This study investigated the effect of mother tongue instruction and gender on second language acquisition using a causal-comparative quantitative research design. The two distinguishing groups compared were (i) learners that were taught in their mother tongue (Afrikaans) and (ii) learners that were not taught in their mother tongue but in English,…

The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the effect of Story Telling and retelling and higher order thinking for "E"nglish "L"anguage and "L"iteracy "A"cquisition (STELLA) on the English oral proficiency of elementary students in Mainland China and Taiwan, where English is taught as a foreign…

This discussion examines an academic intervention designed to enhance the motivation and classroom engagement of English Language Learners (ELLs) during literacy-based activities. Stemming from a sociocultural perspective of literacy (Au, 1993; Perez, 2004) within a funds of knowledge framework (González, Moll, & Amanti , 2005), our approach…

The importance of developing the communicative needs of English language majors has been found a fundamental concern of Buraydah Community college in Qassim University, Saudi Arabia. The aim of this study has been to identify English language speaking skill needs of English language majors and investigate the impact of using Open Discussion…

Meta-analytic research suggests an edge of explicit over implicit instruction for the development of complex L2 grammatical structures, but the jury is still out as to which type of explicit instruction--"deductive" or "inductive," where rules are respectively provided or elicited--proves more effective. Avoiding this…

Assessing speaking skills is regarded as a complex and hard process compared with the other language skills. Considering the idiosyncratic characteristics of EFL learners, oral proficiency assessment issue becomes even more important. Keeping this situation in mind, judgements and reliability of raters need to be consistent with each other. This…

Comparing multiple solutions to a single problem is an important mode for developing flexible mathematical thinking, yet instructionally leading this activity is challenging (Stein, Engle, Smith, & Hughes, 2008). We test 1 decision teachers must make after having students solve a problem: whether to only verbally discuss students' solutions or…

This article presents the results of experimental data on language production and comprehension. These show that adult learners of Dutch as an additional language, with different language backgrounds, and a L2 proficiency below level A2 (Waystage) of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR; Council of Europe, 2001), use…

The study aimed to reveal the effectiveness of the use of certain classroom language activities in teaching English language in the development of oral linguistic performance and decision-making among intermediate third-grade students in Makah, and it revealed a statistically significant correlation relationship between the averages of the study…

This paper addresses potentially problematic classroom episodes in which someone foregrounds a social division that is normally taken for granted. It illustrates the way in which linguistic ethnography can unpack the layered processes that collide in the breaking of silence, showing how linguistic form and practice, individual positioning, local…

Perceptual (mis)matches between teachers and learners are said to affect learning success or failure. Self-assessment, as a formative assessment tool, may, inter alia, be considered a means to minimize such mismatches. Therefore, the present study investigated the extent to which learners' assessment of their own speaking performance, before and…

As English is one of the most spoken languages in the globally interconnected world of today, many Saudi universities are enrolling their EFL students in summer intensive English programs at US universities. The main purpose is to enhance their EFL students' oral competencies. This new policy is, in fact, the result of the failure of CLT practices…

The aim of this paper is to provide new evidence on the effectiveness of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in the acquisition of English language competences (reading, writing, listening and spoken production and interaction) compared to traditional learning of English as a foreign language (EFL) in primary school settings. To do so,…

In the last few decades the medical community has increasingly underlined the necessity for medical students and healthcare professionals to acquire adequate and patient-friendly medical language and communication skills. Although teachers of foreign languages for medical purposes are usually not medically trained, their learners present them with…

Test takers' beliefs or experiences have been overlooked in most validation studies in language education. Meanwhile, a mutual exclusion has been observed in the literature, with little or no dialogue between validation studies and studies concerning the uses and consequences of testing. To help fill these research gaps, a group of Senior III…