Fluency is an essential part of a language learner's skills. Despite various studies on fluency, little is known about the effects of different pedagogical methods on the development of written fluency. In this paper, we examine how different pedagogical methods affect the development of second language learners' written fluency. Participants in…

This study looked at the impact of the integration of contemplative practices on foreign language anxiety, positive and negative affect, self-efficacy, classroom climate, and language learning in students enrolled in an advanced intermediate Spanish language course in the USA. Data included pre- and post-test surveys, exam scores to measure…

I discuss three common practices that obfuscate or invalidate the statistical analysis of randomized controlled interventions in applied linguistics. These are (a) checking whether randomization produced groups that are balanced on a number of possibly relevant covariates, (b) using repeated measures ANOVA to analyze pretest-posttest designs, and…

Textual manipulation is a common pedagogic tool used to emphasize specific features of a second language (L2) text, thereby facilitating noticing and, ideally, second language development. Visual input enhancement has been used to investigate the effects of highlighting specific grammatical structures in a text. The current study uses a…

Most of the laboratory studies on recasts have examined the role of intensive recasts provided repeatedly on the same target structure. This is different from the original definition of recasts as the reformulation of learner errors as they occur naturally and spontaneously in the course of communicative interaction. Using a within-group research…

Functionally-oriented linguistic theories, such as cognitive grammar (CG), offer nuanced descriptions of the meanings and uses of grammatical features. A simplified characterization of the semantics of the English active and passive voice grounded in CG terms and based on the reference point model is presented, as it is the basis of the…

This article reports a study investigating the effect of emotional intelligence (EI) awareness-raising on Iranian university students' overall as well as variable-specific L2 motivation. The 136 participants (107 males, 29 females) were divided into a control group and an experimental group, both of which completed the same motivation…

Student-directed teaching and assessment techniques are gradually dominating educational systems almost all over the world. This study investigated a cohort of male and female Iranian EFL students' attitudes toward self-, peer-, and teacher-assessment experiences. Sixty three students at Urmia University and Tabriz Islamic Azad University, in the…

This article discusses the assessment of pronunciation instruction under a new approach to pronunciation teaching centered on the role of connected speech in the prosodic system of English. It also offers a detailed discussion of various empirical problems in teaching-oriented L2 pronunciation research and suggests ways of addressing them in…

One of the pedagogical implications of the research on the Willingness to Communicate (WTC) might be to propose practical ways of making language learners more willing to communicate in the classroom. This study investigated the impact of teaching communication strategies (CSs) on Iranian EFL learners' WTC. To this end, 8 intact classes were…

The longitudinal intervention study reported here is the first to investigate the efficiency of computer learning software specifically designed for dyslexic Swiss German learners of Standard German as a second language (L2) and English as a third language (L3). A total of 40 subjects (20 of them dyslexics and 20 of them nondyslexics; 10 students…

In recent years, a number of studies have been conducted with regard to communication strategy training and performance on communicative tasks (Lam, 2009; Nakatani, 2010; Naughton, 2006). This study aims to add to the literature by examining how two strategies, clarifying/confirming and extending a conversation, and two methods of teaching the…

One important controversy connected with the effectiveness of grammar teaching seems to have been resolved as there is ample empirical evidence testifying to the positive effect of form-focused instruction on second language acquisition (Nassaji & Fotos, 2004; Norris & Ortega, 2000; Spada, 1997, 2010). Nevertheless, there are still a…

Form-focused instruction is usually based on traditional practical/pedagogical grammar descriptions of grammatical features. The comparison of such traditional accounts with cognitive grammar (CG) descriptions seems to favor CG as a basis of pedagogical rules. This is due to the insistence of CG on the meaningfulness of grammar and its detailed…

The aim of this study was to gain more in-depth understanding of students' emotions in an EFL context by applying dynamic assessment (DA) procedures to the development of learners' emotional intelligence. The study with 50 intermediate learners aged 12-15 used three modalities: a control group, which was taught under institute's normal procedures;…