This paper presents a teacher-led inquiry into learner language awareness and learner perceptions of: oral presentations using first language (L1) support when using a second language (L2); and L2 learner and user identity. The quantitative-based results of this preliminary inquiry represent a source of understanding for the researcher, who later,…

It remains controversial whether children are able to process and integrate specific linguistic cues in their mental model to the same extent as adults. In the present study, a sentence continuation task was employed to determine how Italian speakers (4-, 5-, 6-year-olds and adults) interpret prosodic cues to decide which referent is more salient…

The study presented in this article explores the ways in which discursive-technologies shape interaction in "digitally-mediated" educational settings in terms of affordances and constraints for the participants. Our multi-scale sociocultural-dialogical analysis of the interactional order in the online sessions of an "Italian for…

The study investigated the usefulness of blogs in evaluating English-as-a-Foreign-Language learners' oral performance and explored their reactions toward using blogs as a learning and assessment tool for English-speaking performance. Fifty-one college students participated in a semester-long blog project, and each uploaded five audio entries to…

A quasi-experimental study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of providing written corrective feedback (WCF) to Arab speakers of English on ten uses of English prepositions. Arab speakers commonly find it difficult to correctly use English prepositions, mainly due to the differences between the two languages (e.g. Ortega, 2009). Examples…

The current longitudinal study examines the similarities and differences between primary and secondary foreign language curricula and pedagogy along with the development of motivation for language learning and second language proficiency. Data from 26 English learners of French (aged 10-11) were collected across three times points over a 12-month…

Language test preparation has often been studied within the consequential validity framework in relation to ethics, equity, fairness, and washback of assessment. The use of independent and integrated speaking tasks in the "TOEFL iBT"® test represents a significant development and innovation in assessing speaking ability in academic…

This action research study examines the effect of self-evaluation on grammatical range and grammar accuracy on the English speaking performance of 27 foreign language university and pre-university students enrolled in three different language centers, in three different cities in Colombia. Participants were asked to record themselves answering…

Languaging has been identified as a contributor to language learning. Yet, compared to oral languaging, such as collaborative dialogs in contextualized settings, little seems to be known about written languaging. In order to fill this gap, this study investigates languaging in the form of "metanotes," that is, metatalk in a written…

Based on the empirical data of my PhD research, this paper analyses the perceptions of 351 undergraduate students enrolled at English-medium universities towards English in terms of the language ideology framework. The students were purposively sampled from three programs at three Turkish universities. The data were drawn from student opinion…

Nonnative English speaking teachers' oral proficiency and instructional strategies are the significant factors to become effective language teachers where English is not used as a daily communication medium. The study focuses on improvement of EFL teachers' instructional strategies. The main goal of the study is to develop an EFL instructional…

Criticism of specific-purpose language (LSP) tests is often directed at their limited ability to represent fully the demands of the target language use situation. Such criticisms extend to the criteria used to assess test performance, which may fail to capture what matters to participants in the domain of interest. This paper reports on the…

In the area of language teaching, corrective feedback is one of the popular and hotly debated topics that have been widely explored to date. A considerable number of studies on students' preferences of error correction and the effects of error correction approaches on student achievement do exist. Moreover, much on teachers' preferences of error…

This study aimed to examine the effect of task repetition on foreign language output. Twenty eight Saudi female students in the Preparatory Year (PY) at King Saud university, were randomly selected to conduct an oral information-gap task. The participants were asked to perform the task two times with two-week interval between the two performances.…

Vast amounts of daily news content are widely available and easily accessible, and they can be converted into materials for intermediate and advanced ESL classes. This article will describe the why and how for integrating news media sources into a multiskills ESL classroom. Through the news, students are immediately engaged with the material…