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The multimodality of the online learning environment allows students’ participation in different modes, relying either on video, audio or text-based communication. The current study explores the level of students’ willingness to communicate in the three modes of interaction in synchronous online English language lessons and compares it with their willingness to communicate in a conventional face-to-face language classroom. To this end, we recruited for this research 281 university students who took a course in English as part of their study programs. Relying on a cross-sectional survey design, we analyzed the data on the response variables by means of descriptive statistical tests and factorial ANOVAs. The results reveal that the students’ willingness to communicate in synchronous online classes decreases whenever they are required to activate more modes of communication. They also show that the highest willingness to communicate is found in conventional, face-to-face classrooms. An implication of the research is that the mode of communication has the potential to encourage or discourage WTC in EFL among students. It is proposed that the factors of responsibility and face-saving affect the students’ participation in online classes, aligning with the idea that WTC is a dynamic, fluid variable which changes depending on the situational context.

Research in computer-mediated communication has pointed to online disinhibition effect, i.e., a tendency to interact with less restraint when online than in face-to-face contacts. The current study explores the presence and level of disinhibition in online communication among university students and sets it in the context of synchronous online foreign language learning. To this end, 284 university students who took a course in English as part of their study programs participated in the research. A quantitative approach employing a survey design was adopted and the results were analyzed by means of descriptive and inferential statistical tests in SPSS 25. The findings show that the overall level of online disinhibition is rather low among the participants-the students self-report they feel inhibited when using the internet and communicating online. It also shows that male students tend to be more disinhibited in online communication than females. Two factors, the ability to immerse themselves in online learning surroundings and the use of headphones while attending lessons online are found to produce higher disinhibition levels. The findings imply that the affective domain deserves special attention in creating and conducting online language courses and that the digital environment requires a specific student-centered approach that is yet to be explored and defined.

In the study reported a total of 145 students pursuing the academic title of a BA in English language and literature were tested with the aim of establishing which explanatory variables have the independent power to explain the level of English language speaking anxiety. The instrument used in the study was taken from Yaikhong et al. (2012) and adapted for the purposes of the current investigation. The response variable in the study was the average level of anxiety measured by means of the questionnaire, whereas the explanatory variables included gender, the year of study, the number of presentations students gave during the course of their studies, the grade in language skills, the expected grade, the self-perceived proficiency and the perceived difficulty of the English language. The results reveal that gender, the expected grade and the self-perceived proficiency can account for the variation in the levels of anxiety among students. The paper ends with suggestions of interventions for helping students cope with the negative effects of anxiety on their speaking performance and learning experiences.

Collaborative online learning depends on the teacher's ability to create conditions for student interaction and engagement. The paper presents the type of activities that can foster them, as well as the results of the investigation into the levels of student engagement in online learning environment which was created by a combination of Moodle, Zoom and Google Documents. The focus is on the level of student engagement in relation to the type of interaction in the online learning environment, their previous experience with blended learning and their overall attitudes toward online classes. Toward this end, a convergent parallel mixed methods study was conducted by means of a 30-item questionnaire constructed for the purpose of this study. The questionnaire included both Likert-scale questions, aimed at collecting quantitative data, and open-ended questions, aimed at collecting qualitative data. Qualitative analysis of the respondents' comments reveals that online tools are most valued for their interactive and collaborative potential (the availability of emoticons, chatting and screen sharing in Zoom, the possibility of small group collaboration in Zoom Rooms and whole class collaboration in Google Docs). The most important quantitative results reveal that all students report medium to high levels of online classroom engagement in the presented scenarios. However, while the students who had previous experience with blended learning constructed their engagement on the basis of both online peer collaboration (in Zoom Rooms) and teacher-fronted instruction (Zoom), those with no previous experience with blended learning formed their engagement only on the basis of small group work (Zoom Rooms).

The paper investigates the concept of willingness to communicate (WTC) in the context of tertiary education in Serbia with a twofold aim: (a) to assess the level of students’ WTC, both generally an...

The aim of this paper is to define textbooks, analyze their advantages and disadvantages and to explicate the process of textbook selection and reasons for analyzing textbooks. The paper describes two reasons for performing a textbook analysis: evaluating for potential and evaluating for suitability, and further states various processes of textbook content analysis including the analysis of the stated aims and objectives, learner needs, their abilities and preferences, as well as the establishment of criteria in relation to previously set objectives. The paper concludes by stating that the task that teachers are faced with when selecting and evaluating textbooks is not that is an easy one, but it is crucial. With the assistance of clear guidelines and detailed criteria, they should be able to make an informed decision and choose a textbook that is most suitable for the requirements of their specific classroom context.

The research reported in this paper adopts a sociocultural approach to the comparative study of Thai and Serbian foreign language learning settings, seeking to identify similarities and differences in student perception of teacher approaches to teaching EFL. The participants in the research included a total of 439 Thai and 106 Serbian students. The instrument used in the study included a questionnaire constructed for the purposes of this research, comprising statements that covered general aspects of possible teaching approaches. The findings corroborate conclusions of other investigations in this field, particularly in terms of the respective communication styles of the learners, the amount of exposure to the foreign language in a natural setting and the distinction between non-native and native EFL teachers. The paper concludes with recommendations for pedagogical practice.

Given the fact that English is an obligatory subject in Serbian schools since the first grade, many parents opt for an early start and enroll their children in English classes while they are still in kindergarten, before they can actually read or write. Another context in which young learners learn English in Serbia are the first two grades of primary school, which are also considered to belong to the pre-literacy period because children learn the Latin alphabet only in the second semester of the second grade. For those reasons pupils in Serbia do not read or write in English until the age of 9, so the question is how the teacher can implement assessment in the pre-literacy period. Relying on informal interviews with 15 teachers, this paper intends to investigate how assessment is done with very young learners in the pre-literacy period in private and state-owned primary schools and to present a solution based on the competences that children in this age group already possess, as well as on the teaching and learning aspects which are of great value for the improvement of children's English language competence.

The paper analyzes questionnaires administered to 135 English Language students in all four years with an attempt to elaborate how developed the students’ academic research skills are and investigate if they correlate with the years of study. Furthermore, the results are compared to students’ general habits concerning internet use to prove that they do not correlate with academic research skills.

The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) describes the B2 level as having limited operational proficiency, where speakers have an adequate response to situations normally encountered. In the spoken domain a B2 user is said to interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity, to produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and to explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options. Besides that, a B2 user should be able to spontaneously depart from the previously prepared presentation material and to interact with an audience to develop interesting parts of his/her presentation. This paper, accordingly, focuses on oral presentations of university students who were put at the B2 level of CEFR. The sample comprises students who study English as their major and students of other departments who take classes of English as a foreign language. The primary method of research is observation done by the teacher while students present previously chosen and prepared topics. The aim of the research is to determine whether the students from the sample, representative of their population, fit into the description and criteria of the B2 level.

The aim of this paper is to determine whether reading proficiency is a significant predictor of English as a Foreign Language learners’ performance on reading test questions targeting explicit and inferential information when controlling for language proficiency. For this purpose, a total of 38 university students who are taking a course in English as a faculty requirement completed a reading comprehension test with items testing local textual information (locating facts, paraphrasing information, recognizing stated facts) and global textual information (identifying main idea and establishing connections). The participants were first divided into high- and low-proficiency groups based on their scores and then compared by means of a mixed between-within subjects analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The results indicate that the participants varied in their ability to identify factual information and to make inferences based on stated information with respect to their reading proficiency, and, to a lesser extent, their overall foreign language proficiency, but not as a result of the interaction between these two factors. This finding offers practical support in favour of the Linguistic interdependence hypothesis, which proposes that reading performance in a foreign language is shared to a large degree with reading ability in a first language and with a general reading ability not tied to any specific language.