Although a surfeit of research has investigated the technicality and efficacy of feedback, much less attention has been directed towards student engagement with written feedback. In second-language writing scholarship, student engagement is considered the linchpin that connects feedback provision with learning outcomes and is crucial for feedback…

The 'multimodal turn' has led many education systems around the world to incorporate aspects of multimodality into their language curriculum as a response to the contemporary communication environment and new literacy practices of students. In this article, we present and examine findings from a study of the enactment of multimodal pedagogies by…

The teaching of critical thinking (CT) has become an important requirement in many English language classrooms at different educational levels, yet little is known about how teachers promote the learning of CT. This article reports on a qualitative study examining the ways in which two university English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in…

Electronic portfolios, also known as e-Portfolios, are commonplace in language education. While e-Portfolio research has evolved over the past two decades, not much is done to evaluate how this scholarship can inform effective language teaching and learning, especially in second language and English as a Foreign Language classroom contexts. This…

This classroom study evaluates the effectiveness of pre-teaching communication strategies before learners undertake an information-gap speaking task. A convenience sample of 67 first-year students taking mandatory English classes at a private Japanese university was subject to one of two instructional approaches. The experimental group (n=37)…

High frequency words, which are key to a text, must be mastered to achieve minimum levels of reading proficiency. However, knowledge about the frequency of items in a language is very limited. Given this consideration, WordSift (www.wordsift.org), a word cloud tool based on high frequency and key words can assist English as a Foreign Language…

This quasi-experimental study investigates the effects of pre-writing (Pre-EI) and post-writing explicit instruction (Post-EI) on L2 learners' overall writing accuracy and errors at different severity levels. Situated within process-genre-oriented writing classrooms, a total of three intact groups (N = 101) were designated as two experimental…

As student creativity is increasingly emphasized in English as a Foreign Language education, it is necessary to consider instructional techniques to encourage it. This study examines the effectiveness of two instructional techniques on creative writing performance of English as a Foreign Language students in a South Korean university. These…

The rapid advancement in video technologies in recent years has made the creating and editing of subtitles for a video increasingly feasible. For a long time, however, the pedagogical potentials of subtitling in language teaching and learning have been neglected. To fill this gap, this technology review introduces "VisualSubSync," a free…

Although research in critical literacy has long been conducted in English as a second language contexts, a modicum of critical literacy research in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts in which English is seldom used outside the classroom environment has also been undertaken. This article aims to discuss the introduction of critical…

Just as forming letters is the motor skill component of writing, pronouncing--forming sounds and other features of the spoken language--is the motor skill component of pronunciation. The motor task for L2 (second language) learners is to invent for themselves the actions needed for pronouncing L2, either from matching a model they hear (goal…

The outbreak of COVID-19 witnesses a sudden surge of fully online classes globally. Scholarly attention has promptly shifted to explore the personal experiences and perceived challenges of students and teachers. For English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructors around the world, many are required to teach online for the first time, yet studies…

A well-written argumentative essay requires a thorough analysis of the topic with sufficient supporting evidence. However, obtaining information on the topic, summarizing the reading materials, and then presenting them in the form of an argumentative essay can be a challenging task, especially for English as a foreign language (EFL) learners.…

This paper evaluates Voki, a digital platform for creating speaking avatars, in the context of Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT). It firstly outlines the benefits of using animated characters in online tools to personalize language lessons and engage students. As a web-based application, Voki offers various customization options, including…

The effect of first language transfer on second language acquisition and learning has been a major theoretical concept in second language research and pedagogy since the 1950s. In order to give a historical perspective, the authors offer a brief presentation of some of the major topics from the broad spectrum of issues that have been examined by…