This study addressed a gap in existing research on Multiple-Choice (MC) cloze tests by focusing on the learners' perspective, specifically examining the difficulties faced by vocational high school students (VHSs). A nationwide sample of 293 VHSs participated, providing both quantitative and qualitative data through a self-developed questionnaire.…

This study proposed a three-tier test to help students learn English grammar. To reduce students' anxiety, game-based learning was incorporated into the three-tier test, where personalization was also implemented to accommodate students' different needs. More specifically, we developed a Personalized Entertaining Three-Tier Test (PET3), which…

Event concepts of common verbs (e.g. "eat," "sleep") can be broadly shared across languages, but a given language's rules for subcategorization are largely arbitrary and vary substantially across languages. When subcategorization information does not match between first language (L1) and second language (L2), how does this…

This study investigated the influence of focus-on-form task-based language teaching (TBLT) on Taiwanese children's English vocabulary acquisition and retention. Focus-on-form TBLT here refers to instruction in which the teacher and students interact, negotiate, and respond to each other on the subject of a second language (L2) vocabulary. The…

This study examined the effectiveness of guided data-driven learning (DDL) activities on helping technological university students with a lower-intermediate proficiency level to learn grammar and vocabulary topics for the TOEIC test. The question of whether inductive learners make more progress than deductive learners was also addressed. A total…

L2 test developers often use scripted spoken texts in their L2 listening tests, because it is efficient and practical to create scripted spoken texts that meet predetermined test specifications. But because scripted spoken texts differ in a number of fundamental ways from unscripted spoken language, there are potential threats to validity when…

The present study attempted to validate the linguistic threshold hypothesis (LTH) and the interactive-compensatory model (ICM) in an English as a foreign language (EFL) setting by assessing the relative contributions of English proficiency and reading strategy use to English reading and examining the mutual compensation between these two factors…

Speaking a foreign language is a complicated process that involves linguistic competence, skills, and strategy use. Communicating through English in English for Academic Purposes courses is a basic requirement for EFL learners, but it can be a challenge. To improve the quality of speech, strengthen components of speaking competence, and raise…

This study investigates the relative effectiveness of two methods for teaching a set of English verb-noun collocations: form-focused instruction (FFI) and concept-based instruction (CBI). The sample comprised 73 Chinese-speaking learners of English taking intermediate English courses, who were randomly assigned to one of three groups: an FFI…

Corpora are well-known for the affordance to make linguistic regularities salient. Since the coinage of the term 'data-driven learning' (DDL) in the 1990s, much has been done to investigate the effects of DDL on learning vocabulary, most notably lexico-grammatical patterns. However, less researched is how learners construct vocabulary knowledge…

Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners generally encounter difficulty in using some special rules of Chinese grammar because such grammar points do not exist in their native languages. CFL learners require an effective learning strategy to assist them in acquiring a greater understanding of Chinese grammar. Thus, we integrated a…

The study aims to explore in-service teachers' epistemological beliefs about the following five critical paradigms in second language education and their corresponding practices: (1) inductive/deductive grammar instruction, (2) intensive/extensive reading, (3) looking up unknown words in the dictionary/guessing from context, (4) focusing on…

This article reports an empirical study investigating L2 acquisition of the Mandarin Chinese "shì…de" cleft construction by adult English-speaking learners within the framework of the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2009). A Sentence Completion task, an interpretation task, two Acceptability Judgement tasks, and a felicity…

This study investigates the effects on developing L2 listening fluency through doing extended listening-focused activities after reading and listening to audio graded readers. Seventy-six EFL university students read and listened to a total of 15 graded readers in a 15-week extensive listening programme. They were divided into three groups (Group…

This study reports the development of a scale to evaluate the speech act performance by intermediate-level Chinese learners of English. A qualitative analysis of the American raters' comments was conducted on learner scripts in response to a total of 16 apology and request written discourse completion task (WDCT) situations. The results showed…