This volume presents state-of-the-art research in early foreign language (L2) education in instructed contexts with a special focus on primary school (ages 5-12). Over the past two decades, early language teaching has become an important factor in both academic inquiry and education policy. Studies have attested to the value of early L2 learning…

In today's educational world, it is crucial for language teachers to continuously evolve in order to best serve language learners. Further study on the best practices and challenges in the language classroom is crucial to ensure instructors continue to grow as educators. The "Handbook of Research on Language Teacher Identity" addresses…

This regional dossier aims to provide a concise, description and basic statistics about minority language education in a specific region of Europe. The glottonym Croatian in Austria covers two linguistic realities, namely the recognised minority language of Burgenland Croats and the Croatian standard language as a migrant language of the recent…

This edited book documents practices of learning-oriented language assessment through practitioner research and research syntheses. Learning-oriented language assessment refers to language assessment strategies that capitalise on learner differences and their relationships with the learning environments. In other words, learners are placed at the…

This regional dossier aims to provide a concise description of the European minority language, Danish, in education. Aspects that are addressed include features of the education system, recent educational policies, main actors, legal arrangements and support structures, as well as quantitative aspects such as the number of schools, teachers,…

This book presents a set of compelling essays collectively making a persuasive case for why a usage-based perspective on language is fast becoming a leading theoretical framework for investigating second language (L2) learning and the foundation for effective, innovative, engaging pedagogy. Drawing on 20 years of research in psychology,…

This edited volume brings together large-scale research as well as case studies from a range of geographical contexts and represents a variety of educational settings involving second language learners and users. Its aim is to explore the interrelated issues of psychology and technology use in second language learning settings as well as in more…

This regional dossier aims to provide a concise description of the European minority language, German in South Tyrol, in education. Aspects that are addressed include features of the education system, recent educational policies, main actors, legal arrangements and support structures, as well as quantitative aspects such as the number of schools,…

This ethnographic study explores aspects of bilingual education in two early childhood German-English education centres in Australia. Using various sources of data and multiple methods of analysis, it investigates the processes at work when establishing and implementing a bilingual programme and examines the language attitudes, ideologies and…

This regional dossier aims to provide concise, descriptive information and basic educational statistics about minority language education in a specific region of the European Union--the northwestern part of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Details are provided about the features of the educational system, recent educational policies,…

Examining the overseas experience of language learners in diverse contexts through a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, studies in this volume look at the acquisition of language use, socialization processes, learner motivation, identity and learning strategies. In this way, the volume offers a privileged window into learner…

Communication-based teaching techniques are described that lead German language students from input to output in a stimulating and motivating learning environment. Input activities are most useful for presenting speech acts, vocabulary, and grammar; output activities, for fine-tuning those areas as well as for expanding students' productive…

A study examined second language article acquisition by analyzing the spoken interlanguage of speakers of five different native languages, three with no article system (Chinese, Japanese, and Russian) and two with article systems (Spanish and German). Informal interviews of four speakers of each language at successive levels of interlanguage…

Discussion of Gal'perin's theory of step-by-step formation of mental actions includes descriptions of experimental applications of this activity approach to teaching foreign languages. Constructing and understanding sentences are discussed, and activities for the construction of a sentence and the orientation base of action (OBA) for German,…

A listing of substantial, known adult speech error corpora includes seven major corpora in English, 11 in languages other than English (German, Swedish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Japanese, and Thai), information on seven collectors of smaller English samples, and two references for anecdotal samples, one in French and one in Welsh. Each major…