This article argues for the value of heritage language programs and the micro-level language policies that support them, focusing on a case study of a program in the USA to make this argument. We also argue for the importance of recognizing students' heritage languages, cultures, and individual goals and identities in mainstream school programs.…

This research was conducted to investigate how frequently Turkish advanced learners of English use the logical connector "thus" in their academic prose and to investigate whether it was overused, underused or misused semantically in comparison to English native speakers. The data were collected from three corpora; Corpus of Contemporary…

This study investigated the impact of topic interest, alongside L2 proficiency and gender, on L2 vocabulary acquisition through reading. A repeated-measures design was used with 135 Korean EFL students. Control variables included topic familiarity, prior target-word knowledge, and target-word difficulty (word length, class, and concreteness).…

Foreign language teachers and learners use digital repositories frequently to find appropriate activities for their teaching and learning activities. The question is: How can content providers support them in finding exactly what they need and in retrieving high quality resources? This question has been discussed in the literature and in the…

In Canada, there is a rising population of K-12 students who speak neither French nor English at home, and who are sometimes expected to learn both of the country's official languages in school. Applying the lenses of critical theory and positioning theory, this study uses questionnaire and interview data to frame considerations to explore how…

The study utilised a fine-grained diagnostic checklist to assess first-year undergraduates in Hong Kong and evaluated its validity and usefulness for diagnosing academic writing in English. Ten English language instructors marked 472 academic essays with the checklist. They also agreed on a Q-matrix, which specified the relationships among the…

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems can provide immediate computer-generated quantitative assessments and qualitative diagnostic feedback on an enormous number of submitted essays. However, limited research attention has been paid to locally designed AWE systems used in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom contexts. This study…

We present findings of a project that investigated the potential of an online tandem program to enhance the foreign language learning of two groups of school-aged beginner learners, one learning English in Colombia and the other learning Spanish in New Zealand. We assessed the impact of the project on students' learning with a free writing…

In this paper, we discuss the problem of articulation between levels in the educational system, as the transition from a rather more communicative, content-based and holistic approach to English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching at primary level to more formal and explicit ways of foreign language (FL) teaching at secondary is often experienced…

To better understand the promising effects of data-driven learning (DDL) on language learning processes and outcomes, this study explored DDL learning events enabled by the Research Writing Tutor (RWT), a web-based platform containing an English language corpus annotated to enhance rhetorical input, a concordancer that was searchable for…

The current study is a quantitative research that examined the mean differences of the students' attitude towards reading, based upon several demographic variables (such as gender, grade level and social media devices usage) The researchers used the Students' Reading Attitude Survey (SRAS) as the dependent variable; the sample consisted of 812…

An extended model based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) was used to study Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) students' in-class participation. The model included the core TPB constructs (behavioural intentions, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control/self-efficacy) and 2 additional constructs (foreign…

Education system has developed rapidly, technology has invaded our life, everyone has smart phone these days, using WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram, etc. No one can deny that the generation we teach these days, has become addicted to these applications, for social relationship and fun. In 2012 when I started teaching in KSA,…

Integration of technology in foreign language classes has long been a matter of interest for researchers. Yet, studies have often yielded indecisive and conflicting results. Besides, there have been few, if any, studies exploring the relationship between learners' use of metacognitive reading strategies and their performance in reading tests. The…

Achieving communicative competency in English classes has been a key goal in contexts where English is taught as a foreign language (EFL). During this process, however, integrating the difficulty and complexity of real life tasks into classroom teaching has often been disregarded. Lack of opportunities for authentic language use often results in…