The use of multimedia technologies in language teaching and learning has become very popular in the last few years. In the case of countries like Spain, multimedia language schools have experienced a great boom and a dramatic fall in the last 10 years. This study applies marketing research techniques to the study of Catalan learners' preferences…

This paper reports a re-interpretation of the data from an inquiry exploring changes in 14 Chinese learners' uses of language learning strategies after they moved from mainland China to Britain. Using a socio-cultural theoretical framework, the analysis of the learners' experiential narratives lends tentative support to the postulation that the…

This study explored the beliefs about language learning of Lebanese English as a Foreign Language university students, compared their beliefs about learning different target languages, namely, English and French, and investigated within-group variation in these students' beliefs. A modified version of Horwitz's "Beliefs about Language…

This paper argues for the influence of the distribution of instructional time on group cohesion in the foreign language classroom and postulates that concentrating classroom time enhances group cohesion. To test the hypothesis, a comparative classroom study of two groups of Spanish learners in their second year of learning, one following an…

This study aims to provide an in-depth qualitative analysis of instructional effects in L2 pragmatics by exploring the manner in which Japanese EFL learners' noticing of target English request forms is constrained by different types of treatment tasks and the subsequent effect of the learners' noticing on their learning outcomes. Following the…

The study presented in this paper was conducted within the theoretical framework of the three-dimensional global-trait model of lexical knowledge proposed by [Henrikson, B. 1999. Three dimensions of vocabulary development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 21, pp. 303-317], consisting of "breadth," "depth," and "receptive-productive"…

This paper analyzes prosodic variables in a corpus of eighteen oral presentations made by students of Technical English, all of whom were native speakers of Swedish. The focus is on the extent to which speakers were able to use their voices in a lively manner, and the hypothesis tested is that speakers who had high pitch variation as they spoke…

This paper provides a sequence of specific techniques and examples for implementing theatre voice training and technology in teaching ESL/EFL oral skills. A layered approach is proposed based on information processing theory in which the focus of learner attention is shifted in stages from the physiological to the linguistic and then to the…

Drawing on learners' course diaries, this paper explores Chinese EFL learners' perceptions of difficulties and constraints in EFL learning and their responses to the perceived difficulties and constraints. The diary data appear to indicate that the students' learning difficulties lay mainly with their linguistic competence, but a closer scrutiny…

How can learning styles best be measured? Reid's (1984) Perceptual Learning Styles Preference Questionnaire has been widely used in ESL/EFL research to investigate learning styles. Previous research revealed concerns with the reliability and validity of the PLSPQ, leading the researchers to devise a new Learning Styles Indicator (LSI), based on…

There is a great need to ensure that language tests are accessible to individuals with disabilities. Yet accessibility features can sometimes conflict with the validity of test scores. In some cases the nature of the conflict seems obvious, yet in other cases there is controversy, such as that concerning the use of a "readaloud" accessibility…

This paper studies the composing strategies employed by four advanced L2 writers when they wrote in an academic setting and the rhetorical context of composing, i.e. their mental representations of the intended audience and of the rhetorical purpose for writing. Four student-teachers majoring in English and attending a postgraduate teacher…

Where the role of instructor discourse has been the focus of much recent research on asynchronous online instruction, the anatomy of effective instructional discourse of foreign language educators has yet to be examined. Indeed, the majority of work in the area of foreign language and telecommunications has concentrated on student-student,…

This paper explores the facilitative effects of various types of attention-drawing instructional conditions (explicit and implicit) on the acquisition of English dative alternation. Specifically, the study addresses: (a) whether differences in the degree of explicitness manipulated in various instructional conditions differently affect the…

This study first identifies commonly used Chinese character learning strategies employed by non-native (English-speaking) learners of Chinese and generalizes about the factors underlying these commonly used strategies. Then, it defines linear trends between learning levels and students' perceptions of the usefulness of the commonly used strategies…