While traditional English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms often lack context and authenticity, immersive virtual reality (iVR) provides a valuable alternative opportunity to practice and acquire the target language in a replica of the real world. The present study used iVR ("Immerse") for communicative tasks and investigated how…

This is a reflective piece theorizing my personal and academic experiences working with preservice teachers who are pursuing a Teaching English as a Second Language Certificate with immersion experience participating in a study abroad program teaching English to university students in Ecuador. Teaching predominantly white students as a woman of…

The learning process of English as a Foreign Language is a tricky challenge to face when it comes to deal with Spanish native speakers. Most of the time, people compare the structures and uses of both languages (the native and the target one), which causes an interference in the learning process and may result on failure or poorly achieved…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Extended Reality (XR) have been employed in several foreign language education applications to increase the availability of experiential learning methods akin to international immersion programs. However, research in multi-modal spoken dialogue in L2 combined with immersive technologies and collaborative learning…

Few studies have examined willingness to communicate (WtC) changes resulting from short-term intensive immersion programmes. This study investigated the antecedents to and changes in WtC during one such programme held at a Macau university. The programme required students to reside on campus and participate in extensive task-based communicative…

The native language use in the target language classroom has recently gained the attention of second language acquisition research. This study analyzes such issue in the context of Dominican university students, ranging from 18 to 35 years old, studying in an English immersion program, who have been speaking their native language, namely, Spanish…

Many language learners lack the motivation to read complex texts. Because high-immersion Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly reported to be highly motivating, the goal of our study was to compare English as a Second Language (ESL) learners' (N=79) motivation while reading a story with subtitles in VR (experimental group) versus reading the same…

This qualitative phenomenological study examined how 11 international students experienced learning English within an intensive English immersion program, which used an integrated skills approach for language learning. Participants included seven males and four females from Africa, Asia, Central America, Middle East, and South America. Drawing on…

This study details the development of a local test designed to place university Spanish students (n = 719) into one of the four different course levels and to distinguish between traditional L2 learners and early bilinguals on the basis of their linguistic knowledge, regardless of the variety of Spanish they were exposed to. Early bilinguals…

The following work consists of a comparative research of two of the most outstanding immersion programs for foreign languages (Russian/English) that Dominican college students have ever undergone. The first one, happened decades ago in the cold distant Union of Soviet Socialist Republic where thousands of our students were sent as scholarship's…

Study abroad destinations for Japanese students, particularly those aiming to improve their English language skills, tend to focus on the "Inner Circle" (Kachru, 1992) of English-speaking countries. However, over the last two decades, Korean and Japanese-owned English language schools in the Philippines started to appear, leading to over…

Critical languages refers to less commonly taught languages that the U.S. State Department has deemed necessary for U.S. national defense (Department of Defense 2000). In the current era of globalization and growing interconnectedness, the need for proficient speakers of critical languages has become increasingly urgent. While many foreign…

This study reports the results of a mixed methods approach to investigate the impact of instructor feedback in mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) on the grammatical development of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. The participants of this quasi-experimental study included 40 female EFL learners randomly selected from the English…

The critical importance of second language (L2) input, output, and interaction in TESOL notwithstanding, the decision between immersive (L2-English only) versus nonimmersive approaches is considered "the most fundamental question facing second language acquisition (SLA) researchers, language teachers, and policymakers" (Macaro, 2014, p.…

Virtual exchange projects have become an effective pedagogical method to support students' development of intercultural language competence. High-immersion experiences in Virtual Reality (VR) may offer an environment which is conducive to developing such competence. This paper reports on a pilot study carried out with two groups of university…