This article traces the intellectual roots and developments of the notion of competence in second language (L2) teaching and research. Since L2 teaching and research invariably concern competence of some sort (linguistic, communicative, interactional, or otherwise), there have been countless attempts to define competence from diverse theoretical…

Whether or not to teach grammar explicitly is an issue that has long been debated in the field of SLA. There seems to be a growing consensus among many researchers now in support of embedding some element of explicit instruction within a communicative curriculum. The main arguments in support of explicit instruction are threefold: two widely cited…

The paradigm of English as an international language (EIL) has received increasing interest in the field of English language teaching (ELT) globally due to its capacity to express the changing nature of English language use and its implications for language learning and teaching. In order to understand Moroccan teacher perspectives on the…

The acquisition of communicative competence in second and foreign languages requires the incorporation of verbal and non-verbal elements. Notwithstanding, few studies have performed empirical research into the acquisition of non-verbal signs. This research studies the learning of emblematic gestures for students of Spanish in the USA using an…

This article examines the level of support provided to assist international graduate students with the use of small talk to facilitate their social interaction and integration, with a specific focus on the gap between the help they need and the help they get. It is based on a larger phenomenological inquiry which examined the challenges faced by…

English language education in Japan has long been criticized for its traditional methods emphasizing grammar and reading at the expense of communicative competence. This article explores the potential of Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIEd) to address this issue. A review of literature explored critical challenges faced by Japanese EFL…

Since the late 1990s the notion of a plurilingual and pluricultural competence as elaborated by Coste, Moore and Zarate (1997) has had a strong impact on the didactics of languages. Several plural approaches have been developed which aim at developing competences in several languages and/or cultures (Melo-Pfeifer & Reimann, 2018; Reissner,…

Research has shown that interactive book reading in early childhood classrooms contributes to children's language development. High quality interaction during book reading has been shown to be even more beneficial for children's language development, but more research is needed on which interaction practices really work, as there is great…

While translation was once a key component of language teaching, throughout the twentieth century, it largely gave way to methods and approaches with a greater focus on communicative competence. However, efforts have been made in the past few decades to return translation and more generally multilingual language learning to classrooms. In the…

In its 40th year, "Language Testing" journal has served as the flagship journal for scholars, researchers, and practitioners in the field of language testing and assessment. This viewpoint piece, written from the perspective of an emerging scholar, discusses two possible future trends based on evidence going back to the very first issue…

The study of the role of the pedagogy of partnership (PoP) in building the professional competence of future primary school teachers is relevant in the context of modern educational and pedagogical transformations, which require the preparation of teachers for new challenges and creating a favourable learning environment. Therefore, the aim of our…

The current study aims at implementation of the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) as an educational approach in tourism students' multicultural competence development. To achieve the goal, a mixed-method was chosen, which implied the use of quantitative and qualitative research methods. The quantitative method was used to process the…

It is contended that Lusophone universities are to a certain degree deprived access to American and European scholarships in the 21st century. We examine the validity of this statement, focusing on the barriers scholars often face when accessing scholarships using English. To explore the constraints English language imposes on Mozambican lecturers…

Even with recent emerging technologies, textbooks still maintain their significance in language education (Richards, 2015) in the form of digitized resources (i.e., e-teaching materials) (Li, 2021). However, one concern voiced over textbooks is their failure to include pronunciation (Nikolic, 2018). Pronunciation is significant for successful…

This study explored international school teachers' views and experiences on how the teachers' and students' intercultural communicative competence perceptions could be developed. In the study, nine teachers working in international schools in Iran were selected through purposive sampling to be part of a semi-structured interview. The interview…