Following Rogers's theory of the diffusion of innovations, the author questions whether youth entering the workforce will act as change agents to evolve primary business communication channels from email to text-messaging. Expanding on research performed in 2009, the author investigates three communication scenarios: scheduling meetings,…

In this case, a new superintendent has communicated what he perceives as a needed change affecting students and teachers on several campuses and a seemingly short timeline for making the decision to move off a block schedule. The abrupt nature of the announcement, combined with the circumstances surrounding the superintendent's recent hiring has…

This study examined the usability of five virtual reference services--instant messenger chat, e-mail, telephone, text messaging, and Skype videoconferencing--by having 31 undergraduate and graduate students evaluate the usability of the virtual reference services of two different universities. The study's results suggest that user preference and…

This research investigates East Asian students' perceptions towards e-learning privacy. The survey was first carried out in Japan (N1 = 255) and China (N2 = 307) in 2009. In 2012 the same survey was conducted again in these two countries but with different participants (N3 = 175, N4 = 63). To survey in different countries is to verify whether…

The provision of supplemental educational and instructional content in podcast form is becoming increasingly widespread in first language education. However, amongst second language students in Japan the lack of literature illustrates podcast use has been limited. Imitating podcasts, educational and instructional materials in audio form were…

L2 pragmatic instruction in grammar and writing is an area of second language acquisition that is underutilized by many teachers. This paper follows the process of one teacher as the instruction of the pragmatic speech act of requesting is integrated into a low-level grammar class. First, an argument is made for the importance of including…

This study explores the differential effect of two types of corrective feedback strategies--explicit and implicit--on the acquisition and retention of correct past form of irregular verbs by Iranian English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Sixty out of 80 pre-intermediate EFL learners were selected as the participants, based on their…

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…

This study was an attempt to explore the potential possibilities of implementing English as the medium of instruction (EMI) at Iranian universities. The sequential exploratory mixed methods design was used to collect the perspectives of both students and content-area lecturers at the state University of Bojnord through e-mail interviews and survey…

This study proposes an approach to automatically score the "TOEIC"® Writing e-mail task. We focus on one component of the scoring rubric, which notes whether the test-takers have used particular speech acts such as requests, orders, or commitments. We developed a computational model for automated speech act identification and tested it…

Cooperative learning may improve students' motivation, understanding of course concepts, and academic performance. This study therefore enhanced a cooperative, group-project learning technique with technology resources to determine whether doing so improved students' deep learning and performance. A sample of 118 engineering students, randomly…

Over the past 18 years, a number of large scale reviews of the literature have documented that gender differences in computer attitudes, ability, and use tend to favor males. Since the use of laptops in higher education classrooms is increasing, it is important to examine whether this use is disproportionally advantageous to males and…

ESL/EFL Anxiety has been reported as one of the foremost factors affecting ESL learners' performance. Hence, identifying methods to assist language learners to alleviate their ESL anxiety deserve to be considered by the educators. This study compared the effect of dialogue journal writing (DJW) through two different modes of learning and teaching:…

This report presents data from the "2010 E-rate Program and Broadband Usage Survey" commissioned by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and conducted by Harris Interactive, Inc. (Harris), an independent national marketing research firm, between February and April 2010. The primary goal of the survey was to collect data on the current state…

The aim of the study was to demonstrate the style of text language used by Finnish pre-teen texters (n = 65) and determine how their text language related to their traditional literacy skills, and compare descriptively these results with earlier results from work with young English texters. Three kinds of text messages (natural texts, elicited…