This study aims to identify (1) how EFL graduate-level students at various Turkish universities regard the level of difficulty in terms of the different sections of a scholarly work in their academic writing practices, (2) whether their perceptions concerning the difficulty of the various sections show a significant difference depending on their…

This article aims at proposing a new measurement to assess the effects of language learners' goal-setting behavior, as an alternative to the traditional open-ended questionnaire. This goal-setting instrument was carefully developed through three phases. In the first phase, an item pool was generated. In the second phase, a pilot study was carried…

This paper investigates grammatical difficulty from the perspective of Saudi university students, of EFL as well as from the perspective of university teachers. It aims to find out which English grammar features are more difficult/less difficult than others. Furthermore, it attempts to determine the reasons and causes that account for such grammar…

This questionnaire study analyzed responses of 96 first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year students of College German to the second part of a two-part question, namely, (a) what forms of German grammar are particularly difficult, and (b) why so. Response patterns show that word order, adjective endings, the subjunctive, and the gender/number/case…

Despite an increased awareness of language learner performance in task-based instruction, little is known about how learners perceive and respond to different task factors. This study investigates the effects of task complexity and modality on (a) learners' perception of task difficulty, skill, and its balance, and on (b) learners' task…

This study aimed to examine the effects of different text difficulty levels on foreign language reading anxiety (FLRA) and reading comprehension of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. To this end, 50 elementary EFL learners were selected from two intact classes (n = 25 each). Each class was assigned to a text difficulty level (i.e.,…

Aim/Purpose: This study examines how the use of a Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) application influences the learners' attitudes towards the process of learning, and more specifically in voluntary and mandatory environments. Background: Mobile devices and applications, which have become an integral part of our lives, are used for…

This article presents the results of a study on the language learning and teaching beliefs of graduate students enrolled in an applied linguistics course in a language teaching program. Ten participants completed a questionnaire at the start of the course and another at the end; their responses were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively.…

Having received the stamp of an "often neglected" element in second language teaching, opinions of English Language Teaching (ELT) Teacher Trainees (TT) taking pronunciation as an explicit instruction course seem to be neglected in research advocated in this field as well. Moreover, features of pronunciation (segmentals and…

The main purpose of this study is to analyze Turkish tertiary level EFL learners' attributions to success and failure and the effects of gender, age, and perceived success on their attributions. The results indicated that EFL learners respectively attributed interest, ability, task difficulty, effort, luck and the influence of teacher and school…

Upper-secondary school students must prepare for adult life, which--among others--entails acquiring relevant skills and discovering their own potential. Efforts at European and national levels have been made to ensure that students gain the competences, the so-called key competences, which facilitate functioning in the modern world. However, in…

This study aimed to explore teachers' and students' perception of pronunciation teaching in Indonesian EFL classrooms, particularly on (1) the difficulty of English pronunciation, (2) the reasons for the difficulty, (3) the inclusion of pronunciation in EFL classrooms, (4) the goal of pronunciation teaching, (5) priorities in pronunciation…

This paper has studied the question formation techniques used by the Saudi students at Bisha University. It addresses the problems faced by the students in forming questions in English. The study has identified that a large number of the students suffer from the lack of proper grammar rules in forming various types of interrogative sentences and…

This paper reports on a one year, mixed-methods longitudinal case study investigating the neglected area of the perceived reasons why participants forget vocabulary knowledge. The participants were 43 fourth year male Saudi EFL majors at King Abdulaziz University KAU, Saudi Arabia. Quantitative and qualitative data including self-reported…

This study investigated the effects of monolingual book dictionaries, popup dictionaries, and type-in dictionaries on improving reading comprehension and vocabulary learning in an EFL program. An experimental design involving four groups and a post-test was chosen for the experiment: (1) pop-up dictionary (experimental group 1); (2) type-in…