This study aims to identify (1) how EFL graduate-level students at various Turkish universities regard the level of difficulty in terms of the different sections of a scholarly work in their academic writing practices, (2) whether their perceptions concerning the difficulty of the various sections show a significant difference depending on their…

Consequently, the present study sheds light on a very important aspect that is a contrastive analysis of segmental vowel phonemes of both L1 and L2. As one of the problems, that is affecting the teaching/learning process of ELT. Then to clarify the different areas between the segmental vowel phonemes of Arabic and English. It also aims at making a…

In many parts of the world, learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) or English as a Second Language (ESL) often face language difficulties and challenges in their performance in learning. These challenges and errors have multiple forms and causes, covering various language and skills aspects. This study focuses on the types of grammatical…

Education outcomes for L2 students in academic preparation programs, undergraduate studies, and graduate work are directly influenced by the learning and use of academic vocabulary. Among 15 Saudi graduate students studying in New Zealand, this study investigated at their perspectives with academic vocabulary learning. Students in Saudi Arabia who…

Writing is widely regarded as one of the most important parts in the field of second language learning and teaching. The main assessment elements of L2 writing can be divided into accuracy, fluency and complexity. The evaluation of writing, accuracy, fluency and complexity can not only measure the writing achievement of L2 writers, but also…

This article reports on the second language (L2) perception of contrasts among British English monophthongs. This study has two aims: 1) to explore the discriminability of contrasts in L2 British English monophthongs; and 2) to test the perceptual assimilation model-L2 (PAM-L2) towards the ability to discriminate British English contrasts. The…

Need analysis is an essential element in the process of designing any language course as it seeks to cater for what learners need in their lessons. This study proposes a framework to analyse learners' needs for exam preparation courses. The proposed framework adopts the works of Macalister, Nation, and Brindley to address different linguistic and…

This paper investigated how production task combined with teacher feedback (in the form of recasts) affects child second language development, and the effects of task complexity on their production performance. 92 child learners of English in three intact classes were assigned to three tasks of different complexity (simple, +complex, ++complex).…

From the perspective of complexity theory and based on Robinson's Cognition Hypothesis and the Triadic Componential Framework, this paper investigated the effect of manipulating task complexity along resource-dispersing dimension on L2 written performance. The results showed that: 1) Significant interactive effects were found between the two…

Studying English literature is interrelated to studying English as a foreign language (EFL), and thus incorporating literary texts into EFL learning curricula is important for providing EFL learners with the necessary language skills and emotional growth. However, EFL learners prefer to avoid studying English literature due to several challenges…

The goal of this study is to examine difficulties in and outside the classrooms which are the real obstacles to the writability of teaching and learning in the secondary level Bangladesh system. The secondary level tests writing skills by summary, paragraph, letter, application, story, conversation, composition, report, e-mail etc. Students who…

This study explores the pronunciation difficulties experienced by Saudi EFL learners at Jouf University (JU) in the north of Saudi Arabia. To achieve this purpose, two main instruments were implemented: an experiment of pronunciation sensitivity response and two interview formats. The sample of this study was selected randomly and consisted of…

As a high-stakes standardized test, IELTS is expected to have comparable forms of test papers so that test takers from different test administration on different dates receive comparable test scores. Therefore, this study examined the text difficulty and task characteristics of four parallel academic IELTS reading tests to reveal to what extent…

The present study attempts to identify difficulties that Japanese students encounter with metadiscursive nouns in writing second language (L2) argumentation essays. Metadiscursive nouns are abstract and unspecific nouns which can serve as cohesive markers by retrieving their meanings in the text where they occur. Using a selected number of nouns…

In the second language acquisition domain, researchers have devoted tremendous efforts to studying the relationship between L2 learning and some socio-affective factors, such as anxiety, motivation, etc. However, little research has been done to examine whether and how perfectionism, a psychological trait, affects L2 learning and L2 performance.…