The rationale behind this special issue is to underscore the importance of studying instructional materials in context--that is, how materials and textbooks are used by teachers and learners. Research on teaching materials needs to reach beyond traditional 'armchair' analyses and evaluations to appreciate the place of instructional materials in…

This study aimed to compare the readability levels of the reading passages in the General Aptitude Test (GAT) and those of English textbooks for the Upper Secondary Level in Thailand. The corpus of the General Aptitude Tests (C-GAT) was compiled from 70 reading passages on GAT test papers from 2009-2021, and the corpus of English textbooks (C-ET)…

The field of Heritage Language has experienced a great deal of advancement in the past few decades. Much research effort has been dedicated to analyzing and understanding different aspects of heritage language speakers, but less work has been done in the topic of pedagogical approaches. The few recent studies on pedagogical approaches have focused…

The present article is a result of historical investigation into the cultural aspects of English language education in secondary schools of Ukraine in the 1930s-1980s, when Ukraine was one of the republics of the former Soviet Union. The course books, the school curricula and the articles published in scientific journals during this period built…

The imagination effect occurs when students learn better from imagining concepts and procedures rather than from studying them. Cognitive load theory explains the effect by better use of available working memory resources and increased productive, intrinsic cognitive load. The effect has been found in numerous empirical studies. However, in the…

This book investigates the content of the grammar syllabus typically employed in mainstream English Language Teaching. Using a mixed-methods approach, the author examines how the syllabuses used in coursebooks are actually constructed, how they evolved and how valid their contents are as a basis for teaching. The research reported consists of a…

This study investigated the role of orthographic information in the acquisition of non-native speech sounds by monolingual English listeners. Two potentially important orthographic variables were explored: Orthographic compatibility (whether the orthographic information supports or contradicts the distributional information) and orthographic…

This study tried to design a WhatsApp bot to be implemented in English language vocabulary learning context in Oman. 150 Omani English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students from three different proficiency levels were selected based on random sampling. To measure the effectiveness of the treatment, pretests, posttests, and delayed posttests were…

The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of utilizing graphic organizers to enhance Thai EFL students' reading comprehension abilities and their opinions regarding using graphic organizers for reading comprehension. To gather information from sixty-four upper secondary school students at a public school in Bangkok, this research…

This study aimed to evaluate the utility of artificial intelligence (AI) in improving the persuasive communication skills of online Master of Business Administration (MBA) students. In particular, this study investigated the influence of personalization through AI using the Google Gemini platform on conventional and online instructional…

This study addresses how Chinese learners of English as a second language (L2) perceive conversations in English materials as compared to speakers of English as a first language (L1). Data were collected through questionnaires completed by 48 participants (28 L2 English learners in China and 20 L1 English speakers in the UK), eliciting evaluations…

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of visual teaching material and resources in the development of Speaking Skills in the English language in Secondary level students in India. In the study, the experimental design with pre-test and post-test control groups was chosen. The research consisted of 82 secondary-level students. In order…

This study aimed to investigate the effect of using authentic materials on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' reading comprehension, reading motivation, and reading anxiety. In this study, 58 Iranian male EFL learners were selected and randomly assigned to an experimental and a control group. Both groups were pretested through a reading…

This study explores the perceptions of secondary school teachers about the use authentic material in Pakistani English language classrooms. For this quantitative study, data was collected through a survey questionnaire. The questionnaire was adapted from Yeung Ting-fai (2011) and was modified according to the needs of Pakistani educational system.…

This study explored the effects of three types of lexical tools (MOOCs, E-dictionaries, and lexical concordancers) and three types of lexical applications (technology-mediated communication-based applications (TMCA), Anki as an e-flashcard application, and WordUp as a dedicated lexical application) on learning academic core words among a sample of…