This article explores the perception and reasons for Korean students' silence and low levels of oral participation in U.S. graduate programs. It analyzes a case study conducted with two Korean students currently attending graduate school in urban settings. The researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with the participants, using a constant…

Extensive reading is an approach to language education that has shown great promise for foreign language learners to acquire language; however, implementation reveals difficulty in maintaining student motivation to read over long periods of time. This study investigates students' experience of face-to-face talk about books in an extensive reading…

Communication apprehension (CA) is one important communication barrier, which can have significant negative impacts on many aspects of a person's life including perceived ability in communication, study, work performance, and promotions. On the other hand, CA has been found to be caused by many possible factors, including a lack of self-confidence…

The purpose of this study was to explore the potential of computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools to facilitate second language acquisition and develop English as a second language (ESL) teaching skills and cultural awareness. The paper describes a collaborative online project between students from China and the USA, who communicated using the…

The study examines three new EFL teachers professional knowledge development through discussion in a "Teacher Study Group" ("TSG") in Indonesian (Asian) context. These three participants have less than five year-teaching experience and teach junior high schools in Bandarlampung in the time of the study. The data were collected…

Engagement is related to important student outcomes such as persistence, retention, and grades. It is key to all students' learning, but it may be particularly important for culturally diverse students who may have fewer models and other resources for keeping themselves engaged. As the institutions of higher education become increasingly…

Developing intercultural sensitivity in the current multicultural world is an essential, but challenging requirement. This necessity is significant in EFL classes where learners are expected to gain intercultural skills to communicate more efficiently in culturally diverse contexts. Grounded in Bennett's (Bennett, International Journal of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore screencasting as a computer-mediated feedback approach for Arabic native (L1) speakers taking an English as a foreign language (EFL) college remedial writing class. Design/methodology/approach: This case study focused on an EFL remedial writing class consisting of eight Lebanese, Arabic L1 students…

This article investigates the communicative styles of three different peer mentors in the context of online language learning, and considers their effect on student engagement. A key objective is to show how an innovative corpus-based technique, keyword analysis, can be used as a first step towards identifying communicative styles. We view…

This paper describes a small-scale study conducted in England with a group of adult migrant and refugee ESOL learners. The study explores how participants conceptualised integration, and their perceptions of the relationship between learning English and integration. The findings highlight that the extent to which a person feels integrated, for…

Presentation assignments for second language speakers can take several forms, such as a traditional class presentation or a poster presentation. Poster presentations, which are given repeatedly to small groups, seem to have several advantages, including increased speaking opportunities, more interaction between the speaker and the audience, and…

According to Swain, Kinnear, & Steinman (2011), we use a language with others as a form of shared cognition, and in the process we scaffold each other. This action research investigates how students' online written output affects each other's writing. One thousand twenty online entries written by 21 Japanese university sophomore English majors…

Little research has been conducted to investigate relationships between students' community of inquiry (CoI) perceptions and their attitudes towards reading circles (ARC). To bridge the gap this quantitative research reports a cohort of Chinese students' perceptions of CoI and its prediction for their attitudes towards reading circles (RC) in…

Instructors from an Intensive English Program (IEP) conducted classroom observations in university courses commonly attended by international students to answer two questions: 1) What listening and speaking demands do international students face in courses at our university? 2) How can instructors in our IEP better prepare our students for these…

This qualitative research investigates the practice of lurking among English as a second language (ESL) learners in a Facebook group discussion. Lurking is a term used to describe the activity of following and observing any online discussions or activities without contributing to the discussions. Lurkers are often accused of being invisible and…