Under the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 worldwide, students were forced to switch from face-to-face to online learning. This study reports the experience of Hong Kong students in higher education concerning the challenges they faced, the strategies they used and the support they needed in their online learning during the period. An online…

Chatbots have been increasingly applied for EFL education and demonstrated overall usefulness in improving knowledge and motivation, while this technology has yet to be used for learning logical fallacies (i.e. errors in reasoning) in EFL writing. However, knowledge of logical fallacies is essential, with which learners can avoid fallacies in EFL…

This study investigated the relationships between self-regulated learning, academic self-efficacy, participation in flipped classroom activities, and student performance for 36 undergraduate marketing students. Self-efficacy, cognitive strategy use, and self-regulation were measured using items from the Motivated Strategies of Learning…

Language laboratories exist in many language centres across the globe. Situated in the popularity of self-access and computer-assisted language learning in the present era, the study investigated tertiary-level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' general and, particularly, negative views of speech analysis software. Two hundred and…

The flipped classroom approach has been gaining substantial momentum and is well received in Asia. Using a qualitative approach, this study examined how the flipped classroom approach affects the teaching and learning experiences of students and teachers in Asian higher education. Five Faculty of Education courses were examined in this study. Five…

This study examines university students' multitasking with computers and mobile phones in an authentic self-study context, with the primary focus being on off-task multitasking and interruption as precursor to multitasking. The study drew on interviews, observation, and video-stimulated recall to reveal the triggers for and processes of…

The essence of mobile learning is learners' agentic use of mobile devices to create learning experiences across time and space. Thus, understanding learners' perceptions and preferred use of mobile devices for learning are critical to realizing the educational potentials of mobile learning. This study explored language learners' self-directed use…

This study investigated how English learners complete multimodal formative quizzes. Participants included 17,950 students enrolled in a mandatory English for Academic Purposes course at a university in Hong Kong. We retrieved data from Blackboard, a learning management system, and conducted a two-step cluster analysis to examine student…

With the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, many universities shifted to online teaching. However, some online instruction had already been implemented well before the pandemic. This study investigates (1) how engagement in blended CALL activities differed during the pandemic, and (2) in what ways the assessment outcomes were associated with student…

This innovations in practice article introduces a chatbot that was developed to support and motivate second language learners during the COVID-19 pandemic. The chatbot was designed to facilitate active, out-of-class language learning to supplement in-class input. It can adapt to learners' abilities and pace by chatting with them, thus providing…

Previous studies have associated L2 teachers' use of motivational strategies with learners' motivated behaviours in class such as raised attention and participation. The after-class effects of L2 motivational strategies, in contrast, have drawn less attention. This paper reports a study examining how L2 teachers' motivational interventions cause…

Data-driven learning (DDL; Johns, 1991), involving students' hands-on use of corpora for self-guided language learning, is a methodology now increasingly used in many tertiary contexts to enhance the teaching of disciplinary postgraduate thesis writing. However, there are still few studies tracking students' actual engagement with corpora for DDL.…

Out-of-class exposure to and use of the target language mediated by technological resources are essential to language learning, as foreign language learners very often encounter difficulty in accessing and processing target language in the immediate physical environments. Understanding how foreign language learners' out-of-class self-directed…

Human perceptions influence attitudes and intentions, and can predict actions. Despite the popular use of technology for English language teaching, and the association between learner factors and technology use, little is known about language learners' use of technology for personal and interpersonal learning activities, and whether there is a…

This study aims at investigating the language strengths and weaknesses of Hong Kong self-directed learners, their learning needs, and their self-directed learning experiences with the use of diagnostic language test and examining whether the test can help the learners to self-direct their own learning. The test results showed that less than half…