This paper presents insights from two interview studies with the aim of shedding light on the learning potential of studying abroad in an area where English is used as a lingua franca. The majority of previous research on study abroad focuses on students' experiences of studying abroad in target-language regions, for example learners of English…

The present study draws on earlier research on learner-learner dyadic interactions in an e-tandem virtual exchange and examines negotiation of meaning episodes based on the qualitative data. These data come from learner-learner interactions during oral tasks carried out using a video conferencing tool. The aim is to unveil the interactional…

Over the past 15 years, the L2 motivational self system (Dörnyei, 2005, 2009) has been a dominant framework in the field of second language (L2) motivation. Yet, since the model's introduction, there has been a theoretical discordance between the two components associated with future self-images (the ideal L2 self and the ought-to L2 self) and the…

Past research has often shown a lack of student output in English medium instruction (EMI) classes (e.g., An et al., 2021; Lo & Macaro, 2012) and this study seeks to identify possible reasons. Guided by literature on wait time (Rowe, 1986) and teacher higher-order thinking questions (Chin, 2007), this study explores whether these two…

This study investigates Taiwanese university students' experience of English use, aims of learning English and attitudes toward English as a lingua franca (ELF). The notion of ELF has been researched in the field of English language teaching. However, English teaching practice targeting native-speaker (NS) norms is still prevailing in English…

This paper deals with the problems of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) and as a lingua franca (ELF) in the Italian educational system and, in particular, with introducing language variation in the English class. After briefly illustrating how English teaching has changed in the last few decades, an outline is drawn of what happens in…

This paper reports on crossing borders virtually via an e-Tandem scheme and presents the findings of a study, in which students of English from an Austrian university were paired with students of German from the UK and the USA. Drawing on data from 19 in-depth interviews, the study aims to identify links between e-Tandem language learning and…

The aims of this paper are to review research literature on the role that the second language (L2) and foreign language (FL) environments actually play in the development of learners' target language (TL) pragmatic ability, and also to speculate as to the extent to which individual factors can offset the advantages that learners may have by being…

Pragmatic competence is an indispensable aspect of language ability in order for second and foreign language (L2/FL) learners to understand and be understood in their interactions with both native and nonnative speakers of the target language. Without a proper understanding of the pragmatic rules in the target language, learners may run the risk…

This paper proposes a prototypic assessment tool for intercultural communicative competence. Because traditional discourse completion tasks (DCTs) focus on illocutionary competence rather than sociolinguistic competence, a modified version of a DCT was created to target sociolinguistic competence. The modified DCT employs speech acts as prompts…

This paper examines the status of European English (EE) in current linguistic theory, in particular the hotly debated issue of whether or not it is possible to treat EE as an endonormative linguistic variety in its own right. Alternatively, EE may remain a form of English as a foreign language (EFL), and the decision has far-reaching…

This study examines the use of cohesive devices (pragmatic markers and conjunctions) in a 24,000-word corpus of transcribed oral data from 47 learners and native speakers of English. Both of these cohesive devices increase with proficiency level, but not in the same way. Conjunction use seems to increase steadily, and only the differences between…

Within the communicative approach to English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching, the aims of instruction are primarily to enable learners to communicate; hence, functional and communicative intelligibility has become the goal of pronunciation training. On the other hand, contemporary approaches to EFL teaching leave sufficient room for…