Computer Assisted Language Learning Research Papers (original) (raw)

2025

Flipped classrooms have recently emerged as a very innovative approach in teaching and learning English as a Second Language, more specifically by the ESL teacher candidates in higher education institutions. The present study investigated the perceived benefits and challenges of flipped learning in the context of ESL teacher candidates. The subjects of the present study were 50 participants who underwent a structured survey, out of which 10 participants were randomly chosen for in-depth interviews. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while qualitative data underwent thematic analysis. The results showed that flipped learning increases student engagement, promotes collaborative learning, and allows for more individualized instruction; some of the challenges noted in this study involved various technological problems and initial resistance from students. This study highlights how the flipped classroom model can transform language education through active learning and enhancement of critical thinking skills among ESL teacher candidates. These findings therefore gave good lessons that can be learnt by educators who wish to apply flipped learning; potential challenges such as access to technology and the preparedness of students have to be considered in implementing it. This study underlines continuous needs for professional development on the part of educators in adopting new teaching methodologies and points toward the future of studies in terms of the long-term effects of flipped learning in ESL contexts.

2025, Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

Digital storytelling (DST) represents an innovative pedagogical approach aimed at enhancing vocabulary acquisition
among young learners. This study investigates how effective (DST) is in enhancing English vocabulary skills among 32
sixth-grade students at the Government Model School in Hyderabad, Telangana State, India. By integrating visual, auditory,
and textual elements, DST facilitates a deeper understanding of vocabulary within context, which supports better retention
and accessibility. The study adopts the vocabulary self-collection strategy (VSS), a pedagogical approach that effectively
enhances student engagement and responsibility in vocabulary development by encouraging learners to actively identify,
collect, and comprehend unfamiliar words. The use of DST alongside traditional instruction strategies has been linked to
improved academic performance in language learning. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods is
used in this study’’s mixed-method approach. Pre- and post-tests were administered to assess vocabulary development, while
student feedback was gathered to evaluate engagement and motivation within the classroom setting. In addition, qualitative
insights were obtained from teachers regarding their perspectives on the implementation of DST in language instruction.
The findings indicate that students not only acquire vocabulary more effectively through DST but also demonstrate improved
retention of learned vocabulary over time. This method enhances academic performance while also fostering long-term
interest in language learning. The integration of DST into pedagogical practice presents a valuable strategy for improving
language acquisition and engagement in the classroom.

2025, CALL and professionalisation: short papers from EUROCALL 2021

This study investigated the effects of using an online High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) program for university students whose first language is Japanese and who studied English as a foreign language. The target sounds were English fricatives, which many of the participants felt were challenging to distinguish and articulate. The training was conducted for five weeks; each week consisted of three HVPT sessions. The training process consisted of an initial explanation of how to articulate the sounds followed by a video that showed the physical articulative movements. The participants listened to stimuli sounds, produced the sounds after each stimulus, and completed an identification task. Based on pre and posttests, the perception performance of the participants improved significantly through the HVPT training. Regarding production, a positive effect was found for one phoneme, while no difference was found for the other. Questionnaire results were generally positive but indic...

2025, ArXiv

This paper presents TextComplexityDE, a dataset consisting of 1000 sentences in German language taken from 23 Wikipedia articles in 3 different article-genres to be used for developing text-complexity predictor models and automatic text simplification in German language. The dataset includes subjective assessment of different text-complexity aspects provided by German learners in level A and B. In addition, it contains manual simplification of 250 of those sentences provided by native speakers and subjective assessment of the simplified sentences by participants from the target group. The subjective ratings were collected using both laboratory studies and crowdsourcing approach.

2025, ELOPE

This paper explores the transformative role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, specifically ChatGPT, in the acquisition of English as a foreign language. With the rapid evolution of educational technology, AI-driven chatbots like ChatGPT offer innovative methodologies to augment language teaching and learning. This study examines the potential of ChatGPT to improve English language students' writing abilities by providing suggestions, corrections and automated assistance. Through a review of existing literature and a discussion of the findings of recent studies, the paper seeks to highlight the benefits and risks of integrating AI tools into language education, especially, in the context of writing. Insights gained from multiple studies suggest that while ChatGPT has the potential to significantly enhance language students' writing skills in all phases of writing, by promoting engagement, motivation, and autonomy among learners, it also necessitates cautious use to ensure academic integrity and to prevent over-reliance, which in turn, can stifle students' learning capacities.

2025, Computers & Education

A well-edited assessment can enhance student's learning motives. Applicability of items, which includes item content and template, plays a crucial role in authoring a good assessment. Templates in discussion contain not only conventional true & false, multiple choice, completion item and short answer but also of those interactive ones. Methods provided for answering interactive question can be click and select, drag and drop, collide, and magnetize, while operational interactive templates can include Link, Match, Classification, and Order. During the process of item authoring, dilemma often appears since not all the same interactive item template can fit into testing for different knowledge types, and different item templates also have their limitations in assessing different knowledge types. This research intends to clarify what type of interactive multimedia item template is appropriate for a certain knowledge type, and to explore how interactive multimedia item template can integrate with Bloom's Taxonomy. The result indicates that (1) Link template is applicable for Remembering type of knowledge; (2) Match template is suitable for Understanding and Applying type of knowledge; and (3) both Link and Match template can better evaluate Analyzing type of knowledge. Furthermore, for the underachiever, testee is most suitable for Link item on Remembering, Math item on Understanding, Match item on Applying, Match and Link item on Analyzing type of knowledge. Study result is intended to provide information for teachers as to what interactive multimedia item template can best achieve the expected assessment effect.

2025, Concepts and Solutions

Active learning simulators (ALSs) allow students to practice and carry out experiments in a safe environment -anytime, anywhere. Well-designed simulations may enhance learning, and provide the bridge from concept to practical understanding. Nevertheless, learning with ALS depends largely on the student's ability to explore and interpret the performed experiments. By adding an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS), it is possible to provide individualized personal guidance to students. The challenges are how an ITS properly assesses the cognitive state of the student based on the results of experiments and the student's interaction, and how it provides adaptive feedback to the student. In this chapter we describe how an ITS based on Dynamic Decision Networks (DDNs) is applied in an undergraduate Physics scenario where the aim is to adapt the learning experience to suit the learners' needs. We propose employing Probabilistic Relational Models (PRMs) to facilitate the construction of the model. These are frameworks that enable the definition of Probabilistic Graphical and Entity Relationship Models, starting from a domain, and in this case, environments of ALSs. With this representation, the tutor can be easily adapted to different experiments, domains, and student levels, thereby minimizing the development effort for building and integrating Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) for ALSs. A discussion of the methodology is addressed, and preliminary results are presented.

2025

La problématique de notre travail s'inscrit dans le cadre des recherches menées sur les interactions verbales en langue étrangère, plus particulièrement sur les difficultés de communication exolingue et les moyens mis en oeuvre pour les surmonter. La question qui nous préoccupe, donc, aujourd'hui et à laquelle nous tenterons de répondre dans ce travail et de savoir quelles sont les stratégies de communication déployées par les participants (enseignant et apprenants) aux interactions de la classe de français langue étrangère, en production et en compréhension, pour surmonter les difficultés et mener à bien la communication ?

2025

Automatization is the learning process by which controlled, effortful second language (L2) processing becomes automatic, fast, and effortless through practice-a critical transition for L2 development. Achieving automaticity allows learners to progress from laborious language use to fluent, real-time communication by freeing limited cognitive resources. This research timeline synthesizes four decades of laboratory and classroom research on automatization, bridging cognitive learning theories with pedagogical practice. We trace five key research strands: (1) cognitive mechanisms, including the explicit-implicit knowledge interface; (2) skill development trajectories across phonological, lexical, morphosyntax, and pragmatics domains; (3) instructional approaches promoting automatization of knowledge and skills through deliberate and systematic practice; (4) methodological advances in measuring automaticity (e.g., reaction time, coefficient of variation, neural measures); and (5) individual differences in long-term memory systems (declarative and procedural memory). This timeline offers a comprehensive perspective on how automatization research has significantly advanced our understanding of L2 learning.

2025, DergiPark (Istanbul University)

This paper reviewed computer-based pronunciation instruction research with a total of 15 research conducted all around the world to identify any overriding trends that might be useful to the concept in the context of the studies. Three topics are available in studies published primarily between 2015 and 2020. Analysis of the research has designated that most of the studies are conducted employing ASRbased tools. There are some advantages and disadvantages of CAPT but mostly has advantages, and results of the studies showed that in every study there is a positive effect of utilizing CAPT-based tools; simplicity of use, the utility of pronunciation training due to feedback given and adequate understanding of difficulties with pronunciation were advantages of CAPT based pronunciation instruction while there are some disadvantages such as lack of knowledge of usage, the transcription skills and convenience of the software. Also, the feedback was another concerned topic whether the feedback given by software is sufficient or whether peer or teacher feedback is required.

2025

In this paper, we propose a novel speaker adaptation technique, regularized-MLLR, for Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) systems. This method uses a linear combination of a group of teachers' transformation matrices to represent each target learner's transformation matrix, thus avoids the over-adaptation problem that erroneous pronunciations come to be judged as good pronunciations after conventional MLLR speaker adaptation, which uses learners' "imperfect" speech as target utterances of adaptation. Experiments of automatic scoring and error detection on public databases show that the proposed method outperforms conventional MLLR adaption in pronunciation evaluation and can avoid the problem of over adaptation.

2025, Aktif

The use of computer in educational institutions and the growth of computer users each year led to the development of computer assisted language learning (CALL) software package. CALL had been used extensively for teaching and learning, which assisted teachers to provide various learning materials. However, the questions of which software package was suitable and appropriate for learners or whether learners and teachers were able to use the software package often raised ever since. It was widely known that a checklist, questionnaires and interviews were common ways to conduct an evaluation of a CALL software package. From those three ways, questionnaires and a checklist were the most common evaluation form established to analyse a software package. Therefore, this article aimed at how a teacher was able to select appropriate criteria and to compose an evaluation form in order to analyse a CALL software package. This paper was a non-research paper, which focused on reading past and current literatures of analysing a software package for learning a language. This paper discussed that behaviourist and acquisition approaches (Hubbard, 1982) were the appropriate criteria to assess usefulness of a software package from teacher and learners' perspectives related to their experience of teaching and learning a language. Meanwhile, Bradin (1999) introduced two steps; feasibility and quality, in which feasibility focused on understanding the basic requirement of a software package and quality were ensuring users to know the content, operation, and format qualities of a software package. The content quality should highlight the curriculum, learners' needs, and the appropriateness of learning materials. On the other hand, the format quality was chosen for making sure that the design of a software package was interesting for the users and each tool was able to be used effectively. Additionally, the operation quality was selected as a software package should provide a demo or preview instruction in order to minimise troubles when it was being operated by users in the classroom.

2025, Thai TESOL Journal

This research investigated three synonymous adjectives perfect, flawless, and impeccable in terms of meaning, degree of formality, collocations, and grammatical patterns. The three synonymous adjectives were scrutinized through the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The findings suggested that these three synonymous adjectives share some similarities; however, they cannot be used interchangeably in every context. In hotel contexts, there seemed to be a preference for impeccable compared with the other two.

2025

6 Abstract—In this article, we discuss the use of prototype formative conversation-based assessments designed to measure English learners’ language skills. Conversation-based assessments are technology enhanced assessment systems that simulate interactions between a test taker and one or more virtual agents. We discuss preliminary findings from two studies exploring the use of conversation-based assessments to gather evidence of students’ English language skills. The findings suggest that conversation-based assessments have the potential to provide useful information to teachers and students about the students’ language skills and can be used to enhance and support English language development.

2025, Psychology and Education: A Multidisciplinary Journal

With AI tools such as ChatGPT in the fast-changing education domain, there is a potential scope for improving student learning through integration. The effectiveness of ChatGPT as a practice partner in enabling mastery of subject-verb agreement among senior high school students was investigated in this study. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was ut which involved eighty (80) eighty senior high school students from Lala Proper Integrated School. The learners accessed ChatGPT for one hour per day for five consecutive days to answer subject-verb agreement exercise questions. Their grammatical ability was measured using a teacher-made test before and after the intervention. The mean score rose from 15.6 (pretest "Fair") to 21.4 (posttest "Good"), so the mean difference reaped is 6.00 points. This mean difference signifies considerably higher average pretest to posttest scores or very likely an academic gain coincidence with the intervention. Since the assumption of normality was not met, a Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used in lieu of a parametric test. The fact that the test statistic value is 0.00ᵃ, meaning the sum of the ranks of the differences is so extremely small, occurs when most of the students scored better on the posttest than the pretest to an extreme degreea strong indication of consistent improvement throughout the sample. The accompanying p-value of <.001 implies that there exists less than a 0.1% chance that this consistent upward trend was a result of mere chance. In other words, results are statistically very significant, the probability of such a level of change occurring, through random chance is low extreme. These findings confirm that ChatGPT used as a practice partner, positively and quantitatively affected student competence for mastery in the subject-verb agreement. The interactive and reactive nature of the chatbot may have also been influential to the students' engagement, confidence and the understanding of grammar rules. Therefore AI-based instruments such as ChatGPT demonstrate a lot of promise in helping to supplement traditional instruction and to solve persistent problems associated with grammar in the classroom.

2025

Introduction The concept of knowledge building (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994) is closely related to the notion of constructivism (Papert, 1991). Both assume that learners construct knowledge by interpreting their perceptual experiences in terms of prior knowledge, current mental structures and existing beliefs (Jonassen & McAleese, 1993). Constructivism implies that learning is the personal interpretation of the world situated in a rich context. Learners' involvement in the process of knowledge construction, development and evaluation aims at the development of their reflective awareness. Collaboration is used to encourage the construction of an understanding from multiple viewpoints. In this project, it is assumed that learning occurs by building a virtual world both under the physical point of view, building virtual houses and objects, and under the cultural point of view, by exchanging, discussing and generating ideas, knowledge and specific content for each virtual house. Th...

2025

Teaching and learning a language is like Alice in Wonderland or Harry Potter! Languages have a constructive and creative setting for endless opportunities. There is no end to the possibilities of using different approaches, methods,... more

2025

This paper analysis the performance of students in English Language by the use of the Computer-Aided Language Learning and DynEd Software through fractal statistics. Employing the placement test results (pretest and post-test) of the students in JEEP Start Course (English Language) taken from the Records Manager of DynEd Software, the study discovered that the logarithm of students' performance, particularly in the post-test result of their English Language has departed from its fractality. The absence of the data from its natural state implies the occurrences of hidden dimensions in this study. With its fractal dimension of 1.72490, thus, two hidden dimensions were recognized viz. CALL method and DynEd Software are efficient in helping students to enhance their English Language proficiency. However, DynED software is far more effective when it is applied to students with average levels in English language. Therefore, in order for the DynEd software to have an optimum impact, st...

2025, Multiculturalism and Technology-Enhanced Language Learning

Dynamic Assessment (DA) illustrates classroom interactions in which teaching and assessment must be integrated as a single activity seeking to identify learner abilities by actively supporting their ongoing developmental process. DA is based on the Vygotskian notion of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) which captures the uniquely human potential to exceed our present capabilities by working in cooperation with others. Moreover, with prevalence of multimedia language learning materials in foreign/ second language classrooms, their design is an important avenue of research in computer assisted language learning. This chapter will present an in-depth analysis of DA's application to particular problems of L2 development. It includes detailed discussions of the core DA theoretical tenets as well as implementing multi-media based DA principles in L2 classrooms. The information can be beneficial for language teacher educators, language testers, students and researchers in the areas of SLA, language pedagogy, and assessment.

2025

English is the second language taught from basic to higher studies in Mexico. However it is still being regarded as a common subject to accomplish. In this country there is limited published literature about ELT that could benefit the English language teachers´ community to understand the raising issues in the subject. Thus the present paper is a qualitative research that aimed to demonstrate and then compare teachers´ beliefs from two different school contexts at preparatory level. In order to explore into the teachers´ cognition; interviews were applied to five teachers, three working in an urban school and two in a rural school. This work made use of grounded theory to extend the existent knowledge about teaching in preparatory level. At the end teachers revealed a strong influence by the programme and school context on their beliefs. Additionally the participants declared that students in rural areas are more willing to learn whereas urban students count with better available resources. Finally this work suggests researchers in the field to develop an in-depth study on the socio-economic factors affecting teachers and students´ cognition.

2025

Cameroon considered as Africa in miniature because of its bilingualism and socio-cultural diversity, opted for a transdisciplinary approach to implement sex education in primary and secondary schools in 2007. This work intends to investigate the parameters which may influence teachers’ conception on sex education in such a pluralistic country. Apurposeful sampled of 523 teachers were involved in this multivariate analysis. Principal component analysis (PCA) and Between-class analysis carried out on 24 sex education variables in Cameroon using the Biohead project questionnaire showed statistically significant differences for two parameters: group of teachers and language; and no significant differences for gender, religion, age, and qualification. These results reflect the constitutional long existence of two unharmonized sub-systems of education in Cameroon – the Anglophone and Francophone subsystems. These findings would enable us to develop constructivist strategies to overcome id...

2025

This paper attempts to expand the relatively unknown conversation about fanfiction studies in the Philippines through characterizing the properties of fanfiction as a genre. It specifically seeks to uncover the prevailing convention on the writing of selected anime fanfiction stories with particular attention to how it shows translocality and heteroglossia, how these concepts translate into a specific discourse community of fanfiction writers, and the way these features encode the broader social and ideological conditions of the practice. A corpus of thirty (30) stories were identified and analyzed through simple statistical techniques such as statistical frequency and percentage. After examining the texts, the paper concludes that the global nature of fanfiction necessitates that the participants in this global space use the different linguistic, stylistic, and discursive resources available to them in order to craft end-products which explores their desired outcome of the source m...

2025

The present article evaluates how issues faced by students in a foreign language class were resolved. These issues originating from the use of the learning management system were linked to language acquisition, affect and delivery of learning material. Past experience and current literature suggested resolving these issues through the incorporation of a social networking site on mobile devices. A grounded action research method was selected as it provided the researchers with an opportunity to react to changes and adapt their implementation. The implementation consisted of creating a Facebook group to deliver lecture notes. Moreover, this online environment was used to host student-created documents as well as ensuing peer communications in the target language. Online observations and interview data were analysed to provide the researchers with an in-depth understanding of the learning processes and to enable them to rectify their implementation. Findings revealed that students view...

2025

The present article describes exploratory research conducted in two French language courses to identify the impeding factors of using a social networking site (SNS) on smartphones. Following the replacement of the faculty's learning management system (LMS) by a unified platform, there were difficulties in conducting the same class activities that the researchers and students had grown accustomed to. Students were no longer able to initiate discussions in the target language in online forums nor were they able to use their mobile devices to access and share resources directly from the classroom. Current literature emphasises (1) the benefits of learning on SNS and (2) the advantages of mobile learning, which suggests these technologies as possible solutions to the issue discussed in the present study. The opportunities afforded by these technologies were first explored with a survey and deeper knowledge was gained with group interviews. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the survey data while computer aided qualitative analysis software was used to categorise the themes which emerged from the interviews. Smartphone ownership and SNS membership were not identified as impeding factors to adopt these tools for learning. However, several impeding factors were identified with each technology. Inhibiting issues with SNS were: the lack of privacy, the dichotomy in the notion of friendship, and paradoxically the lack of stimulus to communicate. The constraints from the mobile phones stemmed from their intrusive nature and their inability to perform the same tasks as laptops. These findings are assessed and discussed in light of other research before an SNS and smartphone system is implemented to supersede or replace the LMS.

2025, Ayat Dawadeh

ABSTRACT The present study aimed at exploring Artificial Intelligence in Academic Writing from PAU EFL Student’s Perspective. To achieve the purpose of the study, a quantitative approach was employed by the researcher and to collect... more

2025

This paper presents further innovative use of virtual worlds under the pilot stages of ASSIS (A Second Step in Second Life), a project funded by Umeå University. One of the aims of the project is to make use of the affordances offered by Second Life in order to raise sociolinguistic language awareness among teacher trainees and other students studying courses in sociolinguistics. Several experiments were conducted where creative use of the avatar in combination with so-called “voice morphing ” (a tool which allows the voice of the speaker to be distorted so that a male speaker can sound more feminine and vice versa) allowed students to enter the virtual world incognito in order to “experience ” a different linguistic identity. Activities were conducted in cross-cultural settings involving students from Sweden and Chile. The paper presents the initial stages of development of a model for how language awareness issues can be internalised through first-hand experience in virtual worlds.

2025

Step in Second Life), a project funded by Umeå University. One aim of the project is to make use of the affordances offered by Second Life in order to raise sociolinguistic language awareness among teacher trainees and other students studying sociolinguistics. Several experiments have been conducted where creative use of the avatar in combination with so-called "voice-morphing" allowed students to be exposed to, or experience different linguistic identities. In the following paper, we describe four such experiments. In the first, we recreated a classic sociolinguistic experimental design, the so-called matched-guise test, in order to test whether our female students were evaluated differently on various personal characteristics when they appeared as male avatars. Contrary to previous match-guise studies, our results showed that all the females were more positively evaluated than all the 'males'. However, this overall pattern was very likely a result of the poor quality of the female-to-male voice-morph. In the second experiment, students were offered the possibility of experiencing the opposite gender in a cross-cultural course setting in SL, in order to reflect over how this "gender change" affected the way they were treated in conversations. Only one student took this opportunity leaving few conclusions, except awareness of the ethically problematic aspects of such arrangements. In the third experiment, we used voice-morphing in SL to raise students' awareness of how gender stereotypes can influence their perception of teachers. In addition to the real (male) teacher, we created two voice-morphed teacher assistant avatars in SL, one male and one female. Student evaluations showed that they were partly influenced by stereotypes and partly not. The design of the experiment was criticized by the students, however, as they felt that they had had too little time with the teacher assistants to evaluate them properly and therefore gave average ratings. In the fourth study we used similar characters as in the previous study, but in an online lecture during which the real teacher spoke as himself and also gave talks, one as his female and one as his male PhD student. The students listening to the lecture evaluated the female PhD student as more likeable and the male PhD student as more intelligent. After, the design was revealed and the students reflected extensively on the result and how unconscious gender stereotypes influence how we judge people. The models and studies presented here point to the potential of virtual worlds as tools for awarenessraising activities regarding gender as a social construct.

2025, … Conference ICT for …

This paper will present the Island of Avalon Learning in the virtual world of Second Life® (SL). Avalon Learning has been created under the ongoing European project AVALON for the design, testing and implementation of language teaching and learning in virtual worlds. Avalon (Access to Virtual and Action Learning live ONline) is a 2 year multilateral project funded under the EU EACEA Life Long Learning Programme (LLP) and runs until December 2010. The 10 participating European partners include 5 state funded universities (

2025, International Journal of Advanced Academic Studies

Achievement in Biology in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education is low despite its significance in the society; this is demonstrated by the low performance scores of the learners in biology. The purpose of the study was to see if there were any differences in learner academic attainment in Biology amongst students instructed using a computer-assisted instructional method and those instructed using outdated methods in secondary schools in Baringo County, Kenya. The study used a Solomon Four -Quasi experimental design. In Baringo County, eight extra-county secondary schools were chosen using purposive sampling. The stratified random sampling approach was employed in the sampling school for the study. A total of 324 biology students were chosen from a stratified sample of extra-county secondary schools. Form three biology students were randomly selected and allocated to the experimental and control groups in selected schools with more than one stream. The investigational category were instructed by aid of a computer-assisted instructional means, whereas the regulator category received outdated instruction approach. As a research tool, the Biology Achievement Test was used. The research device was put through its paces to see how reliable it was. The dependability of the instrument was determined using the split half approach and the correlation coefficient was calculated using the Spearman Brown prophecy formula. The reliability coefficient of the research instrument was 0. 704. Frequencies and percentages were used to evaluate descriptive data, whereas Analysis of Variance and the t-test were used to assess inferential data. Computer aided teaching (CAT) was found to boost learner academic progress in biology when compared to outdated instructional methods. The outcomes of the study will benefit curriculum makers at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development in creating a framework and guidelines for integrating, planning, and the enactment of CAT in schools' curriculum, which will help to increase learner academic attainment besides motivation.

2025, Psychology and Education: A Multidisciplinary Journal

This mixed-method study explored the relationships among gaming profiles, gaming behavior, sociodemographic characteristics, and personality traits of Generation Z (Gen Z) gamers in Quezon City. Utilizing an explanatory sequential design, the research began with a quantitative phase involving 300 respondents aged 18-27, followed by qualitative interviews with selected participants. Quantitative data were gathered through a researcher-made questionnaire focusing on four domains: socio-demographics, Bartle's player taxonomy (Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, Killers), gaming behavior based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, and the Big Five personality traits. The analysis revealed that most Gen Z gamers identified as Socializers and Explorers, with males spending significantly more time gaming than females. While gaming hours were significantly correlated with gaming behavior and personality traits such as conscientiousness and openness to experience, gender showed minimal association with behavioral domains, except for a slight link between the Killer profile and male gamers. Qualitative insights enriched the understanding of how gaming hours impact emotional regulation, time management, and perceived personality shifts, highlighting positive (independence, stress relief) and harmful (irritability, neglect of responsibilities) consequences. Thematic analysis revealed that motivations, social dynamics, and game types influenced gaming behavior and personality traits. This study underscores the role of gaming as a recreational activity and a social and psychological experience that shapes behavior and identity. The findings can benefit game developers, educators, mental health professionals, and parents by helping them understand and guide Gen Z's gaming experiences. Future research may delve deeper into gender dynamics and the longitudinal impacts of gaming on personality development.

2025, Computer Assisted Language Learning

Given the importance of word knowledge for second language acquisition, there is always a need for effective word-learning approaches from language learners. With the rapid development of educational technologies, gamebased learning is emerging into a field with considerable potential, within which, digital game-based vocabulary learning has accrued increasing attention from language learners, educators and researchers. The present research reviews studies on digital game-based vocabulary learning from five perspectives: a general overview of published studies, digital games for vocabulary learning, theoretical frameworks, research issues and findings, and implications. Using specific criteria for article selection, 21 publications in SSCI journals were finalized for the systematic review. Findings revealed 10 types of digital games dominate the field, and these generally demonstrate positive effects in promoting short-term and long-term vocabulary learning, facilitating reading and listening comprehension, increasing motivation and engagement, decreasing anxiety and fostering interactions among learners. These findings further render implications that are meaningful for vocabulary learning and game design.

2025, Computer-Assisted Language Learning

Two cases of the flipped classroom approach, one undergraduate course and one a graduate course, are used to demonstrate the different ways that flipping instruction can occur in both F2F and online courses, thus, extending the notion of hybrid and flipped teaching decisions with F2F and virtual class-rooms. Both cases are summarized in terms of instructional design decisions, the models of teaching framework, and research conducted on the courses. Findings from research conducted on both courses indicate that a flipped classroom approach can enhance the teaching of both F2F and online courses as it provides instructors an opportunity to adapt instruction to meet the individual needs of students. Recommendations, based on this course development work, are provided for undergraduate and graduate courses in terms of access, meaningful activities, and feedback.

2025, Springer Nature

In the context of rapid technological advancement, artificial intelligence (AI) presents promising opportunities to enhance language learning through personalized, adaptive, and engaging experiences. Despite its growing role in education, limited research has examined its application to minority languages such as Maltese. This qualitative study addresses that gap by exploring the experiences of 47 secondary school teachers in Malta, 40 of whom have integrated generative AI tools into their teaching practices. Grounded in sociocultural theory and constructivist learning principles, the study used semi-structured interviews to gain insights into how educators employ AI in the classroom. The participants reported using AI for various instructional tasks, including text generation, interactive storytelling, contextual exercises, and personalized feedback in both formative and summative assessments. The participants perceived that AI contributed to improved student proficiency in Maltese, particularly through immediate corrections and tailored feedback. They also observed increased student engagement and motivation, although these insights were based on subjective observations rather than empirical data. In addition to perceived benefits, the participants discussed innovative strategies for AI integration and contextspecific challenges such as overreliance on technology and the need for teacher training. The findings highlight the potential of generative AI to support differentiated instruction in Maltese language education. By linking theoretical frameworks with practical applications, the study offers a nuanced understanding of AI's role in teaching a minority language. It also identifies key areas for future research, including the measurable impact of AI on student outcomes and the long-term implications of its integration into Maltese language education.

2025

Pronunciation is considered very essential for language learners since it can influence their communication process. Nevertheless, learning pronunciation becomes a complex aspect to master a language, especially English. Therefore, there are many errors and mistakes committed by English learner in pronunciation. This study tries to investigate the factors which contribute to students' error in pronunciation. The factors needs to be indicated since it can avoid the students in making more error, help the students to be more aware of the issue, and help the students to overcome their pronunciation error earlier. A descriptive qualitative approach is used in this study to investigate the pronunciation error produced by the English department students of UNISLA. The researcher observed the first semester students as they had pronunciation practice course. The researcher used some kinds of instruments to collect the data. The main data was gained from the result of interview and field note.

2025, Computer Assisted Language Learning

This study investigated a new conversation-based assessment for English language learners. In this assessment, students converse with animated agents in natural language conversations to assess various aspects of English language learning. In a between subjects design, 31 students (N ¼ 31) were asked questions by either the newly created system or human interviewers. Results revealed that there was no difference in answers in regards to impacting the constructs under investigation. However, there were other differences including higher word count and potentially more complex language usage when speaking to a human. Furthermore, students liked interacting with the system. These results suggest that the newly created system can assess students' English capabilities comparably to human interviewers and implementing such a formative assessment is feasible.

2025

Background Measurement is essential for methods of instruction to be successful. Having an instrument that is reliable and validated in the given setting is vital. The primary goal of this research project is to validate the instructional practice scale (IPS) for university instructors in the Ethiopian context. Methods By implementing a cross-sectional descriptive survey research design, 1,254 participants across four public universities-Arbaminch, Dilla, Wachamo, and Jinka representing the first, second, third, and fourth generations, respectively were randomly selected and participated. The data was split in half and underwent an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

2025, Arab World English Journal

The study investigates teachers’ perceptions of the use of online language assessment (OLA) using technology and examines the scope of using online applications to validate the mode of assessment. It looks for EFL teachers’ opinions of OLA to comprehend the many worries associated with the issues and improve the online assessment tools. The researchers included the teachers who taught and assessed their students online using the Blackboard application at Jazan University, Saudi Arabia. The study was descriptive, using an online survey for data collection. Participants were from different colleges and nationalities teaching English to students enrolled in the preparatory course. Descriptive analysis of the open-ended questionnaire and interview data illustrated the salient features of the online assessment were instant feedback, randomized question order, statistical description of the exam, and immediate scores on exam completion. Teachers reported the effectiveness of the online as...

2025

Greater engagement in educational activities in an e-learning environment developed for an ESP course could be achieved by providing students with web-based authentic materials and by using various techniques arousing participants’ interest. The chosen pedagogical approach, profession-related content, simple structure and navigation should act as engaging stimuli. A well-developed online programme can prepare students for self-directed lifelong learning and for elearning courses such as MOOCs.

2025, English Language Teaching

This study aims to investigate the effect of interaction in social network websites on enhancing acquisition of English language in students studying in language institutes. Since the emergence of Social Network Sites (SNS) in 2005, they have been potentially affective in area of education in general and foreign language learning in particular. Language learners may use social networks sites (SNS) as a mean to get engaged and motivated in meaningful communicative situations. This study was conducted among 40 active and regular EFL intermediate level EFL learners in Qalame Bartar Language institute joining a Facebook group who are familiar with using computer and internet as participants of the study. The data were collected from the learners' interactional exchanges in the weekly posts, from social interaction and discussion in SNSs; research conducted in related subject and the tests given to these participants after using SNS for 60 days. Based on data analysis, the EFL learners' language learning skills in the treatment group highly increased during this period in comparison to the control group. The findings indicate interaction through SNS putting learner in real communicative situations plays an important role in enhancing the development of foreign language learning.

2025, International journal of humanities and social sciences

The present investigation sought to explore the Iranian Azad University teachers' attitudes towards competency-based language courses particularly in terms of course design and assessment. Moreover, the study aimed to examine the outcomes of learning under the implementation of competency based language courses in this university based on teachers' viewpoints. In this study, 35 teachers of Iranian Azad University were invited and given questionnairesto express their views on CBLT. Only freshmen were asked to take part in the study. Their age ranged from 20 to 24. In order to minimize the role of gender, as an intervening variable, care was taken to invite a roughly equal number of male and female participants to take part in the study. A brief description was provided about the nature of the study and the purpose of data collection. Upon teachers' agreement to participate in the study, a package containing a copy of the two questionnaires measuring their attitudes towards competency-based language course questionnaire and their conceptions towards the outcomes of the implementation of Competency based language course was distributed among them. The participants were invited to take their time and answer the items in each of the questionnaires carefully. During the process of data collection, care was taken to consider the ethical issues of the research. For example, the teachers' participation in the research was voluntary. Moreover, they were assured of the confidentiality of the information they provided. Also, they were informed that the collected data would be used for research purposes only. Finally, each participant was interviewed twice. In the first interview, they were asked about their perceptions regarding learning English and its necessity. The second interview asked them about the skills they had learned as well as the application of the skills. The findings of this study showed that Azad University has been almost successful in implementation of CBLT. The fact that most respondents rated all the items in both questionnaires positively indicates that most of the goals associated with CBLT have been achieved to an acceptable level based on the participants' Volume 3 Issue 1

2025

We present an annotation scheme and a dataset of teacher feedback provided for texts written by non-native speakers of English. The dataset consists of student-written sentences in their original and revised versions with teacher feedback provided for the errors. Feedback appears both in the form of open-ended comments and error category tags. We focus on a specific error type, namely linking adverbial (e.g. however, moreover) errors. The dataset has been annotated for two aspects: (i) revision outcome establishing whether the re-written student sentence was correct and (ii) directness, indicating whether teachers provided explicitly the correction in their feedback. This dataset allows for studies around the characteristics of teacher feedback and how these influence students’ revision outcome. We describe the data preparation process and we present initial statistical investigations regarding the effect of different feedback characteristics on revision outcome. These show that ope...

2025, Journal of Interdisciplinary Science

The article elaborates linguistic-methodological problems encountered in second language acquisition. The study underlines the subtle distinction between a method and a technique. It is noted that a method is the theoretical understanding of learning something while techniques are the practical implementation of this theory. It turned out that the students' levels, interests and needs should be taken into consideration while teaching them. Hence, school books should provide these criteria. Unfortunately, some lexical samples and listening tasks are inappropriate for the students' levels. Gamification technique and techniques based on competitions should be applied more in lesson process in order to get an effective result.

2025, Critical CALL – Proceedings of the 2015 EUROCALL Conference, Padova, Italy

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2025

This paper provides an examination of both the qualities and limitations of the most salient MALL (Mobil Assisted Language Learning) applications available at the moment by assessing their features from a pedagogic point of view. Operating systems like Google's open source Android, Apple's iOS, and Microsoft's Windows 7, are getting more sophisticated all the time and now have the potential to dramatically change ESL. These devices support individual and collaborative learning and are used by methodologists, linguistic engineers and technological enterprises to develop technology which assists students to learn anytime and anywhere. As a consequence, a large amount of applications for mobile phones, tablets and i-pod players are being employed in second language learning. These applications are the object of our analysis. The underlying motivation for our investigation is the fact that, although the multifarious stimuli from a variety of channels (sound, image, interaction, etc.) are certainly appealing to learners, mobile learning applications also require the thoughtful integration of second language pedagogy. The results here presented are the starting point for the development of MALL applications for EFL teaching/learning as part of the work carried out by linguists and IT engineers within the context of the SO-CALL-ME project in Spain.

2025

Rubrics, or documents for standardized assessment have been generalized in education in the past decade, and several benefits can be drawn from their use: a more objective assessment, a clear understanding of the criteria used, a homogenization of expectations and desirable features, etc. Thus, there have been several attempts to create rubrics for evaluating educational apps (see, for example, Avatar Generation, 2012 or Santiago, 2012) but not much has been done specifically in the field of Foreign Language Teaching (FLT). Our contribution seeks to fill that gap by presenting a rubric which includes criteria that are educational but also linguistic...

2025, The Journal of Language, Culture, and Translation

This study investigates the effectiveness of explicit critical thinking instruction on EFL learners' persuasive speaking and writing abilities within a blended learning environment. A quasi-experimental design was used with 50 intermediate EFL learners divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received explicit critical thinking instruction within a blended learning framework, while the control group received traditional instruction. Data were collected using the Oxford Placement Test, persuasive writing and speaking tests, and the Honey (2000) Critical Thinking Questionnaire. Independent samples t-tests and MANOVA were used to analyze the data. Results indicate a significant positive effect of explicit critical thinking instruction on both persuasive writing and speaking abilities. Specifically, critical thinking instruction explained 51% of the variance in persuasive writing and 31% of the variance in persuasive speaking. These findings, supported by independent samples t-tests and MANOVA results, suggest that integrating critical thinking instruction into EFL curricula can enhance learners' persuasive communication skills within blended learning environments. The results highlight the pedagogical value of embedding critical thinking in language instruction, offering practical insights for curriculum design and classroom practice.

2025

Culture teaching in foreign language education. EFL teachers in Spain as cultural mediators