This study investigated the effect of different modes of English captioning on EFL learners' general listening comprehension. To this end, forty-five intermediate-level learners were selected based on their scores on a standardized English proficiency test (PET) to carry out the study. Then, the selected participants were randomly assigned into…

This article will consider using TOEFL scores for purposes of placement and advising for international graduate students at a northern California research university. As the number of international students is on the rise and the funds for the graduate ESL program are diminishing, the way in which the university is handling the influx of…

This paper proposes a personalised instructional strategy, "student-selected vocabulary," to facilitate secondary school students' vocabulary building. It then reports how this personalised instructional strategy was implemented and evaluated through a teacher-led intervention study of 57 low-achieving Hong Kong secondary school…

In large-scale assessment studies, language minority students typically obtain lower test scores in mathematics than native speakers. Although this performance difference was related to the linguistic complexity of test items in some studies, other studies did not find linguistically demanding math items to be disproportionally more difficult for…

Language acquisition involves learning not only grammatical rules and a lexicon but also what people are intending to convey with their utterances: the semantic/pragmatic component of language. In this article we separate the contributions of linguistic development and cognitive maturity to the acquisition of the semantic/pragmatic component of…

Curriculum design and implementation can be a daunting process. Questions quickly arise, such as who is qualified to design the curriculum and how do these people begin the design process. According to Graves (2008), in many contexts the design of the curriculum and the implementation of the curricular product are considered to be two mutually…

Background: Children who are learning English as an Additional Language (EAL) may start school with smaller vocabularies than their monolingual peers. Given the links between vocabulary and academic achievement, it is important to evaluate interventions that are designed to support vocabulary learning in this group of children. Aims: To evaluate…

This paper reports on a study examining the relationship between language learning and perceived language differences. Two groups of native Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong, L1 Cantonese--L2 English (CE) and L1 Cantonese--L2 English--L3 French (CEF), were asked to complete two tasks: a placement test in English (as well as in French for the CEF…

This study reports a meta-analysis that synthesizes the empirical research on the role of language aptitude in second language grammar acquisition. A total of 33 study reports were identified including 17 predictive studies that investigated the correlations between aptitude and ultimate L2 attainment and 16 interactional studies that examined the…

Reading-to-write (RTW) tasks are becoming increasingly popular and have already been used in several high-stakes English proficiency exams, either replacing or complementing a prompt-based essay test. However, it is still not clear that what accounts for successful or unsuccessful performance on an integrated reading-writing task is owing to the…

Despite the call for using assessment to promote effective learning, most language teachers remain underprepared to conduct classroom-based formative assessment and interpret the summative assessment information for improving instruction as well as learning. Drawing upon a survey of programme and government documents, interviews, student…

Classroom assessment tasks and environment are central to supporting student learning, yet are under-studied at the tertiary level, especially in China's test-driven culture. This study explores the relationship between students' perceptions of assessment tasks and classroom assessment environment, within the university context of teaching English…

This paper discusses the similarities between the Bible record of the Tower of Babel and the resulting confusion of languages and how it relates to modern times and the trend we see of English as an International Language (EIL). This paper then briefly examines the trend of being culturally sensitive in EIL by accepting cultural or "world…

These appendices accompany the report "Final Report of the i3 Impact Study of Making Sense of SCIENCE, 2016-17 through 2017-18." Science education has experienced a significant transition over the last decade, catalyzed by a re-envisioning of what students should know and be able to do in science. That re-envisioning culminated in the…

This paper outlines the design, implementation, and analysis of a computerized Spanish heritage language (SHL) placement exam. The exam created by the authors exemplifies how to design a simple yet effective placement exam with limited resources. It is suggested that an SHL placement exam should be developed in-house due not only to the diversity…