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“Plausibility” as a concept is a state of knowledge which is short of certainty (Prabhu, 2019, p. 6). It refers to knowledge that teachers themselves develop through experience. Sometimes it evolves out of the existing knowledge of teachers which is derived from formal education. The effect of teacher experience leads to some form of evolution of teacher expertise – it is in a constant state of flux, and as a result, the teacher even modifies formal and prior knowledge within the context of experience. There seems to be inert hypothesis testing on theories and practice in the minds of teachers. The present study rests on the theoretical base proposed by Prabhu (1987) on Teachers’ Sense of Plausibility (TSOP), which was later elaborated on by Kumaravadivelu (1994) and Maley (2016). The methodology of the study involved content analysis, with qualitative interpretation and reporting procedures. It involved the analyses of the narratives of 20 experienced teachers from various continents and countries, about Teachers’ Sense of Plausibility (TSOP). These full narratives were published in the book ‘Developing Expertise through Experience’ (Maley, 2019b). The findings of our analyses revealed some commonalities within the narratives with regards TSOP. These commonalities are fleshed out, analyzed, and reported in the form of five themes. We hope that the renewed interest in TSOP will benefit future teacher professional development initiatives.

The question of how vocabulary knowledge of second language (L2) learners can be measured in a valid and reliable way has attracted attention from researchers. One widely used format for assessing vocabulary knowledge is a Yes/No test, where learners are asked to indicate whether they know each vocabulary word on the test. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the LexTALE test, a recently developed Yes/No English vocabulary test, can be an approximate measure of vocabulary knowledge and general proficiency for Japanese learners of English. In this study, 111 Japanese university students majoring in English took the LexTALE, an English to Japanese translation test, and the Vocabulary Size Test (VST). They were further asked to provide self-ratings of their English proficiency. Analysis showed that the LexTALE score correlated more strongly with the translation score and VST score than self-ratings of their proficiency. The results also showed that the LexTALE score correlated significantly with the TOEFL ITP® score, although some self-ratings resulted in a higher correlation. The findings suggest that for Japanese learners of English, LexTALE may be used as an approximate measure of English vocabulary knowledge and, to a lesser extent, general proficiency.

Although extensively used, concerns have been expressed about the reliability and generalizability of grammaticality judgment tasks (GJTs; Alanazi, 2015). It has been argued that learners might guess grammaticality based on feel (Bialystock, 1979) and that the GJT-based results ignore grammatical complexity (Ellis, 1991). While several studies have attempted to validate the results of a GJT against other tasks, the tasks used in these studies required language production (e.g., Leow, 1996; Mandell, 1999), which is different from error identification and correction. The current study used an editing task (ET) to validate learners’ performance on a GJT. An editing task, like a GJT, requires identification of grammatical inaccuracies. Besides, it situates errors in a meaningful context and offers opportunities for multiple corrections of the same error. Overall, 311 participants took part in the study. A paired sample t-test showed a significant difference (t = 24.10, p = .00, d = 1.91) between the two tasks. Fifteen percent of the data (45 participants) was further inspected to have a better understanding of learners’ error correction-pattern on the editing task. The results revealed that about 20% of the errors identified were wrongly corrected, which exposes limitations of the GJTs that only require judging the well-formedness of a construction. Moreover, performance on the editing task revealed a greater level of diversity in learners’ responses. On average, eight of the total twelve grammatical features were corrected in 5.87 (SD = 2.47) different ways. The variety of responses on the ET reveals the dynamic nature of learners’ interlanguage that allows for multiple ways for correction. The ET, as compared to the GJT, provides an ecologically more valid way to assess L2 learners’ grammatical proficiency.

Although many benefits are claimed for diagnostic testing, it is utilized far less than assessments for other purposes. This study produced classroom diagnostic tests in the areas of vocabulary and grammar, in both paper-and-pencil and computer-based formats, and utilized them in high school English-as-a-foreign-language instruction. Evidence was collected to investigate whether three hypothesized claims about the advantages of diagnostic testing asserted in the literature are valid. The results showed that students’ academic achievement increased when the results of instructional unitbased diagnostic tests were used to offer remediation. Although no differences in student achievement were found to result from the mode of diagnostic testing, the efficiency of diagnostic testing was greatly increased by automatic scoring and data analysis functions of the computer-based mode. A survey on the usefulness of diagnostic testing showed that when it was used, learners had higher levels of satisfaction with English instruction. However, the participants reported that when diagnostic testing pointed toward significant shortfalls in lexical knowledge, their confidence declined. Lastly, the students indicated that computer-based diagnostic testing has the advantage of being able to provide immediate feedback.

This study aims to investigate the relationships among the aspects of writing self-efficacy and students’ writing quality in the argumentative writing domain. Multiple linear regression analysis is applied to reveal how writing self-efficacy, in the aspect of ideation, convention and self-regulation, predicts the students’ argumentative writing performance. The participants in this study are the fourth semester students of English language teaching department in Mahasaraswati University Denpasar enrolled in argumentative writing class (N = 135; 4 classes). The results indicate that convention selfefficacy made the largest significant contribution to students’ writing quality, followed by selfregulation self-efficacy. Nonetheless, the ideation self-efficacy gives the lowest insignificant contribution to students’ writing quality, although its items have been already adjusted to argumentative writing. These findings suggest that the students’ perception on their ability to express ideas in an appropriate rule of written expression would best reflect their written product quality. Therefore, EFL teachers should still consider providing intensive assistance on writing conventions for their students, because students would rely more on the rules of written expression to be able to produce a high-quality writing. Besides, other researches are required to corroborate these findings in another writing domains to extend the body of knowledge of writing and writing self-efficacy.

The recent trend in foreign language education research is turning toward self-regulated learning and its linkage with goal orientations. Self-regulated learning is the learning propelled by self-induced thoughts, feelings, strategies, and behaviors toward goal attainment (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1998). Goal orientations attempt to identify personal and contextual reasons lying behind an action (Wolters, 2004). This study sought to examine the relationship between goal orientations (mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals) and writing selfregulation of Iranian university EFL learners. Survey instrument, designed by Lichtinger, Kaplan, and Gorodetsky (2006), was administered to a sample of 116 sophomore students, attending essay writing courses. Pearson product-moment correlation and regression technique were used for data analysis. The strongest correlation was found between personal performance-approach and performanceavoidance goals. Personal mastery and performance goals and mastery goal structure were associated significantly and positively with self-regulation in writing. Efficacy was significantly related to goal orientation measures. Goal orientations contributed to the prediction of self-regulation in writing. Moreover, performance-approach goal structure was only found to predict positively the writing achievement. Overall, the findings imply that understanding the nature of goal orientations enables writing self-regulation and achievement to be aligned.

The present study was carried out in response to the lack of investigation into professional identity tensions of EFL student teachers. The study capitalizes on a corpus of 139 reflective journal entries written by 20 Korean EFL student teachers and analyzes the corpus with a specialist analytics program, Leximancer 4.5. It reveals five professional identity tensions that seem to revolve around maintaining a dual identity (e.g., student vs. professional, L2 learner vs. L2 teacher, etc.), thereby underscoring the complex and conflicting nature of EFL teacher candidates' identities. The findings go some way towards contributing to the existing knowledge of tensions experienced by Korean EFL student teachers in their professional identity development and help us better understand what support should be provided to them by teacher education programs.

This study determines the need to strengthen the English Orientation Program (EOP) for foreign language learners especially due to the changes in the Philippine educational system from K-10 to K- 12 curriculum that demands higher competency in the use of English in the various academic fields of study. Specifically, this study proposes to redesign the EOP into English for Academic Purposes Program with some modifications and enhancements based on the needs of the students. Thus, this study attempts to determine the language needs of foreign students. First, it determines the needs of foreign students in the four macro skills. Second, it identifies the difficulties experienced by foreign students as perceived by both their content and language teachers. Hence, identifying these needs and difficulties would be helpful in creating syllabi for English programs. Results showed that students identified the problem in vocabulary, taking down notes when listening to lectures, understanding the text when reading texts, and finding the appropriate words when reporting and when writing; this finding on writing is affirmed by language teachers. For the content teachers, they find these skills problematic for their students: pronunciation in speaking, and listening to instructions resulting in not being able to perform tasks well.

Despite an increase in research on the effects of cooperative learning (CL) on EFL learning, few studies explore the processes occurring within the use of CL and even fewer depict challenges with CL implementation. To address that gap, this qualitative multi-case study explored the important roles that individual accountability − CL’s key principle − play in enhancing EFL learning and was guided by the following question: How does missing the activities that demonstrate individual accountability in CL affect EFL learning? Data were generated by participant observations, in-depth interviews, and document analysis to conduct an empirical examination of what teachers and students experience, namely that while CL was part of teacher participants’ instructional practice, the procedures of some selected CL structures were only partially followed by these teachers. When CL was not implemented with fidelity, performances of individual accountability in home groups and peer interactions were missed. With a Cultural-Historical Activity Theory lens, this analysis provides a portrait of tensions in the CL implementation, such as one between EFL learners (subjects) and the EFL classroom (community); it was evidenced by the learners having peer preference, i.e., taking the attitude that not all of their peers could be their resource person.

This paper elucidates the under-researched policy formulation process, using Cambodia as the case context. In the face of ASEAN regionalisation, foreign language education (FLE) in Cambodian universities has become a battlefield of different stakeholders representing varied interests. With languages playing significant roles in economic and political competition among ASEAN countries, scholars (e.g., Andy Kirkpatrick) called for research to investigate the negotiation process of language-in-education policies (LEP). Cambodian FLE in higher education makes a unique case for LEP formation as the process has little prescription on its content except for gaining a consensus among different stakeholders. This study captures the negotiation process, identifying the multiple stakeholders and their roles, and how key contextual features have contributed to it. Drawing on indepth interviews with decision makers in a focal university at multiple levels of senior management (e.g., vice rectors), mid-leaders (e.g., heads of departments), and individual lecturers, as well as document research, the paper highlights how the attempt to incorporate the demands of numerous stakeholders may marginalise the needs of those taken for granted, i.e., students and university staff. It contributes to LEP debates by shedding light on the issues arising from a rare consultative system, an oft-hoped-for approach, for developing LEP.

This study explores the lexical bundles in the speech of Korean English language users who share the same heritage language and culture, Korean, but with different proficiency in English: Korean- Americans whose first language is English (2nd-generation Korean-Americans; G2KAs), bilingual Korean-Americans who started to learn English at an early age (1.5-generation Korean-Americans; G1.5KAs), and Koreans who learned English in Korea (L2Ks). One of the big differences between native (NSs) and non-native speakers (NNSs) is that NNSs use verb-related lexical bundles dominantly unlike NSs. Thus, the structural patterns of lexical bundle uses in addition to verb uses were examined. The results were consistent to previous studies showing increasing use of lexical bundles with increase in English proficiency; NSs (G2KAs) used the lexical bundles more than G1.5KAs and L2Ks. However, in contrast to previous studies, G2KAs mostly used VP-related lexical bundles, G1.5KAs used lexical bundles in the widest range, and L2Ks used the most lexical verbs. The paper elaborates the details of the results and suggests further studies including the new group of English users, G1.5KAs, to help understand a possible influence of their heritage language and culture on English speaking.

This study explored the effects of English immersion education on referential cohesion in L2 writing. To measure the discourse competence arising from a curricular difference, referential use was chosen to be investigated in order to find the effect of English immersion education. Written personal narratives of 29 students in an immersion school and 35 students in regular high schools were examined to compare the two groups’ use of reference. The only significant group difference was found in the use of zero anaphora. In order to extend their writing as well as construct cohesion in their writing, the students in the immersion school used zero anaphora more often than those in the regular high school. In addition, the regular high school students showed a tendency to produce more errors with third-person singulars and demonstratives. These differences can be attributed to curriculum differences, and in particular to English immersion education’s greater language input, which facilitates textual cohesion in immersion students’ writing.

The purposes of this research were to examine the role of transformative learning on the development of the global mindedness of university students in an English as a foreign language literature studies context and to explore student attitudes towards their transformative learning experiences. Participants included 25 second-year English major students who were enrolled in the Introduction to Literature Course in the first semester of the academic year 2018 at a university in Thailand. The instruments used for this study were six lesson plans using transformative learning theory, a global mindedness scale, a reflective writing activity, semi-structured interview questions, and a classroom observation schedule. The t-test, the mean and standard deviation calculations including content analysis were used for data analysis. The findings revealed that the transformative learning experiences had a significant role in improving student global mindedness in the literature studies class via a process of worldview changing; an acknowledgement of differences of ideas, culture, and race; and a disorienting dilemma. The students also expressed positive attitudes towards their transformative learning experiences in the literature studies class.

Past research has suggested the use of culturally familiar reading texts increases language acquisition and student interest in the EFL classroom. The present study was conducted to investigate whether L2 learners prefer reading culturally familiar texts over culturally unfamiliar ones. A second prong of this study clarified which topics students are most interested in studying. As part of an elective EFL course, 43 Japanese university students were asked to select and read one simplified English newspaper article each week over a 12-week period from six topic categories: environmental issues, pop culture, tourism, sports, crime, and food. Each topic category consisted of 13 culturally familiar and 13 culturally unfamiliar simplified newspaper articles. Results revealed participants preferred culturally familiar texts to a statistically significant degree, and selected “lighter” topics more frequently than “heavier” topics. Further analyses revealed L2 proficiency had a significant effect on the cultural context that learners selected, and gender had a significant effect on the topics they chose. These findings provide important insights to EFL educators and material designers as they show learners strongly prefer culturally familiar materials, and the results further indicate broadly the kinds of cultural topics students find most interesting.

As a crucial part of English teacher education, this study aims to critically reflect on the commonly experienced issues related to EFL learning and teaching in South Korea. Within the theoretical and methodological framework of critical performative pedagogy (CPP), this study focuses on the analysis of Boalian forum theatre, directed and enacted by seven graduate students majoring in English education in a graduate course. The results of the critical discourse analysis of the forum theatres reveal that the participants experienced the internalized native/non-native speaker dichotomy in communication with native-English speaking teachers at school, regardless of their backgrounds in English learning and teaching. Additionally, the concept of translanguaging can be applied to the Korean school context as an alternative view on Korean-English bilingual practices. The implication of this study emphasizes the importance of teachers’ critical reflection of their own experiences in the EFL context and the application of CPP as an alternative teacher education model for EFL teachers.

Despite a myriad of studies documenting the educational benefits of digital storytelling (DST) on EFL learners’ language mastery, the majority of the research is not grounded in the theory of L2 instruction, say task based language teaching (TBLT). To fill this void, this action research involving 28 students investigated the efficacy of collaborative DST-based task in an Indonesian EFL writing classroom. Anchored in collaborative TBLT methodology instruction of Willis (1996) that met a set of task criteria coined by Ellis (2009), this study aimed to unveil the effect of collaborative DST-based task on the students’ writing skills; how the students perceived the use of the learning approach; and the challenges they encountered. The statistical evidence indicates that there was a significant difference on the students’ pre- and post-writing scores, which indicates that the use of collaborative DST-based task significantly improved students’ writing skills. The writing students perceived that the learning design could promote their English Language skills Development, engagement, motivation, and interpersonal relation. Another finding revealed that the students found the technological and pedagogical circumstances were their challenges. This study offers implications and recommendations for future research and practices for marrying TBLT and technology in ELT classrooms.

Studies of a dictionary app in EFL learners’ composition are limited in language education research. This study investigated this issue in the view of genres. Two groups of 45 EFL undergraduates participated in the study. One group performed two genre-based writing tasks, narrative and argumentative, with the help of a dictionary app and the other without it. The written outcomes were rated on five components of writing such as vocabulary, grammar, content, organization, and communicative achievement. Lexical diversity and lexical sophistication of each text were measured and words written after dictionary look-up were examined in both accuracy of use and parts of speech. The results found that in the dictionary use condition, scores of vocabulary improved significantly in both genres. The diversity of vocabulary appeared to increase with dictionary aid, but not necessarily in sophistication. These changes were generally apparent in the narrative genre. Accuracy analysis revealed up to 60% of errors were detected in words written after dictionary look-up and the probability of error occurrence was noticeable in the argumentative genre, where the ratio of verb use was high. Implications for further studies are suggested.

This study investigated the effects of metacognitive instruction in oral communication for EFL learners over a semester. Participants (N = 58) were sampled from four oral communication classes in a private university in the western part of Japan where the researcher had been working as an English instructor. They were freshmen whose majors were not English. The treatment group (n = 28) received metacognitive instruction in oral communication (i.e., they were taught how to improve oral communication skills and how to become more autonomous learners through metacognitive processes as well as activities such as planning, monitoring, and reflecting). The contrast group (n = 30), taught by the same teacher, did not receive metacognitive instruction although they used the same textbooks and materials and had more time for interaction in English. Results of the questionnaire (SRLQ, the Self-Regulated Learning in Oral Communication Questionnaire, Kobayashi, 2016a) showed that students in the treatment group became more self-regulated learners. Moreover, it was found that the treatment group made greater gains in interactional competence, regulation of cognition, cognitive strategies and interaction strategies. Furthermore, it was verified that learners with low interactional competence in the treatment group benefited the most from such metacognitive instruction.