Research Findings: The aim of this study was to construct and validate "English Picture Vocabulary Test (EPVT)" that aimed to assess the very young learners' (VYLs) receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge for specific content areas in English as a foreign language (EFL). In this context, EPVT was created in several stages. One of…

Lexical tone languages like Mandarin Chinese require listeners to discriminate among different pitch patterns. A syllable spoken with a rising pitch (e.g. "b[i-acute]" 'nose') carries a different meaning than the same syllable spoken with a falling pitch (e.g. "b[i with grave]" 'arm'). For native speakers (L1) of a non-tonal…

This study explored the effects of three types of lexical tools (MOOCs, E-dictionaries, and lexical concordancers) and three types of lexical applications (technology-mediated communication-based applications (TMCA), Anki as an e-flashcard application, and WordUp as a dedicated lexical application) on learning academic core words among a sample of…

This study sets out to investigate possible effects of previously learned languages on the acquisition of English as a third language by examining six prepositions (in, on, at, behind, over, to) when they denote spatial relations. Two picture description tasks were employed to find out which of the two known languages (L1 and/or L2) is the major…

This paper examined to what extent causal explanation speaking tasks (CESTs) are cognitively appropriate for assessing young language learners' (YLLs) L2 speaking. Ninety-six YLLs (48 from Grade 4 and 6 each) in China performed two CESTs in both L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English). They also completed receptive and productive L2 vocabulary size tests.…

The purpose of the present study was to investigate if following data-driven learning (DDL) to raise the learners' awareness of discourse organizers through concordancing improves their comprehension of English academic lectures. To address this issue, the current study adopted a quasi-experimental (comparison group, pretest-posttest) design. 96…

English learners (ELs) comprise approximately 10% of kindergarten to Grade 12 students in US public schools, with about 15% of ELs identified as having disabilities. English language proficiency (ELP) assessments must adhere to universal design principles and incorporate universal tools, designed to increase accessibility for all ELs, including…

The premise of this research is that analytical and extensive reading in a digital environment might be used to facilitate second language acquisition at the tertiary education level. Despite the general orientation toward communicative methods in modern second language acquisition, reading methods and techniques have seen an unexpected yet very…

Developing effective aptitude test batteries for conference interpreting is highly relevant for China given its large and fast-growing interpreting trainee population. This paper reports on the aptitude tests implemented to 23 first-year students at a CIUTI member and UN MOU university in China. We compared the validity of recall, a test commonly…

This study presents the validation process of a listening test based on a communicative language test proposed by Bachman (Fundamental considerations in language testing, 1990). It was administered to third-grade high school students by the sixteen Korean Provincial Offices of Education for Curriculum and Evaluation in September 2012 to assess…

Informed by two usage-based approaches, this study investigated to what extent different types of computer-based training facilitated English preposition learning among intermediate Chinese learners of English. The design of the pedagogical materials was informed by the cognitive linguistics (CL) framework while the training format was motivated…

Language assessment literacy (LAL) remains an uncharted area for many English language lecturers, hindering their ability to effectively bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application in language assessment within the classroom setting. This research aimed to investigate the language assessment literacy of Thai EFL…

While there is ample research on the effect of exposure to foreign language (FL) video materials on developing vocabulary knowledge and listening skills, research on the impact of watching videos on acquiring pronunciation skills, especially in terms of both perception and production, is still in its infancy. This study investigates the effect of…

This study investigated Thai EFL learners' acquisition of English dative constructions, i.e., Prepositional Dative (PD) and Double Object (DO) constructions employing Radford's (2004) Minimalist accounts as a framework and Acceptability Judgment as a task. Two hypotheses were formulated. Firstly, the English PD would be accepted more readily than…

Macaro has stated that the choice between a monolingual, immersive, target language-only pedagogy versus a non-immersive, multilingual pedagogy is 'probably the most fundamental question facing second language acquisition (SLA) researchers, language teachers, and policymakers'. Recognizing that prior empirical work on monolingual versus…