This paper reports on a qualitative study that explored the veridicality (i.e., the completeness and accuracy) of think-aloud protocols (TAPs) in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) writing and illustrates how retrospective verbal reports (RVRs) compensated for TAPs in understanding online revision. Forty-three Chinese sophomores, upon writing…

The current study's objective examines the effectiveness of using a Think-Aloud strategy in improving Saudi EFL learners' reading comprehension and attitudes towards learning. A quantitative study with a quasi-experimental design was implemented through applying two different instruments: Reading Comprehension Skills Test and Attitude Scale…

Research on gender and writing strategies in English as a foreign language (EFL) is scarce. This study investigates whether Moroccan male and female undergraduates use similar or different writing strategies when composing essays in the narrative and expository genres. Using think-aloud as a main research tool, a questionnaire, and retrospective…

Notwithstanding the introduction of education multilingual policies worldwide, testing and assessment procedures still rely almost exclusively on the monolingual construct. This paper describes a study, part of a larger project fostering a new multilingual education policy in Israeli schools, exploring bi/multilingual assessment. It included two…

In the field of Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA), written corrective feedback (WCF) has been shown to play a facilitative role in improving written accuracy (e.g., Ashwell, 2000; Ferris & Roberts, 2001; Ferris, 2006; Sheen, 2007; Bitchener, 2008; Liu & Brown, 2015). However, studies that examine the effects of different types…

This study examines the decision-making behaviors of raters with varying levels of experience while assessing EFL essays of distinct qualities. The data were collected from 28 raters with varying levels of rating experience and working at the English language departments of different universities in Turkey. Using a 10-point analytic rubric, each…

This study investigates grammar learning strategies and the acquisition of L2 tense-aspect morphology through the retrospective think-aloud processes of a group of L3 learners of Catalan. A total of 18 students of Catalan in a university setting in Catalonia were asked to select one of three tense-aspect forms (preterite, imperfect, and perfect)…

This study identified the reading comprehension strategies that English-speaking college students enrolled in beginner, intermediate, and advanced Spanish language classes at a major Midwestern university in the United States used to comprehend a text in their second language. The findings suggest that readers tended to use the same comprehension…

Purpose: This study aims to examine the writing outcomes of 6th-grade students learning English as a second language. Design/methodology/approach: In all 45 students in a text structure instruction (TSI) group were compared with 45 students in a self-regulated strategy instruction (SRSI) group and 43 students receiving traditional writing…

This study aims to investigate patterns of variation in the interplay of L2 language ability and general reading comprehension skills in L2 reading, by comparing item-level effects of test-takers' results on L1 and L2 reading comprehension tests. The material comes from more than 500,000 people tested on L1 (Swedish) and L2 (English) in the…

Corpora are well-known for the affordance to make linguistic regularities salient. Since the coinage of the term 'data-driven learning' (DDL) in the 1990s, much has been done to investigate the effects of DDL on learning vocabulary, most notably lexico-grammatical patterns. However, less researched is how learners construct vocabulary knowledge…

Since its inception, pragmatic competence has been studied vastly; the majority of these studies, however, have examined pragmatic production, and pragmatic comprehension is chiefly under-researched. This lack of adequate research also stands true for the underlying pragmatic comprehension processes and strategies. Therefore, the present…

Background: Research studies (e.g., Phakiti, Language Testing 25(2):237-272, 2008a; Phakiti, Language Assessment Quarterly 5(1): 20-42, 2008b; Purpura, Learner strategy use and performance on language tests: a structural equation modeling approach, 1999) conducted on the construct validation of Bachman and Palmer's (1996) strategic competencehas…

Second language (L2) reading research suggests that successful reading comprehension usually involves a repertoire of strategies. Although Chinese is considered to be a challenging language for foreign language readers, thus far, few studies have investigated how strategies are orchestrated by readers of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) to…

Due to the potential of the Internet and blended learning environment, students, especially L2 learners, are often required to read references available online. A study was conducted to identify the perceptions of L2 learners comprising TESL undergraduates towards TESL-related hypermedia reading materials and the factors contributing to their…