Young learners' use of instructional games in foreign language learning is not yet well understood. Using games that were part of the learning tools for an online assessment, Jido-Eiken, a standardized English proficiency test for young learners in Japan, we examined young learners' game-playing behaviours and the relationship of these…

Out-of-class study time is essential in students' language learning, but few studies in ELT measure out-of-class study time or investigate how teachers can encourage, rather than demand it. In Japan, out-of-class study time is lower than might be expected, ranging from zero to an hour per week. This study therefore sets out to establish those…

Routine formulae are highly frequent, situationally bound chunks that are beneficial to L2 learners' pragmatic performance. These formulae are usually more easily acquired in the target language setting but they are to some extent also learnable in foreign language classrooms. This study investigates the effect of different lengths of residence…

This article provides some context for the unquestionable influence of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR) on language learning, teaching, and assessment ten years after its publication. If a survey about the most relevant and controversial document in the field in the twenty-first…

For many years, research effort has been devoted to understanding the nature of listening strategies and how listening strategies used by good listeners can be taught to so-called ineffective listeners. As a result of this line of research, strategy training activities have now become a standard feature of most modern listening coursebooks.…

The growing use of English by its L2 speakers for their international communication has started to suggest a need for many changes in ELT, particularly in traditional EFL countries. One of the changes discussed among some sociolinguists is the introduction of different varieties of English from the two traditionally highly regarded varieties, i.e.…

Implementing process pedagogy in an L2 writing classroom has its own limits for students with low English proficiency. Although L1 writers commonly benefit from writing multiple drafts, most of the low English level Korean college students in my English composition class did not benefit from the revisions. This article introduces an innovative…

Socio-pragmatic skills have been identified as important components of communicative competence in the workplace, yet relatively few studies have undertaken an evaluation of the effects of classroom-based support in developing both cognitive control and social competence in these areas of language proficiency. This paper reports on a collaborative…

This article reports on a study of the validity and reliability of tests administered in an EFL university setting. The study addresses the question of how well face validity reflects more objective measures of the quality of a test, such as predictive validity and reliability. According to some researchers, face validity, defined as the surface…

Engineering students in North American universities often participate in cooperative education placements in workplaces as part of the requirements for their degrees and professional certification. Students for whom English is an L2 often experience difficulties in these placements due to the fact that while their academic language ability may be…

The major European testing agencies have calibrated their exams to the levels of language proficiency described in the Common European Framework (CEFR). In Italy, where the Framework has been enthusiastically embraced, external exams are now frequently used within the state education system as they are believed to provide reliable, widely…

The National Education Act of 1999 in Thailand mandated a transition from teacher- to learner-centred instruction for all subjects including English. This shift was associated with the development of communicative ability in English to meet the needs of globalization. The current study investigated the policy behind and implementation of the…

This article describes a genre-based literacy pedagogy which can be used with English language learners. The pedagogy discussed involves a combination of two explicit teaching methodologies, a genre-based and activity-based pedagogical approach. The pedagogy was introduced in an English Club at a local Hong Kong school, as part of a collaborative…

This paper describes an action research project undertaken to look into the effectiveness of tasks designed to raise learner awareness of conversational strategies. The goal was to test whether tasks and direct instruction aimed at promoting learner awareness of conversational language at the discourse-level had any impact on the students'…

If producing quality research and meeting the attendant demands of thesis and dissertation writing is a difficult process for native speaker students, it is often doubly so for non-native speakers. ESL/EFL students may have the level of language proficiency for admission to their course of study, without yet possessing the necessary textual…