Many English language proficiency (ELP) tests used for university admissions and placement now include integrated writing tasks that require examinees to use external sources when writing. Integrated writing tasks improve test authenticity and impact, but they raise several validity questions, such as what academic language skills they engage and…

Although audience plays an important role in all models of writing, there has been little research on how second language (L2) writers conceptualize and address their audience during the writing process. This study starts to address this research gap by examining when and how L2 learners consider their audience while writing in L2, as well as the…

The Canadian Academic English Language (CAEL) assessment is a proficiency test for university admission. Most research has focused on the paper edition, not the recent computer edition (CE). Validity research on other proficiency tests found that relationships between proficiency scores and academic achievement measures can be tenuous because…

Previous research has shown that English regular past-tense forms are difficult to perceive, yet perception studies to date have used experimentally manipulated input, and none has investigated how contextual cues, beyond temporal adverbials, affect the perception of the regular past. This study investigated whether second language (L2) learners…

This study reports on how the affordances of the WebEx platform were used as multimodality resources during the negotiation of meaning by participants engaged in an English/Spanish eTandem video-conferencing exchange. The exchange involved five dyads of university students with an intermediate level of language proficiency. A total of seven tasks…

This study investigates the impact of self-reported level of English language proficiency, Language Teacher Education (LTE) qualifications, linguistic identity (e.g., non-native English speakers), and teaching experience on English language teachers' self-efficacy beliefs. Drawing on data from English language teachers in Ontario, a newly formed…

From the perspective of newcomers to Canada, using English as an additional language (EAL), this study explores how newcomers' interlocutors might impede workplace communication. Six participants speaking EAL and with a variety of language backgrounds shared their workplace experiences. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured…

Study-abroad programs tend to assume that their destinations are culturally and linguistically homogenous. However, Western English-speaking destinations, particularly metropolitan cities, have become increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse. Considering such sociolinguistic changes in these destinations, this research examines how…

Research on first language, second language, and multilingual socialization has flourished over the past three decades in many formal and informal educational contexts around the world. One relatively recent site for such research, particularly for multilingual students learning English as an additional language, is post-secondary institutions…

This article reports on a case study that investigates the learning preferences and strategies of Chinese students learning English as a second language (ESL) in Canadian school settings. It focuses on the interaction between second language (L2) learning methods that the students have adopted from their previous learning experience in China and…

Due to the growing number of plurilingual learners in the world today (Hammarberg, 2010), the present multiple case study examines four plurilingual participants' beliefs toward first language (L1) and second language (L2) mediation in the acquisition of French as a third language (L3). During a 16-week classroom-based study in a French university…

This critical ethnographic case study draws on Indigenous and minority students' process of learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Mexico. The study specifically focuses on students who enrolled in a program called "A Wager with the Future." The aim of the study is to identify and understand contributing factors in these…

This study examines the self-perceived speaking proficiency development of 204 learners of Japanese who studied abroad in Japan and analyzes connections between self-reported social network development, language use, and speaking development. Learners perceived that they gained the most in areas associated with the intermediate and advanced levels…

In recent years, researchers have become increasingly interested in the notion of spontaneous focus on form (FonF) (i.e., attention to linguistic forms that arise incidentally during meaningful communication). Previous research has indicated that such FonF is beneficial for L2 learning. However, this research has focused mainly on reactive FonF,…

This article reports on a pedagogical tool developed to facilitate effective inter-cultural communication in the workplace. We created pre- and post-instruction videos of a native speaker (NS) and non-native speakers (NNSs) in simulated job interviews. Initial interviews were examined for pragmatic difficulties, and one of the researchers also…