The concept of learner engagement, widely researched in educational psychology, has recently gained attention of language acquisition researchers (cf. Mercer, S. and Z. Dörnyei. 2020. "Engaging Students in Contemporary Classrooms." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Mercer, S. 2019. Language learner engagement: setting the scene. In…

This study investigated the experiences and perceptions of two instructors while designing, teaching, and evaluating a flipped, intermediate Spanish course. Qualitative data was gathered through pre-post semi-structured interviews, curriculum design documents, class observations, and student course evaluations. The findings revealed that beliefs…

Pragmatic markers perform important communicative functions, but they can be difficult to learn in a second language because of their multifunctionality and lack of salience during communicative events. This study has two goals: (1) to describe the communicative functions of the pragmatic marker "I mean" in academic discourse; and (2) to…

There have been a number of studies on the use of complaints as a speech act. The majority of these studies have included analysis of how different first language speakers make complaints while only a limited number of studies have examined the effects of instruction on the development of complaints as a speech act. Those that have examined this…

The active acquisition of foreign language communication in different types of activities in accordance with the spheres, topics, and language input outlined by the current curriculum. Its implementation in the content of school foreign languages textbooks allows improving the academic process and directing it to competency-based principles. The…

Duolingo is a commercial language-teaching platform that offers free courses on the web and on mobile apps. This study reports the ACTFL listening and reading proficiency levels of adult Duolingo learners who had completed beginning-level courses in Spanish or French. The participants (n = 225) were learners residing in the United States, had…

Microteaching is a significant strategy in teacher education programs for giving student teachers opportunities to practice their teaching techniques.This study aims at investigating how using microteaching affects the teaching performance and attitude of Iraqi EFL student teachers. For this purpose, 30 Iraqi EFL student teachers were selected and…

This study examined how smartphone-based collaborative video projects influenced English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' speaking performance and learning engagement using blended learning in China. The collaborative video projects helped students engage in two smartphone-based video filming tasks to combine language learning with real-life…

This study investigates the concurrent and longitudinal relationships between polysemous word knowledge and reading comprehension among bilingual students (n = 107) followed from seventh to eighth grade. Standardized tests were used to measure decoding skills, broad vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension. Data about students' polysemous…

This article considers some of the reasons teachers usually regard literature as an appropriate tool of language classroom learning. These of literary texts can be a powerful pedagogic tool. This study describes some of the approaches to teaching literature and provides a rationale for integrating the teaching of literature as an approach to…

Language education has long been considered a female domain across many countries, with girls outnumbering and outperforming boys. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to examine the nature and structure of gender stereotypes favouring girls among EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers. In the quantitative strand, 60 teachers from six…

Face-to-face and computer-mediated collaboration have been used extensively in educational practice. However, research on teaching writing skills for English as a foreign language under collaborative conditions has reported mixed or even negative findings. Cognitive load theory can be used to explain many of these contradictory findings. An…

Business, as a study area, attracts many students on English-medium programmes in ESL/EFL (English as a second language / English as a foreign language). However, there has been scarce research on business studies in literature on EAP (English for academic purposes). Many previous studies have predominantly focused on business classroom written…

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has become the focus of Foreign Language (FL) research within the last decades. CLIL provides a more complete, naturalistic, and meaningful context to FL learning, which has proven to bring many benefits to learners, such as a higher motivation and promotion of creativity, and better results in…

This research aims to give a clear image of coursebook evaluation in the English department of Komar University of Science and Technology (KUST) in Iraqi Kurdistan. The focus of this paper is to show the advantages and disadvantages of six coursebooks that are used in the English department of KUST. For this purpose, the researchers conducted…