This study addresses the issue of automatic pronunciation assessment (APA) and its contribution to the teaching of second language (L2) pronunciation. Several attempts have been made at designing such systems, and some have proven operationally successful. However, the automatic assessment of the pronunciation of short words in segmental…

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, particularly chatbots with speech-recognition, are gaining attention as tools for ELT. However, this frontline development in contemporary ELT seems to stand in stark contrast to the multilingual effort, another innovative trend, as chatbots' speech recognition capabilities are primarily attuned to native…

There has been much debate in assessment research about the inclusion of Global English accents in high-stakes listening tests. This study explored test-takers' attitudes toward the inclusion of different English accents in the Duolingo English Test (DET) 2021 test version and their associations with listening test scores. One hundred sixty…

Child language acquisition research has provided ample evidence of lexical frequency effects. This corpus-based analysis introduces a novel frequency measure shown to significantly constrain adult language variation, but heretofore unexplored in child language acquisition research. Among adults, frequent occurrence of a form in a particular…

In the realm of language proficiency assessments, the domain description inference and the extrapolation inference are key components of a validity argument. Biber et al.'s description of the lexicogrammatical features of the spoken and written registers in the T2K-SWAL corpus has served as support for the TOEFL iBT test's domain description and…

Pronunciation teaching is an important stage in language learning activities. This article tackles the pronunciation scoring problem where research has demonstrated relatively low human-human and low human-machine agreement rates, which makes teachers skeptical about their relevance. To overcome these limitations, a fuzzy combination of two…

As online education expands in the wake of recent global events, concerns over the privileging of dominant languages, cultures and epistemologies gain prominence. Despite the explicit biases and assumptions found within hegemonic learning contexts, however, inquiry within the domain of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) typically manifests…

Objectives: Two sets of intercultural learning resources incorporating Global Englishes learning content were developed for self-access use in the higher education context. The resources were investigated in terms of student learning experiences across two contexts in Japan: an English language major program and a nonlanguage major program. The…

Recent CALL technology reviews cover a plethora of technologies available to language learners to improve a variety of skills, including speaking. However, few technology-enhanced self-access tools are available for pragmatic development, especially in oral modality. Recognizing the benefits of structured practice for second language development,…

Within the discourse of language planning and policy, there is an increasing realisation of the strategic role of information and communication technologies in the promotion of indigenous African languages. The article discusses the strategic role that social software, in particular blogs and wiki, can and should play in the development of African…

This paper addresses the process of transcribing and annotating spontaneous non-native speech with the aim of compiling a training corpus for the development of Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) applications, enhanced with Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology. To better adapt ASR technology to CAPT tools, the recognition…

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…

The present paper shows the first results of a linguistic project devoted to the construction of web learning tools for reinforcing sensitivity to diaphasic varieties and for learning style variation in L2/LS learning. (Contains 1 figure and 1 footnote.) [Support for this research was provided by the VALERE Project.]

This article contributes to research on critical perspectives in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and on evaluative frameworks for English language learning (ELL) Web sites. The research addressed the following questions: (a) To what extent do ELL Web sites depict diverse representations of gender, race, socioeconomic…

This article discusses the language and identity challenges I faced as a critical border ethnographer from Spain doing fieldwork in Southern California. I focus on the multiple positionings that I negotiated doing fieldwork in La Clase Magica (The Magic Class), a computer-based, after-school bilingual program for Mexican/Mexican American/Chicano-a…