This review systematically examines the benefits and challenges of integrating Virtual Reality (VR) into English language instruction in higher education. Analysing 27 studies published between 2014 and 2024, the findings reveal that VR has been predominantly utilised as an instructional tool across diverse domains, including General English, English as a Foreign Language (EFL), English as a Second Language (ESL), English for Specific Purposes (ESP), English for Occupational Purposes (EOP), and English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The technology has been shown to enhance core language competencies such as speaking, writing, and vocabulary acquisition, with applications spanning vocational training, university programs, and specialised courses. Fully immersive VR, low-cost immersive VR and low-immersive VR were designed by the prior study in exploring learners' English language skills. However, challenges such as dizziness, fatigue, motion sickness, neck pain, and cognitive overload were identified as potential barriers to effective learning. The review further highlights underexplored opportunities for future research, including the integration of cognitive and metacognitive assessments, gamified learning environments, and evaluations of VR's impact on learner motivation. These insights aim to guide educators and researchers in refining VR-based language education strategies while addressing current limitations.

Abstract The present study explores the sense of awareness and perceptions that a group of teacher educators and pre-service teachers held about English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and its implications for English teacher education programs in Colombia. Guided by the theoretical framework of Global Englishes and ELF scholarship (Jenkins, J. 2015a. Repositioning English and multilingualism in English as a Lingua Franca. Englishes in Practice 2(3). 49–85; Sifakis, N. 2014. ELF awareness as an opportunity for change: A transformative perspective for ESOL teacher education. JELF 3(2). 317–335), which informed both data analysis and interpretation, the research adopted a qualitative descriptive design. Data were gathered through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The study involved the participation of 12 teacher educators and 15 pre-service teachers, all members of an English teacher education program at a public university in Colombia. The findings suggest that both groups of participants had a clear understanding of ELF from various yet convergent perspectives, and acknowledged its relevance for the field of ELT. In terms of implications of an eventual incorporation of ELF in formal English teacher education programs, participants point to the need to break away from a dominant orthodoxy, and a readjustment of materials and teaching approaches leading to the inclusion of ELF in traditional EFL settings.

This study explores the use of modal verbs in Pakistani and American English through a corpus-based analysis of data drawn from the Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) corpus. The study examines five modal verbs—must, should, may, might, and would—through a comparative analysis of their semantic, pragmatic, and collocational patterns in the two English varieties. Based on the frequency counts, concordance lines and collocational analysis, the study demonstrates that Pakistani English is more likely to be used in formal registers whereas American English is more conversational. There are also differences in collocational patterns that bear the cultural and practical impacts in both varieties. The findings provide an empirical evidence of regional variation in modal verb usage, contributing to the fields of World Englishes and Corpus Linguistics. Moreover, the study provides pedagogical implications in teaching English language based on the findings of the research, emphasizing the role of contextual and regional sensitivity in teaching and learning modal verbs. The study emphasizes the significance of corpus-based approaches in investigating authentic language use across different varieties of English.

ABSTRACT Teachers across Asia navigate multilingual classrooms while holding expectations shaped by standard-norm EFL models. This qualitative, exploratory study presents an early-stage mechanism that explains how teachers’ professional stance begins to shift when those expectations encounter local English diversity. Drawing on reflective accounts, critical incidents, and a Global Englishes-oriented analysis of teachers’ and pre-service teachers’ materials, the study examines how participants interpret communicative events that conflict with prior assumptions. Findings reveal four interrelated movements: disjuncture triggered by unfamiliar accents, translanguaging, or locally influenced pronunciation; critical interrogation of those disruptions; early identity repositioning; and initial pedagogical agency, including intentions to broaden listening input and foreground intelligibility over accuracy. Together, these movements constitute the Critical Disjunctural Reflective Pedagogy (CDRP) model, a conceptual framework that explains how disruption, interpretation, identity shifts, and agency interact at the onset of teacher development, offering a principled basis for Global Englishes-oriented teacher education.

ABSTRACT As teacher preparation programs incorporate anti-racist pedagogies to address deficit and racialized ideologies affecting students’ learning opportunities, emotions, and racialized language ideologies have been found to individually influence pre-service English teachers. These influences shape their engagement or disengagement with their professional training as they learn to adopt the role of ESL teachers, with limited research focusing on the emotional experiences they have toward the intersecting issues related to race and language. This case study focuses on three undergraduate students who were training to be TESOL-certified teachers during the 2020–2021 academic year. Through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, assignments, and course materials, the study adopts a new materialist perspective to present how our participants experienced, embodied, and mobilized racialized emotions. The findings also reveal how all participants experience positive and negative racialized emotions – emotions people experience related to race within a particular situation. The article concludes by considering how racialized emotions can be situated within TESOL training and noting directions for future research.

Although stance markers of hedge and booster have been studied in academic writings and receiving growing concerns from linguistic scholars worldwide, most of them focused on analyzing these stance markers in research purposes, such as research papers, research theses, etc. However, studies on this area within essay writings is still limited, and none has investigated these stance markers within the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) essay writings. Understanding the importance of filling this need has encouraged me to analyze stance markers of hedge and booster within the IELTS essay writings by addressing three research focuses: the roles of these two stance markers in essay writings, the distribution of hedge and booster in essay writings, and the possibilities of these two stance markers appear in the same sentence. To realize this intention, this study used a genre approach by employing 30 IELTS essays bands 7, 8, and 9 as data sets, and they were analyzed using a mix method. The results revealed that stance markers of hedge and booster are important in these data set to show authorial stances in academic essays. Then, hedge appears more dominantly in band 7, while booster has higher numbers of appearance in band 8 and 9. Last, these two stance markers are possible appearing in the same sentence when the sentence contains multiple clauses. These findings imply that genre is much influenced by discourse communities because the present findings also become evident that the employment of hedge and booster seems to have differences from earlier different academic writings.

Abstract This article examines the discourse-pragmatic use of please as a marker of politeness in three African English varieties: Ghanaian English, Nigerian English, and Ugandan English, analysing its frequency, structural patterns, pragmatic functions, and variation across different text types. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, the study analysed data from the Ghanaian, Nigerian, and Ugandan components of the International Corpus of English. The findings show that please occurs most frequently in Nigerian English, followed by Ghanaian English and Ugandan English, and that it is most common in correspondences and public dialogues across all three varieties. Also, please occurs predominantly in clause-initial position and fulfils a range of pragmatic functions, including those that have not been documented in studies of other world Englishes. Overall, these findings reflect the impact of local languages and cultures on the use of please in the three African English varieties.

English has evolved from a historically local language into the world’s most widely used global lingua franca, shaped by colonial expansion, economic power, and intensified globalization. Today, English is no longer owned by a small group of so-called native speakers but is used predominantly by multilingual speakers for intercultural communication across diverse global, local, and glocal contexts. Responding to this sociolinguistic reality, this paper synthesizes key insights from Global Englishes scholarship and articulates a comprehensive pedagogical framework consisting of thirteen interrelated dimensions for English language teaching. Drawing on paradigms such as World Englishes, English as a Lingua Franca, and English as an International Language, the paper critically examines how assumptions about language norms, users, pedagogy, assessment, ideology, and teacher education require reconceptualization. Each dimension foregrounds the need to move beyond static, idealized native-speaker models toward dynamic, usage-based, and context-sensitive understandings of English communication. Collectively, the framework highlights the importance of aligning curriculum, instruction, assessment, and teacher beliefs with the plural, multilingual, and ideologically embedded nature of English in the twenty-first century. The paper concludes that a paradigm shift in ELT is both timely and necessary to ensure pedagogical relevance and social responsiveness in an increasingly superdiverse world.

The purpose of this article is to present a systematic reflection on my experience teaching international English as a Second Language (ESL) students about Indigenous rights and reconciliation in a year-long university ESL course in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. Teaching materials and activities originally aimed to engage students in a pre-political form of intercultural citizenship engagement with the historical struggles and contemporary realities of Indigenous communities in Canada. Over a six-week period, I engaged in a journaling process to (1) explore the opportunities and challenges of teaching this topic in an online course environment and (2) reflect on my attempts to support and challenge students to critically examine their views and assumptions about cultural diversity in Canada and within their own cultural contexts. A qualitative analysis of the reflective notes revealed that students’ engagement with the course activities designed for this theme was limited. While students completed all required tasks, their discussions and artifacts suggest that engaging with reconciliation from a distance constitutes a complex demand for their intercultural learning. This complexity was reflected in students’ reliance on surface-level engagement rather than sustained critical or dialogic exploration. These findings raise questions about the pedagogical framing of the activities, the temporal and experiential distance of the learning context, and the role these factors may have played in constraining students’ ability to meaningfully engage with reconciliation as a lived and ethically charged process. Drawing on scholarship addressing the ethical challenges of the teacher role and positionality in teaching sensitive topics within intercultural citizenship education (ICE), this article concludes with a reflexive discussion of instructional intentions, ethical tensions, and design considerations that may inform future intercultural citizenship pedagogy in similarly constrained teaching and learning contexts.

Many English language learners face difficulties when they enter academic contexts, even after studying English for several years as the foundation of the General English is not that developed. Academic English requires not only subject-specific vocabulary, but also the ability to understand spoken and written information and organize it logically. Note-taking is one of the key skills that connects General English learning with academic success. This article discusses how improvement in General English gradually leads to better Academic English performance, with a special focus on note-taking skills. The discussion is based on classroom experience and reflective teaching practice. At the beginning, students struggled to take notes because of limited vocabulary and weak listening comprehension. As their General English improved, their ability to identify key ideas and record information meaningfully also developed. The article suggests that note-taking should be taught step by step, starting from simple General English tasks and moving toward academic contexts.

Cultural discourse studies, Global Englishes and transcultural communication: shared agendas

This study examines code-switching and the nativization of English in Sichuan-Chongqing hip-hop from a World Englishes perspective. Analysis of 30 songs reveals that English is strategically embedded through inter/intra-sentential switching and undergoes phonetic, morphosyntactic, and semantic localization. This transforms English into a stylistic resource for expressing local identity within global hip-hop culture.

Feedback on multilingual writing is a central yet contested feature of English language education, historically guided by narrow, prescriptive norms. Drawing on our experience as researchers and editors in the fields of global Englishes and academic writing, this viewpoint article critiques conventional feedback practices that privilege prescriptive native-speaker standards and marginalise multilingual writers. We argue for a reconceptualisation of feedback as an inclusive, dialogic process that aims to improve rhetorical effectiveness and mirrors the linguistically diverse contexts within which the written language is used. The paper explores how teacher-, peer- and artificial intelligence-generated feedback can reinforce or resist normative bias, and examines the structural challenges that inhibit change, including high-stakes expectations and institutional pressures. We propose that feedback, when guided by global Englishes and translingual principles, and supported by emerging forms of critical digital literacy, can empower writers to participate confidently and equitably in global and academic discourses.

This corpus-based study provides a contrastive insight into the interactive influence of logical operators on clause complexing in local and international English journals in applied linguistics from the systemic functional linguistic perspective. The data comprised 320 method sections of research articles in international and local journals from 2016 to 2022. Following Halliday’s clause complexing pattern, the logico-semantic relations between clause nexuses were coded as simplex, paratactic, or hypotactic clauses and were contrastively analyzed. The results revealed a distinct difference between local and international authors in applying logical operators in simplex and complex clauses and navigating readers’ interpretation patterns. The qualitative analysis attributed this distinct difference to complex, explicit, and reader-oriented information structure which contributed to the fact that maintaining coherence through discourse markers requires the application of adept interactive clause complexing strategies. The cognitive and interactive functions of logical operators shape the systemic selection of clause complexes to optimize the presentation of information for a specific, non-present audience. The findings of this study may assist academic writing teachers in explicitly instructing novice academic authors to employ logical operators proficiently in simplex and complex clauses and manage interactive information structure.

This randomized controlled trial investigated the efficacy of immersive virtual platforms, specifically Gather Town, for enhancing listening comprehension in English-as-a-foreign-language instruction compared to traditional classroom approaches. Involving 240 2nd-year students, the study assessed listening processing speed using the novel Listening Comprehension Words per Minute assessment tool and International English Language Testing System scores. Results demonstrated significant improvements in both metrics for students engaged in Gather Town instruction, with disproportionately greater gains observed in lower-proficiency learners. The decision-tree analysis further identified baseline characteristics predictive of learning outcomes, providing data-driven insights for personalized educational technology deployment. This research addressed critical gaps in technology-enhanced language learning by validating the effectiveness of immersive environments for listening skills.

This RESEARCH aims to explore postgraduate students' awareness of World Englishes (WE) and its implications for English teaching in Indonesia. There are 5 Postgraduate of English Education students from the University of Muhammadiyah Makassar participated in semi-structured interviews exploring their understanding of world englishes, attitudes toward English varieties, and teaching orientations. The results showed that most students understood WE as a diverse English language, encompassing variations in accent, vocabulary, and grammatical structures that reflect the socio-cultural contexts of users. Students generally accepted non-native English varieties and emphasized intelligibility over accent uniformity or native speaker standards, although some still considered British and American English as ideal models. Pedagogically, students with higher WE awareness tended to adopt inclusive teaching approaches, value linguistic diversity, and emphasize effective communication. These findings emphasize the importance of integrating WE into teacher education to support teaching practices that are contextualized, inclusive, and aligned with global English usage.

Global Englishes is an emerging line of research that has recently garnered interest from language teaching scholars. Previous studies have extensively investigated the implementation of Global Englishes in the university context but have largely ignored its implementation at other classroom contexts (e.g. elementary, secondary and teacher education). Guided by a collaborative autoethnography, we explored our professional experiences implementing Global Englishes language teaching across classroom contexts. Through introspective, reflective and collaborative exploration, we uncovered different Global Englishes language teaching pedagogical approaches, which could be characterized as content-focused, integrated, and critical and transformative. Each approach differs in its overarching objective for Global Englishes language teaching implementation, specifically for each learner group. Our findings highlight the prospects and possibilities of the Global Englishes language teaching framework for being specifically tailored to different classroom contexts.

This study investigated the vocabulary profile of the Maritime English (ME) textbook Effective Communication at Sea: Mastering SMCP for Maritime Safety and Efficiency (Batu, 2024). Employing a mixed-methods corpus content analysis, a 35,000-token corpus was processed through AntConc to determine lexical frequency across K1, K2, and K3 (off-list/technical) levels, alongside a qualitative semantic audit of polysemic terms and SMCP alignment. Results reveal a distinctive lexical distribution of 72.5% K1, 8.0% K2, and 19.5% K3 tokens, indicating a high technical density optimized for vocational training. Grammatical analysis shows a heavy dominance of nouns (60%) and verbs (30%), reflecting the action-oriented nature of maritime commands. The study confirmed the presence of critical polysemic shifts in high-frequency words (e.g., bridge, draft, head), where meanings deviate drastically from general English. Finally, qualitative evaluation confirms that the textbook achieves high functional integration of IMO-mandated Standard Marine Communication Phrases (SMCP) across both internal and external communication categories. These findings establish a data-driven "70-10-20" vocabulary profile model for the design and audit of vocational maritime instructional materials

This mixed methods study examines how English teacher candidates in Türkiye construct teacher linguistic legitimacy around English accents through Global Englishes and raciolinguistic perspectives. A verbal-guise task (N = 59) and semi-structured interviews (n = 5) showed a consistent hierarchy. Standardised North American and British Englishes and German English were rated higher, while Turkish and Arabic Englishes were rated lower. Quantitative data were analysed using linear mixed-effects models, and interview data were analysed through thematic coding complemented by micro-discourse analysis. Prior Global Englishes coursework did not significantly moderate ratings. Interview discourse showed that preferences were often reframed as “intelligibility,” and hierarchies were reproduced through staffing, curricula, and racialised marketing. Exposure to multiple Englishes alone was insufficient to disrupt entrenched hierarchies of linguistic legitimacy, pointing to sustained identity-oriented curricular work.

Lexical variation plays a pivotal role in linguistics by facilitating the codification of new lexical items, the emergence of New Englishes, and the global recognition of World Englishes. This study presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of Scopus-indexed research on lexical variation to identify key trends, thematic focuses, and emerging directions within the field. Using R-based bibliometric tools, the dataset of international publications was systematically analyzed to reveal influential authors, dominant themes, and leading journals. Dialectology emerged as the most extensively studied theme, Dirk Geeraerts as a prolific author, and the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics as a leading outlet. The United States leads in publication output and citation impact, while the Federal University of Bahia is among the most influential affiliated institutions. Co-citation analysis demonstrates the intellectual structure and interdisciplinary connections in the field. The findings highlight growing scholarly interest in lexical variation and underscore the role of sociocultural factors in shaping linguistic identity, innovation, and variation. Future research is encouraged to explore the social dimensions of lexical diversity and examine how technological platforms, including AI- and IoT-driven learning environments, influence language use, emphasizing the need for linguistically inclusive systems.