Purpose: This study aims to explore if and to what extent an online avatar-assisted virtual classroom can work to alleviate groups of Japanese university students' anxiety around giving spoken presentations. It also explores how to create a more inclusive language learning environment and encourage interaction between the students in the virtual…

COVID-19 questioned the flexibility and readiness of countries' educational systems to deal with unforeseen global crises. In March 2020, schools were closed to contain the spread of the virus amongst populations of the world. Distance learning replaced the traditional teacher-centred mode of education, thereby leaving students, perhaps for the…

The digitalization of teaching continues to shape its future, demanding continuing adaptation to its growing needs. To meet the evolving expectations, many online learning modules have been produced. Nonetheless, many fail to capture learners' interest as they lack creativity since they contain lengthy texts and uninteresting explanatory videos.…

This research investigates the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools by Indonesian EFL learners to enhance their presentation skills through self-regulated learning. With the rapid advancement of AI technologies, their integration into educational practices has become increasingly significant, particularly in developing essential skills like…

This study explored communication apprehension at the beginning and end of a business communication course. Nearly 200 students completed pre-class and post-class assessments of their communication apprehension in speech situations, class discussions, and group discussions. This study showed that a single business communication course…

Communication instructors have long insisted on the importance of audience adaptation. But they have said less about (a) the dimensions along which adaptation might proceed or (b) how a student might learn the art of adapting. In this article, I contribute toward addressing these two deficiencies. I suggest a dimension for adaptation - the value…

Low-stakes assessment has gained attention in recent years due to its link to enhancing learning effects and its essential role in learning evaluation. Unlike high-stakes assessments, low-stakes assessments have little or no consequences for learners' academic performance, and are designed to support the feedback-oriented learning process.…

This study proposed a novel approach to classroom debates, in which chatbots that are able to engage in argumentative dialogues are adopted to facilitate students' debate preparation. The approach comprised three stages: first, students interacted with a chatbot named Argumate to help them generate ideas; second, students discussed the ideas with…

Creating its own learner corpus, this research proposed to analyze and classify the transition markers used in solo presentation by 30 Thai engineering students based on Hyland (2019)'s Marker Categorization in Textual Metadiscourse. This research also aimed to identify and compare the quantities of individual transition markers among three groups…

The communication of scientific findings often concludes the research experience, but few science programs include explicit undergraduate curricula for practicing oral science communication. While course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) can provide opportunities for students to practice science communication, few studies describe…

Public speaking is a less practiced issue in Bangladesh as it is not included in academic curricula in any tier of education. The fear of public speaking, especially in English, is common among many Bangladeshi university students. To better understand this matter, 19 in-depth interviews and four focus group discussions were carried out among…

This study investigated the effects of different feedback types and English achievement levels on students' oral presentation performance in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context. Specifically, the research aims were four-fold: 1) to compare the effects of oral teacher feedback, oral peer feedback, and online written peer feedback on…

This study primarily aimed to investigate the Communication Apprehension (CA) experienced by students at the Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna (RMUTL) Phitsanulok, Thailand in the context of their English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes. A total of 281 students from three faculties--Business Administration and Liberal Arts (BALA),…

Minority students' experiences in online public speaking courses suggest to readers how they might feel excluded in face-to-face public speaking classroom environments and even non-academic environments. This study examines the positive effects of online public speaking instruction on minority students and explores ways instructors can further…

Developing oral presentation skills is an essential objective of higher education. While previous research emphasized the importance of practice for developing oral presentation skills (OPS), it remains unclear what the optimal amount of practice is. This experimental field study examined the added benefit of an extra practice session in virtual…