Beliefs are central constructs in every discipline which deals with human behaviour and learning. In addition to learner beliefs about language learning, language teachers themselves may hold certain beliefs about language learning that will have an impact on their instructional practices and that are likely to influence their students' beliefs…

The growth of China's economy over the last two decades saw many Chinese students going overseas to study. Like many western countries, New Zealand benefited from increased international student enrolments, with Chinese students making up the largest proportion of the numbers. Many of these students experienced "culture shock" in their…

The purpose of this study is to determine whether differences in academic attainment between university students could be correlated with their use of English for academic purposes. Using the diagnostic language assessment procedure known as Measuring the Academic Skills of University Students (MASUS), as well as informal analysis of assignment…

The purpose of this case-study was to understand the relationship between success in college and L2 academic writing of three Generation 1.5 Russian-speaking middle-class college students and to describe the factors that could have contributed to the levels of academic literacy that these students developed. The following research questions were…

The aim of this phenomenological study was to explore the language learning strategies (LLSs) of Spanish adults in a business context. The research questions examined the specific LLSs used by Spanish adults in business communication tasks. In addition, this study addressed the cultural influences on LLSs from the Spanish educational system along…

This article approaches the phenomenon of the continuing influence of French and English pedagogical cultures in Africa relying on post-modern notions of time and space. It reports on a project carried out in Cameroon where both cultures are in contact and where the teachers from two primary schools were observed and interviewed over a period of…

Much has changed for today's language learners. The people, artifacts, and popular culture of a target language are often highly accessible to language learners and teachers, despite geographical barriers. This accessibility, of course, is possible through mass media and electronic forms of communication. This is phenomenal. But with this…

Most second language (L2) researchers and teachers would agree that input, often defined as the language a learner hears or reads, plays an important role in L2 learning. There is a great deal of research investigating which types of input are most beneficial for learning, how learners process and internalize input (e.g., Schmidt, 2001), and how…

Vocabulary is an essential component of language. It is central to reading ability, writing ability and listening ability, and the most important aspect of second-language (L2) knowledge for academic achievement. The aim of this paper is to investigate quantitatively some of the factors that make some L2 words more difficult to learn and retain…

English as an Additional Language (EAL) students' textual borrowing in disciplinary writing has attracted wide research interest in recent years. However, much of the research was conducted in the regular curriculum setting while the relevance of the issue in a writing-for-publication context has largely been overlooked. In particular,…

This study examined Japanese elementary school students' motivational orientations for learning English as a foreign language (EFL) and fundamental psychological needs from a self-determination theory perspective, exploring the relations between motivational orientations (e.g., intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation,…

This study investigated the effects of using two types of written advance organizers, key sentences and key vocabulary, on the improvement of EFL learners' listening comprehension. 108 second year university students at the higher and lower listening proficiency levels were randomly assigned to one control group and two experimental groups. Prior…

This paper reports the results of a qualitative study that examined the experiences of six preservice English language teachers in Hong Kong as they prepared for, engaged in, and reflected upon a compulsory research project during the final year of their Bachelor of Education degree program. Drawing upon in-depth interviews and using methods of…

This paper reports on an investigation of the potential for a shared-L1 advantage on an academic English listening test featuring speakers with L2 accents. Two hundred and twelve second-language listeners (including 70 Mandarin Chinese L1 listeners and 60 Japanese L1 listeners) completed three versions of the University Test of English as a Second…

The possible advantage of bilingual children over monolinguals in analyzing word meanings from verbal context was examined. The subjects were 40 third-grade children (20 bilingual and 20 monolingual) recruited from independent schools in the USA. The two groups of participants were compared on their performance on a standardized test of receptive…