This study examined the relationships between students' foreign language classroom anxiety and cognitive test anxiety and their College English Test Band 4 (CET-4) performance. A questionnaire was distributed to 921 Chinese university students to understand the nature and degree of the examined relationships. Follow-up interviews with 12 students were used to shed further light on uncovering mechanisms of relationships found in the survey. Results revealed three factors of anxiety, explaining 43. 14% of the total variance examined in the quesionnaire items. Means, standard deviations, the internal consistency for each factor, and zero-order correlations among the three factors were calculated. Correlation and multiple regression of the anxiety factors and test scores were then conducted. Results confirmed that cognitive test anxiety factor was a significant negative predictor of language achievement. Interview results did not fully support the relationships found in the survey. Most students did not perceive themselves to be very anxious in their university settings, either in classrooms or in testing situations. However, they did express their anxiety toward English speaking skills in the classroom. The differential perspectives of anxiety revealed from both analyses indicate that a better understanding of language classroom anxiety and cognitive test anxiety can help students and teachers optimize their foreign langauge learning and teaching practices.

This study investigates the feedback practices and perceptions of lecturers and students in a UK university setting. To assess how lecturers give feedback in practice, 47 pieces of lecturer-written feedback were categorised into a total of 571 analytical points.Analysing the feedback from lecturers' perspectives in terms of the value of feedback, the role of feedback and the effectiveness of feedback helps in an understanding of the rationale for and effects of feedback provision. The results of feedback analyses from students' perspectives show the impact of individual background and intercultural communication barriers on the effective reception of feedback. Differences were identified between students and lecturers' views of feedback as an assessment for learning tool.

different and much more academically oriented than at the three lower levels.In summary, the GEPT appears to be a solid, traditional test battery with a focus on high practicality at the three lower levels, whereas the two upper levels resemble more recent generations of academically and communicatively oriented tests. The test is widely available throughout Taiwan (at least at the lower levels) and less costly for test takers than other options like TOEFL or IELTS. Construct validation research, investigations of social and educational impact, and empirical anchoring of can-do statements appear to be the most pressing items for GEPT research.

An ameliorated ultrawide band (UWB) and high‐gain microstrip antenna based on planar metamaterial is presented and discussed in this paper. The proposed antenna with a compact size of 32 × 28 × 0.794 mm3 has mesh‐shaped patch and patterned ground plane with crossed strip gaps. By means of novel planar metamaterial structure, impedance bandwidth and gain own a significant improvement. The simulations show that the antenna has a super‐wide band (less than −10 dB), from 3.06 GHz to 36.4 GHz, covering the entire UWB frequency band (from 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz) set by FCC. Within the operating band of concern, the antenna gain can reach as high as 8.02 dB. Due to the surface wave coming from the patterned patch and ground plane, the antenna presents end‐fire directional radiation in the higher frequency region. To validate the simulation results, a prototype is fabricated and measured. And the measured results are in good agreement with the simulation results. It is obvious that advantages mentioned above will enable the proposed antenna to be well applied in the short‐range wireless communication system.

No abstract