Research has shown that second language (L2) learners generally lack multiword expression knowledge, and L2 researchers and practitioners have tried various techniques to assist L2 learners to acquire it more efficiently. This study adopted an under-researched technique-- repeated oral reading--to enhance the retention of high-frequency multiword…

Characterized by specific and rigid boundaries of institutional practices and expectations in the academy, student writing is a synergistic literacy practice where students are required to construct generically diverse texts by yoking concepts with appropriate linguistic resources. This empirical study involving 196 first-year ESL students at a…

This study investigated whether teacher expectation effects on students' foreign language learning would be moderated by students' perceptions of the classroom environment. The participants were 28 teachers and 1030 first-year undergraduate students learning English as a foreign language from public universities in China. Data for teacher…

Generation 1 learners are adult-arrival immigrants who enter U.S. education through adult ESL. Verbatim speech was collected from interviews and observations of six Generation 1 learners in their first college term. This taxonomic analysis presents learners' descriptions of their college reading. Learners held complex understandings of reading,…

Applying a mixed-methods design, this study aims to generate knowledge regarding decreasing study abroad involvement amongst Japanese students. Based on data collected from a group of first-year Japanese university students, the authors propose six qualities of a predominantly willing, or self-selecting, group of study abroad participants,…

The present study aimed to examine the effect of proficiency on the pragmatic comprehension of speech acts, implicatures, and routines, as well as the way learners of different proficiency levels employ strategies when comprehending a pragmatic task. Thirty-three high-proficiency and forty-one low-proficiency Chinese learners of English completed…

This paper reports on a case study of seven undergraduate students' classroom participation in an English-medium university in an EFL context, with a focus on their perceptions about the factors affecting their involvement in interactional opportunities in a specific speaking course. Results suggest that student participation in a foreign language…

Metalinguistic knowledge is regarded as an important factor in the development of writing. However, little attention has been paid to the metalinguistic knowledge of L2 writers in non-anglophone contexts. This study investigates L1-Turkish-speaking, first-year university students' metalinguistic knowledge of the lexical phrases they use in their…

The specific size of vocabulary has been prescribed in Thailand's basic education curriculum for decades, but less is known about Thai students' vocabulary size. This study focused on Thai freshmen who just finished their 12 years of basic education. The objective of the study was to assess their vocabulary size and examine the relationship…

Television is considered an important source of comprehensible input for second language learners of English and there is some evidence that L2 words can be learned incidentally by watching television. Few studies have looked at the role of TV viewing for learning formulaic sequences, despite the ubiquity of formulaic sequences in spoken English,…

While theories of embodied cognition have been investigated in lab experiments with proficient readers, currently no studies have applied these theories to improving reading comprehension for low-proficiency readers. Using an embodied cognition approach, this study investigated producing comics as an embodied reading activity. To compare effects…

Recent research on foreign language anxiety appears to support the existence of language skill specific anxiety. The principal goal of the present study is to confirm empirically that foreign language (FL) reading anxiety is a specific anxiety type distinguishable from the more general types of FL anxiety (FLA) in the Turkish EFL context. There is…

The present research analyzes instructional strategies used to integrate the learning of content and English as a foreign language in a bilingual physics class at a university in Shanghai, China. It examines how the instructor handles meaning and form of new English science vocabulary in concept-focused physics lectures and the strategies he used…

This study examines university students' pre-university exposure to extra-curricular English instruction in tutorial or other private supplementary institutions in Korea and abroad. A questionnaire and an in-depth interview were administered to forty-three freshman students enrolled in a foreign language program at a comprehensive university in…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…