Language testing research has suggested that placement accuracy can be an important factor in the consequences of placement decision-making. However, previous studies primarily have used a one-shot teacher judgment of placement accuracy, suffering from a lack of students' perspectives of their time-varying experiences. The present study aimed to…

Previous studies have consistently demonstrated that students typically favor collaborative retrieval practice over practicing individually. However, there is a gap in research regarding how EFL students specifically engage in collaborative retrieval practice compared to individual methods. This study aimed to investigate Saudi EFL students'…

Placement tests are used to support a particular need in a local context--to determine the best starting place for a student entering a specific programme of language study. This brief report will focus on the development of an innovative placement test with self-directed elements for our local needs at a university in Canada for students studying…

This study examined the relationship of linguistic complexity, captured using a set of lexical richness, syntactic complexity, and discoursal complexity indices, to second language (L2) learners' perception of text difficulty, captured using L2 raters' comparative judgment on text comprehensibility and reading speed. Testing materials were 180…

Chinese directional complement (DC) constructions, as a subtype of Chinese multiword sequences, are challenging to acquire for second language (L2) learners. However, little is known about L2 Chinese learners' acquisition of figurative DCs and their comprehension of literal and figurative DCs. This study investigated whether the acquisition of…

This article details the challenges and best practices of evaluating second language learners for placement into postsecondary Spanish language courses. The literature on testing for placement purposes in second language acquisition and language testing provides a great deal of insight, but language programs must make many decisions as well that…

Vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in writing. Previous research has examined the relationship between various aspects of vocabulary knowledge and independent writing performance and limited attention has been given to integrated writing such as summary writing. Our study investigated the contribution of two aspects of vocabulary…

The present study administered six test instruments to 13- to 14-year-old learners of English in Austria and Sweden (N = 213), countries offering settings with more explicit and implicit learning environments, respectively. Confirmatory Factor Analyses for Austria yielded a factor comprising timed grammaticality judgment tests, an oral narrative…

This study compares the effects of distributed versus massed corrective feedback (CF) on Spanish differential object marking (DOM). Forty-eight Spanish learners completed three communicative tasks with a researcher on three consecutive days, one task per day. Partial recasts were used to reformulate DOM errors. The distributed group (n = 16)…

This study examines the knowledge representation of Japanese university students assessed using grammaticality judgement tests (GJTs) and a metalinguistic knowledge test (MKT). The study also investigates the role of automatised and non-automatised explicit knowledge in general L2 language proficiency. Participants were 87 late learners of English…

This study investigated three key issues in heritage language (HL) research. Previous research shows HL speakers have an advantage on oral production tasks compared to L2 speakers who instead perform better on written tasks. Furthermore, both L2 and HL speakers are claimed to have a "yes-bias" towards retaining ungrammaticality in GJTs.…

Private educational activities designed to enhance student outcomes outside the formal schooling system are increasingly referred to as shadow education. In Japan, shadow education traditionally consists of for-profit cram schools or "juku." "Juku" take many forms in Japan, yet their primary function is to offer students extra…

The current study investigated 29 first-year Japanese university students' usage of an online vocabulary notebook that automatically searched eight different word and phrase lists to provide students with reference information about their self-selected vocabulary. Over the course of a 14-week period, participants read English books and articles…

The present study examined the relative effects of discourse-based and sentence-level grammar instruction on the learning of English present perfect in academic writing, using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design. Participants were 37 multilingual graduate students enrolled in different sections of an ESL-writing course at a U.S.…

The all-encompassing term "Medical Spanish" references the Spanish used by healthcare professionals. Medical Spanish courses have gained traction as the Spanish-speaking population in the U.S. continues to grow. Consequently, demand for courses in Medical Spanish and other areas of Spanish for Specific Purposes (SSP), a subfield of…