This study aims to advance our understanding of the role of word knowledge in second language (L2) reading comprehension by exploring whether morphological awareness and vocabulary assessed one year ago contribute to decoding and listening comprehension which in turn contribute to reading comprehension in Chinese children learning English as an…

Listening strategies have mostly been investigated in contexts where learners listen to audio recordings. However, a much more prevalent and indispensable listening task in the classroom is listening to teacher input, particularly in the English Medium Instruction (EMI) classroom where the goal of learning is directed towards comprehension of…

Syntax, or sentence structure, plays a role in reading comprehension, but how students draw on their awareness of syntax in their reading remains unclear; the mechanism is even more ambiguous in bilingual students. In this study, we evaluated the direct and indirect contributions of syntactic awareness on first-language Chinese and second-language…

The study examined the relationships between self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies used by 2,894 bilingual primary school students and their Chinese and English reading test performance. Exploratory factor analysis of the self-reported SRL strategy use questionnaire yielded two factors of strategies (planning and monitoring) used in both…

Previous research on cross-linguistic transfer has provided evidence about the transfer of reading performance and strategies. However, little knowledge exists regarding how motivational factors (e.g. self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation [IM], extrinsic motivation [EM]) transfer and how they facilitate the transfer of reading from the first…

Despite much attention having been paid to foreign language (FL) reading and related variables such as self-efficacy, relatively few studies have focused on young learners, and even fewer on storybooks, arguably the commonest genre read by children worldwide for language learning. As FL learning commences at a young age in many contexts globally,…

This study examined whether syntactic awareness was related to reading comprehension difficulties in either first language (L1) Chinese or second language (L2) English, or both, among Hong Kong Chinese-English bilingual children. Parallel L1 and L2 metalinguistic and reading measures, including syntactic word-order, morphological awareness,…

Many scholars and teachers in EFL education should agree that compared with reading and writing, listening has received much less attention. This brief article discusses important gaps existing in EFL listening and overall proficiency development. It presents the case for a greater focus on sounds and actual listening in the classroom and spoken…

Connected speech produced by native speakers poses a challenge to second language learners. Video subtitles have been found to assist the decoding of English connected speech for learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). However, the presence of subtitles may divert the listeners' attention to the visual cues while paying less attention to…

This paper presents a small-scale study examining the effects of metacognitive reading strategy instruction on English language learners' reading comprehension in a Hong Kong international school. Twenty-five primary school (Grade 5) students who learn English as a second language participated in this study. Metacognitive instruction was…

This study investigated the effects of captioned videos on ESL primary school students' comprehension of video content. A total of 182 primary school students watched two short English story videos in one of three conditions: fully captioned videos (N = 62), keyword captioned videos (N = 63), and uncaptioned videos (N = 57). Each group included…

This study examines language attitudes towards different varieties of English through listener judgments of speaker and speech traits; in addition, the study explores the relationship of these judgments to the intelligibility, as well as the perceived accentedness and comprehensibility, of varieties of Asian English and General American English.…

Literature has long been used as a tool for language teaching and learning. In the New Academic Structure in Hong Kong, it has become an important element in the senior secondary English language curriculum to promote communicative language teaching (CLT) with a process-oriented approach. However, as in many other English as a second or foreign…

This pilot project investigated the effects of ABRACADABRA (ABRA), a web-based literacy program developed by the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (CSLP) at Concordia University, on primary school children in Hong Kong. A total of 125 Primary 2 students participated in a 14-week long study. Five classes were randomly assigned to…

This study tested relationships between foreign language (FL) reading and listening anxiety and learner variables in English as a foreign language (EFL). It tested links between foreign language anxiety (FLA) and its cognitive, affective and behavioral correlates in English (i.e. language learning strategies, learning motivation, and performance).…