The current study explored and compared the employment of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers (MDMs) by the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) speaking test takers at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. To conduct this discourse analysis research, a mixed-methods approach with concurrent transformative…

English proficiency has become pivotal for university admission, particularly at the CEFR B2 level and IELTS band 6-6.5 across Europe. In Nordic universities, the substantial amount of assigned English reading materials requires a strong command of English reading skills, with vocabulary knowledge being a crucial component. This study explores 309…

A writer's L1 is generally believed to influence their L2 English writing significantly. However, the extent to which L1 backgrounds influence Asian learners' L2 English writing has not been wholly elucidated due to the lack of data covering various learners in Asia. Therefore, this study analysed more than one-million-word essays written by 2,318…

Scholars have argued for the inclusion of different spoken varieties of English in high-stakes listening tests to better represent the global use of English. However, doing so may introduce additional construct-irrelevant variance due to accent familiarity and the shared first language (L1) advantage, which could threaten test fairness. However,…

When viewed through a generic, one-size-fits-all perspective, use of input enhancement does not appear effective. Through analysis of individual grammatical features and different learner proficiency levels, a significant impact may be revealed. To study the impact of input enhancement on diverse grammatical features, 16 short reading texts and…

An assumption underlying speaking tests is that scores reflect the ability to produce online, non-rehearsed speech. Speech produced in testing situations may, however, be less spontaneous if extensive test preparation takes place, resulting in memorized or rehearsed responses. If raters detect these patterns, they may conceptualize speech as…