This study investigates the professional development (PD) needs of primary English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers whose professional field has received significant interest at the global level in the past two decades. The study takes a different stance from previous research that exclusively generated data from teachers because it sought the…

The study presents an investigation of the effect of strategic planning, online planning and rehearsal on the fluency, accuracy and complexity of oral productions at two proficiency levels. Forty EFL participants at low and intermediate levels performed picture story tasks in three different conditions: the online planning only condition,…

Background: The present study examined the validity of a university-based speaking assessment (Test of Oral Proficiency in English, TOPE for short) in mainland China. The speaking assessment was developed to meet the standards (Standard for Oral Proficiency in English, SOPE for short) set for teaching and learning of the oral English by the…

The assessment of language endangerment requires accurate estimates of speaker populations, including information about the proficiency of different groups within those populations. Typically, this information is based on self-assessments, a methodology whose reliability is open to question. We outline an approach that seeks to improve the…

Given its focus on a definitely endangered language as noted by the UNESCO Atlas of the World Languages in Danger, and also marked as being threatened by the Ethnologue, this study aims to scrutinize whether Laz people do, or do not use their ancestral tongue, to identify factors involved in their language choice, and ultimately, to comment on its…

The "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA), signed into law in 2015 and still in the midst of implementation, requires states to develop and submit to the U.S. Department of Education a state education accountability plan. Compared to the previous federal education law, the "No Child Left Behind Act" (NCLB), ESSA mandates that…

Inconsistencies of results of foreign language anxiety's effect on advanced learners' language performances have persisted over the years. And little has been known on the relationship between foreign language anxiety and engineering graduate students' language performances. To fill the gap, this study employed a self-report anxiety scale called…

The development of speaking fluency is a major goal for many EFL language learners and several researchers have proposed frameworks for fluency instruction based on theories of cognitive science. It is unclear however, whether EFL students with restricted opportunities to use English outside of language classrooms can benefit from fluency…

This study investigates test-takers' processing while completing banked gap-fill tasks, designed to test reading proficiency, in order to test theoretically based expectations about the variation in cognitive processes of test-takers across levels of performance. Twenty-eight test-takers' eye traces on 24 banked gap-fill items (on six tasks) were…

Numerous studies have verified the effect of cyclical presentation of materials on learners' language proficiency and achievement. However, there is a dearth of research exploring language teachers' perceptions of cyclical approach. Since teachers' perceptions may catalyze or nullify the effect of this approach, this study aims at exploring…

This comparative case study explores the use of Spanish, Arabic, and English in two elementary classrooms where instruction is delivered primarily in English and teachers and students do not share proficiencies in students' home languages. Using methods derived from ethnography of communication, the study examines how languages other than English…

This paper deals with the use of metadiscourse by Italian university lecturers who teach through the medium of English (EMI, English-Medium Instruction). The objective is to verify whether, irrespective of possible shortcomings in their mastery of the language, lecturers demonstrate sensitivity to the situational demands of the EMI classroom,…

This study has two research purposes related to L2 writing development. The first aim of this study is to explore how L2 learners receiving intensive ESL instruction develop their writing proficiency (writing quality from an analytic rubric) across two writing tasks (narrative and argumentative writing) over one semester. Limiting its focus to…

Prior research has focused on English as the medium of instruction (EMI) classes as a means of increasing language competency and motivation. However, studies have yet to examine the use of students' given names by instructors in EMI classes in Korea. This manuscript investigated EMI classes taught by foreign faculty across several academic fields…

This study investigated EFL learners' perspectives about their vocabulary learning experiences via a smartphone application. An online demographic questionnaire was used for recruiting 50 EFL learners from a language teaching channel in Telegram messenger required to use a smartphone application called Vocabulary Flashcards 2016 for a month. After…