The TOEIC has emerged as the benchmark for assessing the English language proficiency and communication abilities of individuals whose first language is not English. Achieving a high score on this examination may prove challenging for them. While there have been numerous studies into metacognitive strategies towards reading comprehension, in the…

Second language (L2) listening skills play an important role in both content- and language-focused academic success; however, provision of L2 listening-related pedagogy may be lacking or unsuitable in many contexts. Difficulties transposing research derived knowledge about listening processes to appropriate pedagogy arise because it can be…

Developing reading materials tailored to the specific needs and proficiency levels of students is important yet challenging for educators and teachers. Current data-driven indices assisting this task primarily focus on lexical and syntactic text features, often overlooking text cohesion, a key discourse feature impacting reading comprehension. To…

This article examines the determinants of Syrian refugee students' language comprehension difficulties in Lebanon, Türkiye and Australia, three host countries offering refugees different types of legal status (short-term, medium-term and long-term legal settlement). To understand the influence of legal status and its corresponding educational…

Listening journals provide a personal space for learners to document and share their inside thoughts about what they think, do, and feel regarding their learning. This study analyzes the journal entries of 19 second- to fourth-year business university learners. Over five weeks, they completed five listening journals on topics of their choice as…

The digital age has profoundly changed the film industry and how consumers are able to access media. To foster language development, this mixed methods study takes advantage of this technological progress and investigates how an audiovisual media-based curriculum can be designed for and implemented in an intermediate German language course. In…

EFL listening comprehension has been a stark challenge for language learners, but little is known about the combined effect of individual differences, such as working memory capacity, and metacognitive intervention. Thus, the present experimental study investigates the effect of metacognitive intervention on the listening performance and…

Switching between languages requires the participation of executive functions (EFs) which comprise both the 'hot' affective aspects (hot EFs) and the 'cool' cognitive aspects (cool EFs). However, the role of these EFs in language switching is not clear. This study employed a word valence categorization task to explore the effects of hot (i.e.…

The current study was set to explore the influence of the first (L1) and second (L2) language group discussions on L2 reading comprehension. It also explored two sub-elements that were considered vital to L2 reading comprehension: (a) text genre recognition and (b) character and author's intention and perspective. Participants were 21 college…

This study synthesized the research on listening instruction (LI) and its effectiveness on L2 learners' listening competence development based on studies published from 1980 to 2019. After a literature search, well-designed studies that involved not only experimental or quasi-experimental and control groups but also pretests and posttests were…

In this study, we examined the effect of visual cues in a second language listening test on test takers' viewing behaviours and their test performance. Fifty-seven learners of English in Korea took a video-based listening test, with their eye movements recorded, and 23 of them were interviewed individually after the test. The participants viewed…

This study proposed and implemented a blended self-directed learning program for English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) college students beyond the classroom. Adopting a case study-mixed methods design, the study aimed to investigate (1) learners' engagement in the program, (2) the effects of the program, and (3) learners' perceptions of the…

In this quasi-experimental study, the effects of lexical coverage through pseudo word manipulation in dialogue comprehension are investigated. Forty-four first-year students in a Japanese university listened to five dialogues at different lexical coverage levels: 98%, 95%, 90%, 85%, and 83%. The results of the comprehension tests confirm the…

This study was designed to examine the effects of applying different cognitive reading comprehension strategies on the comprehension of descriptive, narrative, argumentative, and expository texts among Iraqi beginner, intermediate, and advanced EFL learners to investigate whether the benefits of cognitive reading strategies are consistent across…

In assessment contexts, the domain definition inference requires accurate documentation of linguistic demands in a specific target domain for precise measurement. The present study examines several aspects of repetitions in academic lecture settings to offer the domain definition inference for academic listening tests. To do this, I analyzed the…