This paper reports on a detailed thematic analysis of learners' evaluative comments at the end of a five-week academic writing MOOC run by a university in the UK which used a novel content+process MOOC approach. The authors wanted to identify whether this innovative approach to a MOOC course worked in terms of student satisfaction and achievement…

This paper presents findings on the application of Google Docs as a collaborative writing platform for a research report assignment. Based on a mixed method study, 34 first year students were put into eight groups of four to five and tasked with writing a research report. Four groups adopted Google Docs to discuss and develop the assignment whilst…

With the advancement of automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology, ASR-based pronunciation assessment can diagnose learners' pronunciation problems. Meanwhile, ASR-based pronunciation training allows more opportunities for pronunciation practice. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of ASR technology in diagnosing English…

This paper explores how a formative assessment-based blended English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) listening course affects students' perceptions of their listening performance and what difficulties they may encounter during the course. The study was carried out at the Hue University of Foreign Languages in Vietnam. Sixty students majoring in…

The current study explored how the participation in multimodal videoconferencing sessions affected one of the affective factors: willingness to communicate (WTC) in second language learning. Participants from the experimental group took part in three 30-minute communication tasks via videoconferencing that included interactions in textual, audio,…

The landscape of technology in language classrooms is changing so quickly that it's hard for us to keep pace. Games-based student response systems (GBSRS) in a bring-your-own-device environment have only recently become widely available for language classrooms; consequently, little research has been conducted into the efficacy of GBSRSs for…

Discussing and reasoning remain essential activities in a 21st educational and professional ecosystem, which are often supported by multimodal communication. This paper links learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to a professional and communicative approach through the debate task, which is supported by a ubiquitous CALL/MALL environment.…

The following research investigates the effect that unprescribed conversation with native speakers of the target language had on learners' L2 listening comprehension skills at the beginning (n=21) and advanced intermediate levels of Spanish (n=27). Treatment groups completed two-thirty-minute conversations with native speakers via…

This article reports a qualitative case study about the implementation of a translanguaging strategy with EFL learners belonging to the Language Learning Support programs at a private university, who struggled when speaking in English. In order to address this problem, this strategy aim to help participants to reflect and self-direct their oral…

This study applied pedagogically-focused project design by using Instagram as a platform to investigate how the use of social media such as Instagram in a multimodal digital storytelling model could bridge the skills English language learners (ELLs) learn in the classroom to out-of-school literacy practices. The study applied the five learning…

This study was conducted in order to better understand how, if at all, language centers (LCs) are relevant in current technological and methodological contexts of second language education. Five language centers housed by four different institutions of higher education in the western United States were examined. Two representatives from each of…

This software review evaluates the Moodle plugin Level Up, which aims to add a gamification element to this commonly-used online education platform. The reviewers report their use of the plugin, describing its strengths, weakness and future potential. In doing so, they share their experiences of using it during a recent project that developed a…

The study is the second in a series of mixed-methods studies on the integration of The Sims 4, a life-simulation game, into language classrooms. In this study, the researcher explores the effect of game-based language learning (GBLL) on students' English communicative competence from three aspects, interaction, fluency and content, in a Japanese…

Learning collocations is one of the most challenging aspects of language learning as there are literally hundreds of thousands of possibilities for combining words. Corpus consultation with concordancers has been recognized in the literature as an established way for language learners to study and explore collocations at their own pace and in…

Although open educational resources (OERs) can help bridge high school-university vocabulary gaps, central questions remain unanswered regarding effective design that enables students to go beyond the "small chunks" that typically characterize vocabulary learning in mobile learning environments (MLEs). This bi-national study adopted a…