The Direct Method, a pedagogical approach for teaching additional languages through immersion, emphasizes oral interaction and everyday language usage to facilitate language acquisition. This method discourages reliance on translation and minimizes emphasis on grammatical rules. However, a fundamental question arises about the effectiveness of…

The paper examines the relationship between EFL learners' first impressions of their instructors and their speaking performance. The study employed a mixed-methods approach, combining a test and a questionnaire to provide a comprehensive analysis. The participants were 81 EFL learners at Taif University. The results revealed that the correlation…

This study examines how three Chinese as a second language (CSL) teachers in a Chinese university setting appropriated the communicative approach through influences from their past language experiences. Although communicative pedagogy has been in place for decades, research reports that it still largely challenges teachers' conceptions of teaching…

Apology may be defined as "a compensatory action for an offense committed by the speaker which has affected the hearer" (Marquez-Reiter, 2000, p. 44), and a compliment is another speech act "which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker... which is positively valued by the speaker and the…

Discourse markers (DMs) as linguistic devices have a significant role in the coherence of conversation--a speakers' fluency. With the growing use of English worldwide, it is of great importance to focus on DMs as an essential part of communication which provides discourse coherence. This study was conducted to develop a description of spoken…

Contemporary research has reiterated the complexity of motivation as shaped by an array of personal and contextual elements. Drawing on a person-in-context relational view, the present study aims to explore learners' motivational constructions through their ongoing interaction with significant others such as teachers, peers, parents and extended…

The outbreak of COVID-19 forced the world population to find new ways to improve their productivity. It also significantly changed the course of education and instruction entirely. Like many students worldwide, adult English as a Second Language (ESL) students have been dramatically impacted by the sudden switch to online courses due to the…

Empirical research shows that language anxiety has a detrimental effect on foreign language learning and its use. Several studies suggest that anxiety related to mastering and using foreign languages is skill-specific. This study examined pronunciation anxiety and attempted to determine its significant correlates. The included factors ranged from…

This study aims to investigate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' misbehaviours in class and their students' reactions to these misbehaviours. Towards this end, 60 classroom observations of six English language teachers (N=10 each) were conducted at a public school in Jordan. Moreover, a survey was used to elicit 201 students' reactions…

This article describes an exploratory project in which a range of strategies taken from positive psychology were introduced in a university English language centre in order to enhance the wellbeing and happiness of staff and students. A brief overview is provided of the current scholarly landscape of positive psychology in English language…

This study sought to investigate (1) the perceived social self-efficacy (PSSE) levels of undergraduate English teacher candidates in Turkey, (2) the foreign language anxiety (FLA) levels of them, (3) the relationship between teacher candidates' PSSE and their FLA, (4) the effect of teacher candidates' gender and age on their FLA and PSSE, and…

The need to connect with learners is essential to successfully transfer learning. Thus, the medium of instruction plays a very important role. One indicator that would tell us if success is attained in teaching various subject areas is also influenced by the medium of instruction which is employed in the classroom. It is on this premise that the…

"Changing English" aims to illustrate the diversity of English in the world today and to ask whether, and how, ELT practitioners might accommodate such variation. Focusing on a particular language issue in each article, the series will explore how English varies between places and spaces, over time, and between groups of speakers. and…

The aim of this research project was to examine the impact of chatbots as conversation partners. First and second year Japanese university students (n=120) from a private university in Southwest Japan were randomly assigned to either conduct a speaking task with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot or human partner. Preliminary analysis of the…

Since its introduction to the field of modern language instruction, willingness to communicate (WTC) attracted much attention from researchers and practitioners. Since then, a large and growing body of literature has investigated the factors influencing language learners' WTC. Among the factors identified, individual factors were found to have…