The study aimed at investigating the effect of using WhatsApp-based learning activities on developing idiom knowledge among Saudi university English as a foreign language (EFL)students compared to conventional method. It also examined the students' perceptions towards the application of WhatsApp in idiom-learning. The rationale for conducting this…

With the development of language corpora, linguists have been able to identify how often specific words, phrases, and expressions are used, and in which contexts. However, applications of corpora in the wider domain of language teaching have remained limited. This article presents an approach to utilizing corpora, combining principles from…

This article reports on a language learning system and a program designed to help students with academic vocabulary in the New Zealand university computer science department. The system is a learner-friendly corpus-based tool that allows students to look up lexico-grammatical patterns of a given word in academic writing. The program, based on a…

While studies exploring the overall effectiveness of Data Driven Learning activities have been positive, learner participants often seem to report difficulties in deciding what to look up, and how to formulate appropriate queries for a search (Gabel, 2001; Sun, 2003; Yeh, Liou, & Li, 2007). "The Prime Machine" (Jeaco, 2015) was…

Idioms, because of their cultural and figurative aspects, cannot be readily comprehended and used appropriately; hence, they need to be taught explicitly by means of instructional materials in language classrooms. Knowledge of idioms constitutes an important component of learners' communicative competence (Bachman, 1990) since idioms as part of…

This paper examines whether and to what extent data-driven learning (DDL) activities can improve the lexico-grammatical use of abstract nouns in L2 writing. A topic-based corpus was compiled to develop concordance learning activities, and 40 Chinese students majoring in English were randomly assigned to a control group or an experimental group. At…

This paper proposes the identification and use of principle-based pedagogical patterns to help teachers to translate design principles into actionable teaching activities, and to scaffold student learning with sufficient flexibility and creativity. A set of pedagogical patterns for networked Second language (L2) learning, categorized and…

This paper reports an intervention study on Singapore primary five (fifth Grade) students' ICT (information and communication technology)-mediated Chinese idiom learning. We introduced "seamless learning" to the learning design, that is, the bridging of formal and informal learning, and individual and social learning, conforming to the…

This article focuses on children's language alternation practices in two primary school settings. More specifically we explore how participants (children and teachers) in episodes of language alternation invoke linguistic and social identities, thereby "talking into being" language and educational ideologies. The present study is based…

A current project is underway to develop a multimedia system that would support the teaching and learning of Chinese characters, as well as provide a platform for conducting research into the cognitive aspects of Chinese language acquisition. Although the number of commonly used Chinese characters amounts to thousands, there are many structural…