One of the most prevalent speech acts across languages and cultures is apologizing. It plays an important role in conversations which helps maintain social relationships. Many researchers in this field have proposed several apology strategies; however, this article aims to examine the direct apology strategies and the lexicogrammatical realizations of utterances, including apologies in English conversations. This is a descriptive qualitative study that gathered data from conversations extracted from romance and family film scripts. This study was also supported with quantitative information in order to seek the answers to three research questions. The findings show that expression of regret was the most prominent direct apology strategy, which the characters took advantage of in English-language conversations in film scripts. In terms of lexico-grammar, the utterances with the occurrence of sorry and its other realizations appeared most frequently.

The present research aimed to examine the learning strategies for the IELTS test preparation to meet the English learning outcomes (ELOs) used by students majoring in English Language Teaching (ELT) in Vietnamese universities, especially at the University of Foreign Language Studies – the University of Da Nang (UFLS-UD) and provided solutions to improve their IELTS test preparation efficiency. Data were collected from the questionnaires completed by 120 English language teaching (ELT) students, the in-depth interviews with 10 student informants, 5 experts in English teaching, and 10 students who have taken the IETLS test to meet the ELOs. The findings showed that most student informants chose the IELTS test to meet the ELOs requirements and did some preparation for the test. Regarding the learning strategies, practicing English pronunciation and communication skills were used for speaking, listening to the audio, watching English videos for listening, reading the IELTS writing samples, and learning grammar for writing. To overcome problems faced by informants, some suggested solutions were proposed, such as employing self-study strategies, practicing the IELTS sample test, attending IELTS courses, sitting for the IELTS mocks, and finding support from lecturers.