Creativity is considered one of the key 21st century skills and has received an increasing amount of attention in the field of education. How teachers perceive creativity has a significant impact on their pedagogical practices to stimulate student creativity in the classroom. The present exploratory study, based on a qualitative approach, aimed to…

This study aimed at examining the possible effects of teacher motivational practices and student demotivation on the way Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners produce request and refusal speech acts. Subsequently, four instruments were selected and administered to the participants under scrutiny. They were: (a) a Quick Placement…

This study examined the effectiveness of explicit instruction and feedback, focusing on degrees of prior knowledge of the personal "a" in intermediate level second language (L2) Spanish. On the pretest, participants (n = 58) completed grammaticality judgment and picture description tasks, which found that learners had different degrees…

Research has confirmed the benefits of pragmatics instruction for a variety of speech acts, including suggestions and requests. However, less is known about the effectiveness of instruction for disagreements, which are face-threatening acts that establish a point of view counter to the interlocutor. Therefore, the current study explored the effect…

Researchers have previously shown that video prompting can promote vocational skill acquisition for students with autism, and in a prior study, we demonstrated a model to train a paraprofessional to implement this practice. In this study, we evaluated (a) the degree to which the paraprofessional generalized implementation to new students and…

Consistent with current higher education concerns with student engagement and the student experience, this study explored third-year undergraduate Finance students' experiences of lecture-based active learning tasks. Finance students from the 2012 and 2014 cohorts from a South African university were invited to complete an anonymous questionnaire…

Design activities form an extensive part of design and technology education with a link being posited within the pertinent literature between the cognitive activity of learning and the cognitive activity of design. It is therefore critical that design educators' understand the effects that design constraints can have on the learning process. This…

This paper presents a study that looked into the structuring of tasks that may foster oral fluency in an intensive eight-week course with 25 young adult and adult learners of English as a foreign language in a format of tutoring sessions for conversation. The action research involved two teachers and a research advisor, coauthors of this paper.…

This study examined the effect of the combination of task repetition and post-task transcribing (TRPT) on the complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) of L2 oral performance and their subsequent development. Taiwanese university students (N = 39) were randomly assigned to one of the three groups: TRPT, task repetition (TR), and control group, and…

As children transition from the early to later grades of elementary school, they become increasingly skilled at employing a variety of techniques -- such as rehearsal and organizational strategies -- for remembering information. Developmental changes in strategy use have been well documented, but little is known about the extent to which these…

This study investigated the effects of multimodal tasks on critical reading ability and perceptions of Thai university students. To compare effects on critical reading ability, students were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups and assessed with pre- and post-critical reading tests. Furthermore, reflective journals and…

In teaching writing to foreign or second language learners, one of the issues concerning teachers is the amount and types of errors students make in their writings. This paper aims to obtain a clear understanding of types of errors in the writings of Turkish EFL learners by comparing freshman and sophomore students' writing performance. To this…

Conceptual socialization refers to the process second/foreign language learners go through to transform their conceptual system so as "to fit the functional needs of the new language and culture" (Kecskes, 2002, p. 157). Therefore, the present study examined Turkish EFL learners' conceptual socialization by analyzing the similarities and…

Interacting with peers can be difficult for some students, due to their personality as well as to their learning styles. This paper shows how the Task-Based Approach (TBA) can be implemented and how digital resources can be used in language teaching and learning to enhance the students' experience and foster autonomy. To do so, I describe tasks I…

Learning the writing skill is a challenging task for second or foreign language learners. This difficulty stems from the fact that students required multiple skills and knowledge while writing. They need, for example, enough vocabulary inventory, grammar knowledge, and other discourse strategies to organize the text. Students are also in need for…