The study looks at the case of a university language center in Japan that administers a compulsory English language course. To provide some level of standardization for the course, and to better meet the educational aims of the center, a content and language integrated learning (CLIL) teaching approach has been set as center policy. The research…

Research on the effects of second language (L2) listening strategy instruction (SI) has gained momentum in recent years (e.g. Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari, 2010). However, the reported results have been inconclusive and varied across studies. Synthesizing the results of quantitative research in this domain, the present meta-analysis sought to…

World language teachers have historically relied on the notion of teaching methods to inform elements of design and procedure in their instructional practice. Teacher beliefs about teaching methods, however, have been shown to be significantly influenced by their context, including their institution and their learners. This phenomenon has led some…

As a topic of rising interest, language teacher motivation has been studied through various lenses and across different contexts over recent years. Yet, relatively scant attention has been paid to Chinese language teachers teaching overseas. Using Q methodology and supplementary interview data, this study investigated the motivational profiles of…

Studies on teachers' beliefs about vocabulary learning and teaching have focused, so far, on English as a second language (L2), or foreign language (FL), in different contexts but little attention has been given to other L2s and FLs. In this study, 15 Spanish L2 instructors at large universities were interviewed in order to better understand where…

Differentiated instruction (DI) has shown positive effects on the success of language learning as compared to traditional teaching. Examining teachers' beliefs pertaining to differentiation is important owing to the fact that teachers' beliefs shape their pedagogical practices. Therefore, this study is aimed at exploring English teachers' beliefs…

After the publication of the "CEFR Companion Volume" in 2018, a revision of the curriculum in force for the English subject in the Bilingual Sections in the Community of Madrid has been implemented. One of the main changes is the inclusion of the concept of linguistic mediation in the subject 'Advanced English' in the last stage of…

Research in language learning indicates that process drama (PD), an educational approach where students and teachers work in and out of role to explore themes and issues, can be well suited to the Japanese higher education (HE) context. Despite the benefits highlighted in the literature, PD remains a niche approach to language teaching and…

There now exists an established body of work outlining the challenges international students can face as part of the acculturation process, including a range of academic and non-academic pressures to overcome. For many students, writing essays in academic English for the first time is problematic. This article considers pedagogical approaches for…

This article explores how leading textbook authors select and instruct vocabulary in beginner and intermediate Chinese textbooks used in the United States. Leading textbook authors were approached; subsequently; four authors completed interviews with pre-designed questions. Grounded theory methodology was used to analyse the interviews, and their…

Learner engagement has been the focus of a growing amount of research in recent years both in general educational psychology and the field of second language acquisition (SLA). However, while recent contributions on learner engagement in language classrooms have provided valuable insights, the field is still only at the early stages of…

Internationally, there is increasing interest in the value of incorporating core practices into second language (L2) teacher education programs. This article reports on a research project that investigated how a set core practices are integrated into the Methods courses and practicums in Chilean language teacher education programs for English as a…

The recent decades have seen enthusiastic calls for reconceptualizing English as a foreign language (EFL) education, taking into account the current socio-lingual status of English and how it is used "genuinely" for communication interculturally and internationally. However, a wide gap still exists between promulgation such as…

Studies examining culture representation in language textbooks have rarely adopted the semiotic approach, despite its potential for presenting and (re)creating cultural meanings at their various levels (i.e. cultural, intercultural, multicultural, and transcultural) in the co-instantiations of texts, tasks, and images. To address this issue, a…

Three kinds of knowledge that effective teachers should master have been proposed: content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Most PCK studies have been conducted in the mathematics or science domain. In recent years, a growing number of studies related to foreign language teachers' PCK have…