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As there are many Arab students seek to earn an international degree, this research article aims to explore the factors that influence Arab students' adaptation to the foreign cross-culture of the USA and how it is related to their academic achievement. Exploring these factors will introduce different insights into the effectiveness of adaptation and studying in a foreign country and earning an international degree. Besides, this study contributes to the body of knowledge of international higher education by including Arab students as a less-researched group. Arab students' adaptation process is explained in terms of the Cross-cultural Adaptation Theory (Kim, 2001).

This qualitative research study was conducted using a focus group discussion (FGD). Multiple face-to-face interviews were conducted to obtain data from the participants. Participants were divided into four groups, each female group contained nine participants and each male group contained seven participants. The researcher explained to each group independently about their perception, beliefs and attitude toward earning international degrees, the adaptation to the host culture and their academic achievement. The researcher carried out five FGDs for each group. Each interview continued for 60 minutes in length. All participants received a consent form. The discussions were audio-recorded and then transcribed.

Arab students are a group of enthusiastic learners; however, their feelings of homesickness enable them to develop overwhelming sorrowful emotions, howbeit their communication with their ethnic group facilitates the adaption and acceptance of the host cultures, which requires quite some time to adjust to new surroundings. Arab students are recognized with high academic achievements; nevertheless, they require prolonged periods to complete course assignments. American society gives international students a warm welcome; this may encourage other Arab students to consider earning an American degree and prepare themselves for this intercultural transition.

This is subjective qualitative data; some limitations need to be addressed when interpreting the findings. Participants are English as a Second Language (ESL)learners, which may influence their word choice during the discussion. Interesting future research could be related to designing an assessment model to evaluate the academic achievement of ESL in different methods that focus on their achievement motivations and communication skills.

Based on the findings, professors can integrate the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to help multi-cultural students to learn and earn an international higher education degree.

Higher education institutions can offer more social multi-cultural opportunities to include multi-cultural students and develop their social skills to facilitate the adaptation process to the new host culture.

This qualitative research study represents an original work of the researcher, and it has not submitted elsewhere. All research ethical codes were followed by the researcher and participants. There is no fund for this research project.

Using a newly compiled corpus module consisting of utterances from Asian learners during L2 English interviews, this study examined how Asian EFL learners' L1s (Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Thai), their L2 proficiency levels (A2, B1 low, B1 upper and B2+) and speech task types (picture descriptions, roleplays and QA-based conversations) affected four aspects of vocabulary usage (number of tokens, standardized type/token ratio, mean word length and mean sentence length).

Four aspects concern speech fluency, lexical richness, lexical complexity and structural complexity, respectively.

Subsequent corpus-based quantitative data analyses revealed that (1) learner/native speaker differences existed during the conversation and roleplay tasks in terms of the number of tokens, type/token ratio and sentence length; (2) an L1 group effect existed in all three task types in terms of the number of tokens and sentence length; (3) an L2 proficiency effect existed in all three task types in terms of the number of tokens, type-token ratio and sentence length; and (4) the usage of high-frequency vocabulary was influenced more strongly by the task type and it was classified into four types: Type A vocabulary for grammar control, Type B vocabulary for speech maintenance, Type C vocabulary for negotiation and persuasion and Type D vocabulary for novice learners.

These findings provide clues for better understanding L2 English vocabulary usage among Asian learners during speech.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the experiences and challenges brought about by subject-specific mentoring within a distinctive learning environment, namely, mathematics for English as a second language (ESL) classes for 16-18-year-olds. The reflection is carried out over the stages of the mentoring process during an academic year within a college of further education in England with the purpose of adding to the store of knowledge on mentoring mentees who are specialists in mathematics.

The author employs an auto-ethnographic methodology.

Amongst its conclusions, the author argues that through a mentor demonstrating specific numeracy methods and techniques to mentees, and making them aware of language issues facing ESL learners relating to terminology used in mathematics, mentees are more able to develop their learners’ numeracy skills and relevant language skills, hence facilitating their adaption and integration into the English education system.

Research on the pedagogy of mathematics teaching, as well as language issues relating to terminology used in mathematics, needs to be considered during the mentoring of teacher trainees who are specialists in mathematics. In addition, specific language issues need to be considered for those mentees who are likely to have ESL learners in their classes.

In challenging some of the conventions of mathematics teaching, the paper addresses issues of inequality through identifying strategies designed to improve the educational opportunities of 16-18-year-old ESL learners.

The originality of the paper lies not only in its focus on the nuances of subject-specific mentoring, within the context of a particular target group, namely, 16-18-year-old ESL learners studying functional skills mathematics in a college of further education, but in its attempts to address the challenges that can arise when contesting, through theory and practice, education conventions.

This chapter traces one student teacher's (Joan) experiences of learning to teach English as a second language in a cross-cultural context during a teaching practicum in Hong Kong. The school-based practicum is a core component of many initial teacher education programmes. During this induction period, usually an 8-week block, student teachers are placed in local schools to learn how to integrate theories into practice in real teaching situations. Specifically, I uncover how Joan grappled with the tensions and complexities of teaching young learners from a different cultural and linguistic background, in a small elementary school situated in the borderland between Hong Kong (an autonomous region of China) and Shenzhen (a province of Mainland China).

Critical incidents from Joan's practicum experiences were analysed to uncover how she dealt with the tensions and dilemmas in confronting difference and marginalising practices while learning to teach English as a second language (ESL) in the practicum school. Implications on how to develop initial teacher education programmes so that student teachers learning to teach across cultural contexts can be encouraged to explore, confront and ‘deal with the emotional terrain of understanding difference’ will be discussed (Boler & Zembylas, 2003, p. 123; Zembylas, 2010).

This study aims to investigate Sri Lankan Government university students’ acceptance of Chat Generative Pretrained Transformer (ChatGPT) for educational purposes. Using the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (UTAUT2) model as the primary theoretical lens, this study incorporated personal innovativeness as both a dependent and moderating variable to understand students’ ChatGPT use behaviour.

This quantitative study used a questionnaire survey to collect data. A total of 500 legitimate undergraduates from 17 government universities in Sri Lanka were selected for this study. Items for the variables were adopted from previously validated instruments. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 4 was used to investigate latent constructs’ relationships. Furthermore, the variables’ relative relevance was ranked using a two-stage artificial neural network analysis with the SPSS 27 application.

The results of the analysis revealed that eight of the nine proposed hypotheses were confirmed. The most significant determinants of behavioural intention were habit and performance expectancy, closely followed by hedonic motivation and perceived ease of use. Use behaviour was highly influenced by both behavioural intention and personal inventiveness. Though personal innovativeness (PI) was suggested as a moderator, the relationship was not significant.

The research highlights the impact of habit, performance expectancy and perceived ease of use on students’ acceptance of AI applications such as ChatGPT, emphasising the need for efficient implementation techniques, individual variations in technology adoption and continuous support and training to improve students’ proficiency.

This study enhances the comprehension of how undergraduate students adopt ChatGPT in an educational setting. The study emphasises the significance of certain variables in the UTAUT2 model and the importance of PI in influencing the adoption of ChatGPT in educational environments.

Despite their motivational appeal to learners, innovative and technologically advanced computer simulation games targeting native English speakers frequently remain beyond the competence of ESL learners as independent didactic tools. Guided by Chapelle’s (2001) criteria for determining CALL task appropriateness, this paper illustrates how the popular authentic simulation, The SIMs, can be adapted to enhance vocabulary learning through supporting materials. Adult ESL learners completed a five‐week unit, experiencing different conditions of supplemental materials while completing tasks using The SIMs. The participants received mandatory supplemental materials in one condition, voluntary access to supplemental materials in the second, and no supplemental materials in the third. The results indicate a statistically significant increase in vocabulary acquisition for the first condition. Student feedback suggests the supplemental materials were beneficial for successful task completion. Thus, how authentic computer simulation tasks are structured and supported appears to have a considerable bearing on the appropriateness of the task.

As publishers and academia swiftly head towards e-textbooks, it is important to understand how students feel about using e-textbooks as a primary learning tool. This paper discusses results of a small-scale study looking into how a group of language learners view and use e-textbooks as learning tools in ESL classrooms. The paper concludes by offering teaching implications that could ease integrating e-textbooks in language classrooms in a more effective and efficient manner.

This study arises from a recent school-based professional development (PD) programme conducted for English language teachers (ELTs) in a secondary school in the Kingdom of Bahrain, where a participatory lesson study (PLS) strategy was implemented to develop four ELTs' teaching skills and their senior teacher's leadership. The influence of the PLS on creating a participatory PD experience for the participants was investigated through exploring their perceptions of their professional growth during their PLS experience.

Following a qualitative interpretive approach, a total of eight lesson study cases and 16 meetings were conducted and analysed.

The main factors that influenced the participants' perceptions of their professional growth in PLS were high self-efficacy and confidence; dominancy of their peers; the informality of the PLS practice; and reflective practice. Relatedly, the results revealed critical thoughts about PLS as a means for ELT's self-directed PD in non-native English-speaking contexts.

The study provides an alternative approach to PD that can be offered for ELTs in any ESL/EFL context that focusses on supporting non-native English-speaking teachers' practices by associating theory with practice. This approach has enabled them to gain the practical skills they need and develop their awareness about the theoretical principles of these practices. For the first time, teachers were given the role to act as the trainers and the theorisers of their own teaching practices.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of computer-assisted language learning on cultural adaptation and language learning in non-traditional classroom settings.

The data of this study came from extended periods of observation, multiple rounds of semi-structured interviews and home visits. Using narrative inquiry, it analyzes an immigrant's journey of language learning and cultural adaptation within a virtual knowledge community.

The findings of this study reveal the profound impact of virtual knowledge communities on enhancing second language learning and facilitating cultural adaptation.

This study offers original insights by demonstrating the transformative power of virtual knowledge communities for the purpose of second language acquisition and cultural adaptation.