This case study aimed to explore best practice in applying task-based language teaching (TBLT) via a Web-conferencing tool, Blackboard Collaborate, in a beginners' online Chinese course by evaluating the pedagogical values and limitations of the software and the tasks designed. Chapelle's (2001) criteria for computer-assisted language learning…

This paper reports a series of research studies on the use of automated writing evaluation (awe) in secondary and university settings in China. The secondary school study featured the use of awe in six intact classes of 268 senior high school students for one academic year. The university study group comprised 460 students from five universities…

Captions and subtitles as a form of scaffolding for audiovisual materials has gained much attention in second or foreign language (L2) learning in recent years and various studies report their positive effects on learners' listening comprehension. However, few attempts have been made to investigate how textual information specifically affects the…

In universities throughout Japan, English language learners are required to stand in front of their peers and make a presentation with the aid of software such as Microsoft PowerPoint. This type of public speaking activity can often be an anxiety-inducing, glorified reading or memorization exercise of text-heavy slides that fails to meet the…

Educational digital games are often presented at Technology in Language Education conferences. The games are entertaining and are backed by research detailing how games can improve the learning experience through active critical learning, learner interaction, competition, challenge, and high learner motivation. The authors, inspired by such…

The availability of user-friendly coding software is increasing, yet teachers might hesitate to use this technology to develop for educational needs. This paper discusses studies related to technology for educational uses and introduces an evaluation application being developed. Through questionnaires by student users and open-ended discussion by…

This study investigated the effects of monolingual book dictionaries, popup dictionaries, and type-in dictionaries on improving reading comprehension and vocabulary learning in an EFL program. An experimental design involving four groups and a post-test was chosen for the experiment: (1) pop-up dictionary (experimental group 1); (2) type-in…

This practical paper discusses the effect of explicit instruction to raise Japanese EFL learners' pragmatic awareness using online discourse completion tasks. The five-part tasks developed by the authors use American TV drama scenes depicting particular speech acts and include explicit instruction in these speech acts. 46 Japanese EFL college…

Motivation is an important topic among language teachers in Japan. Collins and Hunt (2011) observed increases in Japanese university student's motivation as a result of collaborative learning and cooperative learning programs. This paper continues in this line of inquiry through a quantitative study of motivation in the context of computer…

The use of computers as an educational tool has become very popular in the context of language teaching and learning. Research into computer mediated communication (CMC) in a Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) learning and teaching context can take advantage of various pedagogical possibilities, just as in the English classroom. This study…

With a growing demand for learning English and a trend of utilizing computers in education, methods that can achieve the effectiveness of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to support language learning in higher education have been examined. However, second language factors manipulate both the process and production of CMC and, therefore,…

Offering blended courses has increasingly become common at tertiary education though it is relatively new in the field of language teaching. This paper describes the design of a blended language course through Moodle in an EFL context with an emphasis on students' perceptions. In a survey based approach, a total of 68 university students'…

This paper aims to explore teacher strategies for managing student participation in a complex Multi-user Virtual Environment. Data include transcribed recordings from a task-based EFL course in Second Life. Conversational Analysis is adopted to analyze the teacher's verbal language output in the transcript, and a student questionnaire is used to…

The use of social networking systems has enabled communication to occur around the globe almost instantly, with news about various events being spread around the world as they happen. There has also been much interest in the benefits and disadvantages the use of such social networking systems may bring for education. This paper reports on the use…

The social-media news website "Reddit" boasts a huge readership with over 35 million unique visitors for December 2011 alone. Content is generated by users, who submit links from other websites to the various sub-forums. Users also have the ability to comment on links, providing the means for a community to be developed. Both content and…