This paper discusses challenges and opportunities arising during the development of open educational resources (OERs) to support communicative language teaching (CLT) with interactive whiteboards (IWBs). iTILT (interactive Technologies in Language Teaching), a European Lifelong Learning Project, has two main aims: (a) to promote "best…

This paper describes a study undertaken with language tutors who were engaged in a project to publish and create open educational resources. We sought to investigate how far working with open content could offer language tutors opportunities to develop professionally and acquire new technical knowledge for language teaching. Language educators…

Research on preparing language teachers for blended teaching of summary writing, a mix of on-site and online instruction for college students to grasp the gist of the texts, is scarce in higher education. This study examined the problems encountered and solutions proposed by six language teachers, who altogether instructed 214 college students on…

This study investigates the effects of Acoustic Spectrographic Instruction on the production of the English phonological contrast /i/ and / I /. Acoustic Spectrographic Instruction is based on the assumption that physical representations of speech sounds and spectrography allow learners to objectively see and modify those non-accurate features in…

Digital storytelling, which combines the art of storytelling with a variety of digital audio, video, and multimedia images, has been increasingly used as a language learning tool as research studies have shown it to be effective in enhancing the development of language skills as well as related language learning skills, such as autonomy,…

This study used a randomized pretest-posttest control group design to examine the effect of the integration of corpora in general English courses on the students' vocabulary development. To enhance the learners' lexical repertoire and thereby improve their reading comprehension, an online corpus-based approach was integrated into 42…

Over recent years, educational institutions have been making increasing use of virtual environments to set up collaborative activities for learners. While it is recognized that teachers play an important role in facilitating learner collaboration online, they may not have the necessary skills to do so successfully. Thus, a small-scale professional…

This study presents an efficient approach to personalized mispronunciation detection of Taiwanese-accented English. The main goal of this study was to detect frequently occurring mispronunciation patterns of Taiwanese-accented English instead of scoring English pronunciations directly. The proposed approach quickly identifies personalized…

Based on various theories of human agency (Ajzen, I. (2005). "Attitudes, personality and behavior" (2nd ed.). London: Open University Press; Davis, F.D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. "MIS Quarterly", 13, 319-340; Rogers, E.M. (1983). "Diffusion of innovations" (3rd ed.). New…

This case study focuses on the feedback that is provided by tutors to learners in the course of synchronous online teaching. More specifically, we study how trainee tutors used the affordances of Visu, an experimental web videoconferencing system, to provide negative feedback. Visu features classical functionalities such as video and chat, and it…

One of the main objectives of the European Networked Interaction in Foreign Language Acquisition and Research (NIFLAR) project is to make foreign language learning and teaching processes more relevant and rewarding for reaching intercultural communicative competence. This is realized by offering foreign language learners and pre-service teachers…

Washback refers to both positive and negative influences of testing on teaching and learning. While washback studies abound in the literature, most of them deal with high-stakes, standardized tests or large-scale entrance examinations. Scant efforts have been made to uncover washback effects in alternative assessments. This study implemented an…

Pronunciation errors may be caused by several different deviations from the target, such as voicing, intonation, insertions or deletions of segments, or that the articulators are placed incorrectly. Computer-animated pronunciation teachers could potentially provide important assistance on correcting all these types of deviations, but they have an…

A mixed method design was used to investigate the effects of online second language (L2) methodology instruction on the sense of efficacy of teacher-candidates enrolled in initial licensure programs for L2 teachers. More specifically, the researcher examined the extent to which L2 teacher-candidates completing online L2 methodology instruction…

This study measured the impact of asynchronous computer-assisted language learning (CALL) approaches on high and low achievers' vocabulary retention and recall of English as foreign language learners. Fifty participants were assigned into two homogeneous groups. Both groups covered eight expository passages, which included "Select readings:…