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The last few decades have seen escalating national and institutional efforts to internationalize higher education around the globe. One current, popular strategy is to provide English-medium instruction (EMI) in educational contexts where English is a foreign language. As a curricular strategy intended to internationalize tertiary institutions and improve the quality of higher education, EMI has enjoyed strong policy support in Asia. However, there is a scarcity of empirical research in Asian contexts to justify such policy support. This article draws on the current literature and discusses the rationale and spread of EMI in European and Asian countries. It then presents the findings of four empirical studies recently conducted on EMI in several Chinese universities to provide a Chinese perspective. By way of conclusion, the article discusses the implications of the aforementioned studies for endeavors to implement EMI in Chinese and other EFL contexts.

Recent developments in the acquisition of third languages (L3A) have only placed an emphasis on the influence of L1 or L2 on L3A (forward transfer). However, this study investigated the role of L1 or L3 in L2A (backward transfer), by focusing on cross-linguistic variations in generic interpretation on plural NPs. We examined how multilingual (L2 and L3) learners interpret nominals in generic contexts. Two experiments (an acceptability judgement task and a truth value judgement task) are conducted to investigate the influence of L1 and L3 on L2A (English) by third language (L3) learners. We looked at whether these learners exhibit backward transfer in the acquisition of generic NPs in English. The results of the two experiments suggest that the influence of L3 is more significant in L2A of English than that of L1. Therefore, in terms of backward transfer, the results are more supportive of the Foreign Language Effect which implies that cognitive similarities play an important role in L2A for L3 learners. In conclusion, for those multilinguals, it is important to factor the L3 (high foreignness) influence when acquiring L2 (high foreignness) because L3 transfer is more important than L1 (non-foreign) transfer.

The learning potential of pair/team work in language assessment has been demonstrated in the literature, albeit with little concern about challenges faced by the educators to implement it. To contribute to this line of research, the present study aimed to investigate the impact of paired peer assessment, teacher feedback, and group peer assessment on students’ writing performance. To do so, 69 second-year university students of the English language were assigned to three classes. The first class received regular teacher feedback, the second class was instructed to work in pairs and assess each other’s work, and students in the third class were divided into groups of four members and a group leader was assigned to each group by the teacher. Team leaders’ responsibility was assessing and providing feedback on their fellow members’ writing samples. The results showed a growth in the performance of students in paired peer assessment class in comparison to the other two classes. In group peer assessment class, the group heads outperformed their peers but the overall performance of the class was lower than paired peer assessment class. The findings suggest careful consideration of the circumstances under which peer assessment can be employed and call for more research on the contribution of non-pedagogical factors to assessment designs.

This study investigates 135 Korean elementary preservice English teachers’ (KEPETs) experience of learning and using English and their attitudes on World Englishes (WEes). They completed 52 7- Likert type items with 4 open-ended questions. The 10 KEPETs were also interviewed in a semistructure manner. The ANOVA and independent t-tests of the survey data showed that the majority of these KEPETs predominantly learned and used American English and had limited experience in WEes. However, among the key findings of this study, the KEPETs in the survey appeared to fully understand the importance of exposing their learners to WEes and had willingness to teach them despite their lack of knowledge and skills on how to teach them. Similarly, the open-ended and interview data analyzed through either key word counts or the selection of recurring comments or issues revealed that several KEPETs were still entrenched in teaching only SE in class despite their positive attitude towards WEes and willingness to teach them in future. Accordingly, this paper calls for an immediate inclusion of WEes in elementary English teacher education given that raising young learners’ awareness on WEes at an early stage can have a resounding impact on their attitudes towards WEes in future.

This study aimed to analyze how the various assessment systems affecting middle school English education has changed over the recent decade, investigate the effects of these assessment system changes on alignment between curriculum, teaching and assessment, and find implications for effective middle school English education. Document analysis was used to address the changes in the assessment system over the recent decade. It identified that there was a great change in the assessment system in that period. The assessment within middle schools was changed from NRTs to CRTs in 2012, which has affected the high school admission process since 2012. In the CSAT, the assessment of English subject has experienced a change from NRTs to CRTs since 2018. In addition, the NAEA has changed from assessing all 3 graders in middle school and 2 graders in high school to only assessing students from sampled schools since 2017. As a result, the assessment systems which were criticized as a significant barrier that distorted middle school English education due to negative washback effect have been improved. Secondly, a questionnaire survey showed respondents’ positive perceptions regarding their practice to the alignment at all stages of planning, teaching, and assessment. However, issues not corresponding to their positive perception were identified in the implementation process. Thirdly, it was confirmed that there was a consistent difference in the perception among teachers by school levels as to the effect of changes in the assessment systems on the alignment. Particular attention needs to be paid to the significant difference between the results of middle and high school teachers in almost all the issues. This suggests that the difference between of middle and high school teachers should be reflected on English education policy along with the change in the assessment systems.

This study investigated perceptions of university students from various areas in Thailand regarding aspects of English test practicality including affordability, convenience, resources, contents, and delivery modes. 210 students filled out a questionnaire consisting of three sections: demographic data, perceptions of test practicality, and views on content and delivery. The data was further analyzed to see whether any differences in the perceptions of test practicality existed between students from universities in Bangkok and those from other regional universities. An additional analysis was conducted to examine relationship between their perceptions and other variables, such as socioeconomic status (SES) and gender. The results revealed that Thai university students viewed the test of English for international communication as important for their future careers despite their unfamiliarity with it. Several aspects of practicality can be enhanced by taking extra steps, such as organizing orientations for high-school students or college freshmen, offering scholarships and fee waivers, and creating a level-based test. Stakeholders from middle-income families and those outside the metropolis had acquaintance with and an encouraging attitude toward the test and the opportunity to achieve a higher score. Regarding gender’s effects on test practicality, while male students embraced computer and the Internet as the new delivery mode, female students, on the other hand, seemed reluctant to do so.

Foreign language listening anxiety (FLLA), which consists of various factors influencing listening performance, has been extensively investigated in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. However, little attention has been given to the effects of FLLA factors in different listening proficiency levels. This paper investigated 78 English majors from a Chinese university to examine the differences between and the effects of FLLA factors on listening performance in low (n = 20) and high-proficient (n = 19) EFL listeners. The participants were required to complete a 25-item FLLA questionnaire and take a listening test. The Mann-Whitney U test revealed that the two groups were significantly different in their self-belief in listening proficiency. Sequential multiple regression analyses showed that the listening-anxiety factor was a negative predictor, and the (lack of) self-belief factor was a positive predictor, for less proficient listeners. However, the three factors (including the decoding-skills factor) had no explanatory power in the high-proficient group’s listening performance. Additionally, dissatisfaction with one’s current listening proficiency may facilitate the less proficient listeners’ performance but has a considerably detrimental impact on higher proficient listeners. Finally, pedagogical implications of FL listening anxiety and research suggestions are included.

This study investigated second language (L2) writing strategies in which categories were chosen through deductive reasoning of strategies pertaining to planning, problem-solving, and corrective feedback. The relationships among strategy categories with self-reported L2 writing skill, writing anxiety and major were also identified. Items selected for inclusion into the questionnaire emanated from established L2 writing strategy research. A group of 127 English and 100 non-English majors participated in this questionnaire study. The three writing strategy categories were isolated through a combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to identify the association the three writing strategy categories have with L2 writing skill, anxiety and English/non-English majors. Results revealed that problem-solving strategies were most popular followed by planning strategies, while corrective feedback strategies were reported least. Selfperceived L2 writing skills had a positive association with each strategy category. SEM identified positive path coefficients from L2 writing anxiety to all three strategy categories when controlling for writing skill, suggesting moderate levels of L2 writing anxiety have a positive influence on strategy use. English majors had a greater propensity for planning strategies than non-English majors. Results driven pedagogical implications for administering L2 writing strategy training are given.

Although numerous studies have identified the potential relations reading comprehension abilities, vocabulary knowledge, and different language constructs may have with one’s writing competence, not much research exists on the specific roles played by these language- and literacy-related constructs in explaining one’s writing performance in an integrative manner, especially in the cases of second and foreign language learners. This study therefore aims to investigate the relative predictability of reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge for advanced Korean EFL learner’s writing performance measured both for its form and content qualities, while their English proficiency was taken into consideration. The findings indicate that reading comprehension abilities, vocabulary knowledge, and general English proficiency all had a significant relationship with advanced Korean EFL learners’ structural and linguistic aspects of writing performances. Between reading comprehension abilities and vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension had a relatively stronger predictability for their writing performance, while vocabulary knowledge only demonstrated indirect effects on writing performances through reading comprehension. The findings from this study have pivotal pedagogical implications for language and literacy instruction in Korean EFL contexts.

Numerous studies have examined the language-learning opportunities that arise when the design of tasks is such that successful resolution requires speakers to negotiate for meaning (e.g., Long, 2015). However, interlocutors often influence these learning opportunities. The present study examines the relationships between interlocutors (learner–NS or learner–learner dyads) and interlocutor familiarity in relation to the frequency of lexical language-related episodes (LREs). The data for the study, from the Giessen Long Beach Chaplin Corpus (GLBCC; Smith, Jucker, & Müller, 2001), included 71 transcribed interactions between native and non-native university-level English speakers with varying degrees of familiarity. Results indicated that the number of LREs between familiar and unfamiliar interlocutors was similar in all conditions. These findings indicate that there may be little influence of interlocutor—learner or NS, familiar or unfamiliar—on the frequency of LREs, which suggests that learners negotiate meaning in similar ways regardless of whom they interact with.

This paper presents and examines the suitability and effectiveness of an ESP (English for Specific Purposes) course entitled ‘Developing Effective Teacher Talk’ which was designed to meet the occupational needs of Korean secondary English teachers, and also satisfy the aims of the institutional administration and the Korean Ministry of Education. In order to investigate the suitability of the course, feedback data was collected through surveys as well as oral feedback meetings with Korean in-service secondary school English teacher trainees, course instructors, and administrators over the course of 6 one-month intensive training programs at Korea’s largest provincial governmentsupported training center. Further survey data was collected from in-service teachers one month after the completion of the course to investigate its overall effectiveness. Criteria within existing literature were used for systematic review and critical examination, and this included investigating to what extent learners, course instructors, and administrators were satisfied with the course; and to what extent the learners’ teacher talk was affected. The results of this investigation found that the ‘Developing Effective Teacher Talk’ course satisfies various key internal and external evaluation criteria components and thus, may serve as a positive model for similar courses around the world.

To promote English language learning, universities in Taiwan have been setting up traditional and online English language self-study centers. English honors or elite programs are also being established to offer advanced training of the English language to students. A private university in northern Taiwan established the English Elite Program in 2008, providing courses in three different sections through traditional and distance learning modes. The distance learning courses aim to reduce students’ difficulties with conflicting schedules between the courses in their own departments and the program courses. In this study, the researchers evaluate the Elite Program using the Context, Input, Process, and Product (CIPP) model. Data were collected from program documents, questionnaires, classroom observations, graduates’ academic scores, and interviews of the instructors and graduates who received the program certificate. This study is helpful for program designers, teachers, students, and university administrators of this type of program and other similar foreign-language programs. This study also provides useful recommendations for universities planning to establish a similar program, particularly with the inclusion of distance learning courses.

Learner autonomy has become a universally acknowledged benign notion and exercised in all levels of education, especially in tertiary settings, although some doubts have been cast on its suitability in teacher-dependent contexts. Learner autonomy entails capacity to take on responsibility for ones’ own learning. This study aims to investigate students’ perceptions of their own responsibility and their teachers’, and then evaluate students’ autonomy in English learning in an EAP curriculum in a Sino- British university in China. To these aims, a 30-item questionnaire was compiled to administer to 276 year 1 and year 2 students, and T-test and one-way ANOVA were used to analyze the data. It was found that students in this Sino-British context perceived themselves to assume more responsibility for their own learning compared to their Chinese counterparts, but teachers had more responsibility to stimulate their learning inside the classroom. The degree of autonomy increased accordingly by students’ language proficiency level. Female students assumed more responsibility than male students while the latter were more autonomous than the former. Although students had a good understanding of course aims, they had low awareness of setting goals and plans. These findings have implications for promoting autonomy in tertiary settings in this specific context, as well as in other tertiary settings.

This study examines the identity development of Korean graduate students who worked as tutors of English writing at a Korean university, outside of the context of a writing studio. While many studies have been conducted to better understand the experiences of writing tutors at writing centers, several scholars have emphasized the importance of examining the identity construction of writing tutors who work outside writing centers. They argue that these tutors have more flexibility in developing their own identities compared with writing center tutors, who are more likely to have predetermined roles required of them by writing centers. This study, therefore, focuses on four graduate students who received training on giving feedback in a graduate course and tutored undergraduate students. The analysis of interview data and their feedback to tutees’ written texts illustrates that these four graduate students felt insecure as writing tutors, but that they utilize their perspectives as both teacher and student when giving feedback. According to Lave and Wenger’s situated learning, these tutors are taking steps towards full participation from legitimate peripheral participants by participating in the community of practice. Further studies can investigate how writing tutors develop and change their identities across other multilingual and local contexts.

Considering the importance of teachers’ performance in class as a variable which affects the efficacy of corrective feedback (CF), it has not necessarily received the attention it deserves in second language acquisition (SLA) research: While there are a number of studies that focus on the efficacy of CF strategies from learners’ standpoint, research that focuses on the provider of CF, i.e., the foreign language (FL) teacher, has not yet been done as extensively. The present study was conducted to examine how native speaker (NS) and non-native speaker (NNS) teachers differ in their provision of CF and to investigate whether the two types of teachers’ provision of CF is congruent with their perceptions and beliefs. The results show that the ability to match their beliefs with their actual CF provision seems to be affected by their L1 background. NS teachers tend not to provide abundant phonological CF due to their insensitivity to some phonological errors in learners’ utterances. NNS teachers tend not to have the ability to provide CF in general due to their lack of language proficiency. Finding ways to overcome teachers’ current weaknesses may be a prerequisite to enhancing the quality of education in Japan.

In EFL contexts like mainland China, many researchers made efforts to investigate the cultural content of Chinese government-authorized textbooks used in both public secondary schools and universities. However, few people pay attention to textbooks used in cram schools. This study aims to explore the cultural content in New Concept English (NCE), an extensively used textbook in Chinese cram schools for nearly 30 years. Meanwhile, it attempts to analyze its strengths and weaknesses of the cultural content from intercultural perspectives. Adopting content analysis under the guidance of two coding schemes, the results reveal that general culture (68%) has the largest percentage while source culture (2%) is significantly ignored in stark contrast to target culture (46%). Based on the findings, the prominent strength lies in the great deal of general culture (68%), which helps student understand culture from an etic view and makes them realize the cultural differences for cross-cultural comparison. The two weaknesses are the severely neglected source culture (2%) compared to target culture (46%) and the unbalanced distribution in international cultures. Findings of this study intend to raise teachers’ awareness of the intercultural teaching and learning in cram schools.

Collocation is one of the essential elements that must be acquired in the second language classroom to reach an advanced level of English proficiency. However, L2 learners of English tend to have difficulty in using native-like collocations. It has been reported that “delexical verb + noun” collocations are particularly difficult for L2 learners from various L1 backgrounds, owing to the fact that delexical verbs are characterized by little or depleted meaning. The present study uses corpusbased analyses to investigate how Korean learners of English use delexical collocations. It compares a learner corpus comprising essays written by Korean university students with a native speaker corpus as a control. The findings of a quantitative analysis indicate that Korean learners significantly underuse delexical collocations and that it would be hard for them to reach a native-like command with regard to this language element. The findings of a qualitative analysis show that Korean learners make quite a few collocational errors with delexical verbs, and that these errors seem to be caused by both interlingual and intralingual influences. These results offer meaningful pedagogic implications for language teachers and researchers in the field of English language teaching.

Recently, flipped classrooms have received increasing research interest in various disciplines (Gaughan, 2014). Although researchers have identified major psychological factors affecting the quality of the flipped classroom, these factors have not been systematically or simultaneously examined. Drawing on the questionnaire data obtained from 39 university second-language learners of different achievement profiles, this study explores the relative effects of students’ accepted workload, preferred form of work (group vs. individual) and perceived usefulness of flipped classrooms on these learners’ perceptions and acceptance of a flipped classroom. Additionally, based on these university L2 learners’ questionnaire responses, we examined if achievement levels (high vs. low achievers) would modulate the effects of the aforementioned factors. The results showed that high achievers could accept 2 hours of preparatory work prior to class, but that low achievers could only accept 1 hour of work. Additionally, while high achievers prefer individual work, low achievers like to work in groups. Based on the findings of the study, pedagogical implications for the implementation of the flipped classroom for mixed-level students are discussed.

This two-phase study examines the ways in which the construct of ESL academic writing is dimensionally determined on Test of English as a Foreign LanguageTM Internet-based test (TOEFL® iBT) independent essays, using both substantive and statistical methods. In the first phase, four ESL academic writing experts sorted 35 descriptors of ESL academic writing into dimensionally distinct ESL writing skills. In the second phase, a series of conditional covariance-based nonparametric dimensionality tests were conducted using the ratings awarded by 10 ESL teachers on 480 TOEFL iBT independent essays. The results from both substantive and statistical analyses indicated that (a) five writing skills (content fulfillment, organizational effectiveness, grammatical knowledge, vocabulary use, and mechanics) represent the construct of the TOEFL iBT independent writing; (b) each of the five writing skills is a statistically significant distinct dimension; and (c) writing skills associated with content fulfillment and organizational effectiveness are dimensionally different from those related to grammatical knowledge, vocabulary use, and mechanics. These findings are used as the basis for a discussion of the need for an analytic scoring system and diagnostic assessment in ESL academic writing.