This study explored the communication strategies of college students majoring in one of five modern foreign languages (i.e., English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish) and their relation to communication confidence. It also explored the association between their strategy use and the difficulty regarding the speaking components, and students'…

The effectiveness of English Language Teaching (ELT) materials significantly influences the learning outcomes of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, positioning these resources as cardinal in the acquisition process. Despite this widely acknowledged significance, there remains a notable gap in research concerning the evaluation of key…

The pervasive use of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) in second language (L2) learning has generated increasing interest among researchers in integrating SCMC with task-based language teaching (TBLT). This study examined the effects of task complexity on Chinese EFL learners' language production in SCMC modality to develop…

Researchers have been investigating the effects of different planning conditions on learners' second language (L2) writing performance. However, whether such effects differ regarding specific planning conditions and task complexity has remained underexplored. This study examined the effects of pre-task planning (PTP) versus unpressured online…

In the pandemic era, online learning has become the standard mode of learning in China where lockdowns were in place. However, in lockdowns, the roles of guardian, teachers and learners transform and change traditionally-accepted responsibilities and roles as well as relationships, thus warranting an examination of the third space of learning and…

Vocabulary size measures serve important functions, not only with respect to placing learners at appropriate levels on language courses but also with a view to examining the progress of learners. One of the widely reported formats suitable for these purposes is the Yes/No vocabulary test. The primary aim of this study was to introduce and provide…

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have the potential to reduce the workload for the second language (L2) teachers and test developers. We propose two AI distractor-generating methods for creating Chinese vocabulary items: semantic similarity and visual similarity. Semantic similarity refers to antonyms and synonyms, while visual similarity…

Listening has long been recognized as a challenging skill for teachers, students, and researchers working within the English as a Second Language (ESL)/English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. Moreover, up until the recent past, it was the least researched of the four language skills in second language acquisition studies. One of the issues…

Past experimental studies of corrective feedback (CF) have isolated factors like grammatical complexity, learner proficiency, and L1 one by one, carefully designing experiments that eliminate the influence of "extraneous" factors. Because each factor is actually codependent, more holistic study is needed. Eleven studies, all of which had…

In many reading comprehension tests, different test formats are employed. Two commonly used test formats to measure reading comprehension are sustained passages followed by some questions and cloze items. Individual differences in handling test format peculiarities could constitute a source of score variance. In this study, a bifactor Rasch model…

Despite the numerous studies on English article acquisition, the acquisition sequence, differences, and difficulties by English-as-a-second language learners (ELLs) remain to be further explored. With a detailed literature review, this study investigated the acquisition sequence, differences, and difficulties of English articles by ELLs with…

Self-regulation has become a widely discussed subject in education as it facilitates learners' ability to master their own learning. The purpose of the present study is to examine the psychometric properties of self-regulation in second language learning via Rasch measurement. A total of 528 high-school students from an East Asian country…