The purpose of this study is to explore learners' perceptions on Schema-Based Instruction (SBI) for teaching the polysemous English prepositions ("in", "on", and "at"). SBI is a form of instruction based on the insights of cognitive linguistics and is a way of vocabulary learning and teaching, which provides learners…

This paper aims to clarify the expected oral proficiency level for secondary school English teachers in Japan. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (hereafter MEXT) encourages public secondary school English teachers to reach a threshold level of the Pre-1st Grade of Eiken (an English proficiency test).…

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between learners' self-regulated language learning and proficiency and to examine the differences in characteristics of self-regulated learning (SRL) between low- and high-proficiency learners. SRL is a learning process throughout setting goals, monitoring tasks, and reflecting on…

Second language (L2) acquisition research has explored the acquisition of various syntactic constraints by L2 learners, one of which is "wanna" contraction. However, there is still a very limited body of research regarding the acquisition of "wanna" contraction, both in first language (L1) and L2. The purpose of the study is to…

This research provides an interdisciplinary and contextual study on the phenomenon of English promotion at the turn of the 21st century. Through documentary research and semi-structured interviews, it examines the politico-economic and socio-cultural dimensions of English promotion in the context of East Asian countries, including China, Japan,…

This paper provides findings on a study which explored effective teacher motivation management strategies current university non-native EFL teachers in Japan utilize in their course of career. Teachers who have higher motivation can devote their lives more to give a lot to the learners and be productive on the education. Therefore, teacher…

Recasts, a type of implicit feedback, is widely used by EFL teachers for improving learners' communicative competence. Research suggests that teachers may use salience enhancement techniques in order to highlight the positive/negative evidence in recasts. This study was conducted to identify types of recasts and examine the relationship between…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of two instruction methods for teaching polysemous English prepositions ("at, in, on") and to explore learners' perception on learning tools used in the instruction when learning polysemous words. The first study investigated the effectiveness of schema-based instruction…

This paper examines how different test methods may tap different aspects of second language knowledge. It employs multiple-choice (MC) and constructed response (CR) items which yield distinct or convergent information in the computer delivered testing of English in its presentation of this factor. In order to examine the effects of test method, a…

This study makes an attempt to investigate the correlations between manifold aspects, namely both syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, the four major derivative word forms, which represented morphological knowledge, six dimensions of analytic relations (i.e. component-integral, member-collection, portion-mass, stuff-object, feature-activity,…

In order to motivate ESL students and engage them in different tasks effectively, it is necessary to make the tasks novel to the students. As one possible way of introducing novelty in the course, films could be used advantageously. In this study, a writing course integrated with videos of movies and cultural festival of different regions of the…

The present study aimed to profile the developmental patterns of discourse in second language (L2) writings among different first language (L1) groups. Applying the list of metadiscourse markers proposed by Ken Hyland to learner language, this study investigates variation of metadiscourse across proficiency levels, as well as across L1…

There are some English verbs that can be used both intransitively and transitively. Verbs such as "break," "close," and "melt" can appear in intransitive active, transitive active, and passive constructions. Although native English speakers know in what kind of context a target verb is used in a certain construction,…

This study explores and identifies a number of key qualitative and quantitative differences in textual discourse styles in English and Hindi editorials found in the "New York Times" ("NYT) and "Navbharat", respectively. These differences could be the source of strenuous processing of such editorials by learners of Hindi.…

Though generally under-utilised in spoken English, the passive voice plays a crucial role in formal, written English (Biber et al., 1999). An understanding of how the passive voice operates in English writing is therefore a vital skill for EFL learners in secondary and higher education so that they may be able to both understand and produce fluent…