This study qualitatively investigated students from a Mexican university and a U.S. university and how their intercultural competence (IC), the ability to appropriately and effectively communicate with others from countries and cultures other than one's own, was affected by a five-week telecollaborative exchange. To examine the ways in which…

Research in second language speech has often focused on listeners' accent judgment and factors that affect their perception. However, the topic of listeners' application of specific sound categories in their own perceptual judgments has not been widely investigated. The current study explored how listeners from diverse language backgrounds weighed…

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…

Research with ESL students studying at North American universities has indicated that Chinese students have difficulties in understanding academic lectures, taking notes, writing assignments, and giving presentations although they have obtained high TOEFL scores. The study investigates their English academic listening challenges as reported by…