Informed by a mixed methods research design, the study investigates the interrelations between students' attitudes toward English learning, English-medium instruction (EMI), and the use of their first language (i.e. code-switching) in relation to a range of biographic and contextual factors in their situated EMI programmes. The quantitative…

With Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) gathering momentum in Irish universities and elsewhere, this paper provides insights into a language curriculum re-designed around the Sustainable Development Goals, thus responding to the urgency of the global challenges encapsulated in Agenda 2030 (UNESCO. 2016. Transforming our world: the 2030…

This paper focuses on quality assurance in language massive open online courses (LMOOCs). It is a qualitative study that adopts the grounded theory method and analyses evaluative comments on the quality of LMOOCs from learners' perspectives. With the data collected from 1,000 evaluations from English as a second language (ESL) learners on China's…

Study abroad is laden with socially constructed expectations informed by discourses of place, people, and culture presented through social media, pop culture, word-of-mouth, and marketing. These discourses can shape how students approach and interpret their host countries and study abroad experiences. To better inform language and culture…

The adoption of innovative pedagogy without clear guidance in adapting teaching approaches to English language teaching contexts has led to disconnects in meeting students' and teachers' classroom talk needs. One such innovation, the dialogic teaching approach, centres a principled conception of classroom talk to enhance pedagogical practice.…

In Japan, calls for students to become global human resources (GHR) has placed pressure on universities to internationalise. Traditionally, Japanese universities have relied on student mobility to foster GHR, but a decline in mobility numbers has highlighted the need for educators and administrators to consider how an intercultural mindset can be…

This study compared students' perceptions of their e-learning experiences in virtual and blended English for specific purposes (ESP) classes in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context. The study was conducted during an academic semester. The participants were two groups of Saudi ESP undergraduate students who took the same ESP course but in…

The use of four-skills language exams to support the achievement of curriculum goals in Japan is an under-researched yet critical topic. This study focuses on washback from the Cambridge B1 Preliminary and B2 First exams, which were used as fixed-point tests at a senior high school. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, utilizing data from…

This praxis-oriented article reports on the design, implementation, and evaluation of an upper-level online German course aimed at advancing the second language (L2) proficiency of US university students. Drawing on the noticing hypothesis and empirical L2 acquisition research, the study underscores the necessity of combining attention to…

Given the significance of boredom and its detrimental effects on the English as a foreign language (EFL) students' academic achievements, this study utilised an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design to initially explore the boredom factors in EFL classes among a sample of 139 university students and then develop and validate the Precursors…

How best to teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has been a complicated issue that has bedeviled curricula designing. Starting from the argument that today's EFL curricula do need a complete overhaul to reflect the recurrent debate about culture clash and culture cooperation. This study offers an alternative to those who advocate either…

Previous research examining student satisfaction in China has been broad in its demographic profile while utilizing instruments that have questionable reliability. This study has incorporated a newly validated model to assess student satisfaction, specifically Chinese students majoring in English at a domestic Chinese university, an…

This study explores how preservice English teachers in China perceive and leverage their Chinese and English linguistic repertoires in ELT methodology training, and how a reflective understanding of their use of these repertoires can contribute to their development as teachers. To understand how their practices and conceptualizations of language…

The opposition between learning as a process of self-cultivation ("Bildung") and learning as a form of vocational training for the workplace ("Ausbildung") is becoming ever more deeply entrenched in the twenty-first-century university. In language education in particular, the distinction between these two competing aims…

This study aimed to explore the perceptions of English Language Teaching (ELT) students regarding 21st century skills and learning environments. A qualitative content analysis method was used, which involved conducting semi-structured interviews with 62 ELT students. The findings of the study revealed that ELT students perceive critical thinking,…