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Educational practitioners have attempted to use online technology such as Facebook (FB) in recent years to incorporate learning into students' daily social media usage. Past studies have explored FB affordances for informal learning, with a lack of investigations on interactive patterns among course participants, especially for learners in East Asian contexts. To fill the research gap, this study adopts the community of inquiry model (CoI) in an attempt to find out (1) how interactions on a FB Group facilitate the formation of an online learning community in Taiwan, and (2) students' and teacher's experiences of using FB Group for English learning. Content analysis of the group page through thematic coding, and Chi Square tests resulted in significant relations among interaction types, initiation type, and response type for the posts. Semi-structured interviews further yielded more positive than negative experiences associated with the FB usage. The results are discussed in relation to three elements of the CoI, with an indication of a strong teacher presence for fostering the online learning environment in this particular learning context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, the concept of English for Specific Purposes has brought about a great impact on English language learning across various disciplines, including those in science education. Hence, this review paper aimed to address current English language learning in the science disciplines through the practice of computer-assisted language learning to identify the use of learning technologies in science-based literacy. In the literature review, the researchers found that science-based literacy instruction shares many pedagogical aims with English language teaching in terms of reading, writing, listening and speaking, allowing it to be classified as English for Scientific Purposes (EScP). To answer the research questions, the researchers conducted the survey by extracting related articles and teaching examples from the Web of Science. In the search procedure, the researchers used the keywords science OR scientific AND technolog* OR comput* in ten selected journals of social science citation index. Only articles which are specified as journal articles rather than other document types were included. After compiling the corpora, the researchers compared the trends, methodologies and results of EScP instruction in science education. The implications of this study include the opportunities, advantages and challenges for EScP instruction in science education to further develop better educational approaches, adopt new technologies, as well as offer some directions for researchers to conduct future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study obtained empirical evidence regarding the effects of using printed dictionaries (PD), pocket electronic dictionaries (PED), and online type-in dictionaries (OTID) on English vocabulary retention at a junior high school. A mixed-methods research methodology was adopted in this study. Thirty-three seventh graders were asked to use all three types of dictionaries to finish reading tasks, and then were tested not only immediately after the reading tasks, but also two and four weeks later. Questionnaires and interviews were used to examine the participants' attitudes and reflections after using the three types of dictionaries. Results indicate that although electronic dictionaries (OTID and PED) temporarily attract junior high school students' attention, PD helps them retain target words more effectively. Spending more time working with a PD apparently helped participants retain target words better. In contrast, the fast retrieval speed of an electronic dictionary might not impress the word forms and meanings onto junior high school students to such a significant degree. Electronic dictionaries could thus be used as a gateway to arouse students' interest to use dictionaries, while printed dictionaries could be used to help students retain the word forms and meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction to the article "English for Scientific Purposes (EScP): Technology, Trends, and Future Challenges for Science Education" that was published in the 2014 issue is presented.