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The current study examined Korean EFL learners’ use of English relative clauses (RCs) in essays with a special focus on proficiency-specific characteristics. The overall frequency distribution of RCs, RC structural types, and RC-related errors were examined by comparing two different levels of learner corpora and the native speaker corpus. The findings reveal native speakers’ more frequent use of RCs compared with learners and the overall proficiency effect on the number of RC uses. In terms of RC structural types, native speakers and learners were more alike than different, and regardless of proficiency level, learners’ use of RC structural types showed supporting evidence for Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (Keenan & Comrie, 1977). The numbers and types of RC-related errors were different depending on learners’ proficiency levels. From these findings, some useful pedagogical implications are drawn and discussed for level-specific English RC instructions.

The purpose of the current study was to examine the effect structure difficulty may have on the type of knowledge representation L2 learners draw on in different measures of linguistic knowledge. To this aim, word monitoring task (WMT), elicited imitation task (EI), timed grammaticality judgment test (TGJT), untimed grammaticality judgment test (UGJT), and metalinguistic knowledge test (MKT), each consisting of an equal number of easy and difficult structures, were employed. The results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) demonstrated that the easy items of GJTs, irrespective of time condition, tap into the construct of automatized knowledge and the difficult ones of EI, TGJT, UGJT, and MKT into explicit knowledge. Additionally, in all the tests the participants’ performance on the easy items significantly differed from that on the difficult ones. Therefore, it can be concluded that structure difficulty is a contributing factor in discriminating different knowledge types and has a pivotal role in learners’ use of linguistic knowledge.

Drawing on self-regulated learning theory and social cognitive theory, the study reported in this paper describes the development and psychometric evaluation of the Self-Efficacy for EFL Speaking Scale (SEESS), an instrument for assessing students’ perceived capability to speak English as a foreign language in the learning-to-speak process. Data were collected from 316 university EFL students in China. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses resulted in determination of three factors (i.e., performance self-efficacy, self-regulatory efficacy, and linguistic self-efficacy) with a strong psychometric basis. A second-order confirmatory factor analysis further provided empirical evidence to consider EFL speaking self-efficacy as a unitary construct with three correlated but distinct self-efficacy factors. In addition, the significant correlations between these EFL speaking self-efficacy factors and students’ EFL speaking learning strategies further confirmed the concurrent validity of the SEESS. Pedagogical implications of this study for classroom teaching and learning of EFL speaking were discussed.

First language (L1) use has always been a subject of debate in second language (L2) vocabulary learning, generating two main research lines. The first line concerns whether L1 use is advisable, and the second relates to how its use can be more beneficial. The current study contributes to the latter strand by probing the effect L1 familiarity had on L2 vocabulary gains using paired-associate learning paradigm. Two groups of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners with comparable L2 proficiency were recruited to learn three L2 word sets varying in L1 familiarity status (high/low), and accordingly three conditions were created (High: all L2 words with high L1 familiarity; Low: all low; Mixed: half high and half low). In the treatment session, both groups of participants studied each set separately, while made aware of, and then completing one of the two tests differing in depth of processing (either meaning recognition or meaning recall). At the testing phase, an unannounced one-week delayed posttest which measured meaning recognition was administered to both groups to examine the retention of vocabulary knowledge. The results showed that similar patterns were observed across two groups, such that High displayed an advantage over Low and Mixed did not exhibit striking differences compared to High. Additionally, recall group outperformed recognition group on all word sets. Therefore, our findings offer direct experimental support to the principle of learning burden (Nation, 1990, 2013), and highlight both the importance and the complexity of L1 familiarity. We conclude with pedagogical implications in relation to those findings.

Despite the oft-cited preference for teacher feedback over peer feedback among L2 writers, it has not been established if this preference leads to its greater effectiveness in revising. This paper reports data from a multiple case study that investigated twelve L2 writers engaged in academic writing in their preference and use of feedback in revising. The participants had access to both peer and teacher feedback to their writing in a web-based feedback platform - SWoRD. Sources of data included stimulated recall interviews, questionnaires, focused diary entries, drafts of writing and records of feedback on writing. The theoretical lens of “contradictions” (Activity Theory) surfaced two contradictions in the activity system: that between the L2 writer (‘Subject’), teacher feedback (‘Tool’) and preference for teacher feedback (‘Rules’) and that between “Writer as Author” (‘Division of Labour’) and preference for teacher feedback (‘Rules’). The first uncovered students’ dissatisfaction with teacher feedback arising from perceived time constraint on the teacher’s part in giving feedback which could possibly explain the less-than-expected impact of teacher feedback on revisions. The second delineates three reasons why learners might reject teacher feedback: sense of text ownership, lack of understanding of and lack of proficiency to deal with teacher feedback.

The English modal system is complex, and linguistic descriptions of the modals present varied accounts of the meanings that modal verbs express. It is therefore unsurprising that English modal auxiliaries can present difficulties for language learners. Focusing on can and could, this article uses the highly graded academic writing in the Michigan corpus of upper-level student papers (MICUSP) to describe epistemic modal use of can and could by L1 writers. This description is then employed in analysing the use of can and could in academic writing by Vietnamese learners of English, and in discussing atypical uses. Our analysis found that atypical uses of could involved the use of could to express meanings in contexts where likelihood was relatively high, making can more appropriate. Based on this analysis, pedagogical applications are suggested for English language teaching.

This study aims to investigate to what extent pre-task planning and the source text type(genre) affect Korean English as a Foreign Language (EFL) college learners’ summary writings in terms of lexical, sentential, and discourse-level features. A total of 120 summary writings of cause/effect expository texts and argumentative texts in the different modes of planning were collected and analyzed using a computational assessment tool, Coh-Metrix. The results show that the participants’ summary writings in the different planning conditions and text types were statistically different according to their lexical-level (the mean word length, word frequency, imageability, concreteness, the third person pronouns), sentential-level (the mean sentence length, causal connectives, temporal connectives, noun density, Flesch-Reading Ease (FRE), Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL)), and discourse-level (type-token ratio, LSA cosines for all and adjacent sentences) features. This study provides some pedagogical implications for teaching English summary writings of various planning contexts and source text types.

The current paper intended to investigate the performance of affective prosody by Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. More specifically, the current study examined and compared aspects contributing to perceived vocal affect in the speech of Chinese EFL learners and native English speakers (hereafter NSs). The data were collected from 20 university students who took part in two recording sessions designed by the authors. In comparison to previous studies on L2 acquisition of English prosody, this research offers a detailed description of the performance of affective prosody in the speech of Chinese EFL learners. The results show that, for the majority of Chinese EFL learners, their pitch range and vowel duration are narrower and shorter than for NSs, all of which contribute to their low scores for affective involvement. In addition, a number of pedagogical suggestions have been proposed by this study, which will help Chinese EFL learners to deal with the prosodic problems they encounter when speaking English.

Despite the surge of interest in evaluating culture representation in English language teaching (ELT) materials, the literature has not adequately addressed representations of culture in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) textbooks. To bridge this gap, the present study draws on the Cultural Linguistics semiotic approach to evaluate texts, tasks, and visuals in three locally-developed EAP textbooks in Iran. To this end, we triangulated interview data and narratives obtained from the materials developers of the selected textbooks and a local EAP policymaker with the analysis of texts, tasks, and images. The findings revealed that: (a) few instances of cultural schema and cultural categories were found in the textbooks; (b) mostly materials developers either were not cognizant of the notion of cultural conceptualisations when designing the textbooks or they did not consider it a significant priority in EAP textbooks due to some politico-religious reasons; (c) metacultural development tasks were barely presented in the pre-, while-, and post-reading tasks; and (d) an incompatibility prevailed among texts, tasks, and visuals regarding the presented cultural conceptualisations. The findings are discussed with reference to the need to raise EAP materials development stakeholders’ awareness about the effectiveness of cultural conceptualisations and metacultural competence in EAP education.

The current study aims to investigate L2 students’ writing performance in mobile-assisted flipped learning. The participants were 45 first-year university students in in Seoul, Korea. They were enrolled in a 2-credit English course that met once a week for two hours. During one semester, the mobile-assisted flipped learning was implented, and four-integrated language skills with focus on writing were taught. The participants’ average seat time and scores were recorded in the mobile application to measure their participation. In total, 45 complete sets of second and the sixth assignments were collected and anlayzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. For the quantitative results, two raters evaluated using ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2012. For the detailed text analysis including metadiscourse comparisons by participation level – high, moderate, low – were conducted using an online text analysis tool, Text Inspector. Major findings of the study shows that mobile-assisted flipped learning has a significantly positive impact on L2 writing, and it was found that students’ participation levels in mobile-assisted flipped learning was positively related with the number of metadiscourse markers used. Based on the findings, suggestions and implications are provided.

The current study investigates the generalizability of the Lingua Franca Core (LFC), conducting a Korean-accented English (KoE) intelligibility test with human subjects and with Artificial Intelligence mobile applications (AI apps). The data of KoE transcriptions collected from 30 native English speakers (NSs) and two AI apps were examined. The NSs group identified the words related to three LFC features significantly better than the AI apps, while with no significant difference, both groups recognized least frequently and with most difficulty the words that had non-LFC features. Despite NSs often performing better in the KoE intelligibility test, AI apps can capture speech realization at a level similar to the NSs (a moderate correlation found). The current results support the variability of both LFC and non-LFC feature sets and the novel application of the LFC analysis. Identifying difficult (less/least intelligible) English phonemes of KoE to NSs and to AI apps, we recommend that the variability of the LFC feature set should be taken into account in English language education and that learners should aim to communicate intelligibly with humans with various accents, by practicing/communicating with current available AI apps to make ready for the AI-Intervened/Mediated Circle.

Researchers in Thailand often face the challenge of objectively measuring the EFL proficiency of their research participants as most Thais do not have scores from an internationally accepted standardized test, such as TOEFL or IELTS. This paper first presents a discussion of the necessity of assessing the English proficiency of non-native English speaking participants in ESL/EFL research. Following this, based on observations of published EFL studies conducted within the Thai context, the author discusses the lack of uniformity in how adult Thais’ EFL proficiency has been assessed and reported. The author subsequently proposes two tests, Brown’s (1980) cloze test and LexTALE (Lemhöfer & Broersma, 2012), as practical tests which quantitative researchers in Thailand can administer to obtain a reasonable proxy for Thais’ EFL proficiency. For each test, a test description is given, including how it has been used in previous ESL/EFL research. The benefits and caveats associated with the tests are also identified. While recognizing that language proficiency is a complex construct, this paper aims to present researchers in Thailand with practical EFL proficiency assessment tests which they can adopt in further enhancing their research rigor.

Digital technology has changed how we create and process information. It is suggested that we have moved from ‘a world told to a world shown’ as images have become central to digital information dissemination. One commonly used image is the information graphic (infographic). The first part of this paper briefly discusses the rise of infographics as part of an increase of non-linguistics modes of communication used in digital content. The second part of the paper demonstrates how authentic infographics principledly implemented through task-based learning can be used effectively in the language classroom to develop language proficiency and 21st century literacies like multi-modal literacy.