The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) is the standard in the college admissions process, leading to the inclusion of preparation classes in Intensive English Program (IEP) curricula. But does preparing for the TOEFL in isolation yield optimal results for IEP college hopefuls? In this article, we will share information about the…

Sharing the same theoretical basis of extensive reading, "extensive listening" refers to learner exposure to a great deal of comprehensible spoken input. While the effectiveness of extensive reading has been widely acknowledged in many countries, empirical support of extensive listening is limited. This small-scale study adopted a…

While there has been long-standing interest in identifying teacher practices for facilitating participation, less attention has been paid to what might be termed the 'participation paradox', or the necessity of "engaging in" and "disengaging from" interactions with individual students to create opportunities for both…

Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives plays a crucial role in developing assessments that measure higher and lower level cognitive skills. Since it is important to assess how well students master the information within the levels of the taxonomy, the present study first presents the higher and lower levels of Bloom's taxonomy and…

This sequential explanatory mixed methods study aimed at investigating the effect of explicit and implicit corrective feedback on Iranian English language learners' (EFL) L2 willingness to communicate (WTC) in English. Explicit and implicit corrective feedback were given to groups of low-intermediate Iranian EFL learners to see their effectiveness…

To evaluate which features of spoken language aid infant word learning, a corpus of infant-directed speech (M. R. Brent & J. M. Siskind, 2001) was characterized on several linguistic dimensions and statistically related to the infants' vocabulary outcomes word by word. Comprehension (at 12 and 15 months) and production (15 months) were…

Developing the ability to think critically is vital component of real, meaningful teaching and learning. Critical thinking helps us solve problems, make decisions and reach our goals. Thinking is not a passive but an active process. If students' critical thinking skills are activated, for example while writing, very successful results can be…

The goal of this article is to examine intercultural experiences and the cultural identity reconstruction of Chinese international students in Germany by focusing on their cultural learning, and use of multiple languages including English as a lingua franca (ELF), German and Chinese. Three rounds of individual interviews over 1 year were conducted…

The progression from receptive vocabulary knowledge to productive word use in language learning to date is unclear. Vocabulary size has been the primary focus of receptive and productive vocabulary research. The present study looks at the internal structure of vocabulary knowledge along the receptive and productive continuum within a multi-aspect…

Despite the importance of teachers' roles in helping learners overcome their foreign language anxiety (FLA), a number of studies found that there were some mismatches between learners' views and those of the teachers in regard with learners' FLA. These mismatches could potentially hinder the teaching and learning process. This study, therefore,…

The prominent role of visual resources in language classrooms has long been advocated, as many argued that images could go beyond providing students with a visual background of the context or arousing motivation (Unsworth & Ngo, 2014). This article explores the roles of the visual resources drawn from an English textbook series used in…

This study investigated the effect of formulaic language on L2 learners' ability to decode words in listening texts. One possibility was that formulas would facilitate listening by reducing the need to process every word of the sequences. However, a contrasting possibility was that the commonly reduced nature of formulaic words would hinder…

Despite textbooks serving as a primary educational resource, they are not inclusive. While the argument that the native speaker (NS) lingua-cultural approach or dominance in textbooks may impede English as a lingua franca (ELF)-aware teaching and learning has been accepted by some scholars, this assertion is supported by little empirical evidence…

Disparate goals that learners might have in learning second or foreign language pronunciation and the scant classroom time that can be dedicated to teaching this target language subsystem dictate that learner autonomy is of vital importance in this case and adept use of pronunciation learning strategies (PLS) can be viewed as key to the…

This paper examines the research self-efficacy beliefs, research motivation, and perceptions of research importance and research obstacles of 100 professors and lecturers of foreign languages at three Mexican universities. Survey results show that faculty hold moderate to high research self-efficacy beliefs, are highly motivated to conduct…