Research in strategy use needs to provide comprehensive and detailed qualitative discussion of individual cases and their strategic processing of texts to deepen our understanding of the cognitive and metacognitive processes readers resort to when reading different texts for different purposes. Hence, the present paper aims to provide in-depth and…

This study explores the expectations and early and subsequent realities of text-to-speech software for 24 nonnative-English-speaking college students who were experiencing reading difficulties in their freshman year of college. The study took place over two semesters in one academic year (from September to June) at a community college on the…

This qualitative study addressed the English language learning needs and challenges expressed by a sample of 22 postgraduate students from diversified faculties in the University of Jordan. These students were required to take the Alternative National English course. They wrote a self-report reflecting on their English language learning needs and…

Recently, situated willingness to communicate (WTC) has received increasing research attention in addition to traditional quantitative studies of trait-like WTC. This article is an addition to the former but unique in two ways. First, it investigates both trait and state WTC in a classroom context and explores ways to combine the two to reach a…

International students, a growing population in US universities, need to possess excellent reading skills in order to succeed. American universities also benefit from admitting students who do not require remedial English classes. Reading online has become an integrated part of college education, which requires students to have additional skills.…

Test preparation for high-stakes English language tests has received increasing research attention in the language assessment field; however, little is known about what aspects of test preparation students attend to and value. In this study, we considered the perspectives of 12 Chinese students who were enrolled in various academic programs in a…

Due to the growing number of plurilingual learners in the world today (Hammarberg, 2010), the present multiple case study examines four plurilingual participants' beliefs toward first language (L1) and second language (L2) mediation in the acquisition of French as a third language (L3). During a 16-week classroom-based study in a French university…

This study aims to investigate the effect of using concordances and word processors on EFL graduates' performance in academic writing. To achieve this aim, the subjects were asked to use linguistics corpora and word processors to correct their grammatical and spelling mistakes in their written papers in a course that lasted for sixteen weeks. The…

One consequence of test use in the English-language teaching community is the negative washback of tests on teaching and learning. Test preparation courses are often seen as part of the more general issue of washback. IELTS and TOEFL iBT tests, focusing on communicative competence, are anticipated to have positive washback effect on how English is…

This paper reports on the experience of seven Saudi female ESL students who worked collaboratively in an interactive online writing environment over a period of four weeks. It chronicles their experiences with online writing tasks, documents their responses to online feedback, and examines their attempts to cope with different settings and…

This study describes the reading and test-taking strategies that test takers used in the Reading section of the LanguEdge courseware (ETS, 2002a). These materials were developed to familiarize prospective respondents with the new TOEFL®. The investigation focused on strategies used to respond to more traditional single selection multiple-choice…