The present study investigated the effect of university students' demotivational status, language learning strategies and learning style preferences on their underachievement in English language learning. To begin, 260 Iranian undergraduate students were selected through the multi-stage cluster sampling method. They were put into two successful…

This study sought to identify what characteristics and teaching behaviours describe effective EFL University teachers as perceived by Cypriot students. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire and focus group interviews. Findings have provided evidence that effective language teaching seems to be related to a more learner-centred approach…

The issue of introducing the target culture into language classroom practice has long been an object of debates as well as the opinions of the learners towards it. Eventually, modern practitioners found a way of having the language learners acquainted with the target culture and introducing culture through culture-based textbook activities.…

The present study investigates English language teaching (ELT) curriculum planning in Iran's Ministry of Education and its implementation by teachers. We studied programme evaluation; needs analysis; the ELT-specific documents; communication channels between planning and practice levels; teacher evaluation and student assessment; interpretation…

Despite a long historical French presence in Vietnam, only 0.5% of Vietnamese people speak French today. As in other countries of South East Asia, language instruction in Vietnam has mainly focused on English for several decades. This paper provides an overview of a project called "French bilingual classes". The main aim of the study is…

This paper presents results of a research study focusing on the analysis, comparison, and description of students' attitudes towards the teaching of mathematics lessons presented in a foreign language (English) using the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) method in three elementary schools. It also highlights the difference between…

Learners frequently experience phonologically inconsistent input, such as exposure to multiple accents. Yet, little is known about the consequences of phonological inconsistency for language learning. The current study examines vocabulary acquisition with different degrees of phonological inconsistency, ranging from no inconsistency (e.g., both…

This article presents the findings of an action research project conducted with a group of pre-service teachers of a program in modern languages at a Colombian university. The study intended to go beyond an emphasis on linguistic and textual features in English as a foreign language argumentative essays by using a set of genre-based activities and…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine sentence-recognition performance for a large, diverse group of nonnative speakers of English on the recently developed Basic English Lexicon (BEL) sentence materials and to determine whether BEL sentence lists are equated in difficulty for this population. Method: The BEL sentences were presented…

The present study uses a questionnaire instrument to measure the importance that students from a Korean university place on a wide range of effective foreign language teacher attributes. Respondents to the present study placed high importance on rapport attributes such as friendliness, care, and patience; and delivery attributes which included the…

This study reports the impact of different cultural values on the teacher education of Chinese teacher trainees. By examining their perceptions of the effectiveness of teaching practice feedback, the study uses Hofstede's dimension of "individualism" (IDV) to explore the "culture bumps" which may occur between teacher educators…

This chapter investigates students' reported patterns of use and perceived outcomes of an online intercultural exchange. It is hoped that the study will inform our understanding of the students' language learning process on an online discussion forum and consequently will help us maximise the educational potential of computer-mediated…

This article describes the experience of integrating a class blog into an advanced Italian course, in order to provide an out-of-class forum for language practice and for sharing course-related ideas and information. It also reports on an evaluation of the blog's effectiveness, drawing on an analysis of the students' blog contributions and their…

Learners' beliefs about foreign language learning have been stressed in educational research because they are regarded as fundamental to learners' progress (e.g. Altan, 2012; Russell, 2009; Rieger, 2009; Kormos & Csizér, 2008;). This paper deals with the results of a research project conducted among first-year English language majors studying…

The present study investigated the effect of context on the strategies the EFL learners utilized to process idioms. To do so, ten Iranian intermediate EFL learners were randomly assigned to two groups who then attended a think-aloud session. The 5 subjects in the first group were exposed to an animated cartoon including 23 unfamiliar idioms while…