This paper analyzes writing tasks in academic writing textbooks for Japanese university students, focusing on the organization and difficulty of these tasks based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). A total of 411 writing tasks from 30 textbooks were coded by two experienced Japanese English teachers. The author…

ePortfolios are a high-impact educational practice that helps students synthesize and reflect on their learning. They are a process and a product that both generates and documents learning. This qualitative study examined how students enrolled in in-person and remote synchronous English language workshops in an English as a Foreign Language…

Many studies evidence the flexibility of speech perception in the first language (L1), which allows rapid adaptation to unfamiliar foreign accents. Two influential studies by Bradlow and Bent (2008) and a follow-up study by Baese-Berk et al. (2013) found that increased variability as a function of the number of talkers and accents facilitated the…

English academic writing is fundamental at tertiary level as it is the main medium of communication in the academe. Over the years, ESL lecturers have not only struggled to search for the most suitable teaching approach(es) to teach academic writing but have encountered several other problems in their teaching, such as class size, students'…

One of the most notable developments in English language pedagogy is the teaching of English for Science and Technology (EST). This includes providing language learners of various scientific fields with their specific language needs. This study was conducted as a component of a pilot study on qualitative data collection into the reading of EST…

In English Language Teaching (ELT), consultation sessions are essential and complementary elements in enabling learners to improve their English proficiency as well as to regulate their self-directed skills. The purpose of this study was threefold: (1) identify the students' perceptions of their English skills and consulting needs, (2) explore…

This study aimed to investigate the production of stress in English compound nouns and phrasal verbs by L1 Thai learners. Based on the Interlanguage Hypothesis (Corder, 1982; Selinker, 1972), it was hypothesized that (1) there is a positive relationship between English proficiency levels and accuracy in stress assignment in compound nouns and…

Since its implementation in 2004, the Canadian English Language Benchmark Assessment for Nurses (CELBAN) has been accepted as evidence of language ability for licensure of internationally educated nurses (IENs) in Canada. This article focuses on the complexities of sustaining an occupation-specific assessment over time. The authors reference the…

This study tries to shed light on what makes the English teacher's proficiency excellent and how these factors help the English teacher achieve excellent proficiency. One female English teacher from a private secondary school participated in this study. Her excellent English proficiency is proven by some proficiency test certificates such as TOEFL…

Language instruction at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC), as it does at colleges and universities, focuses on developing linguistic competence. There is no textbook or teaching materials that explicitly and systematically teach students the pragmatic knowledge of the target language. Such knowledge is either…

This longitudinal study of 17 American learners of French lies at the intersection of 2 complementary fields of inquiry in second language acquisition (SLA): language variation and change (LVC) and language acquisition during study abroad. Studies in LVC examine the nature and use of linguistic features that have more than 1 possible realization…

Working within the framework of language learner strategies, and more specifically strategies employed by L2 writers, this article presents findings from a qualitative, longitudinal study of seven international college students in the United States. On the basis of data comprising 54 interviews with the students over a period of four years, and…

Based on the quantitative analysis of L2 English texts from Korean undergraduates, the present paper demonstrates the possibility of distinguishing L2 speaking proficiency with differing measures of syntactic complexity in English writing. To this end, 14 measures of complexity were gauged using an L2 Syntactic Analyzer (Lu, 2010) in 89 EFL essays…

Thinking skills play a critical role in determining language performance. Recent advancement in cognitive diagnostic modelling (CDM) provides a powerful tool for obtaining fine-grained information regarding these thinking skills during reading. Studies are scant, however, exploring the relations between thinking skills and language performance,…

Minority language studies have received increasing attention over the last decade in Iran. Drawing on Spolsky's (Spolsky, Bernard. 2004. "Language policy." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) language policy theoretical framework, this inquiry reports on the language ideologies, practices, and management efforts of an under-explored…