Students leaving the Japanese secondary education system have typically spent hundreds of hours studying English grammatical structures and memorizing vocabulary lists but relatively little time putting that knowledge to communicative use. This lack of language practice can result in feelings of anxiety when faced with compulsory university…

Today the Framework for 21st Century Learning developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21) is widely recognized and has been used in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand. P21 defines and illustrates the skills and knowledge students need and states that critical thinking is fundamental for twenty-first century success and essential for…

Living in learning societies encourages learning outside the classroom. Alongside this reality, higher education institutions have been incorporating policies and procedures that support recognition of prior learning (RPL). This development means establishing adequate RPL assessment practices. Our empirical study at the Aalto University Language…

Since CercleS was created in 1990, language resource centres, or language centres, have offered learners various means to improve their language skills. They are often places where new pedagogical approaches and innovative learning environments are proposed (Rivens Mompean 2011). As the names of some of the associations belonging to CercleS…

The Language Centre of the University of Parma is responsible for the organization and administration of foreign language tests to a large number of university students. In order to reduce the high rate of test failures, the Language Centre has recently devised a pilot programme as an alternative to more established modes of language learning,…

This article explains the relevance of the "Common European Framework of Reference for Languages" (CEFR) and the European Language Portfolio (ELP) to language learning in higher education, especially as regards the definition of aims and learning outcomes and the promotion of students' capacity to manage their own learning. After…