In today's world, millions of people can speak more than one language. Culture plays a critical role when learning a foreign language. Whether the culture is to be added to target language teaching has been an important issue throughout teaching history. The bridge between culture and language has always been a big challenge, according to teachers…

This paper gives an account of the history of foreign language values in Sweden from the seventeenth century to the present. The paper is informed by sociocultural standpoints on language and language learning according to which language is a dynamic tool that is appropriated by individuals to achieve particular purposes, and that dialogically…

This paper investigates trends in the study of Modern languages or second foreign languages (SFLs) in Swedish lower secondary school between 2000 and 2018. Over the last decades, SFLs, i.e. French, German and Spanish, have been the target of several policy measures as a response to a declining interest. However, few reports on their impact have…

The claim to strive for greater internationalisation in the fields of academic education not only corresponds to the pressures of an increasingly globalised world but is also a response to the ever-growing challenges of cultural diversity that exist within one's own country. For students, however, the geographical space relevant to their education…

This study investigates lexical transfer in four German learners' oral production of L3 Swedish. They have already learned English as an L2. The point of departure is Williams and Hammarberg's [1998. Language switches in L3 production: implications for a polyglot speaking model. "Applied Linguistics," 19, 295-333] case study in which…

In Swedish compulsory school, students can choose to study a modern language in addition to English, i.e., French, Spanish, or German. Since 1994, instruction time for modern languages has been extended, the learning objectives have been made more attainable, and national assessment materials have been introduced. The government made these changes…

The 25th European Association of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (EUROCALL) conference was hosted by Modern Languages and Linguistics at the University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom, from the 23rd to the 26th of August 2017. The theme of the conference was "CALL in a climate of change." The theme encompassed the notion of how…

Although Belgium is characterized by a widespread consensus that a functional proficiency in the two major national languages, Dutch and French, as well as in English is desirable, educational provision to achieve such proficiency has long been constrained by an official language policy which mandates that education must be monolingual in Dutch,…

Learning a third language (TL) brings with it particular pedagogical demands. In the pedagogy of TL learning now emerging, the development of students' metalinguistic and crosslinguistic awareness is of central importance. In particular, emphasis is placed on the benefits of cross-referencing with supporter languages. While comparisons with…

In this paper I will show the preliminary findings from my study of the discourse in synchronous written chats performed by students who study modern German literature within their first term of German studies. The focus of the study is on learning strategies and discourse strategies and how the Swedish learners make use of them when chatting with…

EUROCALL 2013's theme was "20 Years of EUROCALL: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future." The conference seeked to establish an overview of EUROCALL's twentieth anniversary. As a professional organization, EUROCALL has been aiming, along its 20 years of existence, to promote innovative research, development and practice in the…

The 23rd EUROCALL conference was held in Cyprus from the 24th to the 27th of August 2016. The theme of the conference this year was "CALL Communities and Culture." It offered a unique opportunity to hear from real-world CALL practitioners on how they practice CALL in their communities, and how the CALL culture has developed in local and…

The four articles in this issue of a series of working papers focus on the promotion of culture in foreign language instruction. The first article, "The Promotion of Culture in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden," looks at language instruction in French, English, and German in the school systems of these countries since the 1950s, and how the…

Looks at the large-scale experiments on the testing of oral proficiency in English, French, and German that have been carried out over the last five years in the Swedish gymnasium. Various kinds of tasks and different grading criteria have been used, and the practical problems of scheduling and of teacher training have been discussed. (nine…

An attempt was made to further the understanding of foreign language proficiencies and to formulate methods of testing them. Language testing is needed as a criterion of the efficacy of teaching. Consideration of the curriculum and analysis of the texts used would aid in test construction. A discussion of the design and content of language tests…