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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an English Proficiency (EP) programme and its efficacy with respect to students' academic performance in a university within a multi-lingual context, as the programme had been in effect for some years.

A quasi-experimental approach was used to study the efficacy of an EP programme in a university within a multilingual context. Data across two academic years were used, along with regression discontinuity design.

Results suggest that the EP programme had a significant and positive intervention effect on students' initial semester grade point average. The programme effect size was found to be medium to large.

It might be useful to extend the study for one more year for more concrete conclusions. As the study was anchored upon the structure of the 2016 EP programme, any major curricular/structural change to the programme warrants another study.

This study demonstrated that the implementation of EP programmes in higher education institutions is essential not only for international students who are foreign language speakers of English but also for domestic students in English-speaking countries, especially for bi/multilingual speakers.

Previous studies related to the efficacy of EP within higher education have focused on international students who speak English as an additional/foreign language. Further, most studies have focussed on students' self-reported experiences and have yielded disparate findings. This study contributes to scholarship as it addresses the under-researched area related to domestic students who speak English as the first language in a bi/multi-lingual context.

The shift in the function of English as a medium of instruction together with its use in knowledge construction and dissemination among scholars continue to fuel the global demand for high-level proficiency in the language. These components of the global knowledge economy mean that the ability of nations to produce multilinguals with advanced English proficiency alongside their mastery of other languages has become a key to global competitiveness. That need is helping to drive one of the greatest language learning experiments the world has ever known. It carries significant implications for new research agendas and teacher preparation in applied linguistics.

Evidence-based decision-making, whether it pertains to language policy decisions, instructional practices, teacher professional development or curricula/program building, needs to be based on a rigorous and systematically pursued program of research and assessment.

This paper seeks to advance these objectives by identifying new research foci that underscore a student-centered approach.

It introduces a new theoretical construct – multilingual proficiency – to underscore the knowledge that the learner develops in the process of language learning that makes for the surest route to the desired high levels of language proficiency. The paper highlights the advantages of a student-centered approach that focuses on multilingual proficiency for teachers and explores the concomitant conclusions for teacher development.

The present study focuses on the link between foreign language anxiety (FLA), self-perceived proficiency, and multilingualism in the under-explored English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context of Saudi Arabia. Ninety-six Arabic undergraduate college-level EFL students (56 males, 40 females) answered the Arabic version of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS – Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986). The analyses revealed that Saudi multilinguals suffered from low to moderate levels of FLA with female participants experiencing more anxiety than their male counterparts. Multiple regression analyses revealed that gender and self-perceived proficiency explained over a quarter of variance in FLA. Furthermore, the study did not find any role of experience abroad in predicting FLA.

This study examines the test's predictive validity of English language performance and compares test constructs to identify the most effective predictors of English language performance.

Data were collected and analysed from test scores of students enrolled in the foundation year (N = 84) and level 2 (N = 127) in the faculty of English at a Saudi university using correlation and regression tests.

The findings revealed that the General Aptitude Test (GAT) is effective in predicting English performance for students in level 2 and that the error detection task is the most effective predictor of performance in English reading.

The study provides support for the validity of the GAT as a university admission requirement for English language courses in the Arabic-speaking world.

This study examines the GAT's power using a fine-grained approach by deriving scores from its breakdown constructs to predict the performance of English skills at the university level.

The present study aims to examine the attitudes of future Saudi female English as a Foreign Language (EFL) student-teachers toward English native-like pronunciation to investigate their misconceptions about English as a Lingua Franca (ELF).

The researcher used a questionnaire to collect the data for the study.

The results indicate that students and teachers have positive attitudes toward native-like pronunciation. However, the results also show a realization on the participants’ part about the status of ELF. The study concludes that although they have positive attitudes toward native-like English pronunciation, students use ELF and recognize that such pronunciation is not essential for global communication. The study results show that the participants are aware of ELF, filling a vacuum in the literature about how Saudi students perceive ELF. It encourages EFL teachers, syllabus designers, developers and researchers to provide more information on this topic and stresses international communicative ability, as ELF speakers require.

As the study has some limitations that could be addressed in future research, other researchers should address these deficiencies in future studies. One limitation is that the study only involved Saudi female future teachers. Further researchers can investigate male Saudi future EFL teachers. Another limitation is that the study focused on future teachers of English in Saudi Arabia in only one institution. Other Saudi EFL teachers and other Arab future teachers could be further investigated to reject or support the study’s findings. Additionally, a more detailed demographic background could be specified in further research for more comprehensive results. In addition, similar studies could be conducted with participants from different EFL-speaking countries. Another limitation of this study is that it covers the attitudes of EFL future teachers toward native-like pronunciation and indirectly investigates their views on ELF. More research is needed to determine how EFL learners and teachers perceive ELF. The actual use of English globally could become more enlightened with further study.

This study’s findings have implications for instructors, syllabus designers and researchers. The results suggest that EFL instructors, syllabus designers and researchers should focus more on international communicative competence than native-like competence. While designing course materials or teaching, teachers and syllabus developers should be fully aware of the status of ELF. Designers of syllabi should include conversations among speakers from different linguistic backgrounds. Effective communication is a priority. Students should become more familiar with global communication outside the classroom and be prepared to engage in it.

Students should become more familiar with global communication outside the classroom and be prepared to engage in it.

Native varieties of English have gained popularity over the years among EFL teachers and learners. However, researchers have debated the importance of EFL students achieving native-like English proficiency.

This paper aims to investigate how Bruneian secondary school students employ code-switching in peer interactions. The functions of students' code-switching were analysed using Reyes' (2004) and Appel and Muysken's (2005) typologies.

The data collected are based on audio-recorded group discussions designed to elicit students’ code-switched utterances.

The results indicate that the students used 11 functions of code-switching: referential, discourse marker, clarification, expressive, quotation imitation, turn accommodation, insistence, emphasis, question shift, situation shift and poetic.

As the study only focusses on a specific secondary school, results from this school will not represent secondary school students in Brunei.

This paper hopes to provide insight into how students' code-switching can be seen in a positive light. Moreover, understanding how students use code-switching in the classroom is essential for successful knowledge transfer and for cultivating competent bilinguals, which is what the country's education system aims for.

Universiti Brunei Darussalam has been fostering the study of foreign languages in Brunei to expand their undergraduates’ accessibility in the job market and overall give them equal opportunities to have a quality foreign language learning experience. This paper is a critical analysis of past studies by Ainol and Isarji’s (2009) on foreign language learners at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), and Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), and Farhana’s (2019) study on Universiti Brunei Darussalam’s (UBD) foreign language learners’ motivation. A focused investigation at how different motivation types, namely intrinsic, extrinsic, instrumental, and integrative, affect foreign language learners at the university level in Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia. A pattern observed in Brunei and Malaysian universities is that intrinsic motivation is the foundation of foreign language learning. Bruneian undergraduates are learning out of interest, and their Malaysian counterparts are learning because they enjoy the experience. While the university's language policy determines the number of students learning a foreign language each semester, the outcome is still highly dependent on the student's motivation to learn the foreign language.

With the growing use of technology in second language learning (L2), many techniques of incorporating digital video in L2 learning and platforms of task implementation appear in the field, however, with little, if any, research on how tasks can be designed and developed in these contexts. Based on Chapelle (2001, 2014) task design criteria, the current paper evaluates specifically the “interactivity” of task design interface and how it may contribute towards either dispersing or directing the learners' attention (Robinson, 2011) during the process of task completion in video-based L2 listening.

Using a qualitative approach – mainly focus groups and interviews – the current study evaluated a number of tasks that were used for computer-based L2 listening when digital video is the mode of presentation. The participants, i.e. English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and learners, were presented with a number of task designs to try and evaluate.

The findings revealed that some task designs are perceived to be less interactive and can disperse the learner's attentional resources during the process of task completion. They also shed light on the importance of improving EFL teachers' current practices of task design in computer-based L2 listening.

This paper has contributed to our growing understanding of interactivity in relation to video-based learning and its task designs.