This paper addresses the phenomenon of Language Maintenance and Language Shift through a qualitative study of Tamil language in the family domain in Singapore. The influence of Singapore's bilingual policy and the institutional support offered for maintenance of Tamil language provide the context in which the central research problem of the status…

Self-assessment has become a means of realizing the goals of learner-centered education. It is conducted to help students grow to be independent learners. With regard to this point, this case study is aimed at investigating the implementation of the self-assessment as a learning tool in writing class. Its purpose is to examine students' reactions…

In recent years increased attention has been given in applied linguistics to the learning processes of various groups of special needs (SN) students, especially to those whose achievement is impeded by dyslexia or other learning difficulties. However, students with sensory impairment, particularly those who are Deaf or severely hard of hearing…

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of integrating a learner-centered blogging approach into the EFL writing classroom in Taiwan. For this purpose, a 16-week experiment was conducted, involving an intact class of 18 university-level Taiwanese EFL student writers. During the experiment, the participants first created their own blogs on…

The use of structural modeling has helped to explain constructs leading to Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in L1 and L2 contexts. When WTC was conceptualized as a trait in the L1, more personality variables were used in models. When WTC moved into the realm of second language, researchers still used trait measurements to explain the construct,…

This article investigates the reading practices of 45 EFL Yemeni students using the "learning by design" framework. The framework organizes the teaching and learning of literacy into four processes: experiencing, conceptualising, analysing, and applying. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to collect data on a sample of…

The main objective of this study is to determine the knowledge, education and attitudes of Chinese, Indian and Arab speaking students in Australia towards the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test. A questionnaire was administered to 200 students at six university language centers to investigate their overall response towards…

Following on preliminary research (Kétyi, 2013), in this project we looked for a mobile language learning solution, which combines computers and mobile devices. Our main idea was to explore whether by integrating mobile devices in our language teaching practice, our students at the Budapest Business School would gain valuable additional learning…

In this paper the methodological steps taken in the conception of a new mobile application (app) are introduced. This app, called VISP (Videos for Speaking), is easily accessible and manageable, and is aimed at helping students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to improve their idiomaticity in their oral production. In order to do so, the app…

To meet the demands of today's society and working life, higher education should support the development of learner agency. How the agency of individual learners emerges in university courses and what kind of agency empowers the learners to face new challenges should be considered. In this article, the focus is on learner agency enabled and…

This study aims to investigate pre-service English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' beliefs about grammar instruction in a foreign language (FL) context through their initial teaching practices. Analyses of semi-structured interviews and classroom observations apart from pre-and post-test results of participants' responses to a belief…

The essential function of critical thinking in education is obvious by many studies done in this field. The main purpose of this article is to find the relationship between critical thinking levels of Iranian EFL learners and their performance on different modes of writing. The sample of the study selected among those who studying English at the…

Supervisors play a critical role in fostering teacher candidates' reflective thinking on their practice, yet too often it is the supervisor, rather than the teacher, doing most of the observation work. Video-based supervision offers a promising alternative, as teachers have an opportunity to examine their own lesson and thus engage with the…

Feedback is one of the crucial elements in language learning and teaching. In second language writing context, the effectiveness of feedback becomes even more important as it has an impact on the whole process of language learning. To increase the effectiveness of feedback, a teacher is expected to use any possible mean(s) available to suit…

This study examines how the English officialization policy of higher education in an EFL context interplays with administrative workers' motivational orientations towards English learning. The data consisted of questionnaire responses of 117 administrative members with undergraduate degrees and qualitative interviews with 9 who answered the…