The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were adopted in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, "provide a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet" (United Nations, 2020a). The SDGs, which include gender equality, quality education, and ending poverty, are those…

Few studies have compared the nature of negotiation of meaning across face-to-face (FTF) and synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) modes with mixed-proficiency dyads. Such comparisons can help identify important strengths and weaknesses of each mode. Therefore, this study explored whether FTF and SCMC modes differ in terms of…

The physical environments where we work, play, live are not neutral. Importantly, place and space are infused with power: while geopolitical boundaries and state borders may delineate geographies into countries and cultures, they also impose linguistic, cultural, and political divides on peoples and communities and create power asymmetries that…

The role of practice has been largely overlooked in second/foreign (L2) pragmatics research. Furthermore, very few studies have directly compared the effects of different "practice contexts" (e.g. practice in a telecollaborative context versus practice in a face-to-face context) on L2 learners' pragmatic competence (e.g. in compliment…

The development of new media technology facilitates interaction between people of different cultures. However, people from different cultures show different cross-cultural communication behaviors that may influence their communication efficiency, perceived communication experiences, and perceived social presence. This study aimed to explore…

Focusing on how a world of possibilities is opened up by language learners themselves, imagination has been regarded as an elusive but indispensable element in second language (L2) education. Drawing on notions of international posture (Yashima 2002), Ideal L2 Self (Dörnyei 2009), and imagined communities (Norton 2001), we theorised imagination…

The present study focuses on email communication in the multilingual university setting. Previous studies dealing with similar settings point to the lack of politeness markers in students' email messages [Bjorge, A. (2007). Power distance in English lingua franca email communication. "International Journal of Applied Linguistics", 17(1),…

This study examined the impact of a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project on Thai Business English students' awareness of intercultural communication and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), along with their communication challenges and strategies. Data were collected through pre-post rating-scale questionnaires, open-ended…

Previous studies have indicated that social media has been used by students to develop speaking skills. Nevertheless, precisely how guided social media (GSM) (usage determined by the instructor) and unguided social media (USM) (freely chosen by students) activities in speaking courses affect their speaking skills and willingness to communicate…

This paper presents the findings of a research project on UK school students' attitudes to the use of Free Online Machine Translation for L2 production and more specifically in preparing for assessment. Data were collected from a publicly available online forum to analyse students' spontaneous discussion of the use of Free Online Machine…

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) via Facebook as social media could support a relaxed and non-threatening learning atmosphere, augmenting EFL learners' engagement through increasing social interaction. To maximize the potential of CMC for English language learning outside of classroom activities, an understanding of communication flow through…

Textism, which refers to the special language used in text messaging, is widely used in several forms of communication, such as texting, online chatting and emails. This increased use of textism has alarmed the media and the public because this special language can impact the academic writing of the younger generation. This paper aimed at…

The aim of this study is to investigate how L2 learners develop their ways of expressing compliments in L2 as a result of a virtual exchange. Although compliments play an important role in the discourse of second language (L2) classrooms studies exploring production of this speech act among L2 learners are limited. This study explores how 18…

It is believed that there is a significant difference between the use of technology in technologically advanced and advancing countries, and the users in the former act far better with technology than the users in the latter. However, there is not enough report on how this usage differs in terms of the independent use of technology in a foreign…

The enhancement of English writing skills is essential for academic success, and as one form of alternative assessment, peer feedback implementations are utilized to enrich writing instruction process. The advent of Web 2.0 tools has helped writing practitioners utilize various Cloud-based technologies including Google Docs to encourage learners…