Language proficiency policies act as critical gatekeepers for multilingual international students (MIS) who intend to pursue an education at English-medium universities. The current study revisits the question of the predictive validity of a standardized English proficiency exam--International English Language Testing System (IELTS)--in comparison…

This mixed-methods study investigated the impact of musical lyrics and working memory capacities on second language (L2) English reading comprehension among adult Chinese native speakers. Participants were 57 adult ESL learners with advanced L2 proficiency, divided into high and low working memory capacity groups based on a pre-test. They…

Drawing on the framework of invariant measurement from Rasch measurement theory, the purpose of this study is to psychometrically evaluate the 20 language and teaching skill domains of the International Teaching Assistant (ITA) Test using the many-facet Rasch model and to empirically explore performance differences between females and males in…

Purpose: This study attempts to evaluate the effect of the corpus-based inductive teaching approach with multiple academic corpora (PICA, CAEC and Oxford Corpus of Academic English) and conventional deductive teaching approach (i.e., multiple-choice items, filling the gap, matching and underlining) on learning academic collocations by Iranian…

International English Language Testing System (IELTS) scores have been widely used as the language entry requirements for international students in many English-medium universities. However, research on the predictive validity of IELTS on subsequent academic performance has been inconclusive. Additionally, despite the proliferation of IELTS…

This study addresses critical gaps in English proficiency assessments, particularly for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students, by focusing on the foundational aspect of needs analysis in designing a platform to assist EFL students in preparation for real English proficiency tests. The existing tests, such as TOEFL and IELTS, often fail to…

Willingness to communicate (WTC) research has recently witnessed a paradigm shift with the more recent studies looking at the shifting and dynamic nature of the variable. A growing body of literature has interpreted such dynamicity from a complex dynamic systems (CDS) perspective. The theory of CDS has four basic properties, one of which, and the…

Various examinations are administered at universities across the US as a means of assessing bilingual/multilingual international teaching assistants' (ITAs') proficiency in spoken English before they are permitted to teach. While such exams are taken by students in a range of academic disciplines, recent research suggests that communicative…

This research study aims at replacing monoglossic approaches with a stego-translanguaging pedagogy (i.e., the indirect use of the mother tongue to enhance the target language perception and acquisition). To solve the problematic constant decline in the learners' reading and writing IELTS scores in Port Said Language Center and to check the…

This empirical study examines the extent to which 'face', i.e. (audio visual dialogues), affects the listening comprehension of advanced Jordanian EFL learners in a TOFEL-like test, as opposed to its absence (i.e. a purely audio test) which is the current norm in many English language proficiency tests, including but not limited to TOFEL iBT,…

This article reflects on the concept of meaningful literacy. It offers a classroom methodology, posting on a closed Facebook Group, that manifests this approach to English as a second language (ESL) or English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom meaningful literacy instruction. This study aims to produce empirically informed teaching materials…

Willingness to communicate (WTC) has recently been researched as a dynamic variable, with some investigations viewing it as a complex dynamic system (CDS). One important property associated with CDS is the notion of attractor states, which are characterized by stable patterns of behavior. The present study employed an idiodynamic method to monitor…

This mixed-methods study investigates writers' task representation and the factors affecting it in test-like and non-test-like conditions. Five advanced-level L2 writers wrote two argumentative essays each, one in test-like conditions and the other in non-test-like conditions where the participants were allowed to use all the time and online…

The objectives of this study were to explore the writing process of the Indonesian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students and to find out the effectiveness of using think-aloud protocol to understand the writing process. The data were obtained from six proficient EFL students who were doing Postgraduate English Language Studies Program in…

This article provides a qualitative inquiry into the influences of immediate family members (i.e. parents and siblings) on a group of Gulf Arab EFL students regarding their language learning experiences and strategy use in their Arab homelands. The participants came from financially comfortable families, with different levels of education. The…