This study examines the impact of teacher metapathy, or teachers' capacity to comprehend and sympathize with students' emotional and cognitive requirements, on the academic outcomes of IELTS applicants, such as total band scores, motivation, and language learning orientation. Ten IELTS teachers from five language training centers and 100 IELTS…

This study explores the role of cognitive task complexity in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum development and its impact on learner engagement, motivation, and learning outcomes. A mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods, was employed to gain comprehensive insights into the topic. The qualitative…

Over the decades, extensive research efforts have been directed towards classifying and evaluating motivational teaching behaviours. Recent calls in motivational research, however, have emphasised the need to investigate teachers' perspectives on how they develop effective motivational strategies so that implications for motivational teaching are…

This study represents the inaugural attempt at assessing the authenticity of the tasks encompassed in the IELTS Speaking Module. The evaluation is conducted from the vantage points of applied linguistics and general education, and serves to enhance comprehension of authenticity and authentic assessment. In order to achieve this objective, an…

The steady increase in content courses being taught through the medium of English in non-Anglophone countries has been matched by a rapidly growing output of research and commentary on the topic. There are also a number of providers now offering professional development for English Medium Instruction (EMI) teachers. We carried out a systematic…

Within the communicative language teaching approach, current instructional materials often lack explicit guidance or fail to provide L2 learners with a wide range of resources in the target language. Conversation analysis (CA), which focuses on authentic talk, has been proposed as a potential resource for language classrooms. This study examines…

This study, taking into consideration of teachers' as well as students' judgments, explored the generalizability and consistency of the results of linking speaking test of IELTS to China's Standards of English Language Ability (CSE). Nine college English teachers and 81 undergraduate students judged the degree of congruence between the IELTS…

This study aims to examine the challenges that face EFL teachers in applying negotiation for meaning pedagogy in teaching writing skill. To collect qualitative data, classroom observation and semi-structured interviews were employed as data collection methods whereas for analyzing the data, a thematic analysis technique was used. The findings of…

The writing module of the IELTS has proven to be a challenging section for test takers. Part of this difficulty may stem from the divergence between what test takers expect to learn in such courses and what is delivered by instructors. To address this issue, a 24-item questionnaire (Student Questionnaire A) relating to IELTS writing preparation…

This study compares the effect of ZPD feedback with explicit feedback on accuracy in second language (L2) writing. It also examines the effect of focused vs. unfocused ZPD feedback on L2 writing development during teacher-student tutorial sessions. Four participants wrote five persuasive essays and were provided with ZPD or explicit feedback…

This paper investigates the attitudes of 246 English teachers from Outer and Expanding Circles (EC and OC) towards the global spread of English and the challenges underpinning international proficiency tests. Using a questionnaire, supplemented with interviews with a smaller group of teachers, this study explores how EC and OC teachers perceive…

This study considered the social emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic. It utilized quantitative methods to investigate the L2 self-images (i.e., ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, and feared L2 self) held by EFL college students in formal online English classes, based on Dörnyei's (2005) L2 Motivational Self System. Meanwhile, this research proved the…

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to investigate the challenges and barriers that Saudi graduate students experience with the English entrance exam, the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). The sample of this study consisted of six Saudi graduate students and two English teachers from two different English schools in…

Rater subjectivity has long been an intriguing topic. The use of discussion as a resolution method is a practical way to reduce this subjectivity. However, the efficacy of discussion depends on whether different raters get equally engaged in it or one rater tends to dominate others. This study investigated whether and how rater dominance occurs in…

The development of English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) at the tertiary level has been accelerated by the ever-increasing degree of higher education internationalisation. The study, based on a survey with 112 students and semi-structured interviews with 16 instructors collected at a Sino-foreign cooperative education institution in China,…