This study reports the outcomes of research investigating the relationship between two variables; percentage of word knowledge in an academic English text and reading comprehension scores the participants got for the same text. The study was conducted at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Preparatory Year Deanship, during the first semester…

In order to enhance ESL students' motivation to learn learning English, teachers around the world have been employing various motivational strategies in classrooms. However, there is scarce research focusing on both alignments and misalignments of secondary students' evaluation of the effectiveness of motivational strategies (MS) and teachers' use…

The basic questions that guide this study are: (a) what percentage of vocabulary from a passage would a Spanish learner need to know to demonstrate "adequate" (a score of 70 out of 100) comprehension of it? And, (b) what type of curve would best describe the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension? Fifty-three…

Foreign language anxiety (FLA), which constitutes a serious problem in the foreign language learning process, has been mainly seen as a research issue regarding adult language learners, while it has been overlooked in children. This is because there is no an appropriate tool to measure FLA among children, whereas there are many studies on the…

While most research studies on the theory of multiple intelligences focused on the application of the multiple intelligences domains as separate components, this quasi-experimental research targeted the effect of multiple intelligences as integrated abilities for teaching and learning English at higher education. The purpose of this study was to…

Extensive graded reading (EGR) was carried out with a cohort of 600 engineering students in a university in northern Japan. Pre-and post-surveys were conducted to discover changes in the general reading habits of students, their attitudes toward the assessment method and how goals changed over the course of study. The first survey was carried out…

One of the main issues in language learning is to find ways to enable learners to interact with the language input in an involved task. Given that computer-based simulation allows learners to interact with visual modes, this article examines how the interaction of students with an online video simulation affects their second language video…

Recently, the use of children's picture books to teach English has been increasing in Japan. An advantage of these books is the high proportion of basic vocabulary they include. Can picture books also be useful for teaching Japanese students Italian and increasing their motivation? The present study analyses the effectiveness of employing a…

Educators continue to have difficulty reforming English curricula in ways that better serve the needs of second language learners. This difficulty is perpetuated, in part, by the inability to predict how such changes will affect morphosyntactic development. To date, ESL research has failed to effectively ascertain how multiple causes influence the…

This paper illustrates the research design (including the pilot study) of a work-in-progress study aimed at examining the potential of bilingual podcasts for the vocabulary acquisition in Italian as an L3 in the Austrian school context for beginning learners. The longitudinal study tries to link findings of the Lexical Approach (Lewis, 1993, 1997)…

The 2006 National Science Board called for new strategies and instructional materials for teachers to better serve English Learners' (EL) needs. Bilingual Collaborative Online Projects in science were created to assist ELs' construction of science knowledge, facilitate academic English acquisition, and improve science learning. Two bilingual…

The present study examines the written products of third-semester German students' written productions during a timed, in-class writing activity. Topic selection control was modulated from instructor to student during eight 10-minute sessions. To account for order of treatment, two of the four groups were counterbalanced with the other two. Each…

The purpose of this pilot study is to gain more insight into learner factors prominent in high-poverty urban schools and to suggest pedagogical approaches appropriate to this environment. To this end, three surveys were administered to students attending a high-poverty, urban middle school in order to measure their learning style preferences,…

Much established pedagogical and CALL (computer-assisted language learning) research advocates an integrated constructivist approach to the use of technology in language learning. This paper reports on a pilot project delivered to first year undergraduate French students. The project aim was to deliver a blend of collaborative and individual…