This article examines the relationship between Japanese undergraduate students' English language proficiency and English language-related challenges faced when studying an international business course through English. It also examines English language proficiency thresholds students need to reach in each academic skill (i.e. reading, listening,…

Internationalization continues to be a priority of the education mandate in British Columbia (BC). While there is currently a lack of exploratory studies on international students' (IS) experiences of challenges in their host institutions, little research has examined their experiences from sociocultural context-based standpoints. This study fills…

In a knowledge society characterized by an abundance of information sources that present conflicting perspectives on socio-scientific controversies, it is extremely important for readers to construct effective mental models of such controversies. Nevertheless, readers' mental representations of controversial information are assumed to be biased…

Language placement tests (LPTs) are used to assess students' proficiency in a progressive manner in the target language. Based on their performance, students are assigned to stepped language courses. These tests are usually considered low stakes because they do not have significant consequences in students' lives, which is perhaps the reason why…

Testing organizations are faced with increasing demand to provide subscores in addition to the total test score. However, psychometricians argue that most subscores do not have added value to be worth reporting. To have added value, subscores need to meet a number of criteria: they should be reliable, distinctive, and distinct from each other and…

This article focuses on the implementation of a flipped classroom approach in two different levels of Spanish foreign language university courses for beginner and intermediate learners. The flipped classroom approach delivers course content that prioritizes both digital technology and active learning. Despite its potential advantages in the…

This article examines international English-medium students' language aspirations in relation to social mobility as they are studying in a (Mandarin) Chinese-dominant context. It focuses specifically on Vietnamese students in Taiwan and their perspectives on how English and Chinese are related to their present and future life opportunities. Data…

Soon after Kachru (1992) promoted the notion of the World of English(es) through his 'inner-outer-expanding circle' principle, academic audiences started to recognize that the number of English nonnative speakers had noticeably surpassed that of native speakers. Such a phenomenon has encouraged English learners of diverse lingua-cultural…

This exploratory qualitative study reports gaps in the preservice teacher education and professional development of 15 English language teachers in a Colombian public university regarding their teaching knowledge and practice. Grounded theory was used to examine the data collected via focus groups and questionnaires, which were validated and…

This study examined proficiency levels and attitudes of main languages in use among ethnic minority students in Hong Kong. We surveyed 260 students from primary and secondary schools with English as the medium of instruction. They were multilingual speakers who were proficient in spoken English and Cantonese. Our results revealed asymmetric and…

Local tour guides' English speaking competence determines inbound international tourists' travel experiences. This study investigated student tour guides' English learning by adopting role-play tasks. The communicative tasks were designed to explore how real interactions prepared English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners to become cultural…

This study examines the influence of pre-departure proficiency on English as a second language (L2) oral development after a semester studying abroad in two distinct learning contexts. The data analysed were collected from tertiary level students (N = 33) who undertook an ERASMUS exchange semester in a European country where English was either the…

Learning-oriented assessment (LOA) is becoming increasingly popular in language education. The rationale for this popularity is the belief that LOA not only provides teachers with the necessary information for regular and ongoing evaluation but also it effectively assists learners in their learning process. This study attempted to examine the…

Background: This research is inspired by the challenges encountered in interpreter training, changes in learning needs in the technological era, the educational paradigm shift caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the lack of studies on combining virtual reality (VR)_and mobile technologies, and literature gaps in the field of the incorporation of…

Teenagers coming from low socioeconomic backgrounds are at a disadvantage when they are accepted to study at an EMI university in terms of their foreign language readiness. Thus, most of them cannot persist in their endeavor and drop out of university. In this mixed-methods design study, we implemented the Technology Enhanced Active Learning Model…