Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) has recently attracted the researchers' attention in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context; however, insufficient studies seem to have examined the role of online programmes in enhancing EFL learners' ICC. The current study, therefore, employed a mixed-methods approach to explore EFL learners'…

This study investigated the relationship between a metaphor-based approach to teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) and involvement of the brain's right hemisphere. Specifically, it examined learners' understanding of three levels of sureness associated with different expressions in English -- those that are "certain,"…

This research analyzes the acoustic characteristics and conducts a perception test of Thai tones produced by Chinese learners learning Thai through the "Thai Tone Application". A comparison of Thai tones pronounced by 40 Chinese learners learning Thai at Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University with 40 Thai native speakers was also…

Various explanations have been put forth for the asymmetrical acquisition of tense and aspect morphology across categories of lexical aspect. This experiment tested the adequacy of a subset of such accounts by examining English native speakers' (n = 40) use of progressive and past tense morphology within activity and accomplishment verb frames…

This article describes the design and application of a computer-based system for simultaneously teaching Korean, English and Japanese languages in a classroom setting using knowledge visualization techniques to show the relationships between vocabularies, grammars and meanings. The system consists of a knowledge database of Korean, English, and…

Many people want to learn a foreign language, but issues of time, convenience and cost mean that classes are often insufficient for learners, and increasingly learners are supplementing or replacing their classroom learning with online learning. The majority of existing online language learning systems use the traditional grammar-translation…

The present study investigated the effects of instruction on the use of the definite article "the" by Japanese learners of English by implementing two instructional treatments that varied in the extent to which they emphasized identifiability and accessibility. One instructional treatment, referred to as the traditional (TR) treatment,…

To better understand the promising effects of data-driven learning (DDL) on language learning processes and outcomes, this study explored DDL learning events enabled by the Research Writing Tutor (RWT), a web-based platform containing an English language corpus annotated to enhance rhetorical input, a concordancer that was searchable for…

The ultimate aim of our research project was to use the Google Web Speech API to automate scoring of elicited imitation (EI) tests. However, in order to achieve this goal, we had to take a number of preparatory steps. We needed to assess how accurate this speech recognition tool is in recognizing native speakers' production of the test items; we…

This article reports on an investigation of the role raters' language background plays in raters' assessment of test takers' speaking ability. Specifically, this article examines differences between American and Indian raters in their scores and scoring processes when rating Indian test takers' responses to the Test of English as a Foreign…

This paper presents firstly a set of seven principles that lie behind the development of a vocabulary learning resource destined for French learners of English in higher education, and secondly an experiment investigating the use of narrative as a device to facilitate recall of target words. The seven principles can be combined in different ways,…

With Russian as the target language, a proof of concept study was undertaken to determine whether it is possible to identify linguistic features, control over which is implicated in progress on the Interagency Linguistic Roundtable (ILR) proficiency scale, thereby better to inform the instructional process. Following its development in an…

The purpose of this study was to replicate previous research on the construct validity of the paper-based version of the TOEFL and extend it to the computer-based TOEFL. Two samples of Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test-takers were used: native speakers of English specially recruited to take the computer-based TOEFL, and ESL…