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The purpose of this study is to assess the significance of employee work flexibility and the policy of the organization for survival during any crisis. This study also investigates the moderating role of leadership support (LS) during such turbulent conditions.

This study has used literature from the fields of organization performance, human resources and organization policy (OP), along with the theories of resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capability view (DCV) to develop a conceptual model. Later, the conceptual model is validated using the structural equation modeling technique. The study used a survey method with a sample of 311 participants. These participants are employed as human resource managers (HRM) and other supportive workforce at different levels in the organizations.

The study shows that innovativeness and employee flexibility (EFL) are critical toward organizations’ survival during any crisis. Also, the study highlights the importance of OP and LS for the survival of organizations during and after any turbulent condition.

This study provides valuable inputs to the leadership teams of organizations, especially HRM. This research also provides food for thought for policymakers and researchers in the field of organizational performance. This study also contributes to the overall body of literature on organization analysis and extends the literature on RBV and DCV.

The study adds value to the overall body of literature on organization performance and capabilities along with human resource management. Few studies have nurtured issues on EFL during turbulent conditions. Also, there are limited studies in the areas of OP such as favorable and unfavorable policies toward employees. Thus, this study can be considered unique. Moreover, the study investigates the moderating role of LS which adds value toward the body of literature on organizational leadership capability.

Japanese school teachers are facing challenges under the new curricula reform, and there is still a lack of preparation to guide them to a successful implementation. Dilemmas related to teaching English language in primary schools were seen among participant teachers in a program of professional learning. This study aims (1) to identify a feeling of anxiety and readiness to the new EFL curricula and (2) to offer a professional learning program for shifting their concerns to regain their confidence and agency as educators.

The study was conducted based on qualitative research. Qualitative data was collected from 40 participating teachers in the professional learning program, and later was critically analysed.

Initial findings revealed that the majority of participants felt concerned towards teaching EFL in their school, as they are homeroom teachers, not specialist teachers in EFL. Drama pedagogy helped shifting their language anxiety and repositioning themselves within the new EFL curricular implementation, as it became evident through the reflections of the professional development workshop.

The study highlights current educational issues that Japanese primary school teachers are facing. Failure to fully address their feeling of anxiety underlies the Japanese school culture. Drama pedagogy, despite being quite new to educational pedagogy in Japan, was effective in allowing the participants to freely express their voices.

Meeting the 21st century skills is critically significant to ensure success in today's world, collegiate context and neoteric careers. This qualitative study turns attention to teachers' mindsets, dispositions and perceptions concerning 21st century life competencies required to meet the current, emerging and future needs of learners.

One-to-one structured interviews were conducted with English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers (N = 8), where open-ended questions were asked in order to determine the participants' perception of, support to, and integration of the life competencies into an EFL classroom setting. In addition, teachers' performance and implementation of life competencies (males and females) was observed in the classroom over a long time.

The results showed that teachers' practices contradict their conceptions of the life competencies. Critical thinking was seen as a priority from teachers' perspectives. Teachers perceived learning to learn and critical thinking as the most important competencies for students to learn. Findings of the study indicated that teachers hold positive attitudes toward integrating life competencies into EFL context; however, they lack a clear vision about how to incorporate them.

This study recommends equipping teachers with professional training and customized orientations offering new insights into how life-competency-oriented instruction might be designed.

Career readiness should be a prominent aim of education where students are equipped with life skills or competencies. EFL practitioners need to understand, support and implement life-competency-instruction.

Students of mixed-ability learning together in one class is a challenge for all educators, especially in English as foreign language (EFL) contexts. Timed reading activity (TRA) is an activity that can help educators address the learning needs of students in such a context. The present study investigated the effectiveness of the TRA in enhancing EFL students' reading rate and reading comprehension as well as in making them aware of potentially wrong reading strategies that they may be using.

A classroom intervention was designed for a group of preparatory year (PY) students at a Saudi university. The study sample consisted of one intact class of 29 students. Data were collected from pre- and post-tests of students' reading rate and reading comprehension as well as progress charts. In addition, a questionnaire was used to identify the reading strategies used by the students.

The results showed that the TRA generally enhanced the reading comprehension and the reading rate of EFL mixed-ability students as well as raised their awareness of their use of wrong fast reading strategies.

The results of the study support the use of TRA as a remedial reading activity in EFL mixed-ability classes.

Existing research has examined English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ attitudes towards flipped learning. However, no study seems to have correlated students’ achievement and their attitudes towards flipped learning. Yemeni EFL students also face pronunciation problems and they lack technology-enhanced language learning. The flipped learning approach promotes active learning and increases students’ learning outcomes. This study aims to measure the achievement level and the attitudes of Yemeni EFL students towards flipped pronunciation classrooms. It also correlates between achievement and attitudes towards this new experience.

Using a correlational research design, quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a test, questionnaire and structured interview from an intact class of Yemeni EFL students at the College of Education in Socotra.

The one-sample t-test analysis shows that the respondents scored high in the achievement test. The analysis of both the questionnaire and the structured interview revealed that the students have a positive attitude towards the flipped pronunciation classroom. The correlation analysis indicated a high-level positive relationship between students’ achievement and their attitudes where r = 0.779 with p < 0.001, two-tailed.

The present study has some limitations regarding the sample size. This context-specific study recruited the available EFL class at the College of Education in Socotra, Hadhramout University. It would be more reliable should the study compared large groups of students so that the results can be generalized.

The study recommends using flipped learning to enhance pronunciation among EFL students.

This study contributes to the correlational studies in flipped learning.

Recent advancements in science and technology have led to an emphasis on using technology to make education more interesting. The inclusion of computers, internet and technological media has made education more diverse, vivid and enthusiastic. The use of technology such as YouTube in education stimulates visual and auditory learning, which results in favorable outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to provide a guideline for more systematic utilization of YouTube that has been possible in Saudi EFL classrooms at King Khalid University/Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

YouTube videos that illustrated a variety of special spoken discourse and interaction were selected to widen Saudi EFL students’ socio-linguistic experience. In total, 48 students were divided into two groups; one group intensively used YouTube through the course, while the other did not. A quasi-experiment method was used to collect data.

The use of YouTube in studying English spoken discourse played a pivotal role in enhancing Saudi EFL students’ proficiency. The experimental group students’ outcomes revealed positive gains through the integration of video elements in teaching.

This study is among the first to examine the use of YouTube technology for educational purposes, particularly in the context of Arab countries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore EFL reading anxiety of first-year undergraduate engineering students and its effect on their reading performance in a public sector engineering university in Pakistan. It specifically aims to explore their top-down, bottom-up and classroom EFL reading anxiety.

Data for the present study were collected from 200 first-year engineering students to explore their reading anxiety. A 20-item questionnaire developed by Zoghi and Alivandivafa (2014) was used to measure students’ EFL reading anxiety, while an IELTS academic reading test was used to measure their reading performance. The data were analyzed through exploratory factorial analysis and multiple regression analysis to determine which type of reading anxiety has a significant effect on students’ reading performance.

It was found that the bottom-up reading anxiety and the classroom reading anxiety have a significant negative impact on the reading performance of the first-year undergraduate engineering students of a Pakistani university. However, top-down reading anxiety has an insignificant negative impact on the reading performance of university students.

The data for the current study were drawn from one Pakistani public sector engineering university, and all the students were first-year undergraduates. The data were collected through a self-reported questionnaire and IELTS (academic) reading test. Some of the students may be unfamiliar with the IELTS test pattern, so their reading performance might have been affected.

Teachers should adopt such a methodology in their EFL classrooms which helps students reduce their reading anxiety. Reading texts must be selected considering the proficiency level of students, and reading strategies must be explicitly taught to reduce bottom-up and top-down reading anxieties. Teachers should create a positive learning environment in their classroom by encouraging students to make an effort to improve their reading skills in order to deal with classroom reading anxiety. Students must be explained that they should help one another rather than ridiculing each other’s reading mistakes. Differentiated instruction can also be adopted to facilitate weak readers. The teachers can provide additional/out of the class support to weak readers in order to help them deal with reading anxiety.

The EFL reading anxiety among university students in the Pakistani context has received little attention from the researchers. Furthermore, although the impact of EFL reading anxiety on EFL students’ reading performance has been explored previously, the impact of three types of EFL reading anxiety on EFL learners’ reading performance has not been adequately investigated.

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinise the potentials and challenges of variation theory when adopting learning study in Austrian initial EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher education.

Based on a hermeneutic and epistemological approach, projects, and publications employing variation theory in the context of EFL are critically evaluated.

Variation theory and learning study turn out to have great potential for EFL teaching and learning in Austria. However, three critical issues need further conceptual and empirical research before new learning cycles can be implemented and evaluated: the object of learning, the SLA-variation theory interface, and the roles of variation theory on different educational levels.

By identifying and discussing important critical issues within the current practice of variation-theory-oriented EFL teaching, this study could lead to further theoretical and empirical deliberations in various areas of modern language teaching. This in turn could help pave the way for both the development of theoretical underpinning and methodological refinement, ultimately fostering international co-operations in implementing learning cycles.

This paper, which originates in an English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classroom activity in Hong Kong, aims to explore English learners’ expressive and creative potential in writing by studying their work in the literary narrative genre.

A group of upper secondary students (15-16 years of age) with limited English resources and competence was enlisted to remake a folktale with visual and written prompts.

The writing samples demonstrate that these low-level EFL writers are able to refashion the narrative elements, and to communicate meanings for their own purposes. They exhibit logicality and problem-solving skills in their attempts to challenge and transform idea and to include themes of interest to them. There is also evidence of creative play with language in their use of dialogues and figures of speech.

These writing outcomes suggest the need to re-vision English language arts practices in increasingly diverse education systems. Genre-based instruction, with its emphasis on “writing to mean” as a social activity supported by learning to use language, could lead to widening EFL learners’ access to genre knowledge and to greater life chances.

A linguistics-based pedagogy scaffolding less able EFL writers while they learn to build effective narratives is identified as a way forward.

Although the idea of using narratives to engage EFL learners in writing is not entirely new, this paper contributes to the field by responding to low-level learners’ writing that goes beyond linguistic “correctness”, and developing strategies for supporting creativity and language play.

The purpose of this paper is to touch upon the unaddressed points regarding the practice of lesson study (LS) in the field of language teacher development in a Turkish education context by considering the challenges faced and observed by the EFL teachers, their suggestions to design a process like LS practice and benefits that LS practice could provide them in terms of teaching and professional development.

The analysis is based on the data from five EFL teachers’ collaborative work in an arrangement of lesson and learning study and from the researcher’s observations during meetings and discussions throughout the process. The data consist of interviews with participant teachers (pre and post), video recordings of the teacher workshops, field notes of the researcher and video recordings of the research lessons. The analysis was carried out through content analysis beginning with listing the responses of participants, identifying the frequency of citations, collecting similar responses under a common category to determine the categories and at last placing codes into the related categories.

The results show that the teachers had some concerns about LS practice both before and after practicing the model in the study context. They stated their concerns mostly about time, increasing responsibility and effort, being a demanding process. However, the practice seemed to meet their expectations, lead to improvements in knowledge, teaching practices and perspectives, contribute to the personal and professional development of teachers and triggered enthusiasm and a desire for students to participate actively in learning process.

This paper serves as an explicit example of LS practice with its plus and minuses in a Turkish education context as teachers’ views and the researcher’s personal reflections in the current study can guide the process of change and provide evidence and practical suggestions on the feasibility of the program for the ones attempting to experience it. Besides, the teachers’ perceptions and suggestions regarding LS practice in the present study can enable other teachers, organizers of professional development programs and the researchers an opportunity to lead future practices.