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Considerable evidence indicates that self-efficacy, self-regulated learning, and academic performance are related. However, insufficient research has investigated the relationship between self-efficacy and different types of learning strategies (deep and surface processing strategies), as well as their influence on reading in EFL contexts. This study aims to investigate the effect of students’ prior English proficiency on current English reading performance in school through the mediation of self-efficacy, critical thinking, and three types of language learning strategies. Moderation effects of gender and subject specialization were also examined. A large-scale questionnaire was distributed to 780 senior high school students in Taiwan. The findings from structural equation modelling showed that students’ prior English level had a significant, direct impact on current English reading performance without a mediator, and significant, indirect effects on current English reading performance via the mediation of self-efficacy, critical thinking, and learning strategies. Deep processing involving critical thinking and metacognition are found to be positively related to surface processing strategies in English reading. Finally, these results suggest the generality of the overall model between males and females as well as between EFL high school students specializing in social science and science in Taiwan.

This research investigated the effect of using synthetic phonics for teaching Indonesian young learners to read in English and Indonesian. Since English orthography is very different from Indonesian orthography, the use of synthetic phonics for teaching Indonesian young EFL learners to read in English potentially affects the development of their skills to read in Indonesian. To verify this assumption, the researchers analyzed the development of the skills for decoding English and Indonesian sounds represented by ‘a’, ‘u’, and ‘o’ within five months in K-2 students from two kindergartens. In one kindergarten, the teacher used synthetic phonics to teach English. In the other, the teacher used the MIKids program. The results of this research indicate that the synthetic phonics method might be less effective when it is used for teaching reading in English in Indonesia. In addition, it can potentially impede the development of skills for reading in Indonesian.

Although locality has been considerably discussed in the area of teaching of English as a foreign language, little is known how it relates to young learners’ motivation and their sense of national identity. Framed by Canagarajah’s (2005) local reclamation, this descriptive qualitative study investigates the potential impact of using Indonesian heritage narratives in English teaching on students’ motivation to learn English and the development of their sense of national identity. Data are generated from English text-book analysis, a questionnaire administered to 100 students of junior and senior high schools and 20 English teachers followed by semi-structured interviews on the use of heritage narratives in the classroom. Students’ motivation in the foreign language was classified into Dörnyei’s (1994) types; language, learner, and learning situation. Meanwhile, students’ identity development was analysed by Kelman’s (1998) agency of identity development and Guibernau’s (2007) dimensions of national identity. Analysis reveals that students’ familiarity with the topic of heritage narratives can improve their language skills and motivation to learn English. How these heritage narratives can also lead to heightened sense of national pride, involving cultural, psychological and territorial dimensions is further explored.

Written corrective feedback (WCF) is widely used to point students to the grammatical errors in their written work and help reduce them. This paper reports a quasi-experimental study that compared the effectiveness of direct and indirect teacher WCF in a Thai context. One hundred and twenty Thai students at two public universities in southern Thailand were assigned to write argumentative essays within a treatment period; each treatment had 60 students. The feedback was given by four ESL/EFL lecturers at the two universities. Grammatical aspects focused on were tenses, subject-verb agreement, articles, singular/plural nouns, prepositions and adjectives/adverbs. Means for the number of errors were obtained at three points, namely, pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest. The findings revealed that time and WCF type as main effects showed differentiated results on all six grammatical aspects. Interaction effects between time and WCF were found for tenses and subject-verb agreement. For between-subjects effects, indirect WCF was more effective than direct WCF. For within-subjects effects, generally the differences in the mean values were significant between pretest and delayed posttest, but not between pretest and immediate posttest. These findings have implications for writing instruction and research in an ESL/EFL tertiary context.

A possible self is a combination of the self knowledge, thoughts and beliefs that we have regarding our future potential (Markus & Nurius, 1986). This study investigated the possible selves of eight Japanese niversity study abroad (SA) students. Dörnyei (2005) posited the L2 motivational self-system, comprised of the L2 ideal self as a construct for better understanding and predicting L2 motivation. Several studies and theoretical accounts indicate that discrepancies between current and ideal states can help predict motivation, as the possible self acts as a future self-guide (Dörnyei & Chan, 2013; Higgins, 1987; Ushioda & Dörnyei, 2012). The study identified several key contextual elements that contributed to changes in the participants’ L2 motivational self systems. These included ‘thrown in the deep end’ type interactions, good timing of interactions, conscious moves by the conversation partner to assist the participants, relaxed and positive atmosphere, opportunities to initiate and sustain interactions and one on one interactions that were in line with the participants’ own cultural identity. The findings suggest the contextual elements shaped the participants’ L2 ideal and feared self images and contributed to the identification of discrepancies between current and desired states which influenced study behaviours, goals and motivation over time.

The study aimed to investigate the effects of English writing classes focusing on self and peer review on learner autonomy at a Korean university, leading to finding ways to improve the quality of the English writing classes. An English writing class consisting of 29 students majoring in English language was organized and lessons were provided over a period of seven weeks. An online questionnaire was conducted to identify students’ perceptions of the effects of the English writing class on motivation, responsibility, ability to make choices in learning activities, and engagement in learning activities. An open-ended questionnaire was also conducted with four students, the teacher who implemented the program, and one academic professional in L2 writing instruction. It was found that the English writing class focusing on self and peer review had positive effects on students’ perception of students’ and teachers’ responsibilities and English learning activities outside classrooms while it had moderate effects on their motivation and English learning activities inside the classroom. Secondly, the results of the open-ended questionnaire to the students and the teachers implied that students’ writing competences might improve. In addition, more systematic learner training needs to be provided to increase the effects of the class, particularly the effects of self and peer review. Finally, it was found that the clarity of the responsibility between teachers and students did not lead to the increase of the ability to choose the learning activities. Attention needs to be paid to how to increase the ability.

Learning how test takers derive their answers, referred to as the test-taking process, is essential to test validation. However, research on test takers’ mental process has been impeded by the excessive popularity of quantitative analysis and the limitations of research methods. By using eye-tracking technology, this study investigated Chinese ESL learners’ reading processes in the iBT TOEFL reading section for the purpose of test validation. Ninety Chinese ESL students at a large Midwestern university were invited to an eye-tracking lab and asked to take a 20-minute reading test on a computer screen to which an eye tracker was attached. As in Bax and Weir (2012), this study analyzed only high scorers’ eye movement data (e.g., gaze plots and fixation durations) based on the predetermined criteria. The reading time spent on the intended reading types was also calculated as evidence of validity. The results showed that participants predominantly exercised careful reading skills below the paragraph level, vocabulary questions seemingly failed to elicit inferencing ability, and expeditious reading rarely occurred. Learners did not spend more time reading a text associated with implicit questions compared to a text associated with explicit questions. The implication of the findings for test validity and test development are also discussed.

There is a growing body of research on English language teachers’ form-focused decision- making. However, less is known about such form-focused decisions at the tertiary level in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses (Burgess & Etherington, 2002). This study sought to discover the factors impacting on the grammar-related decisions of four EAP teachers at a large university in an Asian context—a context less investigated at the onset of this study. A qualitative case study methodology was adopted with data collected via videotaped, direct, non-participant classroom observations (including fieldnote taking) and semi-structured stimulated recall interviews (Gass & Mackey, 2000). The observed classroom lessons were videotaped and the interviews were audiotaped, and all were transcribed for analysis. The results of this study suggest that the teacher-participants’ anticipation of their students’ reaction to a focus on language form (grammar) factored heavily into the decisions the teachers made. These anticipations were found to be rooted in several factors: the teachers’ language learning histories (especially when the teacher has a shared background with the students); previous teaching experiences with the course at hand; and most notably, the teachers’ anticipation of their students’ evaluation of their teaching. The possible influence of student evaluations is an area less explored in research in teacherdecision making, but one that was found to be significant in this study, and is an area for further investigation.

Hedging, as a rhetorical tool, has received considerable attention from scholars from diverse fields of study such as advertisement, politics, and religion. Despite the extensive exploration of the topic, it has not received much attention in health communication. Thus, this study, which employs Quirk, Greeenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik’s (1985) functional principle for establishing word class and Hyland’s (1998) model as frameworks, investigated the various linguistic realizations and functions of hedges in pharmaceutical leaflets (PL), which are also called Patient Information Leaflets. The study, which is based on 50 PLs obtained from some leading pharmaceutical shops within the Cape Coast metropolis and other areas, adopted both qualitative and quantitative content analysis. It was found that pharmaceutical companies employed certain lexico-grammatical hedging devices to mitigate their claims. The study has implications for both patient-pharmacist communication and hedging theories.

For the most part, teachers and students agree that WCF is an important part of language learning (Corpuz, 2011); however, there is disagreement about the type of feedback that best facilitates students’ development. This disagreement extends both to the typology of WCF (i.e., direct, indirect, metalinguistic) and to the question of whether feedback should be comprehensive or focus on specific error types (Ellis, 2009). Many studies (e.g., Biber, Nekrasova, & Horn, 2011; Kang & Han, 2015) have investigated the effectiveness of WCF in improving writing; however, few researchers have studied teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the usefulness of feedback on specific categories of error. These perceptions impact instruction, particularly when they are not aligned. Students may believe that their teachers have failed to address the most crucial errors in their writing. Conversely. teachers may believe that students have disregard important feedback. This report describes an investigation of preferences in WCF, examining the importance that teachers and students ascribe to five categories of feedback: content, grammar, organization, spelling, and vocabulary. These categories encompass the major areas of WCF. Based on a review of the literature and the state of language education in Thailand, we hypothesized that teachers’ and students’ preferences regarding WCF in the five areas studied would differ.