The system of second person singular forms of address (2PS) in Medellín, Colombia is tripartite consisting of "tú, vos," and "usted," while also including the existence of a dual "usted." The current study compares usage of the intimate "usted" versus the distant "usted" with data from an oral…

This paper contains a new analysis of gender differences in early grade reading and mathematics outcomes in 19 USAID-funded studies over the past decade from 14 locations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The paper addresses gaps in the literature related to learning patterns for girls and boys in lower- and middle-income…

The German school system employs centrally organized performance assessments (some of which are called "VERA") as a way of promoting lesson development. In recent years, several German federal states introduced a computer-based performance testing system which will replace the paper-pencil testing system in the future. Scores from…

This sociophonetic study examines affricate variation through a continuous lens using diachronic data from Caracas Spanish. We investigate the relationship between frication and occlusion period duration in affricate segments across two steps. First, we present a phonetic characterization of the dependent variable and its variants. Second, we…

Spoken English Competency (SEC) remains a critical weakness in English Proficiency (EP) of Chinese college students, particularly when compared with their English competency in writing and reading. Despite years of English learning since elementary school, Chinese college students often struggle to master SEC. Although previous studies have…

The study examined storytelling prosody (i.e., prosodic variations in retelling a story) and the relation with oral language in Taiwanese preschool children. One hundred and twenty-eight preschool children aged 4 and 5 were recruited and given the following tasks: nonverbal intelligence, vocabulary, syntax, and storytelling prosody. Children's…

Speaking skills, being an essential part of effective communication, are significant for English as a foreign language (EFL) student in today's globalized world, and collaborative learning, being heterogeneous, assists them with more possibilities for enhancing and practicing the skills through a supportive environment, constructive feedback, and…

This research study aimed to explore the speaking anxiety of Turkish learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) and its relation to EFL speaking self-efficacy, fear of negative evaluation (FNE), self-perceived English speaking proficiency, and gender. 293 (132 females, 161 males) university-level EFL students completed the EFL speaking…

The study aims to investigate the impact of implementing the Numbered Heads Strategy on developing oral expression skills among Arabic learners who speak languages, as well as their attitudes towards this teaching method. The research involved 50 participants, both male and female, at the fourth level of a language center within Al al-Bayt…

E-learning opens a new horizon within educational contexts worldwide. Previous studies showed a dearth of research identifying EFL teachers' perceptions of EFL learners' hardships in speaking skills. Hence, this article investigates the Jordanian EFL teachers' perceptions of the current challenges of learning speaking skills EFL learners…

This study developed a structural path model that explained economics students' academic adjustments using teachers' feedback and students' engagement, taking cognisance of the moderating effects of students' gender. This study used a correlational research design. Through random sampling, 150 participants were recruited for this study. The data…

This study is situated within a male-dominated Palestinian-Israeli reality rife with issues of gender privilege. With a purpose to disrupt the status quo in my language classroom and positively affect students' beliefs towards gender injustices, I, as a teacher researcher, designed a unit on gender issues including a book set that would challenge…

This study aimed to reveal preservice Turkish Language teachers' attitudes toward the use of Anatolian dialects in education in terms of their genders and years at university. The participants of the study are 201 preservice teachers who are 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th-year students studying at Turkish Language Teaching undergraduate program at Tokat…

Purpose: This study reports on how very old (VO) Finnish people without dementia perform in the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) and two verbal fluency tasks and which demographic factors predict the performance. Method: The study included fifty 80- to 100-year-old community-dwelling Finnish speakers with no dementing illnesses or speech-language…

A number of factors among schoolchildren in England are currently contributing to poor attitudes towards speaking in the modern foreign languages (MFL) classroom. Although multiple explicit strategy-based instruction (SBI) intervention studies have appeared in recent years, very few studies have focused on its effect on oral skills and, in…