This article describes a new questionnaire, the "Diagnostic Inventory for Self-Regulated Language Learning" (DISLL), for assessing self-regulated learning strategies of students of English as an additional language. We discuss self-regulated learning models, evaluate existing questionnaires for assessing language learners' self-regulated…

Disparate goals that learners might have in learning second or foreign language pronunciation and the scant classroom time that can be dedicated to teaching this target language subsystem dictate that learner autonomy is of vital importance in this case and adept use of pronunciation learning strategies (PLS) can be viewed as key to the…

The study aims to explore in-service teachers' epistemological beliefs about the following five critical paradigms in second language education and their corresponding practices: (1) inductive/deductive grammar instruction, (2) intensive/extensive reading, (3) looking up unknown words in the dictionary/guessing from context, (4) focusing on…

Critical-thinking skills help to prepare adult education students for a successful transition to college degree programs and for job advancement. Yet fostering critical thinking poses a challenge to ESL instructors. Brookfield (2012) provides a way forward for adult educators when he explains that the crux of critical thinking is to discover one's…

Supervisors play a critical role in fostering teacher candidates' reflective thinking on their practice, yet too often it is the supervisor, rather than the teacher, doing most of the observation work. Video-based supervision offers a promising alternative, as teachers have an opportunity to examine their own lesson and thus engage with the…

This paper investigated the extent to which Iranian EFL students are aware of the appropriate use of request speech act in English speaking contexts in terms of formality, politeness and indirectness. A researcher made discourse completion test (DCT) including 16 scenarios was distributed among 130 advanced students in private English institutes…

This article presents data collected in a qualitative study of Nigerian English language teachers working in Nigeria. Many of these Nigerian teachers have not had a formal introduction to reflective practice. Most of them work in conditions of constraint and challenge, experiencing a lack of resources, support and often working with large classes.…

In this article, we investigate the integration of concept-based pragmatics instruction, grounded in Vygotskian sociocultural psychology, in an intact second-semester French class (n = 13) over the course of an academic term. Our focus is on learners' appropriation of the concepts of self-presentation, social distance, and power with respect…

Teacher efficacy is a topic of significance in mainstream education and various instruments have been developed to measure this construct. The available instruments however, are general both in terms of their subject matter and context. To compensate for this generality, the present study aims to develop a new teacher efficacy instrument whose…

Recent scholarship has proposed a pedagogy of multiliteracies to frame FL curricula and instruction, and encourage critical reflection about language use through a variety of discourses and textual genres. One pedagogical framework conducive to fostering learners' intersemiotic awareness is Global Simulation (GS). GS consists in the creation of a…

This article reports our findings on using WebCEF as a CEFR familiarization and self-assessment tool for oral proficiency. Furthermore, we outline how we have implemented Skype as a tool for telecollaboration in our language programmes. The primary purpose of our study was to explore how students and teachers would perceive the potential benefits…

With 97 advanced second language (L2) learners of Spanish, the present study utilized domain specific texts to examine the effects of embedded "what" questions and elaborative "why" questions on reading comprehension. Participants read two different vignettes, either with or without the adjuncts, from a social psychology textbook, and then…

This study examines the influence of length of residence in the target language community and overall L2 proficiency on L2 pragmatic competence with a reference to L2 grammatical competence. Participants were 126 international students in the US with two academic levels of English proficiency from 17 countries, speaking 20 languages. A…