Of all English Language skills, writing poses the greatest challenge for students due to the demands of style, structure and vocabulary. Even if second language learners (L2 learners) can speak the language well enough for everyday activities--shopping, traveling, and so on, producing an academic write-up that is precise, accurate, objective and…

This study reports on the conceptualization of a new construct targeting the cross-disciplinary academic language skills most relevant to school reading comprehension, targeting the validation of the Core Academic Language Skills (CALS) Instrument, a novel assessment tool which measures this construct. Participants included Grade 4-8 monolingual…

This study presents the analysis of a translanguaging by design activity I conducted with students finishing an EFL program at a Costa Rican university, for which I showed them pictures of graffiti in Spanish and encouraged them to discuss these, using their entire linguistic repertoire. I recorded their discussions, selected instances of…

We draw from an ethnographic research perspective to examine the potential benefits and pitfalls of dual-language secondary classrooms. The data collected come from multiple sources including classroom observations and teacher interviews from dual-language secondary classrooms. A secondary dual-language education conceptual framework is presented.…

The impacts of task characteristics on second language (L2) writing require further exploration. This study examined the effects of increasing task complexity on L2 argumentative writing. Upper-intermediate L2 learners performed two writing tasks with varying degrees of complexity in relation to the number of elements and the degree of reasoning.…

The aim of the present study was to measure the effect of the flipped classroom on vocabulary learning in terms of both receptive and productive vocabulary. To do this, a post-test experimental research design was implemented. The participants of the study are 58 high school students. The experimental group was exposed to a four-week flipped…

This study examined the effectiveness of interactive activities at facilitating EFL students' production of English relative clauses. Thirty-seven EFL learners in Chile carried out interactive activities designed to elicit relative clauses. Pre- and posttests were used to examine whether carrying out the activities facilitated the students'…

For linguistically diverse communities, researchers have long questioned assessment approaches that disregard learners' multilingualism. Our study offers potential approaches that center contextualized, multilingual knowledges and skills within classroom-based language assessments with one teacher and his English foreign language courses for…

This paper reports how robot-assisted language learning (RALL) impacts Japanese adults' English speaking skills. With existing research on RALL focusing on children, there is little evidence indicating RALL's effects on adults. We developed a RALL system comprising a robot, a tablet, and designed learning materials for speaking practice. To…

As academic language skills develop, young learners are able to rise to the challenge of increasingly complex communication in increasingly formal settings (Snow, 2014; Uccelli et al., 2015). Studies suggest that CLIL contexts may favour the development of academic language skills (Dalton-Puffer, 2007; Nikula, 2007; Marsh, 2008; Pasqual Peña,…

The purposes of this study are to examine the relation between playing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) games in the wild and L2 English vocabulary and to offer comparisons with non-gamers' vocabulary. Data were collected from two samples of teenage L2 English learners in Sweden, Sample A (N = 1,069) and Sample B (N = 16). Questionnaires and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of variability in teaching prepositions to preschoolers with typical development (TD) and developmental language disorder (DLD). Input variability during teaching can enhance learning, but is target dependent. We hypothesized that high variability of objects would improve preposition learning.…

This study aimed to explore pre-service English language teachers` perceptions of code-switching (CS) in language classrooms and how their perceptions affect their teacher identity development. Three pre-service teachers from a private university in Istanbul, Turkey participated in the study. The data were collected through semi-structured…

This study explored the effects of note-taking training on Korean college students' notes during academic English listening tests. A total of 61 college students were randomly assigned to two different groups: Group A that later received training in note-taking strategy and Group B that did not. Group A received note-taking strategy training on…

Engaging a complexity theory view of learning, this study examined an atypical timescale for tracking L2 authorial voice development through the interaction of cognitive processes that inform voice construction. A microgenetic analysis of seven adult Japanese learners of English in a three-week writing course designed to help students develop…