentic interaction. However, their effectiveness, compared with that of human interlocutors, in facilitating second and foreign language interaction has not been explored. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of IPAs…

Previous research has documented that students' reading comprehension performance in learning English as a foreign language (EFL) differs greatly between mobile-assisted and paper-based reading. The present study extends previous work by investigating whether reading cognitive load differs between mobile-assisted and paper-based EFL reading…

Over the past two decades, the Involvement Load Hypothesis (ILH) has become a popular buzzword in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Although applications of the ILH can improve students' learning of productive vocabulary, this effect appears to be transitory. Students' learning of productive vocabulary often fades over time, as shown…

Affordance refers to the opportunity available to a learning activity. Taking affordance as a theoretical and analytical construct, this exploratory study investigates learners' attitudes and the opportunities WeChat may provide for Chinese cultural knowledge (CCK) learning. The aim is to find out the potential new affordances and compare learners…

Owing to the plethora of user-friendly audio/video creation and editing applications as well as free full-featured hosting platforms, videoing and sharing has become a lifestyle of today's students. Utilizing these spontaneous practices, the current study examined the effects of digital media assignments (DMAs) and accompanying asynchronous…

Augmented reality (AR) deepens learning interactions by imposing digital information on top of physical settings. This study implemented an AR-enhanced theme-based contextualized learning and aimed to examine the effects of captions (non-caption, English caption and Chinese caption) and English proficiency (less proficient and proficient) on…

This article describes the development of "Bande à Part", a mobile music application (app) for second language (L2) learners of French. Our focus on the pedagogical use of music results from the reported benefits that it offers language learners (e.g., it encourages repetitive exposure to the L2 in an enjoyable way, it extends the reach…

We reviewed literature from 2007 to 2016 (March) on mobile language learning in authentic environments. We aimed to understand publications' trend, research focus, technology used, methodology, and current issues. Our results showed that there was increasing trend in the publications. Students' perceptions towards mobile learning technologies and…

This article reports on an exploratory study investigating mobile-assisted oral feedback in teaching Chinese as a second language (CSL). It is aimed at exploring the characteristics of mobile-assisted feedback on oral production with the smartphone social communication app WeChat as a case in point and examining learners' perceptions of…

This study examined university undergraduate English language learners' (ELLs) perspectives on an intervention, Word Matters, that aimed to enhance functional academic vocabulary learning critical to their cognitive academic language proficiency development (Cummins, 1989), a challenge faced by many ELLs in English-medium universities. This…

This study investigated whether the modality effect of content presentation modes on students' cognitive load and listening comprehension depends on the moderating effect of the learners' language proficiencies in a mobile learning context. One hundred and sixty-two students majoring in English in a technology university used personal digital…