Advocates of using songs and music in English as a second language (EL2) teaching and learning contexts emphasize the educational benefits of song lyrics. To make the full potential of using songs more visible and accessible to EL2 teachers, this article presents a methodological framework that can be used when planning a song unit for learners.…

The Vocabulary Size Test (VST) measures English learners' decontextualised receptive vocabulary knowledge of written English and has nine bilingual versions with multiple-choice options written in other languages. This study used the English-Japanese version of the VST to investigate the extent to which loanword items were answered correctly by…

Traditional English education in China, with its emphasis on grammatical proficiency and written accuracy, often neglects public speaking, resulting in a notable deficiency in practical language application. This study investigated the potential of project-based learning to address this problem by promoting more interactive, student-centered…

This study sought to scrutinize the interplay between interlanguage pragmatic learning strategies (IPLS) usage and learner autonomy among male and female English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. It also examines whether gender plays a significant role in the adoption and efficacy of these strategies in the EFL learning context. The study…

Due to the increased mobility and linguistic and cultural diversity internationally, there has been a renewed interest in the linguistic practices of immigrant families. Earlier scholarship focused on the difference between parenting in monolingual contexts and bilingual parenting conceptualised as management of more than one language in a family.…

The pervasive use of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) in second language (L2) learning has generated increasing interest among researchers in integrating SCMC with task-based language teaching (TBLT). This study examined the effects of task complexity on Chinese EFL learners' language production in SCMC modality to develop…

This study compares two leadership styles, emergent leader (EL) and assigned leader (AL), to explore effective leadership in second language (L2) group work. ELs were spontaneously chosen by the group, while ALs were pre-assigned by teachers before the task. The study involved 45 university students, who were divided into seven EL groups (n = 21)…

The ability to understand listening is an essential skill for non-native speakers of English as a foreign language (EFL). Research has shown that several factors can influence EFL students' English listening comprehension, including the listening strategy they use during listening activities. This study, therefore, used the meta-cognitive…

This paper explores linguistic life-histories from five participants in a larger interview study with U.S.-based adults. These five interviewees were middle-class White women from monolingual English-speaking families who pursued multilingual learning trajectories in young adulthood. Having previously attained proficiency in one language through…

Chinese has a rich and diverse vocabulary of terms, especially verbs, expressing power relationships. This paper selected 25 power relationship terms from the Chinese Proficiency Scale for International Chinese Education, and used a true-false format to test the differences in acquisition between international students from Confucian cultural…

The present study investigated how Cantonese speakers learning English as a second language (L2) would comprehend English irony and whether their L2 proficiency and use would moderate their irony processing. Thirty Cantonese speakers with differing English proficiency (intermediate vs advanced) were asked to complete an irony comprehension task in…

This study investigates how L1-Korean L2-English learners perform with regard to articles in both explicit and implicit tasks. It also examines the role of L1-transfer from Korean demonstratives to English definites in L2 article production. 21 native English speakers and 27 adult intermediate L1-Korean L2-English learners were tested. The…

Given that societies across the globe are increasingly multicultural and multilingual, the notion of communicative competence grounded in constricting definitions of national cultures and languages reflects neither our instructional realities nor the sociolinguistic reality of the languages and cultures we teach. To foster students' development of…

Rapid improvements in the capabilities of machine translation (MT) raise questions about possible increases in overreliance on MT among lower-proficiency or novice level language learners. This study investigated how such learners described their use of online MT for independent reading and writing tasks, and whether this included descriptions…

'Threshold concepts' have recently been identified as a key component for higher or university level teaching in science communication, concepts which can offer a 'transformative' experience amongst students, whilst also creating a sense of discomfort. In this research article, we examine data gathered via two qualitative focus groups and a…