The present study sought to understand the nature and level of foreign language (FL) anxiety among primary school students and the relationship between FL anxiety and FL achievement. Changes in FL anxiety across groups of three primary school years were also examined. A total of 631 (324 male, 307 female) primary school students aged 9-11 years…

Set against the backcloth of increasing recognition and attention to literature in foreign language education (FLE) globally, this article reports part of a large-scale study of 1,190 secondary-level learners' views of the benefits of literature, as instantiated by short stories (ShS) and poems and songs (PS) in their English-as-a-foreign-language…

Teachers' conceptions of assessment are a significant indicator of teacher assessment literacy. This study contextualized pre-service teachers' conceptions of assessment in Chinese second language education. An exploratory factor analysis generated eight first-order factors and the following confirmatory factor analysis found a hierarchical model,…

This study examined the role of growth mindset, self-efficacy, and intrinsic value in self-regulated learning (SRL) and English language learning achievements in Hong Kong primary school students. A sample of 690 4th graders participated in the study. The findings suggest that the level of SRL strategy use (i.e. monitoring, effort regulation, and…

This article examines the relationship between Japanese undergraduate students' English language proficiency and English language-related challenges faced when studying an international business course through English. It also examines English language proficiency thresholds students need to reach in each academic skill (i.e. reading, listening,…

This study investigated the relationship between pre-service English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teachers' pedagogical beliefs and their actual teaching practices. To determine the nature of this relationship, 99 teachers-in-training with little or no teaching experience were asked to complete a questionnaire seeking information about their…

This quantitative study examines whether and to what extent affective factors (i.e. motivation, self-confidence, risk-taking, L2 speaking anxiety, and grit) and virtual intercultural experiences are linked to willingness to communicate in a second language (L2 WTC) in in-class, out-of-class, and digital settings. Participants included 176 Korean…

Researchers and teachers often invoke context to explain their particular research/teaching issues. However, definitions of context vary widely and the direct impact of the context is often unexplained. Based on research showing contextual differences in second language (L2) learner beliefs and interactional behaviors, the current project compared…

This study investigates how second language (L2) fluency is influenced by two factors: Pre-task planning and content familiarity. Planning was adopted as a between-participant variable, combined with content familiarity as a within-participant variable, in a 2 × 2 split-plot factorial design. Nineteen measures of fluency phenomena, constituting…

The role of grammar teaching in foreign language education is a controversial one both in second language acquisition (SLA) research and language pedagogy and, as a result, a potential source of confusion to student teachers. The objective of this study was to gain insight into the beliefs on grammar teaching of student teachers of English as a…

Studies show that incorporating self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies into foreign language teaching encourages the development of autonomous learners. However, interviews with teachers (n = 51) indicate that they mostly do not consider SRL in classroom practices. The present study attempts to highlight the significance of SRL in language…

Explores ways of measuring implicit and explicit second language (L2) knowledge and examines the relationship between these measures and measures of general language proficiency. Factor analysis revealed a two-factor solution, reflecting a clear distinction between measures that incorporated a time constraint and those that did not. (Author/VWL)