Undergraduates are often advised to expand their discipline-specific vocabulary in order to cope with the rigor of reading and writing academic texts. For the students studying in English-medium settings, it is in their interest to acquire vocabulary in their disciplines as this is vital to academic success. While students recognize the importance…

Commercial e-learning courseware for English education has been widely used in Japanese universities as an effective tool to assist students in improving their overall English skills. The courseware that is described in this paper is believed to be useful for teachers to assess students' progress and evaluate their dedication to English study.…

This paper presents the prototype of a Mobile Language Learning Environment (MLLE) allowing learners of German at a Japanese university to map classroom learning content onto the pathways of their everyday lives, turning places they come by into mnemonic "loci", and thus changing their daily commute into a learning trail. Even though the…

In this technological era we live in, the educative scenario is changing rapidly and significantly due to the incorporation of the Internet. Therefore, education should pay special attention to society needs considering the information and communication technologies (TICs) essentially in the teaching process in order to make students ready for…

This paper reports on a research project in a university English as Foreign Language (EFL) program in Japan which explored ways to sustain active participation in e-learning tasks. The tasks were intended to improve students' scores on the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), a test used by businesses to make hiring decisions.…

According to a recent research carried out by Aruba Networks (2014) in the US, the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and UAE, 86% of all respondents have two or more devices that can connect to the internet, and nearly two thirds (64%) already own three or more mobile devices with this feature; another 39% own four or…

Foreign sign language instruction is an important, but overlooked area of study. Thus the purpose of this paper was two-fold. First, the researcher sought to determine the level of knowledge and interest in foreign sign language among Deaf teenagers along with their learning preferences. Results from a survey indicated that over a third of the…

Foreign sign language instruction is an important, but overlooked area of study. Thus the purpose of this paper was two-fold. First, the researcher sought to determine the level of knowledge and interest in foreign sign language among Deaf teenagers along with their learning preferences. Results from a survey indicated that over a third of the…

The development of both the materials for an intermediate-level hybrid German writing course and the software in a virtual learning environment for the course may be viewed as activity systems. Viewing the individual components of each system as interrelated enables us to conceptualize the complexities of the development process, which goes well…

EUROCALL 2013's theme was "20 Years of EUROCALL: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future." The conference seeked to establish an overview of EUROCALL's twentieth anniversary. As a professional organization, EUROCALL has been aiming, along its 20 years of existence, to promote innovative research, development and practice in the…

In this article, we set out to assess QuADEM (Quality Assessment of Digital Educational Material), one of the latest methods for evaluating online language learning courseware. What is special about QuADEM is that the evaluation is based on observing the actual usage of the online courseware and that, from a checklist of 12 different components,…

As Japanese uses three writing systems (hiragana, katakana, and the ideograms known as kanji), and as materials in the target language include all three, it is a major challenge to learn to read and write quickly. This paper focuses on interactive multi-media methods of teaching Japanese reading which foster learner autonomy. As little has been…

This study reports on the development of ESP (English for specific purposes) courseware for semiconductor technology and its integration as a "silent partner" into instruction. This kind of team-teaching could help overcome current problems encountered in developing ESP in Taiwan. The content of the material under discussion includes…

This paper describes the background, methodology, preliminary findings, and anticipated future directions of a large-scale multi-year randomized field experiment addressing the efficacy of ST Math [Spatial-Temporal Math], a fully-developed math curriculum that uses interactive animated software. ST Math's unique approach minimizes the use of…

This study reports on the development of ESP (English for Specific Purposes) multimedia courseware on oral presentations, and its integration into self-study learning and elective courses for students with different English proficiencies, as one solution to problems in ESP courses in Taiwan. The courseware design is based on Mayer's multimedia…