In this paper we conduct a poststructural discourse analysis inspired by Carol Bacchi's 'What's the problem represented to be?' (WRP) approach. We explore what kinds of problems are formulated in preschool educational policy on multilingualism, and what underlying assumptions underlie the dominant discourse on language proficiency in Sweden.…

Speaking skills are considered one of the most crucial skills in learning English as they lay the foundation for effective communication and language acquisition. Proficiency in speaking enables young learners to express themselves, convey ideas, and communicate effectively. This quasi-experimental research aims to investigate the effect of board…

This report describes a calibration, scoring, and reporting method applicable to an assessment requiring aggregation at multiple levels. We demonstrate the method using an example of an assessment that targets a small and diverse population, an English language proficiency assessment for English learners with the most significant cognitive…

Background/Context: Students classified as Long-Term English Learners (LTELs) are those who have not gained fluency in the English language, even after being enrolled in the U.S. K-12 educational system for five to seven years (Olsen, 2014). Although LTELs are not consistently tracked across states, we know they constitute a sizeable portion of…

This paper reports partial results from a larger study of how three different groups of stakeholders--university admissions officers, faculty in graduate programs involved in admissions decisions, and Intensive English Program (IEP) faculty--interpret and use TOEFL iBT® scores in making admissions decisions or preparing students to meet minimum…

Despite the growth and popularity of Irish-medium Education (IME) in Northern Ireland, the sector has not received the same levels of state support and funding as has heritage language education in the rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Educating children in an immersive language setting, particularly in a minority or endangered language,…

Given the constant changes in the translation job market, translator training (TT) programmes need ongoing adaptation to continue training students to meet market requirements. This study aimed to explore the extent to which undergraduates of Arabic/English TT programmes in Saudi Arabia (SA) perceive their ability to help students acquire…

Glossophobia or fear of public speaking is commonly experienced by tertiary learners during classroom presentations. This study intends to examine the speech anxiety level experienced by engineering learners and the relationship between the learners' English language proficiency and their speech anxiety. The study will also identify the causes of…

This study explores the complexities of teacher identity formation for two Chinese teachers of English in China, who represent two growing groups of English teachers: Alice, who worked in a private English training institution and John, who was a self-employed private English tutor. Drawing insights from Barcelos' (2015) theorization of the…

The paper describes Saudi English morphosyntactic and lexical features that are widely practiced among educated Saudis, who completed at least nine years of English language study. The occurrence of the morphosyntactic features is argued to be affected by the speakers' contact to the native English. Those who are in direct contact with Standard…

Universities have been promoting study abroad programmes for a long time to improve intercultural competence. However, the mere exposure to cultural differences while studying abroad does not ensure intercultural competence, unless study abroad students' reflective processes are explicitly targeted. The article presents the results of a short…

The "Filière Bilingue" (FiBi) is a Swiss public two-way immersion program integrating French-speaking, German-speaking and allophone learners (having neither French nor German as an L1) in each class. Located in the bilingual city of Biel/ Bienne, the "diglossic" situation represented by the use of Swiss German and standard…

This is a qualitative study that explored the experiences of friendship formation of Omani international students at a university in New Zealand. Semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data from 12 Omani participants and data were analysed using thematic analysis. Utilising Bochner et al.'s (1977) Functional Model, the study found…

The purpose of the current study is to determine Turkish as a foreign language learners' tendency to use communication strategies. Quantitative and qualitative research models were used together in the study. The survey method was used in the qualitative part and the phenomenological method was used in the quantitative part of the study. The study…

Emotions in foreign language (FL) learning have become an increasingly popular research avenue in applied linguistics. Such research is often carried out using linear correlational or regression methods, which are limited in the extent to which they can depict interrelations. In this study, we aimed to reexamine the relationships between the…