Decades ago, on the first day of a freshman composition class with readings centered on the theme of war, the author asked students to respond to the following writing prompt: "Define an enemy." More than half of the students defined an enemy as "someone who doesn't agree with you" (or closely related wording). Having expected…

This study identifies challenges perceived by Indonesian students of English as a Foreign Language in "Oracy in Academic Context" classes as well as possible causes of the problems. This subject was a new addition to the 2018 curriculum of the English Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty at XXX University in Indonesia.…

Stress has a negative impact on students' daily lives and can be associated with recurrent pain. School nurses play a key role in supporting young people with stress-related pain. The purpose of this qualitative interview study was to elucidate school nurses' experiences of encountering students with recurrent pain when practicing person-centred…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to determine the ability of the AzBio speech recognition in noise (SRN) test to distinguish between groups of participants with and without a self-reported SRN disorder and a self-reported signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) loss. Method: Fifty-four native English-speaking young adults with normal pure-tone thresholds…

This study examined the importance of syllable position, duration, and tone/pitch for the assignment of stress in Chinese hums. Twenty native Mandarin speakers and 20 native English speakers were asked to assign primary stress to two-syllable Chinese hums. The importance of acoustic cues for stress assignment was also evaluated. Our findings…

The reciprocal influences between the development of Chinese-as-a-second-language (CSL) listening and reading comprehension among young learners in Hong Kong were evaluated using a 2-year, three-wave longitudinal design. A total of 129 senior primary CSL students were assessed using listening and reading comprehension tests at the end of grades 4,…

The Assessment Resource Banks (ARBs) offer an innovative space to explore how responsive assessment for learning can work off- and online with Aotearoa New Zealand teaching and learning situations. They are a freely available online repository of formative assessment tasks that link to "The New Zealand Curriculum" (Ministry of Education,…

Metaverse technology is becoming increasingly popular in educational environments around the world. However, before it is widely applied in public education for adolescents learning English as a foreign language (EFL), it is crucial to assess its effectiveness in comparison to traditional teaching approaches. Our study involved 336 seventh-grade…

Research in applied linguistics and language education has well documented that ethnic minority students often face challenges and underperform in mainstream English classrooms due to their limited linguistic capital and proficiency. However, the connections between these students' English learning experiences and the social contexts that shape…

Sharing ancestral stories as purakau is an ancient tradition in Maori culture, used throughout generations to transfer knowledge, teach traditional values, and promote communication. While often incorrectly relegated to the genre of "myths and legends", purakau, as a traditional form of Maori narrative, is central to the sharing of…

Purpose: The overall goal of the current study was to determine whether noise type plays a role in perceptual quality ratings. We compared quality ratings using various noise types and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) ranges using hearing aid simulations to consider the effects of hearing aid processing features. Method: Ten older adults with bilateral…

Purpose: For colocated targets and maskers, binaural listening typically offers a small but significant advantage over monaural listening. This study investigated how monaural asymmetry and target--masker similarity may limit binaural advantage in adults and children. Method: Ten Mandarin-speaking Chinese adults (aged 22-27 years) and 12 children…

Little research has been done on the effect of learning context on L2 listening development. Motivated by DeKeyser's (2015) skill acquisition theory of second language acquisition, this study compares L2 listening development in study abroad (SA) and at home (AH) contexts from both language knowledge and processing perspectives. One hundred…

During conversation, interlocutors often produce their utterances with little overlap or gap between their turns. But what mechanism underlies this striking ability to time articulation appropriately? In 2 verbal "yes/no" question-answering experiments, we investigated whether listeners use the speech rate of questions to time…

This study explains how participatory action research has been used to create a new intersubjective awareness of the phenomenon of organizational culture. The question of creating voluntary democratic participation has been crucial for all stakeholders in this case. Through this two-and-a-half-year study including more than 30 workshops, in a…