As most traditional classroom environments in English as Foreign Language (EFL) still restrict learners’ collaboration and interaction in college writing classes, today, the majority of EFL learners are accessing Social Networking Sites (SNSs) as online communities of practice (CoPs) for adopting informal collaborative learning as a way of practicing English beyond the classroom. This study aim...

One of the most prevailing difficulties I have faced as an English instructor is students’ dependence on teachers even though many language classes have been shifting from teachercentered to student-centered influenced by the communicative language teaching (CLT) approach. Class evaluations and needs analyses often reveal that many students expect every single one of their errors to be correcte...

Fostering the listening comprehension of English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners has been recognized as an important and challenging issue. Videos have been used as one of the English listening learning resources; however, without effective learning supports, EFL students are likely to encounter difficulties in comprehending the video content, leading to frustration and reducing learning int...

It is generally acknowledged that motivation plays a critical role in second-language (L2) reading. The technology-enhanced learning environment, specifically the computer-assisted reading environment as an interactive tool with distinctive attributes, is said to motivate English as a foreign language (EFL) learners to make more sustained efforts in online reading and show greater perseverance....

Code-switching (CS), an alternation between two or more languages or language varieties, has long been researched in language education. A great number of studies by applied linguists have explored the reasons for, and the potential usages of code-switching in foreign language education over the past years. This study explores the perceptions of English language learners across various proficie...

From May 21 to 24, 2004, I attended the 4th International Conference on ELT in China, held in Beijing. Held concurrently with this conference was the Basic English Education Symposium. Of the nearly 500 presentations and workshops at the conference, 49 were focused on English writing instruction and assessment at the college level, involving both English and non-English majors. Considering the ...

The analysis of current EFL (English as a Foreign Language) education and literature indicates that most EFL practices can be characterised as traditional language learning settings in which teachers direct the learning process, and students are then assumed as passive receptors of knowledge. Furthermore, EFL learning has also been criticised as an in-class-only learning practice due to the rar...

The present study was conducted to investigate how EFL learners with distinct levels of emotional intelligence might benefit from Critical Thinking-based instruction and use different language learning strategies. A further concern of this study was to investigate the relationship among critical thinking, language learning strategy, and emotional intelligence of EFL learners. To this end, 88 EF...

Pragmatic competence is one essential component of communicative competence; however, it has been quite neglected until recent years. Among all, the knowledge and ability to use discourse markers (DMs) cannot be overemphasized because they often facilitate cross-cultural communications. Due to the culture-bound nature, DMs (e.g., “well”, “y’know”) are often used quite differently across culture...

This study investigated the discourse effects on intermediate English as foreign language (EFL) learners’ production of dative constructions including prepositional dative (PD), I gave a book to John, and double-object dative (DOD), I gave John a book. The author argues that the alternation between these two constructions is determined by the order of given and new (GN) information that is foll...