traditional and modern vocabulary instruction techniques have been introduced in the past few decades to improve the learners’ performance in reading comprehension. semantic mapping, which entails drawing learners’ attention to the interrelationships among lexical items through graphic organizers, is claimed to enhance vocabulary learning significantly. however, whether this technique suits all...

Although attribution theory has been applied in many fields of education as a way of understanding individual differences, it has somewhat been neglected by professionals in ELT to date. This study has thus sought to investigate the role of EFL learners’ attributions for success and failure in learning a foreign language and their performance on placement tests. Three instruments, namely, the I...

Strategies play an important role in learning a second or foreign language (L2). The aim of the current study was to develop and evaluate a co-sharing-based strategy learning system for L2 vocabulary learning known as “Mywordtools.” Mywordtools is designed specifically for lexical learning, enabling learners to use the currently available vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) as well as e-tools...

We present research towards developing a pronunciation dictionary that features sensitivity to learners’ native phonology, specifically designed for Korean learners of English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL). We envision a future system that can record and process learners’ imitation of the dictionary pronunciation and instantly provide segmental and prosodic feedback on accent. Towards this goal, ...

The clinical marker in specific language impairment (SLI) population is the subject of considerable debate. SLI is the one of the frequently diagnosed atypical language phenomena found among early school-age children (McArthur et al., 2000; Spear-Swerling, 2006). For example, children with SLI have difficulty applying the Past Tense rule to verbs, even though they can accurately repeat phonolog...

The present study examined the process and product effects of note-taking strategy training on Iranian EFL learners’ comprehension and retention of written material, with gender as a moderating variable. Intermediate undergraduate EFL learners (N = 108) were assigned to experimental and control groups. The Experimental (intervention) Group received training on how to take notes, using graphic o...

Writing skill is one of the four language skills in learning English language in EFL setting. The role of self-esteem in learning second language as is one of the major important factors is very vital; because, success or failure of a learner depends mostly on the degree of ones' self-esteem. This research aimed at investigating the correlation between self-esteem and English writing achievemen...

As an indispensable and most difficult part of language acquisition, the importance of English writing has been intensified by the economic globalization and internet revolution due to the special role of English as a universal language (Warshauer, 2000). However, writing teaching and learning has been long perplexing language teachers and learners even in the first language. Therefore many stu...

This paper reports on the continued activities towards the development of a computer-aided language learning system for German learners of Mandarin. In this experiment we used a complex corpus which consists of whole sentences and read from German students from three different years of language education and native speakers of Mandarin. A contrastive analysis of prosodic features (rhythmic and ...

Li Yang, Kansas State University This study explored the effectiveness of a self-access website as a tool to teach expressions of gratitude to learners of Mandarin Chinese. The web-based instruction included explicit instruction on how to express gratitude appropriately in Mandarin and various consciousness-raising exercises/activities. Two groups of learners who differed in their proficiency i...