This paper compares direct measures of content knowledge for students studying Chemistry through English Medium Instruction (EMI) and Japanese Medium Instruction (JMI). It also examines a range of contextual differences between the two mediums of instruction. A total of 53 undergraduate students undertook pre-post course content tests at a…

Although Black students made up 15.7% of all enrollments in higher education in the fall of 2021 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022), they constituted only 4.1% of all Americans studying abroad in the 2020-2021 academic year (International Institute of Education, 2022). Recent research has begun to turn toward a more qualitative investigation of the study…

This paper explores differences in 437 learners' "foreign language classroom anxiety" (FLCA) in in-person and online English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes before the outbreak of the pandemic and during the first lockdown in spring 2020. Statistical analyses of data gathered with a web survey revealed a slight, yet significant drop…

This longitudinal mixed-methods case study aimed to explain why a seemingly ordinary U.S.-affiliated hyper-connected French language learner (Nancy) achieved extraordinary outcomes after 15 weeks in Paris, compared to fifteen Generation Z peers also enrolled in the program. Framed by Complex Dynamic Systems Theory and social pedagogies, the study…

This study explored the effects of technology-mediated task-based language teaching (TMTBLT) in an English as a foreign language (EFL) writing course on students' descriptive writing performance. A quasi-experiment was conducted. Students in two writing courses were recruited and randomly assigned to an experimental or control group. The…

Bilingualism appears to be related to poor language and reading comprehension in the instructional language (L2). However, in the long term, an early age of second language acquisition (AoA) may produce higher levels of second language skills than a later onset of L2 exposure. Most studies on school-aged second language learners (L2 learners)…

This study examined the sources of reading comprehension difficulties in English language learners (ELLs). The characteristics of ELL poor comprehenders were compared to their English as a first language (EL1) peers. Participants included 124 ELLs who spoke Chinese as an L1 and 79 EL1 students. Using a regression technique based on age, non-verbal…

The purpose of this study was to examine how classroom language contexts characterized by peer language skills and proportions of dual language learners (DLL) influenced English language development for DLL and non-DLL children. Participants were 2,131 children from 135 classrooms across preschool through Grade 3. Children were classified into…

Dynamic shifts of language learners' willingness to communicate (WtC) have been investigated in a number of studies with a view to establishing the impact of various cognitive, affective, social and contextual factors. Looking into such influences in the context of a language classroom gives an opportunity to identify variables that might remain…

Children from lower socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds tend to be at-risk for executive function (EF) impairments by the time they are in preschool, placing them at an early disadvantage for academic success. The present study examined the potentially protective role of bilingual experience on the development of inhibitory control (IC) in 1146 Head…

This research brief provides an analysis of 2017-2018 AISD student data, showing significant gaps in school perceptions and experiences of transgender and gender-nonconforming students relative to their peers, illustrating the need for additional policies and procedures to support AISD transgender and gender-nonconforming students. A separate full…

This article compares the experiences of Cantonese-speaking students from Hong Kong's Chinese- and English-medium schools when adjusting to the demands of English-medium degree studies. The participants in this mixed-methods study were members of the first cohort to undertake the new four-year undergraduate programme. The findings of a large-scale…

This article reports the results of a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach to explore the impact of online peer-editing using Google Docs and peer-editing in a face-to-face classroom on EFL learners' academic writing skills. As the study adopted a quasi-experimental design, two intact classes, each with ten EFL learners, attending an…

This study investigated the use of comics (Cary, 2004) in a guided writing experience in secondary school Italian language learning. The main focus of the peer group interaction task included the exploration of visual sequencing and visual integration (Bailey, O'Grady-Jones, & McGown, 1995) using image and text to create a comic strip narrative in…

This article examines the nature and influence of peer group perceptions on pupils' attitudes to learning German and French. It begins with an overview of key findings from the literature, before reviewing selected results from a large PhD attitudinal survey using a multi-stage qualitative research design. The article focuses on the perceptions of…