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To help students who are learning English as a foreign language (EFL) to gain optimal exposure to authentic English, educators and app designers have developed various digital learning resources, including English vocabulary apps for EFL students, which can, without the barriers of time and space, integrate various media including audio-visual texts, assessment, and/or instant links to online dictionaries and Wikipedia. Nevertheless, English vocabulary learning, as an ongoing process (Schmitt, Schmitt & Clapham, 2001), means much more than just the convenient access of audio-visual materials. According to Gu and Johnson (1996), vocabulary learning strategies cover seven main categories of vocabulary learning strategies, which range from learners' beliefs about vocabulary learning, metacognitive regulation, guessing strategies, dictionary strategies, note-taking strategies, memory strategies (rehearsal), memory strategies (encoding), and activation strategies. To what extent vocabulary learning apps are helping students' vocabulary skills is of paramount concern to EFL teachers and apps designers. In light of this, this paper collected data from questionnaires, vocabulary tests, and interviews with EFL students and teachers at university in Hong Kong. It reveals and discusses the effectiveness of current English language learning apps for Hong Kong university students.

This paper aims to highlight the common cohesion and coherence mistakes made in Hong Kong students' English academic writing. According to research, one of the biggest challenges that most Chinese university students face is the difficulty in mastering coherence and cohesion in English written texts. Constructing fluent, effective and meaningful English written texts that hang together appropriately is a hard task for them. The main reason of the difficulty, as Ren (2013) suggests, is due to the widely varied thought patterns in English and Chinese, which are "rooted in different culture, or different philosophy, word system, and history in specific" (523). Influenced by the Chinese norm of social interaction, Chinese students learning English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) tend to convey their arguments in an indirect and circular pattern. Out of courtesy, the real intention of writing is often held back, and the thesis statement is inferred implicitly towards the end of the essay, rather than stated straightforwardly right at the beginning in the introduction. To improve Chinese students' English academic writing ability, it is imperative that ESL/EFL teachers raise their students' awareness towards the different understanding of coherence and cohesion in Chinese and English rhetorical patterns respectively.