This study investigated the relationship between changes in language learning beliefs and English proficiency among 41 Korean university students who participated in a short-term English program. Participants' beliefs were assessed using the Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI), and their proficiency was measured using the Test of…

Testing practices and the construct of English both serve separately and interactionally to promote activities of modernity and coloniality. Tests categorize and rank learning and knowledge in discrete, static ways. The construct of the English language through standardization and other processes upholds linguistic purism ideologies. Such concerns…

This study investigated how student-centered learning affects first-year college students' perceptions of and construction of investment in English learning. After finishing two reading assignments using a student-centered approach, 50 students completed open-ended written surveys, and 15 students participated in open-ended interviews. Thematic…

Language tests, including international high-stakes English proficiency tests widely used around the world, are to be viewed as ideological constructs connected with power relations and center-periphery demarcations at different social levels. In this paper, we examine the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) as an instance of…

This qualitative study, conducted in Hokkaido, Japan, concerns the investigation of the teacher cognition and practice of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) assessment and the impact of a professional development (PD) program on the participants. The PD program was carried out as a series of seven in-service workshops with five native speakers of…

As English continues to spread as an international lingua franca, there is a growing diversity in its use around the world. As a result, there are calls for embracing the diversity in the teaching, learning and assessment of the language. At the same time, there is a growing criticism against the widely taken language tests such as the Test of…

This cross-sectional study seeks to compare levels of emotional resonance in Arabic and English and identify the effects of sociobiographical factors, the history of English language learning and the current use of English on the development of emotional resonance of English among 141 bi- and multilingual Arab pupils and students in Saudi Arabia.…

Various research studies in the field of psychology have shown that the phenomenon of stereotype threat is real and has a consistent and measurable negative effect on individuals' performance on cognitively demanding tasks in a variety of areas. Currently, the relationship between stereotype threat and second language acquisition has not been…

This research aimed to investigate the effects of giving learners self directed learning (SDL) instruction based on the Staged Self-Directed Learning Model (SSDLM) during distance English learning on their SDL readiness, achievement, attitudes toward English course and distance education. The study sample consisted of one hundred forty-six…

In his philosophical novel, Thus spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche (1883-85), famously wrote, 'God is dead,' signifying that God is no longer credible as an absolute moral compass. Over a century later, Paikeday (1985), proclaimed that "The native speaker is dead!" in his book title, implying that the native speaker as the arbiter of what is…

This article analyses discussions in the Russian media of the proposal to introduce the Unified State Exam (USE) in English as a mandatory test in the last year of (high) school education 2010s. The decision not to implement the mandatory USE in English was taken in August 2020. In the aftermath of the decision, we investigate the decade-long…

Purpose: Although there is growing critical awareness in ELT around the rise of English as a global language, studies on teachers' investment in critical pedagogy remain limited in mainstream ELT curricula, and the impact of such investment on teachers' identities is not clear. To address this gap, with the inclusive paradigm of Global Englishes…

Despite some rises and falls in the numbers due to various reasons, including the political climate in the Trump era and the COVID-19 pandemic (Laws & Ammigan, 2020), each year universities in the United States host a large number of multilingual international students from different parts of the world. Based on their TOEFL scores, many are…

Based on the assumption that individual learner factors are context-dependent, this exploratory study examined whether differences in two learning environments (Denmark and Spain) have a differential influence on a set of learner factors that have together been previously identified as important in second language (L2) research, specifically,…

The role of English as a medium of communication among diverse linguacultural users has resulted in a significant rise in the number of new Englishes. Using a semi-structured interview for data collection, this qualitative study investigates the perceptions of six foreign English lecturers at four universities in Thailand towards Thai English and…