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This study presents the design and linguistic development of ESP-XR, an Augmented Reality (AR)-based mobile application aimed at supporting the acquisition of domain-specific language in Business, Medical, and Legal English. Grounded in Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL), the project integrates a situational syllabus with a Task-Based Approach (TBA) to foster authentic communication and learner engagement. The Business English module is outlined in detail, including the process of defining learning objectives and designing a syllabus tailored for a B2-level audience. Drawing on corpus-informed methods, authentic materials were adapted to create interactive dialogues and AR-based vocabulary tasks aiming to enhance vocabulary retention through embodiment and gamification. While challenges were encountered—particularly in identifying concrete AR-representable items and maintaining textual authenticity—this study outlines the potential of AR-enhanced tools to promote immersive ESP learning.

Recently, effective in-service education in TBLT and continued support for teachers have been highlighted as key in harnessing its benefits. However, little is known about the education that teachers receive in TBLT and how their interpretations and views evolve over time in the classroom. To address this, the present study provides evidence of a group of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ perceptions and experiences as they receive training on TBLT during two sessions of one week each over 16 months in a Mexican university. Drawing on questionnaires and a focus group, we found that the teachers maintained positive attitudes towards TBLT as an approach which improves their teaching practices and particularly language learning and student communication. However, despite hands-on opportunities to try out and experiment with TBLT in their classroom contexts, the teachers reported a number of complex, contextual, and influential factors that hindered them from fully implementing the approach, and instead encouraged them to adapt tasks and develop a version of TBLT better suited for the educational context. The study contributes to our understanding of the complex ways in which contextual factors can shape the implementation of theory-based approaches in the classroom, with implications for TBLT teacher education.

This study investigates the effects of integrating AhaSlides as an interactive tool with Task-Based Learning (TBL) on the writing skills of fifth-grade students in a private elementary school in Aceh Besar, Indonesia. Using a quasi-experimental design, 42 students (N=42) were divided into an experimental class (n=21) and a control class (n=21). Both groups completed pre- and post-tests assessing spelling, grammar, vocabulary, capitalization, and punctuation. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that students taught with AhaSlides and TBL achieved significantly higher post-test scores than those in the control group across all writing components. ANCOVA confirmed that the experimental group outperformed the control group after controlling for pre-test differences. The intervention was particularly effective for lower-proficiency learners, helping reduce performance gaps. On the whole, the findings indicate that combining interactive technology with TBL can meaningfully enhance young EFL learners’ basic writing proficiency.

The present study investigates turn taking, initiators and linguistic categories of self-repair in classroom conversations among advanced female EFL learners in three language institutes in Isfahan, Iran, to clarify the students’ and teachers’ participation in taking turns, and the most frequent linguistic categories of self-repairs. Forty female EFL learners were selected from the advanced level classes of the institutes. 36 hours of videotaped single-sex conversations (six sessions of three classes) were collected through classroom observations. To enrich the data, follow-up interviews were conducted. The students’ utterances were analyzed qualitatively using Schegloff et al.’s (1977) repair initiation techniques and Sacks et al.’s (1974) turn taking system. The results were compared then with previous studies conducted on English native speakers’ and Persian native speakers’ interactions. The results indicated that the majority of the turns were taken by the students and through self-initiated transfers. The data analysis also revealed that most of the observed errors were repaired through non-lexical utterances. Regarding the linguistic categories of self-initiated self-repair, only grammatical and lexical errors were corrected by the participants. There were differences in the types of grammatical errors corrected by Iranian EFL learners versus English native speakers.

The Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement’s (CAPS) idea of promoting English as the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) in South Africa remains a challenge, particularly in rural schools. Its implementation has caused communication challenges and social exclusion that cripple effective learning, especially in English First Additional classrooms. The enforcement of English as a LoLT in rural schools triggers unsupportive behavioural patterns that cripple pedagogical and epistemological potentials in the classroom. Guided by a sociocultural framework, this study employed observation, focus group discussions, and semi-structured interviews to gather qualitative data. The participants comprised 15 learners and 4 teachers, selected purposively to ensure their suitability from three high schools in Limpopo Province. The study found that a teaching and learning culture devoid of empathy hinders the development of learner autonomy and teacher agency, which are essential for advancing a communicative learning process that the CAPS curriculum aims to achieve.