Listening is a major challenge for many English-as-a-foreign language (EFL) learners. Decoding training, which helps learners develop the ability to recognize words from speech, is frequently used to assist EFL learners. Although recent empirical studies on decoding training have provided positive evidence on its effectiveness in improving EFL…

Research on vocabulary acquisition in digital game-based learning has been increasing over the years, with advancements in technology giving rise to numerous learning alternatives in second language acquisition. As virtual reality gaming offers new opportunities to explore its effectiveness in language learning, it is thus important to investigate…

This study investigated how video caption type affected vocabulary learning and listening comprehension of low-intermediate Chinese-speaking learners of English. Each video was presented twice with one of the five caption types: (1) no caption (NC), (2) full caption with no audio (FCNA), (3) full caption (FC), (4) full caption with highlighted…

This paper examines whether a web-based training on English discourse intonation leads to better spontaneous speech quality for Mandarin Chinese speakers who reside in the U.S. and in China. The four-week fully online training consisted of meta-instruction videos as well as listening and speaking activities, including instant visual pitch contour…

An increasing amount of research has focused on the exploration of English as a Foreign Language teachers' technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK). However, in the field of native language teaching, such as Taiwanese, Hakka, Aboriginal languages in Taiwan, few studies have paid attention to understanding the teachers' perceptions…

This study investigates the impact on extemporaneous English-language first drafts by using Google Translate (GT) in three different tasks assigned to Chinese sophomore, junior, and senior students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) majoring in English. Students wrote first in Chinese (Step 1), then drafted corresponding texts in English (Step…

This study investigated the effects of Facebook and Twitter on foreign language (Chinese) learners' written production in both short- (10 days) and long-term (50 days) pseudo-experimental settings. Adopting two concepts (i.e. symmetric vs. asymmetric) from matrix theory in social network analysis, we categorized Facebook as a symmetric social…

Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners generally encounter difficulty in using some special rules of Chinese grammar because such grammar points do not exist in their native languages. CFL learners require an effective learning strategy to assist them in acquiring a greater understanding of Chinese grammar. Thus, we integrated a…

This paper reports on task interaction, task success and word learning among second language (L2) learners of different levels of word recognition from speech (WRS) proficiency who used a CALL application previously shown to be effective in the development of L2 WRS. Participants (N = 65) were categorised into three levels of L2 WRS proficiency…