There appears to be a dramatic decline in attitude toward reading between 2006 and 2011 for ten year-olds taking the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) examination. This "decline", however, is probably not real but is the result of a change in the attitude questionnaire, mentioned only in the fine print in the 2011…

The transformation of higher education has been a pressing concern for policy makers and practitioners. This article provides examples of the transformative potential of assessments designed within the framework of a multi-literacies and heteroglossic pedagogy in an Applied English Language course at a South African university. These assessments,…

The field of English Language Teaching (ELT) has long sought to identify traits of good language learners, in an effort to teach these traits to less successful language learners (Rubin, 1975). Emotional Intelligence has recently come to the forefront of research on language learning and teaching, and is now increasingly recognized as an important…

The recent trend of university internationalization has seen a rapid increase of English as medium of instruction (EMI) courses in Taiwanese tertiary education. Yet, few large-scale studies have been conducted to investigate student learning in EMI courses. This study surveyed 476 students from 25 EMI courses at six universities in Taiwan to probe…

This study investigated whether enhanced extensive reading contributed to significant gains on the incidental acquisition of English prepositions. English as a Foreign Language (EFL) secondary school students in Korea ("N" = 12) received enhanced extensive reading instruction for one semester in an after-school program. Pre-and…

This study investigated the readiness of university students for autonomous learning of English as a foreign language. Data was collected using questionnaires and interviews. The study assessed learners' readiness for autonomous learning across three dimensions: a) learners' perceptions of their educational responsibilities; b) learners' abilities…

Teacher efficacy is a topic of significance in mainstream education and various instruments have been developed to measure this construct. The available instruments however, are general both in terms of their subject matter and context. To compensate for this generality, the present study aims to develop a new teacher efficacy instrument whose…

Test anxiety often interferes with a reliable evaluation of language learning, frustrating teachers and students alike. Most researchers have found a significant inverse relation between anxiety and written test performance. Although this situation leads to a distortion of test scores, suggestions for treating and coping with test anxiety have…

The aim of the study is to investigate beliefs students usually held about language learning, based on the Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) questionnaire (Horwitz, 1988). For this purpose, 423 University learners of English in Iran were selected. Running descriptive statistics and the scree plot test, five factors were extracted:…

While it has been proposed that language teachers' beliefs could filter the way they perceive their teaching and influence their practice, few studies have investigated how their beliefs interact with their teaching decisions and why some beliefs override others. When EFL teachers adapt the Western-based Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) model…

This article is based on a study which investigated the beliefs about English language learning of 661 first-year university students and their 34 English teachers at a Japanese university. The focus of the article is the shifts in reported student beliefs over a nine-month period of English study between two administrations of the Sakui and Gaies…

Even though English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) courses constitute a significant part of the Iranian university curriculum, curriculum developers have generally developed the programs based on intuition. This study assessed the present and target situation academic language needs of undergraduate students of computer engineering. To this…

This article reports on an empirical study that examines general academic difficulties, and academic reading and writing difficulties among Asian ESL (English as a Second Language) international postgraduate students who are completing a Master's Degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at an Australian university. The…

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology issues a document known as the Course of Study Guidelines on average once every ten years. This document states the overall and specific goals for English education in Japanese junior and senior high schools including specifying the contents of ministry approved textbooks.…

Toastmasters is a widely recognized international club that aims to develop and enhance the art of public speaking by offering participants educational programmes and chances to speak before groups. This article reports on the integration of the Toastmasters approach to an EFL oral-communication class in Taiwan. As both the author of this study…