This study examines how the genre of input text influences Chinese young EFL learners' performance on continuation tasks. Participants were 30 students in Grade 9 and repeated-measures design was adopted to compare their performance on narrative and argumentative continuation tasks, in terms of writing quality, CAF indicators as well as alignment.…

Shadow education helps students become academically competitive. Currently, little is known about whether shadow education can effectively fulfill either remedial or enrichment purposes in China. Using the nationally representative data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) collected in 2013 and 2014, this paper explored the opportunity gap…

This research investigated the impact of processing instruction (PI) on the acquisition of the English third-person singular present tense by Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners and whether this effect would extend to the acquisition of other language components. This study featured the pretest-immediate-posttest design and…

Language assessment literacy (LAL) has recently gained substantial attention among language educators and other stakeholders. However, existing models focus almost exclusively on teachers, test developers, and administrators, and lack students' perspectives in their conceptualizations. To address this gap, with this exploratory study we aimed to…

This study examined the content alignment between an English as a foreign language skills curriculum and a provincial language test in China. When there is misalignment in the content between the standards of a curriculum and a test, conclusions about student abilities and teaching effectiveness can be questioned. To examine this, three categories…

The objectives of this study were: (i) to compare the scores on the test between students who took a Chinese Traditional Culture course (including ancient fairy tales, traditional festivals, and ancient etiquette) and students who did not, (ii) to examine students' performance on the traditional culture after taking the Chinese Traditional Culture…

This study investigates how different form-focused instruction (FFI) timing impacts English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' grammar development. A total of 169 Chinese middle school learners were assigned to four conditions randomly: control, before-isolated FFI, integrated FFI, and after-isolated FFI. The three experimental groups received…

This paper examined to what extent causal explanation speaking tasks (CESTs) are cognitively appropriate for assessing young language learners' (YLLs) L2 speaking. Ninety-six YLLs (48 from Grade 4 and 6 each) in China performed two CESTs in both L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English). They also completed receptive and productive L2 vocabulary size tests.…

Several studies and assumptions support the advantages of presenting pictures before texts, such as the Sequencing Effects of Integrated Model of Text and Picture Comprehension (the Sequencing Effects of ITPC Model) and the Scaffolding Assumption. However, few studies have examined the efficacy of text-first or picture-first multimodal input on…

Home language (HL) effects on academic language literacy have been extensively discussed. However, previous research has mostly focused on Indo--European languages. This study extends the literature by using data (n = 17,600) collected in a diversified language area: Guangxi, China. We examined the effects of four HLs and four socioeconomic…

Numerous studies have been conducted on the accuracy of teacher judgement in different educational areas such as mathematics, language arts and reading. Teacher judgement of students' foreign-language achievement, however, has been rarely investigated. The study aimed to examine the accuracy of teacher judgement of students' foreign-language…

In response to the growing interest in evaluating young learners' foreign language (FL) performance, this study aims to deepen our understanding of young learners' developmental differences in interaction during task-based paired-language assessments. To examine age effects separately from the effect of general language proficiency, we analysed…

Schools in China and elsewhere are starting to teach English as a second language or foreign language (FL) to students at increasingly earlier ages. Although young learners (YLs), due to their developmental stage, are likely to be particularly susceptible to the influence of parents, parents' roles in YLs' motivation to learn English as an FL is…

ELTeach is an online professional development program developed by Educational Testing Service (ETS) in collaboration with National Geographic Learning. The ELTeach program consists of two courses: English-for-Teaching and Professional Knowledge for English Language Teaching (ELT). Each course includes a coordinated assessment leading to a score…

Language competences are based upon the accumulation, assimilation and utilization of the learnt language, whose acquisition depends upon the practice amount and practice opportunities of the language, so students are supposed to plunge into the activities of language practice actively and habitually by acting on their initiative. I think…