The popularity of using textbooks in second language programs in universities around the world continues to grow. Textbooks support teachers in their teaching by providing accessible materials and clear instruction. In addition, learners are guided by familiar lesson frameworks (e.g., beginning, middle, end) to guide their independent study…

The Multiple-choice (MC) item format is commonly used in educational assessments due to its economy and effectiveness across a variety of content domains. However, numerous studies have examined the quality of MC items in high-stakes and higher-education assessments and found many flawed items, especially in terms of distractors. These faulty…

This study was conducted to examine the needs of the students of cabin services program regarding English in order to guide the design of a vocational English language curriculum. The research design used in this study was the concurrent triangulation approach, one of the mixed methods models. This approach can be used when the researcher collects…

In higher education, understanding discipline-specific vocabulary can be challenging. Insufficient vocabulary can be a major challenge for students as they begin their university studies. This study examined university undergraduate English language learners' discipline-specific vocabulary retention when they used an in-house developed mobile app,…

In South Africa, inequalities endemic to HE systems worldwide are further compounded by apartheid legacies. Despite an intensive focus for over twenty years on how pedagogic intervention could be harnessed to address these inequalities, black students' participation and success rates in South African HE remain stubbornly low, suggesting a need for…

With anglophone countries now experiencing unprecedented levels of ethnic and linguistic diversity, it is considered increasingly important that young people learn to communicate in ways which are effective for the multilingual and intercultural contexts they live in, will work in and will travel to. One of the key vehicles for promoting and…

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…

South African higher education institutions, in line with international practice and as a result of the "social turn", are progressing towards mainstream academic literacy support for students. This shift has a political dimension in South Africa where, historically, disadvantage has had racial dimensions, in its departure from…

The demand for Spanish for specific purposes (SSP) university courses in the United States has prompted widespread curricular change in language departments over the last two decades (Klee, 2015; Sánchez-López, 2013). However, many instructors lack the tools and training needed to design SSP curricula that meet learners' communicative needs in…

These proceedings contain the papers of the 16th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2019), held during November 7-9, 2019, which has been organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) and co-organised by University Degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy.…

Thematic Progression theory explains textual meanings of how experiential and interpersonal meanings are organized in a linear and coherent way. Employing the rationale of T-P theory, this article analyses a lesson plan of teaching Explanation, and shows that T-P analysis can be employed in teaching writing.

A pilot experiment examined ambiguity in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learning by graduate and undergraduate students. The findings revealed that most ESL speakers have greatest difficulty in understanding sentences with derived-structure ambiguity. Underlying-structure ambiguity was the next most difficult to understand, followed by lexical…

College second language programs offer more to students than knowledge of the language. Language study can challenge students intellectually and creatively and contribute to their academic and social development, even when language study is begun at this level. Value is found in the substance, process, and outcomes of language study. (Author/MSE)

The standardization of second language proficiency levels for university students in Germany is discussed. Problems with the current system, in which each university has developed its own program of study and proficiency certification, are examined and a framework for development of a unified language certificate for all universities is outlined.…

A study examined the effects of formal and informal learning environments on the storage and recall of lexical items in the first and second languages, paying specific attention to laterality and accuracy rates for tasks of varying difficulty. The study used the dichotic listening task and subjects whose first language was English and whose second…