English Language Teaching, Issue: Vol.19, No.9

The Reading to Learn Pedagogy: Development of Syntactic Complexity in a First-year Academic Writing Program

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 09:14:26 +0000

Engaging with source texts through reading and writing is fundamental to successful university study, and the development of syntactic competence plays a crucial role in this process, particularly for students using English as a second language (L2). To develop this ability in first-year L2 students in an Australian university, the reading to learn (R2L) pedagogy (Rose & Martin, 2012) was adopted as the core teaching approach in a credit-bearing, blended academic literacy unit. Given that syntactic complexity is a multidimensional construct, this study used the Second Language Syntactic Complexity Analyser (L2SCA) to compare pretest and posttest writing samples and to identify which dimensions of syntactic complexity first-year L2 students developed through R2L instruction. To the best of my knowledge, this combined instructional and analytical approach has been relatively underexplored in research on R2L pedagogy and L2 syntactic development. As a result, the study finds that the students as a whole significantly improved their length of clauses. Further analyses show that both high-intermediate and low-intermediate students increased their clause length, with the gains approaching statistical significances. These findings suggest that R2L pedagogy can support the development of advanced academic writing by exposing learners to texts rich in phrasal complexity.

Between Empowerment and Vulnerability: A Critical Sociolinguistic Study of Myanmar Language Graduates’ Employment Experiences

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 09:45:24 +0000

While an increasing number of sociolingusitic studies draw their attention to small language education, our knowledge about how learning small languages might empower students’ employment experiences remains under-explored. Adopting linguistic insecurity (Cho, 2015) as a theoretical framework, this study examines the lived employment experiences of 13 Myanmar language graduates. The findings reveal that while their Myanmar proficiency enables them to secure a profitable job and achieving translocal and transnational mobility, such language convertibility is temporary and conditional. The study argues that Myanmar graduates’ employment prospect is largely mediated by various structural constraints. This paper aims to offer nuanced insights into the complex interplay between small language proficiency, graduate employability, and structural constraints in the China-Myanmar borderlands.

Saudi EFL University Students’ Perceptions of the Influence of English Short-Form Videos on Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 02:02:37 +0000

This study investigates Saudi EFL learners’ perceptions of the impact of English short-form videos on vocabulary learning. Short-form video platforms such as YouTube Shorts and TikTok are widely used by learners, yet their pedagogical value in vocabulary development remains underexplored, especially in Saudi Arabia. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 16 Saudi EFL university students and analyzed thematically. The results of the study revealed five major themes: positive attitudes towards English short-form videos, incidental vocabulary acquisition, visual context, subtitles, and repetition, perceived usefulness of different platforms, and challenges and limitations. Participants reported that these videos positively impacted vocabulary acquisition as they provided frequent exposure to authentic, meaningful, and multimodal language input. At the same time, they reported some challenges such as rapid speech, informal language use, and limited explanation of lexical items. The study concludes that English short-form videos are an important supplementary resource for incidental vocabulary acquisition that should be integrated with formal classroom instruction to guarantee accurate and comprehensive vocabulary development.

Teachers’ Curricular Translation Work in Unit-Based Primary EFL Instruction: A Qualitative Multiple-Case Study in Henan, China

Tue, 01 Sep 2026 03:14:26 +0000

Unit-based curriculum reform seeks to align learning objectives, classroom activities, differentiated support, and assessment across a sequence of lessons. Yet designs that appear coherent in demonstration lessons may become fragmented in everyday primary English classrooms. This qualitative multiple-case study examined how 16 Grade 3 English teachers from 12 primary schools in one prefecture-level city in Henan Province, China, translated unit-based reform requirements into routine practice. Data comprised 646 minutes of semi-structured interviews, contemporaneous teacher-generated records, routine lesson plans, and anonymized institutional documents. Participants generally endorsed the reform and reported proactive experimentation with digital resources, differentiated instruction, formative assessment, and locally familiar learning contexts. Codebook-assisted thematic analysis, chronological case reconstruction, and cross-case comparison identified four interconnected forms of curricular translation work: prioritizing competing goals, reorganizing textbook content into cross-lesson task sequences, converting learner differences into workable scaffolds, and transforming classroom performance into credible assessment evidence. Accounts indicated that these forms of work often accumulated when written-test accountability, single-lesson pacing, unrecognized preparation time, and limited access to reusable design tools coincided. Under such conditions, comprehensive goals were more likely to be compressed, task sequences required repair, differentiated support narrowed, and formative assessment had weaker institutional legitimacy. The study derives an evidence-informed framework of low-burden organizational support proposals, including one-page unit maps, shared tasks with adjustable scaffolds, activity-pacing protocols, and dual-evidence assessment rules. The framework is analytically derived from the qualitative evidence and is not presented as an experimentally validated intervention model. Curricular translation work offers an explanation of why reform may contract in ordinary classrooms even when teachers endorse its principles and actively attempt implementation.

Mapping the Landscape: Bibliometric Insights into Artificial Intelligence in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Education

Tue, 01 Sep 2026 03:31:25 +0000

This study presents a comprehensive exploration of the bibliometric landscape surrounding the integration of AI in EFL education. The study spans 30 years (1994-2023), involving meticulous filtering based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. From an initial pool of 694 publications, rigorous screening criteria result in 661 relevant documents. The study utilizes VosViewer, a bibliometric analysis software tool, to visually represent co-occurrence relationships among authors, keywords, and publications. The analysis of the retrieved literature demonstrates a substantial proliferation in research productivity from 2017 onwards, particularly after 2020, with the number of publications experiencing a burgeoning increase. Some prominent trending themes, including “teaching mode”, “E-learning”, and “engineering education” were noted. Furthermore, the emerging hot-spots of research, e.g. speech recognition, Chatbot, machine-learning, are identified via overlaying visualization. This study contributes by providing a road-map of literature published over three decades (1994-2023), updating the existing body of knowledge in the field of AI integration in EFL education, and revealing the research hot-spots in this field. The findings have valuable implications for EFL practitioners, administrators as well as researchers.