Language teachers cannot help their students develop high levels of metalinguistic knowledge and language aptitude if they themselves are found lacking in these abilities. This article reports on a study that utilised a descriptive correlational mixed-methods research design to gather data from 89 multilingual teachers of English, Chinese, French,…

To unlock language proficiency among learners, speaking is regarded to be an essential and crucial aspect to master, not only for learning purposes but for recognized communication dynamics. Language learning has numerous critical aspects. To be lacking in speaking proficiencies has been noted to impart negatively toward language learning. This…

Pragmatic markers perform important communicative functions, but they can be difficult to learn in a second language because of their multifunctionality and lack of salience during communicative events. This study has two goals: (1) to describe the communicative functions of the pragmatic marker "I mean" in academic discourse; and (2) to…

Given the acknowledged and undeniable advantages of literature in language education, it has been integrated into EFL curricula for undergraduate students as an essential subject. In the Algerian English departments before the reform introduced in the last two decades (the Licence, Master, doctorate system), literature used to have a privileged…

Some students are unable to fully comprehend lecture content delivered in English as a medium of instruction (EMI) because of their low linguistic competence. This negatively impacts their academic emotions and learning satisfaction. Speech-enabled language translation (SELT) technology was applied in this study to simultaneously translate lecture…

Individual differences (IDs) play an important role in the second language learning process and explain the varied experiences of the L2 learner. The two major IDs, language aptitude and motivation, can be primary factors in one's ultimate proficiency. While language aptitude is largely fixed, motivation is malleable and can aid in overcoming…

Aptitude is a hypernym used in training and practice-based contexts to refer to a person's natural or acquired ability to do something. It tends to be an attribute that is 'forward-looking', i.e. referring to a person's probability of achieving success in the future. This paper adopts a retrospective perspective in looking at the 'success…

Repeated viewing of the same video is a common strategy among autonomous language learners as well as a much used pedagogical strategy among foreign language (FL) teachers. Learners may watch the same video more than once, to increase global comprehension of the target language or to focus their attention on linguistic aspects, such as new…

Adult second language (L2) learning often exhibits great variability in its rate and outcome. Although research shows that learning trajectories are partly shaped by social and contextual factors (e.g. Larson-Hall, 2008), certain learner factors play an important role in enhancing L2 pronunciation learning by helping L2 learners notice and process…

Recently, there has been a rapidly growing trend in non-English-speaking countries for English to be adopted as the medium of instruction in higher education. Consequently, it has become necessary to conduct research that will guide lecturers in effectively adopting (EMI) on campus. This paper presents a blended learning strategy that integrates a…

The current study longitudinally examined the influence of aptitude on second language (L2) pronunciation development when 40 first-year Japanese university students engaged in practice activities inside and outside English-as-a-Foreign-Language classrooms over one academic year. Spontaneous speech samples were elicited at the beginning, middle,…

Providing a comprehensive survey of cutting-edge work on second language learning, this "Handbook," written by a team of leading experts, surveys the nature of second language learning and its implications for teaching. Prominent theories and methods from linguistics, psycholinguistics, processing-based, and cognitive approaches are…

This study examined the second language (L2) development of adult learners of Spanish at three levels of proficiency during and after a semester of instruction. A fundamental goal was to identify cognitive and psychosocial individual differences (IDs) that can explain between-learner variation over time in order to expand our understanding of the…

Developing the ability to speak in a foreign language is an arduous task. This is because it involves the mastery of different language subsystems, simultaneous focus on comprehension and production, and the impact of a range of social factors. This challenge is further compounded in situations in which learners have limited access to the target…

This study explores the nature of language anxiety from the perspective of five Japanese learners of English (ESL), especially in reference to their self-reflective accounts of emotional difficulties encountered in the U.S. college settings. Through the use of an in-depth qualitative interview format, this study attempts to identify potential…