This paper analyzes the relationship between communication apprehension and language anxiety from the perspective of gender. As virtually no empirical studies have addressed the explicit influence of gender on language anxiety in communication apprehensives, this paper proposes that females are generally more sensitive to anxiety, as reflected in…

Via a variety of measurements, 64 Hungarian native speakers in the 12th grade learning English as a foreign language in Slovakia were tested in a cross-sectional correlational study in order to determine the relationship between the ability to process complex syntax and foreign language reading comprehension. The test instruments involved a…

The use of students' mother tongue (MT/L1) in the second/foreign language classroom has been debated in language teaching theory and practice for many decades. Most language teaching methods advocate the use of the target language (TL) in the classroom. However, recent research has elevated the role of L1 in the classroom. This paper illustrates…

The main objective of the study was to examine the English language learning strategies (LLS) used by Lower Six students in secondary schools who are sitting for their MUET test. It analyzed the language learning strategies that students use in order to prepare for the MUET test. Data were collected using a survey questionnaire with 300 students.…

Users of the Probability Approach choose the right one from four basic types of conditional sentences--factual, predictive, hypothetical and counterfactual conditionals, by judging how likely (i.e. the probability) the event in the result-clause will take place when the condition in the if-clause is met. Thirty-three students from the experimental…

The present paper reports the findings of a study that investigated the physical and technical characteristics of the English language teaching courseware in Malaysia. A randomly selected group of English language teachers in Malaysia (n = 200) were surveyed to evaluate the courseware. SPSS (18.0) was applied to analyze the data. The results…

Studies in interlanguage pragmatics have shown that L2 learners' proficiency has an influence on the occurrences of L1 pragmatic transfer. However, questions remain whether the relationship between L1 pragmatic transfer and L2 proficiency is positive or negative. This paper is designed to study L1 pragmatic transfer in requests made by Chinese…

The study compared the performance of pupils at grade 12 level in Zambian languages, French and English during a period of ten years (1998-2008). Grade 12 is the final year of Secondary School Education in Zambia. This exercise was aimed at establishing the language with the best performance during the aforementioned period. The study, which was…

Extensive reading is being practiced in many EFL and ESL classrooms as an effective means for developing learners' reading as well as other related skills. This paper is based on a small-scale study that explores the current practices and future possibilities of using extensive reading in the EFL classrooms at the junior secondary schools in…

This paper examines how Chinese international students from a public land-grant university used online community to construct their cultural and ethnic identities. The author delves into the question of how online community enables these students to gain successful cultural assimilation. Extending on Baym's (2000) theoretical framework of online…

In this article, we analyze a broad range of factors that affect the sense of belonging of undergraduate students taking a first-year academic literacy course (ALC) at a multicultural, multilingual university in Vancouver, Canada. Students who fail to meet the university's language and literacy requirements are required to pass ALC before they can…

The course the author teaches in Cultural Diversity is a requirement for pre-service teachers seeking a Preliminary Teaching Credential as well as for in-service teachers who have returned to earn the California Teachers of English Learners (CTEL) Certificate. As part of this course the author requires a literature analysis assignment. In this…

This survey study explored perceptions and use of language learning strategies among English as a second language teachers and English-learning students (Grades 3-8, 10, and 11). The sample comprised 1,057 students (651 elementary, 275 middle, and 131 high school) and 54 teachers (31 elementary, 11 middle, and 12 high school) from 38 schools…

This article is about an investigation into the English spoken language competence of 144 first graders in two urban ('township') schools in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. The study was conducted from an anthropological and a cognitive developmental perspective. In one school isiZulu and Sesotho are used mainly as medium of instruction,…

Language acquisition research frequently concerns itself with linguistic development and result of the acquisition process with respect to a first or subsequent language. For some, it seems tacitly assumed that a first language, once acquired, remains stable, regardless of exposure to and the acquisition of additional language(s) beyond the first…