Despite widely reported 'Mainland-Hong Kong conflicts', recent years have witnessed progressive growth of Mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong universities. This study aims to explore the role of Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in the cross-cultural adaptation of such a group of sojourning students. Structural equation modelling showed that the…

This is a comparative study that examined the relationship between the Big Five personality factors and English language speaking anxiety among Moroccans (N=270) and Koreans (N=257), who completed the International Personality Item Pool Big Five Inventory and the English Language Speaking Anxiety Scale. The results indicate that Openness and…

Chinese students are frequently seen as passive learners because of their apparent reluctance to speak, particularly in English classrooms. However, this impression seems to reflect a stereotype which is likely to confound willingness to communicate (WTC) and communication behaviour. In this article we argue for more attention to be paid to…

Recently, second language (L2) instruction has benefitted from the development of instructional technology such as synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC). The present study was conducted to investigate learner perception of the effectiveness of SCMC interactions for L2 learning and building intercultural competence. Students (n = 55)…

Previous studies found that girls have higher academic achievement than boys in most school subjects. Teachers' grading of academic achievement seems to be based not only on students' knowledge but also their social skills, and teachers tend to assess girls as having better social skills than boys. The main aim of this study was to examine through…

National cultural distance is considered to be a strong predictor of language learners' pragmatic competence. To test the actual effect of national cultural distance on pragmatic competence holistically and comprehension and production aspects of pragmatic competence discretely, the current study was conducted on two groups of undergraduate…

This study aimed to identify the underlying dimensions of acculturative stress that Chinese international students may encounter in the U.S. In addition, we re-examined students' background characteristics and perceived social support from family, friends, and their school as predictors of students' different dimensions of acculturative stress. In…

Acculturation and linguistic factors were examined as predictors of self-esteem and language confidence among 91 international college students. The majority of participants were Asian (64.8%), female (59.3%), and graduate students (76.9%). Assimilative (adopting host cultural values) and integrative (blending both host and home cultural values)…

A quantitative study was conducted to measure the acculturative stress of international students and investigate the predictors of acculturative stress. A total of 186 students participated in the survey. Results showed that 22.4% of the students in this study exceeded the normal stress level and might need counseling or psychological…

In Europe there is a growing concern among educators and policy makers that students are not well-prepared to start a Master programme. This study draws on longitudinal research conducted at four universities in the Netherlands and a follow-up exploratory purposively chosen from one of the study sites. In Study 1, differences in academic…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine sentence-recognition performance for a large, diverse group of nonnative speakers of English on the recently developed Basic English Lexicon (BEL) sentence materials and to determine whether BEL sentence lists are equated in difficulty for this population. Method: The BEL sentences were presented…

With the increasing number of international students travelling to well-developed countries for higher education, there has been a growing interest in exploring the factors that influence their academic performance during their overseas studies. This study aims to give an insight into international students' learning experience by investigating…

The educational plight of Latino students in the U.S. is an increasing concern given the low achievement and attainment status of this population. Although many risk factors associated with underachievement are difficult to alter, parent educational involvement has been shown to positively impact learning outcomes. In this study, parental home-…

This study was designed to explore the acculturation experiences of military-related immigrant wives enrolled in an ESL program in a selected community college. More specifically, the purpose of the study was to understand the personal and structural forces that facilitated or hindered their acculturation process into their community of residence…

This study explored L2 literacy ability and intercultural sensitivity of Korean late elementary to early middle school students learning English as a foreign language. This study investigated the latent variable structure of L2 literacy abilities, including fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing abilities, and intercultural…