This study investigates the effects of three word-focused exercise conditions on vocabulary learning. The exercises were developed based on the involvement load hypothesis. This study also explores how individual differences (e.g. second-language English proficiency level and working memory) affect vocabulary learning outcomes. A total of 180…

There are grounds for believing that prompting language learners to infer the meaning of new lexical items is beneficial because inferring the meaning of lexical items and verifying one's inferences invites more cognitive investment than simply being presented with the meanings. However, concerns have been raised over the risk that wrong…

The present study examined whether oral interactive (pair) rehearsals and individual rehearsals promote second language (L2) learners' communication ability. The participants were 60 first-year students from two required English classes at a national university in Japan. One class was designated as 'the compulsory rehearsal' group (CR, n=28); the…

Narrow reading has not received much attention from researchers regarding its contributions on L2 learners' background knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, and writing styles. This study therefore investigated the effect of narrow reading on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' vocabulary learning. Twelve graded readers were selected and…

This innovations in practice article introduces a chatbot that was developed to support and motivate second language learners during the COVID-19 pandemic. The chatbot was designed to facilitate active, out-of-class language learning to supplement in-class input. It can adapt to learners' abilities and pace by chatting with them, thus providing…

This article introduces the use of public exam questions in fishbowl debate to engage highly exam-oriented secondary students with communicative language teaching (CLT). The practice aims to address the issue that many teachers of English as a second language (ESL)/English as a foreign language (EFL) in Asian contexts either teach to the test or…

Literature has long been used as a tool for language teaching and learning. In the New Academic Structure in Hong Kong, it has become an important element in the senior secondary English language curriculum to promote communicative language teaching (CLT) with a process-oriented approach. However, as in many other English as a second or foreign…

Over the past decades, much of the discussion regarding grammar teaching has evolved around the identification of the best language teaching approach to facilitate effective learning of English language among second language (L2) learners. Despite the various approaches introduced and implemented in the realm of L2 teaching, the language…

The study investigated L2 learners' perceptions of narrow reading. Thirty-two students finished four sets of graded readers organized by the same author with the same genre and same title, or random texts. After finishing each set of three graded readers, the students answered an eight-item questionnaire and wrote their reading feedback. Linear…

One of the consequences of the digital era has been the undeniable rise in the use of English in business. Studies have shown that large numbers of people in the business community now rely on English to get their work done, and at the same time, that many business transactions now take place through digital technologies in the form of computer…

In recent years, the use of English corpora to instruct grammar in writing classes has become increasingly popular. In English for Specific Purposes classes, such a novel approach is critically important since it not only allows teachers to achieve a profound understanding of which syntactic structures should be instructed, but it also increases…

The issue of phrasal verb learning has caused much discussion and attracted vigorous investigation. Inspired by the theory of conceptual metaphor, a pedagogical experiment was conducted to investigate whether an approach focussing on sense extension of particle "out" in terms of conceptual metaphors can enhance the learning of phrasal…

Most of the world's English language teachers speak English as a second or third language rather than as their first language. For many, their level of proficiency in English may not reach benchmarks established by their employers, raising the issue that is the focus of this article, namely, what kind of proficiency in English is necessary to be…

Currently, a growing number of teaching approaches focus on aspects of variation in language (e.g. English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), World Englishes, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), genre theories, etc.); however, each of these approaches tends to focus on particular (specific) aspects of language variation and do not fully account for the…

This article provides a qualitative inquiry into the influences of immediate family members (i.e. parents and siblings) on a group of Gulf Arab EFL students regarding their language learning experiences and strategy use in their Arab homelands. The participants came from financially comfortable families, with different levels of education. The…