This report is part of a larger study concerning teachers' beliefs towards public lessons and their effectiveness on professional development (PD) in China. Despite being a major form of PD, most public lessons resemble shows, in which teachers put up their best performances. As a result, not much PD may take place for the teacher and observers.…

In this study, the process of learning Turkish as a foreign language by watching TV series was analysed. It is a qualitative based study with document analysis, case study and mixed research design. The case study is based on the analysis of data obtained from 44 citizens of the Republic of Kosovo who have learned Turkish by watching TV series.…

Increasing concern regarding student disengagement and education's role in helping students to navigate the ever-changing realities of a globalized society has focused attention on the importance of 21st century skills. This mixed-methods study investigated whether and how intensely students experienced optimal engagement during a Spanish project…

Variation in the use of terminology in the field of ELT can make dialogue difficult, if not impossible, with significant implications for sharing knowledge, structuring language provision, and, ultimately, teaching practices. Furthermore, such variation has the potential to influence negatively the perceptions of stakeholders both within and…

This study investigated how th (/ð / and /?/) sounds could be improved if opportunities were provided to EFL learners in the Final International University in Kyrenia, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Twelve preparatory students were worked with and the data were gathered through interviews and a pronunciation test. The aim of the test was…

The vocabulary research of the 1980s and 1990s brought a breath of fresh air into the language classroom. Teachers in many remote EFL locations had long suspected that vocabulary was their learners' main challenge, but there was little research evidence to confirm this or say what to do about it. Then, suddenly, work by Nation, Laufer, Meara,…

Schmitt and Schmitt (2014) labelled the first 4,000 to 9,000 word families as mid-frequency vocabulary and highlighted its essential nature based on Nation's (2006) estimate that knowledge of the first 9,000 word families would provide 98% coverage of various texts. To attain this goal, this study first measured the vocabulary level of Voice of…

Twenty-five years have passed since a teaching technique, called shadowing, was introduced in Japanese EFL contexts. Recently, this technique has gradually been recognized around the world. Given that many studies have been published about shadowing, the time is ripe to summarize the results of the studies and to propose how shadowing should be…

Experiential learning activities have been largely used in education including English language teaching. Study abroad programs offer unique opportunities for learning from experience. Maximising learning from the sojourn experiences should be a major objective of higher education institutions with study abroad programs and designing post-sojourn…

The aim of this research paper is to scrutinize the teaching of English pronunciation based on English compound noun stress at secondary school. In fact, the teaching of compound noun stress has not been highlighted by previous scholars. In addition, teaching strategies based on this item have not been taken into account by INRAP and E.N.S in the…

This study employed a targeted phonetic instruction to explore the mechanisms that underpin second language (L2) phonetic acquisition. Broadly, two general approaches to phonetic acquisition have been previously proposed. A segmental approach suggests that learners acquire a series of individual, discrete phonemes (e.g., Flege, 1995), while a…

Prior research suggests that viewing still images and iconic gestures depicting concepts facilitates the learning of concrete words in the initial stages of second language (L2) acquisition. To date, however, the effect of viewing iconic gestures and images hasn't been systematically compared to the effect of glosses in the learning and retrieval…

There are some factors affecting the development of the speaking skill in the process of learning a foreign language. One of the factors hampering the speaking process is the anxiety state of students. A student who thinks they will make mistakes in classroom activities or while talking to a person speaking that language experiences anxiety at a…

The focal point of most investigations into classroom discourse tends to be on the institutionally sanctioned and legitimized on-task exchanges between teachers and students with particular attention to the I-R-F (initiation-response-follow up/feedback) structure. Liminal spaces of interaction such as during the small talk just before the 'lesson…

Drama courses are widely set up in K-12 education in Western countries, and drama in education promotes both language acquisition and drama acting in the West. Therefore, in the current K-12 education curriculum in China, the practice of offering English drama courses is in line with the needs of students' core competencies development. Drawing on…