This study aims to investigate English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' use of context information under various noise conditions. The participants were seven Japanese undergraduate students. A noise test adopted from the Speech-Perception-in-Noise (SPIN) test (Kalikow et al., 1977) was used. Four signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions (SNR =…

Research in second language teacher education (SLTE) is critical for making short- and long-term policies and decisions about SLTE programs, materials, methods, etc. Therefore, it is essential to know the "what," "how," and "where" of SLTE research. Hence, the purpose of this synchronic study was to investigate…

Task-based language teaching research has investigated the impact of planning on task performance, but little has been reported on the processes that take place while planning is undertaken. This study builds on previous planning research by providing a detailed analysis of four Japanese university learners' collaborative pre-task planning (two…

Despite the accumulating body of knowledge on action research, the scope of research on teacher identity construction in action research is still limited. This study relied on the concept of identities-in-practice and examined four second language (L2) teachers' identity construction across the plan, act, observe, and reflect stages of action…

This study examined how L2 English speakers interpreted the notion of native English speakers (NESs) and nonnative English speakers (NNESs) and whether nativeness would influence their self-perception and speech production. It aimed at filling the following research gaps. First, limited studies have explored how L2 English speakers view the other…

To trace the evolution of research strands in published Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) papers over time, a corpus of 426 highly-cited papers in four major CALL journals ("ReCALL," "CALL," "LL&T," and "CALICO Journal") was compiled and coded using NVivo 12. All identified aspects of…

Many language learners lack the motivation to read complex texts. Because high-immersion Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly reported to be highly motivating, the goal of our study was to compare English as a Second Language (ESL) learners' (N=79) motivation while reading a story with subtitles in VR (experimental group) versus reading the same…

Linggle is a pattern-based referencing tool that assists in collocation learning. In this ongoing project, we aimed to improve its performance further. First, many of the example sentences are long and difficult for students to understand, so we used a machine learning method and trained a classifier to help select dictionarylike example…

The purpose of this study was to understand graduate and post-graduate EFL teachers' epistemological beliefs based on the standardized English language and their beliefs on the NEST/NNEST dichotomy. In order to gain a deeper understanding two different group of teachers were formed consisting of graduate and post-graduate level of education. The…

Generalization is the ability to apply regularities to novel instances, for example, correctly guessing that the plural for the novel English word 'wug' should be 'wugs'. Early language learners make overgeneralization errors like 'mouses', applying regularities beyond their attested uses. Theories concerned with the question of how learners learn…

As the online education market continues to expand globally, teaching and advertising have converged in digital spaces in unprecedented ways. Driven by the attention economy, independent online educators must compete to cultivate a consumer base. To attract followers, they must engage not only in online teaching activities but also in…

The entrance exams to Japanese universities have long been criticised for creating negative "washback" on English education in high schools in Japan, as teachers have often focused their teaching efforts on teaching grammar to prepare students for these exams rather than helping students to develop competency in spoken English. Many…

The highly diverse character of US universities provides an opportunity for writing programs to (re)examine the extent to which their current administrative, curricular, and pedagogical practices support a growing student population with unique linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds, resources, and needs. This dissertation research…

In this chapter, I explore the opportunities that migrant mothers in Finland have for learning the local language, Finnish, in their day-to-day environment. To do this I draw on ethnographic data, collected between 2012 and 2018, comprising interviews, observations, field notes, audio-recorded interaction situations, and photographs taken by the…

We should seek every possible method for educating immigrants and refugees and facilitating ­communication for them--especially during the current difficult times due to the spread of a killer-­ pandemic (i.e., Covid-19). To this end, I discuss the role which "metalanguage" could play in this regard, with reference to Natural Semantic…