The purpose of this study is to examine English new-language teachers' perceptions of online asynchronous and online synchronous professional development and teacher efficacy. English new-language students score significantly lower than others on standardized tests. This study analyzes online professional development for English new-language…

The recent world pandemic has highlighted the need for effective procedures to teach language in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) environments. Fully online and asynchronous classrooms are especially challenged when addressing learning to speak a foreign language toward greater communicative competence. Current CALL research is…

Informed by sociocultural theories, collaborative writing (CW), a writing activity that involved two or more writers who share and exchange knowledge and negotiate decision-making to complete a single written text (Storch, 2002, 2013), has been found to benefit the second language (L2) students' language learning by a substantial body of empirical…

The purpose of this research study was to gain insight into the experiences of secondary English asynchronous distance educators using Intelligent Agents (IA), a technology on the Desire to Learn platform (D2L), that allows for course personalization. The need for this study was made evident through an extensive review of the impact of teacher…

The outbreak of COVID-19 forced the world population to find new ways to improve their productivity. It also significantly changed the course of education and instruction entirely. Like many students worldwide, adult English as a Second Language (ESL) students have been dramatically impacted by the sudden switch to online courses due to the…

While recent research has shown that multimodal feedback and use of formulaic sequences (FS) are effective in improving student performance on writing tasks, there is a dearth of studies on the impact of these aspects on computer-based academic speaking assessments. This dissertation seeks to fill this gap by examining the impact of both…

Learning to speak a foreign language (L2) can be a challenging feat, made all the more challenging when done in only 50 minute, daily increments in class. Oral asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC) provides learners with opportunities to practice spoken communication and evaluate their practice outside the classroom. In this…

This dissertation aims at investigating the speech act of disagreement as it is carried out linguistically in an English-language asynchronous online forum between unacquainted Americans and Thais (TEFL and TESL). The analysis and interpretation of the data are based on both "emic" and "etic" perspectives, in the framework of…

The evidence is overwhelming; affective factors, in particular anxiety, do affect students who are learning a second or foreign language. Foreign language anxiety can affect students' achievement and desire to continue their studies. Instructors want their students to succeed and want them to continue. Therefore, finding ways to reduce this…

Research has shown that simply linking learners from different countries using technology does not automatically bring about learning benefits; instead it frequently ends in tensions that, if not addressed, could potentially hinder learning. Using the lens of Vygotsky-inspired sociocultural theory, activity theory, and Engestrom's activity systems…

This research study compared the effects of three instructional methods--collaborative synchronous online communication, asynchronous online communication, and independent study as traditional in grammar translation method--in English reading comprehension. A quasi-experimental research design included pre and post reading comprehension tests for…