Maki, Wasada, and Hashimoto developed the Minimal English Test (MET), which is a five-minute English as a Second Language (ESL) test. The Maki Group has, since the development of the MET, investigated correlations between the scores on the MET and the scores on other ESL tests, the reliability of the MET, and what kind of ESL proficiency the MET…

Metacognition, conceptualized as a set of dynamic systems, has been recognized as an important area of academic and pedagogical inquiry in applied linguistics from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Nonetheless, literature on students' metacognition about EFL reading is still cursory, and that is particularly true as regards Chinese EFL…

The present study was an attempt to probe into the feasibility and effectiveness of a reading instructional approach called MCSR--Modified Collaborative Strategic Reading. Based on a pretest-posttest design, MCSR was implemented with 42 university-level EFL freshmen. They met once a week and received EFL reading instruction according to MCSR for…

A reading-writing initiative began in 2011-12 at the University of Toronto as a partnership between an East Asian Studies (EAS) department and an English Language Learning (ELL) Program. In this institution, students are expected to enter into scholarly discussions in their first year essays, yet many (both native English speakers and non-native…

This study designed and developed a web-based reading strategy training program and investigated students' use of its features and EFL teachers' and students' perceptions of the program. The recent proliferation of online reading materials has made information easily available to L2 readers; however, L2 readers' ability to deal with them requires…

A substantial body of research has collectively concluded that encouraging students to draw flexibly on multiple aspects of their linguistic repertoires is positively associated with developing bilingualism, metalinguistic awareness, and academic skills. However, most bilingual education programs--including transitional and dual-language--limit,…

The overwhelming weight of emphasis in language analysis in the teaching of English for Accounting (ESP) has been a concern for teachers of English at the College of Finance and Customs (CFC). In the ESP course, the teaching materials teach students to recognize the surface form by means of the specialist texts. The difficulties the students and…

It is widely agreed that much second language vocabulary learning occurs while the learner is attentively engaged in the process of reading and interpreting the texts encountered. It is also argued that to understand vocabulary learning linguists cannot limit the investigation of the process of vocabulary learning to word meaning (Gass, 1999).…

This teacher-friendly guide is packed with motivating lessons designed to improve the content learning and literacy skills of English language learners (ELLs) in K-8. Offering research-supported strategies that teachers can implement immediately, the book explains how to use content-area texts to support ELLs' growth in five crucial areas:…

This study examined the interrelationships of first language (L1) literacy, second language (L2) proficiency, and L2 reading comprehension with 246 Chinese college students learning English. L1 literacy and L2 proficiency were measured with college admission exams in Chinese and English. L2 reading comprehension was measured with the reading…

Two groups of EFL freshman students participated in the study. Pre-test scores showed no significant differences in their oral proficiency level. Both groups were then exposed to the same in-class instruction that depended on the textbook. They covered the same lessons, skills, exercises and tests. Since freshman students have no opportunities to…

In this column Manyak and Bauer summarize key research addressing the English vocabulary development of English learners (ELs) and distill implications for instructional practice. First, the authors discuss several key studies that demonstrate the limitation of many ELs' English vocabulary knowledge and the negative impact of this limitation on…

English is written with interword spacing, and eliminating it negatively affects English readers. Chinese is written without interword spacing, and adding it does not facilitate Chinese readers. "Pinyin" (romanized Chinese) is written with interword spacing. This study investigated whether adding interword spacing facilitates reading in Chinese…

Effective listening comprehension skills are important as the world becomes increasingly global and television, radio, and the Internet become forums for English communication. However, many countries, such as Tunisia, do not use English as a first or second language, but as a foreign language. Therefore, realizing the importance of English, the…

The experiment investigated the benefit to second language (L2) sentence comprehension of priming word meanings with brief visual exposure to first language (L1) translation equivalents. Native English speakers learning Mandarin evaluated the validity of aurally presented Mandarin sentences. For selected words in half of the sentences there was…