The purpose of this study was to identify the causes of speaking anxiety in highly anxious students, of which their teachers might not have been aware, and solutions to alleviate the problem. Sixteen students from a Japanese language-oriented university participated in an interview survey. The participants' anxiety levels were measured using a…

Through Many-Facet Rasch analysis, this study explores the rating differences between 1 computer automatic rater and 5 expert teacher raters on scoring 119 students in a computerized English listening-speaking test. Results indicate that both automatic and the teacher raters demonstrate good inter-rater reliability, though the automatic rater…

This research explored the most common writing errors of Science and Arts students of the Foundation year program at a Saudi University that hinder them from achieving their course goals, learning outcomes and becoming efficient writers. The importance of this research stems from the fact that, it is a comparative study that shows the differences…

The present research argues that the current segregation between the reading and writing skills courses in EFL classes is a hard obstacle in developing the reading ability and writing skills proficiency in Saudi students at the graduate level. The sample included 64 undergraduate female students of a Saudi University, divided equally into the…

The present study sought to examine the improvement in vocabulary comprehension and retention of Saudi English as foreign language female students at King Abdul Aziz University as a result of integrating YouTube in their reading classes. The study also investigated the perceptions of both students as well as teachers towards the inclusion of…

China has launched a nation-wide project of learning English as a "core" subject starting from the third grade in primary schools after the Ministry of Education (MOE) issued "National English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education" at the beginning of this century. However, EFL teachers are far from sufficient in rural…

Mediation theory facilitates teachers and students to tackle the barriers in English teaching and learning process. It offers a sound systematic theoretical fort on which teachers could rely, redefines teachers' roles and functionings in the process of learners' cognitive development and growing self-regulations. The famous psychologist Lev…

The widespread availability of technological infrastructure has enhanced the adoption of learning management systems (LMSs) in educational institutions. Blackboard is one of the most popular marketable LMSs adopted in higher education institutions. As some previous studies have viewed that positive perceptions played a vital role in adopting new…

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 study was an attempt to compare EFL teachers' and intermediate high school students' perceptions of written corrective feedback on grammatical errors and also to specify their reasons for choosing comprehensive or selective feedback and some feedback strategies over some others. To collect the required data, the student version of…

This paper reports on a study that investigated the beliefs about language learning of 120 Iranian EFL students and 16 EFL teachers. The primary aim of the study was to reveal whether there was any difference between the beliefs of Iranian students and teachers regarding different aspects of language learning such as grammar teaching, error…