Connectives such as "because" and "but" are crucial for signaling coherence relations in discourse. They contribute to a better reading comprehension and, thus, academic performance. The aim of this article is to contribute to our understanding of connective development during teenage years by studying individual differences in…

Migration as a social phenomenon has always been a part of the world, but it has never reached such scope as in the recent years. Violent conflicts, instability, poverty and natural disasters force people to move in search of protection and better life. In 2017, about one million first instance decisions were issued in EU, most of which were…

This article analyses discussions in the Russian media of the proposal to introduce the Unified State Exam (USE) in English as a mandatory test in the last year of (high) school education 2010s. The decision not to implement the mandatory USE in English was taken in August 2020. In the aftermath of the decision, we investigate the decade-long…

This paper problematizes the assessment of speakers' proficiency in endangered language communities. We focus in particular on processes of lexical production and elicitation as proxies for full proficiency assessment. Among linguists, it is standard to assess a speaker's knowledge of specific lexical items in order to set a baseline for further…

In this study, we investigated crosslinguistic influence (CLI) at developmental stages of third language (L3) acquisition of English by Russian--Norwegian children (N = 31). We tested seven linguistic properties within three linguistic modules (morphology, syntax and syntax-semantics). We compared the L3 learners to Norwegian (N = 90) and Russian…

The present article addressed the issue of university teachers' working experience in the field of class-oriented online teaching English in higher educational institutions. The central aim of this study was a detailed description of the system for assessing reading skills utilized in English proficiency tests (CAE (C1), TOEFL, IELTS), as well as…

The role of context in cloze tests has long been seen as both a benefit as well as a complication in their usefulness as a measure of second language comprehension (Brown, 2013). Passage cohesion, in particular, would seem to have a relevant and important effect on the degree to which cloze items function and the interpretability of performances…

The present study explores the effects of distributed practice by extending this area of research to L2 learning from audiovisual input. A total of 96 L1 Russian elementary to advanced learners of English watched five episodes of captioned TV series under three viewing distribution conditions: longer spacing of viewing once per week; shorter…

The article is devoted to the actual problem of teaching students of non-linguistic majors to write in a foreign language. The purpose of the study is to assess the students' level of written language competence. In 2018 and 2019, the Academic Competition (AC) of foreign languages "Prometheus" was held at South Ural State University…

The improvement of the quality of foreign language education is necessary to achieve subject-learning outcomes for the development of graduates' pertinent communication strategies in foreign language communication in various social situations. The research purpose is to develop the communicative strategies (CS) in foreign language (FL)…

(1) Background: based on the constantly increasing requirements for modern university graduates, we have developed an educational model that allows us to introduce content and language integrated learning into classes with a multilingual approach, which will allow students to use several foreign languages in the process of professional…

Using newly available data from the Trajectories in Education and Careers Study, the first longitudinal study on a representative sample of high school students in Russia, we examined the importance of investments in human and cultural capital on students' mathematics and reading standardized examinations, as well as on the likelihood of…

For the full implementation of strategic goals of public administration, as well as a worthy representation of the interests of the state at the international level, civil servants must have high foreign-language professional competencies. Practical issues of educational and training programs in the field of development of these competencies are…

To investigate whether the type of keyboard used in exams introduces any construct-irrelevant variance to the TOEFL iBT Writing scores, we surveyed 17,040 TOEFL iBT examinees from 24 countries on their keyboard-related perceptions and preferences and analyzed the survey responses together with their test scores. Results suggest that controlling…

This article investigates the intercultural competence and identities of undergraduate heritage language learners (HLLs) studying abroad under the auspices of the U.S. Flagship Program. Based on survey responses and interviews with HLLs from Flagship Programs across the country, the article aims to assess the preparation of HLLs for study abroad…