Multiple-choice (MC) tests are frequently used to measure language competence because they are quick, economical and straightforward to score. While degrees of correctness have been investigated for partially correct responses in combined-response MC tests, degrees of incorrectness in distractors and the role they play in determining the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate Vocabulary Learning Strategy (VLS) use of English Language and Literature Department students in relation to academic success and vocabulary size. The participants of the study are 213 English Language and Literature students. Two data collection tools were used in the study. The first tool was…

This paper investigated the extent to which Iranian EFL students are aware of the appropriate use of request speech act in English speaking contexts in terms of formality, politeness and indirectness. A researcher made discourse completion test (DCT) including 16 scenarios was distributed among 130 advanced students in private English institutes…

The main concern of the present study was to investigate the probable correlation between the bilinguals' second language grammatical proficiency level and their third language grammatical proficiency level. The current study was implemented on selecting a total of 100 Iranian female high school students studying at second grade from two…

In this article we report on early rhythmic discrimination performance of children who participated in a longitudinal study following children from birth to their 6th year of life. Thirty-four children including 8 children with a family risk for developmental language impairment were tested on the discrimination of trochaic and iambic disyllabic…

Over the past decades, studies of EFL/ESL vocabulary acquisition have identified the significance of collocations in language learning. Due to the fact that collocations have been regarded as one of the major concerns of both EFL teachers and learners for many years, the present study attempts to shed light on the impact of corpus-based…

There is an increasing focus on early-childhood education quality globally, reflecting a growing political awareness that education starts earlier than primary school, and that high quality in day-care influence children's learning and development. In Denmark, almost all children attend day-care, and day-care institutions are considered part of…

The proceedings of the first Language Testing Forum in 1980 were published in "ELT Documents 111: Issues in Language Testing" (Alderson & Hughes, 1981). Discussants at the 1980 Forum raised a number questions on Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) testing relating, notably, to test specificity, test content, the relationship between…

This study examines the methodology of global foreign accent ratings in studies on L2 speech production. In three experiments, we test how variation in raters, range within speech samples, as well as instructions and procedures affects ratings of accent in predominantly monolingual speakers of German, non-native speakers of German, as well as…

Previous research has furnished evidence that alliterative expressions (e.g. "a slippery slope") are comparatively memorable for second language learners, at least when these expressions are attended to as decontextualized items (Lindstromberg and Boers, 2008a; Boers et al., 2012). The present study investigates whether alliteration…

This study considers the upper limit of ultimate attainment in the L2 French and L3 English of trilingual learners. The learners are native speakers of Moroccan Arabic who started learning L2 French at eight and L3 English at 16. They are advanced in both languages. Four constructions representing the verb movement and null subject parameter were…

The purpose of this research was to better understand the bilingual and biliteracy skills of Spanish-speaking low-socio-economic status (low-SES) children who attended an English or a bilingual programme during preschool and kindergarten/first grade, and to determine whether their outcomes varied according to instructional language and primary…

This paper studies a natural experiment due to an unusual change in the college admission policy at a Chinese university, which brought a large number of low-score students into several academic departments in the university. Exploiting large variations in peer characteristics and strong interactions among peer groups, the analysis finds that…

This study investigated second language (L2) learners' perception of L2 sounds as an individual difference that predicted their improvement in pronunciation after receiving instruction. Learners were given explicit pronunciation instruction in a series of modules added to their Spanish as a foreign language curriculum and were then tested on their…

Possessing strong communication skills is essential in contributing to effective teaching. This paper investigates graduating student teachers' English language proficiency, as measured by IELTS tests scores, of graduating EL student teachers. The paper considers what teachers need to know about the English language given that English has been the…