This article examines textual traces of the standard language ideology within current education policy in England, focusing on post-2010 reforms which are characterised by a (re)shift towards conservatism, discipline, and standards. Using tools and methods from critical stylistics and the critical discourse analysis of language policy, I…

Purpose: In the early 1980s, researchers and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) collaborated to develop the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT). Research and development over the ensuing decades has culminated into SALT Solutions, a set of tools to assist SLPs to efficiently complete language sample analysis (LSA) with their…

Intercultural Competence Assessment (ICA) has recently become a central issue in applied linguistics in general, and language testing and assessment in particular. The present paper aims to investigate the difference between native and non-native assessment experts' beliefs about incorporating ICA in the Language Proficiency Assessment (LPA).…

Research in validity suggests that stakeholders' interpretation and use of test results should be an aspect of validity. Claims about the meaningfulness of test score interpretations and consequences of test use should be backed by evidence that stakeholders understand the definition of the construct assessed and the score report information. The…

Retrieval practice has generally been shown to be an effective study strategy. The benefits of retrieval practice, however, have largely been compared to restudying, a passive and ineffective study strategy. Here, I investigated the memory and metamemory effects of practicing retrieval versus generating mnemonics, an active and effective study…

Language proficiency testing has long played a role as both facilitator and barrier in global migration. This paper outlines how Canada and other traditional migrant destination countries use English-language proficiency testing for immigration, asylum and resettlement, and citizenship. It identifies commonalities between these three related areas…

Facilitating anxiety in second language (L2) learning research has not been thoroughly discussed for both methodological and conceptual reasons. This trend is also evident in the field of L2 reading, where reading anxiety has been viewed as a negative force. This study takes the initial step to explore the nature of facilitating anxiety in L2…

Comprehension of sentences with a center-embedded, object-gapped relative clause (ORC) is challenging for children as well as adults. Mismatching lexical and grammatical features of subject noun phrases (NPs) across the main clause and relative clause has been shown to facilitate comprehension. Adani et al. concluded that children's comprehension…

The current study reported an empirical investigation that tested the collective and individual effects of morphological awareness and cognate awareness on Japanese word learning among Chinese learners of Japanese. 131 Chinese learners of Japanese participated in this study. They completed morphological awareness measurements (morpheme…

The objective of this study was to examine the development of derivational morphological structures in the productive language of Kuwaiti Arabic (KA)-speaking children. Participants were 512 typically developing Kuwaiti children aged 3;0 years to 7;11 years (243 boys and 269 girls). Five age groups at 1-year intervals were tested; each group was…

Sometimes a treatment, such as receiving a high school diploma, is assigned to students if their scores on two inputs (e.g., math and English test scores) are above established cutoffs. This forms a multidimensional regression discontinuity design (RDD) to analyze the effect of the educational treatment where there are two running variables…

The issues of depth vocabulary knowledge and Willingness to Communicate (henceforth, WTC) are among the most important issues in second language learning. The present study set out to empirically look into the contribution of WTC to depth of vocabulary knowledge in L2 learning. To this end, 88 English L2 learners, divided into two groups in terms…

This replication study sought to compare the academic achievement of undergraduate students with different score profiles on the TOEFL iBT. Two-step cluster analysis of TOEFL iBT section scores identified six clusters among 2,347 undergraduate students who met the required cutscore on the TOEFL iBT for admission to a Canadian English-medium…

This study addressed a gap in existing research on Multiple-Choice (MC) cloze tests by focusing on the learners' perspective, specifically examining the difficulties faced by vocational high school students (VHSs). A nationwide sample of 293 VHSs participated, providing both quantitative and qualitative data through a self-developed questionnaire.…

This study investigated the relationship between changes in language learning beliefs and English proficiency among 41 Korean university students who participated in a short-term English program. Participants' beliefs were assessed using the Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI), and their proficiency was measured using the Test of…