The present study explores lexical collocations and their relation to speaking proficiency of Taiwanese EFL college students learning English for academic purposes (i.e., EAP). The data is obtained from 92 English majors at a national university of science and technology in southern Taiwan. The results show that: (a) direct collocation instruction…

The redesigned four-skills "TOEIC Bridge"® tests were designed to measure the listening, reading, speaking, and writing proficiency of beginning to low--intermediate English learners in the context of everyday life. In this paper, I describe two studies that were conducted to investigate claims about the meaningfulness of redesigned…

This research sought to investigate EFL nursing students' use of vocabulary learning strategies to learn medical terminology and further assess strategies used in relation to learning outcomes measured by two types of vocabulary knowledge: meaning recall (passive recall) and meaning recognition (passive recognition). The participants, 138 EFL…

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…

Previous research has addressed the effects of digital storytelling (DST) on verbal English competence and demonstrated that students engage more and learn more effectively. However, the relationship between learner engagement and speaking competence needs a further analysis of the methods wherein a specific DST tool facilitates learner engagement…

This study discusses the relationship between Taiwanese adult learners' identity development and language curriculum, exploring how students (re)constructed their identities within the Taiwanese social context. Influenced by exam culture and educational credentialism, Taiwanese language education is mainly exam-oriented and teacher-centered.…

Given the increasing emphasis of communicative competence in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts and the lack of validation research on speaking assessments for adolescent EFL learners, in the current study we examined the validity of the TOEFL Junior® speaking test, a relatively new speaking assessment developed by Educational Testing…

The present study aimed to examine the effect of proficiency on the pragmatic comprehension of speech acts, implicatures, and routines, as well as the way learners of different proficiency levels employ strategies when comprehending a pragmatic task. Thirty-three high-proficiency and forty-one low-proficiency Chinese learners of English completed…

Task value has a considerable effect on one's interest, motivation, and strategies in learning. Additionally, the social contexts in which a learner studies, such as subject specialization and gender, may potentially influence how successfully one learns. The purpose of this quantitative study is to examine the relationship between task value and…

Employment of idioms is essential to reach higher English expressive levels, especially for English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners. However, English idioms are challenging for both instructors and learners because the complex content of idioms depends on understanding their cultural context. Most mobile language applications are for vocabulary…

This study has two aims: one is to examine whether or not there are individual differences in motivation to read English as a Foreign Language (EFL) among Taiwanese adolescents, and the other is to scrutinize whether or not a gender gap exists among those readers. A total of 252 adolescents, half of them female and the other half male,…

This article presents a preliminary investigation of the inter-relationships between English learners' tolerance for ambiguity, their classroom work styles, and their level of English proficiency. The study population comprised 46 English as a foreign language (EFL) students attending a technical college in Taiwan. The findings indicated that a…

A large body studies into individual differences in second language learning has shown that success in second language learning is strongly affected by a set of relevant learner characteristics ranging from the age of onset to motivation, aptitude, and personality. Most studies have concentrated on a limited number of learner characteristics and…

In an attempt to compare how orthography and phonology interact in EFL learners with different reading abilities, online measures were administered in this study to two groups of university learners, indexed by their reading scores on the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC). In terms of "accuracy," the less-skilled…

This study examined test-takers' motivation, test anxiety, and test performance across a range of social and educational contexts in three high-stakes language tests: the Canadian Academic English Language (CAEL) Assessment in Canada, the College English Test (CET) in the People's Republic of China, and the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT)…