Studies have shown that informing language learners about the literal underpinning of idioms can help them to remember these expressions. It has also been suggested that prompting learners to guess the meaning of lexical items may be beneficial because it can pique their curiosity and promote cognitive engagement. In the case of idioms, the…

This quasi-experimental study compared the effects of Computer-assisted Hybrid Dynamic Assessment (HDA) and Interventionist Dynamic Assessment (IDA) on the development of organizational writing skills in L2, aiming to improve both assessment and instruction within Chinese EFL context. A total of 85 first-year university students in China…

The effectiveness of generative AI tools in education depends largely on prompt engineering--the practice of designing inputs and interactions that guide AI systems to produce relevant, high-quality outputs. This systematic literature review examines empirical studies published since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, identifying two broad…

Speaking is a challenge for most English learners owing to the lack of practicing environments and partners. The virtual reality (VR) technology has changed this situation by providing learners with rich opportunities for practice. In VR-based practicing environments, peer tutoring is a common strategy for promoting peer assistance. However, in…

Research shows that acquisition of writing skills can be supported by metacognitive strategy training. However, research on incorporating metacognitive guidance for collaborative writing is scarce. The current study explores the potential effectiveness of incorporating metacognitive prompts, that is, a form of metacognitive guidance, into…

Automated written corrective feedback (AWCF) tools play a crucial role in supporting English writing instruction. However, issues such as insufficient accuracy and hallucination have undermined users' trust in these systems. To address these challenges, this study investigates the potential of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) enhanced by…

This quasi-experimental classroom study examines the effects of recasts and negotiated prompts on oral interactions in a foreign language (FL) context where the instructional approach primarily focuses on grammar and accuracy. Ninety adult native speakers of Mandarin Chinese from two intact classes were randomly assigned to one of two experimental…

There is a growing body of research recognizing the relationship between learner strategy use and learning proficiency. The need for life-long learners with advanced learning skills and the ability to self-regulate has motivated this deeper exploration of the ways to enhance learner strategy use towards more self-regulated and skilful learners.…

Threats to construct validity should be reduced to a minimum. If true, sources of bias, namely raters, items, tests as well as gender, age, race, language background, culture, and socio-economic status need to be spotted and removed. This study investigates raters' experience, language background, and the choice of essay prompt as potential…

We explored whether task complexity, operationalized by the two types of writing prompts, affects EFL high school students' narrative writing in terms of syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, fluency, cohesion, and text quality. 32 intermediate EFL students who were randomly assigned to two prompt groups completed a written narrative task…

This study intends to contribute to L2 emotion vocabulary research by looking at the words that primary-school English as foreign language learners produce in response to prompts in a lexical availability task. Specifically, it aims to ascertain whether emotion prompts (Love, Hate, Happy and Sad) generate a greater number of words than non-emotion…

In language testing programs, different test forms are often used to administer the same test. Demonstrating the comparability of these forms is essential to avoid criticisms of potential test unfairness. However, studies with this objective are scarce. This study aims to investigate the extent to which the picture-prompt writing tasks of three…

Translanguaging, the movement between communicative modes and features of different languages, is becoming an established research tradition in content-focused second language learning contexts. Pedagogic translanguaging practices nevertheless remain under-applied and under-researched in foreign language instructional settings, whether…

Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners generally encounter difficulty in using some special rules of Chinese grammar because such grammar points do not exist in their native languages. CFL learners require an effective learning strategy to assist them in acquiring a greater understanding of Chinese grammar. Thus, we integrated a…

Recent research has shown that beat gestures (hand gestures that co-occur with speech in spontaneous discourse) are temporally integrated with prosodic prominence and that they help word memorization and discourse comprehension. However, little is known about the potential beneficial effects of beat gestures in second language (L2) pronunciation…