This study revisits the roles of different aspects of phonological vocabulary knowledge in second language (L2) listening. Japanese learners of English (n = 114) completed the TOEIC Listening test and three phonological vocabulary tests assessing (a) ability to recognize the meanings of aural forms (meaning recognition), (b) ability to recall the…

This design case presents a gamified dictionary learning intervention for away-from-school learning. Intended to be mobile, the game features AI speech recognition for practicing English words and phrases. We also introduce a second feature--an integrated teacher dashboard that addresses issues in traditional homework--a lack of immediate feedback…

This study examines context effects on lexical processing by low-proficiency Japanese learners of English during sentence comprehension, and the role of individual differences in verbal working memory (WM). Thirty Japanese learners of English as a second language (L2) and 27 speakers of English as a first language (L1) were recruited for a…

This study follows a study that researchers conducted at the beginning of the fall 2024 semester to investigate the first-day impacts of using an updated, visually stimulating syllabus on conveying essential course information and on initial perceptions of teachers. Findings indicated that students perceived the syllabus as easier to understand…

This study investigates the nature of co-construction in roleplays conducted with human versus AI interlocutors for assessing interactional competence (IC) in L2 English. Seventy-five university students in Japan completed roleplay tasks with both human tutors and an AI agent. The AI agent is a multimodal dialog system integrated with a large…

This study investigated to what extent the scores of two English tests are correlated to each other, namely, the English test of the "Common Test for University Admissions" (Common Test, henceforth) in Japan and the "TOEIC Bridge", a commercially available English test developed by "Educational Testing Service" (ETS)…

With internationalisation continuing at an ever-increasing pace, Japan incentivises student mobility via study abroad (SA) programmes in the hope of cultivating the global human resources necessary for future economic growth. Against this background, proficiency in English emerges as a dominant linguistic and epistemic model, increasingly viewed…

This study is a conceptual replication of Teimouri et al.'s (2022) investigation into the validity of the second language (L2) grit scale (the L2-Grit scale). There are several concerns about the generalizability of the findings of Teimouri et al. (2022), especially regarding the discriminant validity of the scale and the relation of L2 grit with…

Although robots' social behaviors are known for their capacity to facilitate learner-robot interaction for language learning, their application and effect have not been adequately explored. This study reviewed 59 empirical articles to examine the contexts and application of various social behaviors of robots for language learning, and conducted a…

Supporting study abroad programs' overarching objective of producing global citizens is the goal of developing intercultural competence through participants' interactions with people of different cultures. Asserting the correlation between intercultural competence and acculturation, this study aims to measure the cultural competence of our…

The current study proposes a new approach to weakness identification in diagnostic language assessment (DLA) for speaking skills. We also propose to design actionable and contextualised diagnostic feedback through the systematic integration of feedback and remedial learning activities. Focusing on lexical use in second language speaking, the…

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of what kind of student benefits most from studying under the flipped learning method. A total of 43 Japanese university students studying in a language pedagogy course participated in this quasi-experimental study. Qualitative data was taken from 385 study journal entries and interviews with…

Virtual exchange (VE) has gained prominence as a means to improve students' intercultural competence and foreign language abilities through forums and other supplemental activities. This study examines a supplemental activity referred to as the student-generated survey (SGS) implemented in the IVEProject, a large-scale VE with, at the time of this…

In this paper, I first provide a brief review of how scholars have conceptualized, tested, and elaborated aptitude frameworks relevant to second language (L2) speech learning. Subsequently, I introduce an emerging paradigm that assigns a fundamental role to domain-general auditory processing (i.e., having a good ear) in L1 speech acquisition and…

Given the importance of academic motivation, numerous inquiries have scrutinized the antecedents of this psycho-emotional variable in various educational environments. Nonetheless, the role of students' attitudes in their academic motivation has remained elusive. Put simply, it is unclear whether students' attitudes can make positive changes in…