This study was conducted in order to inspect the impact of podcasts as learning and teaching tools on Iranian EFL learners' motivation for listening as well as on their listening comprehension ability. It also investigated the learners' perception towards podcasts. 34 intermediate learners who were homogeneous in terms of listening ability were…

This study aimed to describe the writing activities that test takers engage in when responding to the writing tasks in the "TOEFL iBT"[superscript R] test and to examine the effects of task type and test-taker English language proficiency (ELP) and keyboarding skills on the frequency and distribution of these activities. Each of 22 test…

This review paper constitutes the first step within a larger research effort to develop an interactive pragmatics learning tool for second and foreign language (L2) learners and users of English. The tool will primarily endeavor to support pragmatics learning within the language use domain "workplace." Given this superordinate objective,…

This article presents a small qualitative study which aimed to gain an understanding of how lecturers and international students perceive the English language policies and practices at their institutions. The findings show that most participants perceive current policies and practices as unfair. However, there were discrepancies in lecturers' and…

The present study explored data from a survey of students' performance in English at the end of compulsory school in 6 European countries. The aim was to gain deeper knowledge of the internal structure of the test and to discuss similarities and differences between the different settings regarding patterns in language proficiency. The analyses,…

This study aimed to determine differences in the uptake of peer and teacher feedback after writing students received longitudinal feedback from only one of these sources. It also investigates the types of feedback given by peers and a teacher in order to explain those any differences. Data was collected from 64 Japanese university students in four…

This study investigated the long-term effects of structural priming on children's use of indirect speech clauses in a narrative context. Forty-two monolingual English-speaking 5-year-olds in two primary classrooms took part in a story-retelling task including reported speech. Testing took place in three individual sessions (pre-test, post-test 1,…

Dynamic assessment originates in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Practicing dynamic assessment necessarily requires the development of ZPD. This study aimed to investigate the effect of peer-assisted mediation vs. tutor-intervention within dynamic assessment framework on writing development and the attitude of Iranian intermediate EFL…

The study reported in this article aims to capture the possible changes to the discursive mode of College English (CE) teaching in China by comparing teachers' questions, feedback, and teaching exchanges across two levels of quality courses constructed at different years. Based on transcribed data of 20 videos, it reveals that the general…

This study demonstrated an e-learning system, MyEVA, based on a mixed-modality vocabulary strategy in assisting learners of English as a second language (L2 learners) to improve their vocabulary. To explore the learning effectiveness of MyEVA, the study compared four vocabulary-learning techniques, MyEVA in preference mode, MyEVA in basic mode, an…

The ability to recognise words from the aural modality is a critical aspect of successful second language (L2) listening comprehension. However, little research has been reported on computer-mediated development of L2 word recognition from speech in L2 learning contexts. This report describes the development of an innovative computer application…

Discourse connectives are important indicators of textual coherence, and mastering them is an essential part of acquiring a language. In this article, we compare advanced learners' sensitivity to the meaning conveyed by connectives in an off-line grammaticality judgment task and an on-line reading experiment using eye-tracking. We also assess the…

In Taiwan, English language learning in senior high school has predominantly focused on reading, with a heavy emphasis on memorising vocabulary and grammar rules. English listening has been marginalised and is not officially taught until the first year of university. In 2012, the Joint Board of College Recruitment Commission in Taiwan passed…

As the training of language learners was a main concern of EFL teachers, this study aimed to assess the effectiveness of metacognitive reading strategies instruction (MRSI) on Taif University EFL students who achieved low results in reading. The final sample of this study was (21) female university students. The sample was divided into two groups;…

Voxy, an English-language-learning company, has developed a custom, in-house proficiency exam, the Voxy Proficiency Assessment (VPA), which is given to all learners at the beginning and end of their courses. Using Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR), the impact of covariates, such as total learning activities completed and total number of…