This paper reports on the impact of an English as a Second Language (ESL) speaking activity--"the poster carousel"--on English learners' second language (L2) fluency. Two versions of the poster carousel were developed to observe the effect of talking about (a) the same poster three times (same-task repetition) or (b) three different…

We examined the naturalistic pronunciation development of two groups of L2 speakers over 10 years. Initially, 50 beginner ESL students participated in production tasks; despite attrition, the tasks were administered eight more times. Here we report listener judgements of accentedness, comprehensibility and fluency for the remaining six Mandarin…

The relationship between foreign language anxiety (FLA) and foreign language enjoyment (FLE) experienced during a creative collaborative oral English-as-a-foreign-language task, and the relationships between FLE/FLA and task speech fluency were investigated. The task was performed by mid-intermediate/high-intermediate English learners (N = 43) in…

Second language (L2) learners stand to gain substantially from mastering a wide range of multiword expressions (MWEs), and several studies have examined the benefits of language courses that regularly draw learners' attention to MWEs. However, most of these studies focused on the learners' retention of the MWEs included in the course materials and…

This paper explores what the measures of utterance fluency typically employed in Automatic Speech Evaluation (ASE), i.e. automated speaking assessments, tell us about oral proficiency. 60 Chinese learners of English completed the second part of the speaking section of IELTS and six tasks designed to measure the linguistic knowledge and processing…

Complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) as measures of language proficiency have been used extensively in assessing second language production in English language studies related to task-based language teaching. The present review adds the following critical elements to the existing body of literature: (i) Provides synthesis and critical analysis…

Though there is an urgent need to improve Thai graduates' ability to speak English fluently, very few studies have focused on students' fluency in language teaching in Thailand. The study investigated 86 third-year university students' beliefs regarding English-speaking fluency, including the characteristics and importance of fluency and the…

The present study investigated the potential of writing in English as a foreign language (EFL) for language learning by manipulating cognitive task complexity based on related models and hypotheses. English essays written by 59 Chinese postgraduate EFL students from different subject areas were analysed with reference to writing complexity,…

Background: While automatic speech recognition (ASR) is increasingly used for commercial purposes, its influence on the learners' linguistic performance in terms of oral complexity, accuracy and fluency was under-explored. To date, few studies have been conducted to investigate how the dictation ASR technology could be incorporated into language…

The main aim of this study was to investigate how oral fluency is assessed across different levels of proficiency in the Test of English for Educational Purposes (TEEP). Working with data from 56 test-takers performing a monologic task at a range of proficiency levels (equivalent to approximately levels 5.0, 5.5, 6.5, and 7.5 in the IELTS scoring…

Dynamic assessment has been proven to effectively promote EFL learners' speaking proficiency, but its implementation in teaching speaking skills has been limited. One of the main reasons is that, thus far, very few studies have scrutinized the impacts of its two main models, interactionist and interventionist, on the speaking sub-skills of EFL…

Second language (L2) learners hold different learning beliefs that influence their interpretation of classroom experiences and their L2 learning process. Developing a thorough understanding of such beliefs is therefore imperative. This article reports the representations of Iranian English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners' beliefs about L2…

Teaching speaking skills to EFL learners remains a significant challenge, often hindered by traditional methods that prioritize rote learning over meaningful communication. This study investigates the impact of communicative language teaching (CLT) on the speaking skills of Grade 12 students, while also exploring their attitudes toward this…

Societal language ideologies affect language education policy implementation through teachers' beliefs, which in turn influence their pedagogical decisions and practices. Understanding the relationship between language ideologies and teachers' beliefs is crucial in multilingual contexts in postcolonial countries such as Namibia. This study…

This paper examines the implications of the association patterns in our understanding of the mental lexicon. By applying the principles of graph theory to word association data, we intend to explore which measures tap better into lexical knowledge. To that end, we had different groups of English as Foreign language learners complete a lexical…