Having been the scene of language planning for more than a century in relation to the two competing written standards of Norwegian, Norwegian language planners are now facing a new challenge: how to deal with what has been termed "domain loss" where Norwegian is perceived as losing out to English in important sectors of society,…

A challenge noted in a number of endangered language contexts is the need to mix second-language (L2) learners of the target language with first-language (L1) speakers of that language in a less planned way than is found in the two-way immersion approach. Such mixing of L1 speakers of the target language with L2 learners arises from the difficulty…

The present study evaluates the impact of the fine-tuning medium of instruction (MOI) policy in Hong Kong in the early stages of its implementation. It explores the key stakeholders' perspectives on a school-based policy via a case study, which gathered multiple sources of qualitative data (i.e. focus groups/interviews, open-ended questionnaires,…

Up to now, most researchers have been paying attention to the negative transfer of mother tongue to second language writing. Few studies, if any, have touched upon the positive transfer. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the positive transfer of Chinese to 26 first-year university students' English writing holistically and…

The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between Iranian EFL Learners' willingness to communicate (WTC) inside and outside the classroom and their language learning orientations. Sixty seven intermediate students (36 males and 31 females) who were majoring in English Literature and Translation at University of Isfahan during…

In the past few decades, research on gender and language learning styles (LLSs) across various EFL/ESL contexts has received remarkable attention. From these studies, a multitude of contradictory and heterogeneous findings has been observed which justify additional research in SLA contexts in general and EFL contexts like Iran in particular.…

This paper reports the results of a study on the use of a learner response system (LRS) by a group of students of English as a foreign language (L2). Via a methodology that included the analysis of survey questionnaires and open-ended oral interviews, the study examined learners' perceptions of the use of an LRS by a group of 30 Brazilians…

The effectiveness of individualized feedback on rater behavior has been investigated in several previous studies (e.g. Elder, Knoch, Barkhuizen, & von Randow, 2005; Lunt, Morton, & Wigglesworth, 1994; O'Sullivan & Rignall, 2007; Wigglesworth, 1993). The findings of these studies are somewhat inconclusive. However, all of these studies investigated…

The construct of anxiety is often believed to be the affective factor with the greatest potential to pervasively affect the learning process (Horwitz, 2001), and recent research has demonstrated that anxiety can mediate whether learners are able to notice feedback and subsequently produce output (Sheen, 2008). In order to reduce the negative…

This study aims to explore the effects of implementing a CALL framework on the students' perceptions of their communication classroom environments. The What Is Happening In This Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire was distributed twice among 34 (F=14 and M=20) Iranian EFL students, the first time after a ten-session-long regular no-tech communication…

Research shows that extensive reading (ER) has many benefits for language acquisition. The challenge today is making ER appealing to the digital generation. For a possible solution, it is pertinent to look to the social media embraced by today's youths. This study was conducted to explore the use of the blog as a space for sharing peer-selected…

This study was carried out in response to the announcement of the reversal of the ETeMS policy (English in the Teaching of Mathematics and Science) which had been practiced by teachers in Malaysia since 2003. The Ministry of Education took a drastic approach in gradually halting this controversial policy for several related reasons, namely the…

Pedagogical proponents of both communicative language teaching and the postmethod philosophy argue for the importance of considering learners' needs in classroom planning. This requires understanding learners' attitudes toward a variety of classroom realities. The present study reports on the attitudes of 131 adult, international learners of…

The social-media news website "Reddit" boasts a huge readership with over 35 million unique visitors for December 2011 alone. Content is generated by users, who submit links from other websites to the various sub-forums. Users also have the ability to comment on links, providing the means for a community to be developed. Both content and…

This paper explores pedagogical practices which can support the role of imagination in foreign language learning. Over the past decade, work on self and identity in motivation research--most notably Norton's (2001) imagined communities and Dörnyei's (2009) L2 motivational self system--has suggested that teachers might foster students' motivation…