Teaching speaking skills to EFL learners remains a significant challenge, often hindered by traditional methods that prioritize rote learning over meaningful communication. This study investigates the impact of communicative language teaching (CLT) on the speaking skills of Grade 12 students, while also exploring their attitudes toward this…

In Canada, the federally funded Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program follows a task-based language teaching (TBLT) approach using the Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB). Aligned with other communicative language approaches, TBLT de-emphasizes systematic instruction of the morpho-syntactic elements of language. Although TBLT…

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) not only has the potential to aid L2 academic writing but also poses unique challenges concerning impacts and ethics. Reflection journals, which promote critical thinking and metacognitive awareness, have the capacity to guide GenAI-assisted writing, yet remain underexplored. This study examines and…

This study investigates the nature of co-construction in roleplays conducted with human versus AI interlocutors for assessing interactional competence (IC) in L2 English. Seventy-five university students in Japan completed roleplay tasks with both human tutors and an AI agent. The AI agent is a multimodal dialog system integrated with a large…

With the intensification of globalisation and international exchange, intercultural communicative ability has become a focal point in English as a foreign language education in Chinese secondary schools. However, recent studies have indicated that the developmental construct of intercultural awareness is sometimes conflated with intercultural…

Recent research on learner factors in task-based language teaching (TBLT) has demonstrated positive effects for treatments that draw on learners' personal experiences. However, the specific processes responsible for these effects are not well understood. The self-reference effect (SRE) is well-documented in cognitive psychology where it has been…

Research and practice in task-based language teaching (TBLT) as a cognitively oriented second language (L2) pedagogy have grown substantially over the last three decades. A concurrent development in language education that thrives along the sociocultural paradigm, translanguaging, is also gaining great traction due to its potential in helping to…

Recent studies have revealed that the development of self-regulation and social skills in preschool children is important for later academic success, social acceptance and psychological wellbeing. Children who lack these skills are at risk for not being able to socialize and may face rejection behaviors among peers, show aggressive behaviors, or…

Purpose: Communication apprehension (CA) is the fear or anxiety about communicating. In addition, self-perceived communication competence (SPCC) refers to the learners' perception of their competence. CA hampers individuals' ability to communicate effectively in various communication contexts, which has an impact on their employability. Confident…

To be able to assess interactional competence (IC), which believed to be shared knowledge rather than an individual skill, talk in paired speaking tests can be analyzed. Accordingly, this study investigates how L2 speakers of English collaboratively construct turns in paired speaking tests mainly through embodied word search sequences and their…

Although the IELTS speaking test assesses English verbal-communication competence accurately and reliably, its traditional, retroactive scoring framework stops short of providing detailed diagnostic information about individual test-takers' specific domains of proficiency or deficiency. This study employed a cognitive diagnostic assessment (CDA)…

Virtual Exchange (VE) in second language education refers to a technology-enabled, interactive, intercultural experience that is designed to increase learners' intercultural communicative competence and performance. In this paper the findings of a bilingual (English/Turkish), synchronous video communication project among 31 US and Turkish college…

Developing intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is an important part of learning a foreign language, even though some second/foreign language (L2) teachers ignore adopting the intercultural approach to language teaching. Considering the pedagogical significance of intercultural knowledge, this study aimed at investigating Iranian…

This commentary draws on the four articles in this issue to discuss interactional competence from a usage-based perspective. The usage-based conception of language knowledge as an inventory of form-meaning pairings used for communicative purposes will be qualified by incorporating the idea that these communicative purposes are social actions. L2…

Purpose: Mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) apps such as Duolingo have great potential for promoting learners' motivation to learn a second language (L2). However, little research has investigated how this motivational impact takes place. Additionally, despite the flexibility of mobile learning, most existing studies are conducted in…