Teacher beliefs have received substantial attention particularly in Chinese as a world language context due to the Chinese language proficiency challenges, Chinese character complexity, and cultural barriers. With the development of cutting-edge technology, Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has played a pivotal role in Chinese language…

Podcasts are audio files that are automatically delivered to the student's computer, smart phone, iPad or MP3/MP4 player. They can be automatically updated. Students typically subscribe to podcasts using "podcatcher" software such as iTunes. The present study proposes a model for integrating grammar podcasts in teaching English grammar…

This case study investigated the effects of different speaking activities (oral presentations, discussions, debates) on the speaking performance of 11 young adult EFL learners at a university in central Mexico. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and an online survey and analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed…

Several language dichotomies -- particularly the pervasive idea that "academic" language distinctly contrasts with "social" language -- have dominated teachers' thinking and discourse about language-related instructional practices in recent decades. Many researchers now question ramifications that binary thinking about language…

Language, which plays a special role for the learning of mathematics, is investigated in this article for the specific discourse practice of explaining during whole-class discussions: On the one hand, explaining is a medium for learning since school cannot be thought of without communication. On the other hand, students at the beginning of…

Employing a CA-inspired methodological approach, this study investigates L2 learners' interactional competence for dyadic interaction via text chat. Fifty-three dyads of Japanese learners of English at three proficiency levels (high, mid, and low) participated in this study, where they worked on three discussion tasks in L2 English. The data were…

Reading comprehension refers to elementary children's levels of understandings of written text. Building on Bloom's Taxonomy (Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956), children can understand text at various levels including the literal, inferential, application, and evaluation. When teachers build on the levels of reading…

This article reports the results of a study that assesses the effectiveness of a Philosophy in Schools (PIS) programme in developing students' thinking skills and English competence in Hong Kong. In the study, training and support were provided for three Integrated Humanities (IH) teachers to enable them to teach PIS to their Secondary 3 English…

One of the most important tasks of higher educational institutions is the training of specialists to be able to adapt to changes in their professional life. At the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the 21st centuries, some methods for developing foreign language competence, needed for their future professional activity, were created by…

Research shows that English learners are too often denied access to complex tasks that address grade-level standards. Teachers have expressed that they believe lack of English proficiency makes complex work impossible or that they fear frustrating students into withdrawal. This article presents how teachers can incorporate students' native…

Nowadays, the lack of opportunity for students to practice speaking in English classroom makes them difficult to improve their speaking ability. Therefore, this study will address PMI, stands for Plus, Minus and Interesting strategy that can encourage students to speak by thinking the plus, minus and interesting points of the topic. This study…

Because talking about their mathematical ideas is difficult for emergent bilinguals if they do not have experience with the language used to represent those ideas, constructing math lessons wherein the materials and tasks support the development of fruitful talk is an important task for the teacher. Waiting until emergent bilinguals are fully…

Background: Mobile e-books together with Blackboard LMS and Elluminate were integrated and used as extensive reading activities, i.e., as a supplement to in-class reading instruction. The aim of the activity was to develop EFL struggling freshman student readers enhance their reading skills through short, simplified e-books. Materials and Methods:…

This study aimed to examine junior college students' group dialogues on the use of high-level comprehension features in an EFL reading class. The participants were one high-ability group and one low-ability group in terms of discussion proficiency. Eight representative discussions conducted in the students' first language served as the major data…

The development of speaking fluency is a major goal for many EFL language learners and several researchers have proposed frameworks for fluency instruction based on theories of cognitive science. It is unclear however, whether EFL students with restricted opportunities to use English outside of language classrooms can benefit from fluency…