The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assesses the extent to which 15-year-old students near the end of their compulsory education have acquired the knowledge and skills essential for full participation in modern societies. The assessment does not just ascertain whether students can reproduce knowledge; it also examines…

Many states and districts offer full-day kindergarten (FDK) to provide additional time for student learning in the hope that it will improve student outcomes. Prior research has shown an association between FDK and gains in student outcomes such as math and reading standardized assessment scores. In 2015/16, through a policy shift, Oregon changed…

Socializing students to Academic Integrity (AI) in the face of great cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic diversity in the student population in higher education calls for innovative strategies that are aligned with equity, diversity and inclusion principles. Through a mixed method of quantitative analysis of learner engagement data from the…

Exploring opportunities by which learners can internalize new knowledge and consolidate existing knowledge has long been a point of interest in English as a foreign language research. This study investigated how meta-talk opportunities on discourse markers created by four task types including text reconstruction, dictogloss, translation and jigsaw…

This study investigates how second language (L2) fluency is influenced by two factors: Pre-task planning and content familiarity. Planning was adopted as a between-participant variable, combined with content familiarity as a within-participant variable, in a 2 × 2 split-plot factorial design. Nineteen measures of fluency phenomena, constituting…

This study investigated EFL learners' satisfaction with the asynchronous online learning program Tell Me More (TMM). 340 EFL learners' satisfaction with the TMM program was surveyed. In addition, a semi-structured focus group interview was conducted with 10 of the participants to gain in-depth insight into their satisfaction. The findings showed…

Prominent discourses about emergent bilinguals' academic abilities tend to focus on performance as measured by test scores and perpetuate the message that emergent bilinguals trail far behind their peers. When we remove the constraints of formal testing situations, what can emergent bilinguals do in English as they engage in naturally occurring…

Learning business related courses, especially accounting, in English is a challenge for many Chinese students. The purpose of this study is to provide some insights into the role of the language in accounting learning. We investigate this issue in the program of Teaching Business Related Courses in English for undergraduate students at Guangdong…

This paper presents a case study that investigated and compared the stated beliefs and observed classroom practices relating to Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) of two ESL teachers. The findings of the study revealed that both the teachers hold similar complex beliefs that mostly contradict the philosophy of CLT. The practices were not in…

This study explores the use of video conferencing and social media technology in improving English speaking skills, which Thai students struggle the most. Data were collected from 6 participants who conversed with native and fluent speakers of English via a videoconferencing application with the use of a few other social media websites for a…

The positioning of migrant students within schools of the host country is considerably determined by issues related to the language of instruction adopted in these schools. This article presents a qualitative study conducted in two Maltese girls' secondary schools and examines how teachers and migrant students dealt with language issues. Data were…

Vietnamese high school students have few opportunities to use English outside class and they are often reluctant to speak in class. This paper describes and explains the students' willingness to communicate (WTC) and relates this to varied perceptions of social presence. Eighteen high school students in Vietnam took a six-week online course using…

Aviation English proficiency is a core competency in the global air traffic controller profession. There is, however, growing concern about the current ineffective paper-based assessment methods and the severe lack of interactive online testing for such a critical profession, one that should be ideally assessed in an authentic task and situation…

The medium of instruction (MOI) has been a bone of contention in Hong Kong, a former British colony, since its colonial days. Despite the Hong Kong government's effort to promote the "biliterate and trilingual" language policy, advocating Cantonese, English and Putonghua as the three official spoken languages and emphasizing the…

As federal legislation requires that English language proficiency (ELP) standards are aligned with content standards, this article addresses issues and concerns in aligning ELP standards with content standards in English language arts, mathematics, and science. It starts with a brief description of federal legislation for alignment between ELP…