This paper explores ways to integrate social justice issues pertaining to decolonization and anti-racism into the world language classroom at all levels of instruction. It describes tasks designed to introduce language learners briefly to German colonialism, raise awareness of colonial legacies in contemporary German-speaking societies, and…

Foreign language teaching achieves best learning outcomes when individual differences of learners are taken into account. While it is difficult for teachers to support internal differentiation in the classroom, digital tools can adaptively propose individual learning paths through activities so that students can practice with appropriately…

Although calls for responding to migration-related diversity in education are not novel, few studies have examined linguistic and affective outcomes of diversity-sensitive approaches for vocabulary teaching. This article reports on an intervention study in which beginner English-foreign-language learners (N = 51, M[subscript age] = 8.67 years)…

The results of a transatlantic survey on technology-mediated Task-Based Language Learning (TBLL) are presented and discussed. The study was conducted within the scope of the European-funded Pan-European Task Activities for Language Learning (PETALL) project. The aim was to determine the teachers' acquaintance with TBLL and with the potential of…

More than ever, faculty need to ensure that undergraduate curricula not only provide students with tools to gain linguistic proficiency but also teach them to analyze both written and visual information to attain historical literacy. Developing both intercultural proficiency and insights into various historical memorialization processes ensures…

What are the perceived effects of Telecollaboration (TC), compared to other types of communication-scenarios with peers (i.e. local peers in small groups and Erasmus students abroad)? This is the question this exploratory study tackles within a blended language learning course. The analysis of students' perceptions paints a rather contrastive…

The main focus of early foreign language learning in Europe is on the development of oral skills. In the classroom, speaking is usually reproductive and imitative and activities aim at the production of closely supported accurate output. Opportunities for young learners to experiment with the language and to use it productively outside of fixed…

The interesting teaching and learning of Malay languages is a challenging effort and need a relevant plan to the students' needs especially for the foreign students who already have the basic Indonesian Malay language variation that they have learned for four semesters in their own country, Germany. Therefore, the variety of teaching and learning…

Research into the online informal learning of English (OILE) examines how nonnative speakers of English may develop L2 skills through participation in leisure activities on the Internet in the target language. Such activities include, e.g., watching television series, films, or videos, interacting on Facebook, reading articles, or listening to…

This article is based on the teaching experiment implemented in summer 2013 in a modern Finnish literature course organised by the Centre for International Mobility (CIMO) and the University of Jyväskylä Language Centre. In order to break away from the traditional conception of literature and text, students' independent blogging was chosen as the…

Our contribution focuses on synchronous oral telecollaboration in secondary schools. With reference to the EU project TILA, aspects of task design and implementation are discussed against the backdrop of issues of technological quality in connection with class organisation in computer labs. Case study evidence is provided in favour of the…

A vast array of studies has demonstrated that stimulating activities within the family (e.g., reading to child, singing together) positively affect children's development in various domains. However, this influence is less established for children of immigrants. This paper analyses the impact of familial activities on non-verbal cognitive skills…

This article describes an approach to working with foreign language texts in the classroom, "Stationenlernen," that takes the ongoing development of students' foreign language literacy as a goal. "Stationenlernen" is a pedagogical method common in German elementary schools and readily adapted to the foreign language classroom.…

This article describes how a course viewing East German literature from the perspective of the new Germany can be planned and taught, with special attention to text selection, class activities, and testing strategies designed to raise linguistic proficiency of students of different language levels in one literature class. (Author/AB)

A self-instructional unit for first-year high school students of German is presented which is designed to familiarize the student with McDonald's in a German city and to increase appreciation of the similarities and differences between a McDonald's in America and one in Germany. Notes to the teacher outline specific objectives, student evaluation,…