Out-of-class learning with technology comprises an essential context of second language development. Understanding the nature of out-of-class language learning with technology is the initial step towards safeguarding its quality. This study examined the types of learning experiences that language learners engaged in outside the classroom and the…

This study compared the effects of social persuasion from parents and teachers on students' self-efficacy in reading comprehension in English as a foreign language. Ninety-nine Grade 8 Chinese students in a secondary school in Hong Kong completed a questionnaire with six scenarios which tapped their self-efficacy after receiving positive and…

Non-Chinese-speaking (NCS) South Asian students, as ethnic minority group in Hong Kong, are the main disadvantaged social cohort in Chinese language learning. It has been a challenge for L1 Chinese teachers to conduct L2 Chinese teaching to NCS students with diversified native languages and socio-cultural backgrounds. "Reading to Learn,…

In order to enhance ESL students' motivation to learn learning English, teachers around the world have been employing various motivational strategies in classrooms. However, there is scarce research focusing on both alignments and misalignments of secondary students' evaluation of the effectiveness of motivational strategies (MS) and teachers' use…

This study investigates how second language (L2) fluency is influenced by two factors: Pre-task planning and content familiarity. Planning was adopted as a between-participant variable, combined with content familiarity as a within-participant variable, in a 2 × 2 split-plot factorial design. Nineteen measures of fluency phenomena, constituting…

Previous studies have suggested that word processing in English as a second language (L2) is affected by first language (L1) orthographic features. However, little is known about what affects L2 Chinese character processing in adult Chinese learners with different L1 orthographies such as Japanese, Korean, and English. With a picture-character…

This paper reports on the findings of a study looking at students' motivation to engage in self-access language learning (SALL) while taking an English for Academic Purposes course which contains a substantial integrated SALL component. To-date there has been limited research into the motivation of such students but it is an important area of…

Aim/Purpose: To examine the use of a flipped classroom in the English Language subject in secondary classrooms in Hong Kong. Background: The research questions addressed were: (1) What are teachers' perceptions towards the flipped classroom pedagogy?; (2) How can teachers transfer their flipped classroom experiences to teaching other…

This study examines Hong Kong major stakeholders' (secondary students, university students, teachers and professionals) perceptions of language variation, English language teaching (ELT) and language use in their everyday communication via a large-scale questionnaire survey (N = 1893). Based on principal components analysis of the questionnaire…

Immersion has been an acclaimed approach for second-language acquisition, but is not available to most students. The idea of this study was to create a mobile immersion environment on a smartphone using a mobile instant messenger, WhatsApp™. Forty-five Form-1 (7th grade) students divided into the Mobile Group and Control Group participated in a…

This study investigated the differential influences of maternal and paternal factors on Chinese children's English as a foreign language development. It took into account both behavioral (i.e. parental home literacy practices, HLP; and children's vocabulary knowledge) and emotional (i.e. parental and children's foreign language reading anxiety,…

An increasing number of studies have looked at the value of corpus-based data-driven learning (DDL) for second language (L2) written error correction, with generally positive results. However, a potential conundrum for language teachers involved in the process is how to provide feedback on students' written production for DDL. The study looks at…

The purpose of this paper was to examine the motives, the educational experiences, and the plan after graduation of a particular group of mainland Chinese students pursuing teacher education in Hong Kong by using a modified two-way push-and-pull model as our analytical framework. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods.…

This study aimed to explore the cross-lagged association of achievements in mathematics and languages. While the effect of language on achievements in mathematics is well-documented, few studies have examined the reciprocal relationships among mathematics, the Chinese language and the English language in the same study. This study conducted a…

This study investigated the effectiveness of a blended learning approach--involving the thesis, analysis, and synthesis key (TASK) procedural strategy; online Edmodo discussions; online message labels; and writing models--on student argumentative writing in a Hong Kong secondary school. It also examined whether the application of digital game…