Every year, around 120 students of French at the University of Manchester (UoM) prepare to go on their compulsory Year Abroad (YA). They are free to choose between different options: studying in France and the French-speaking world, working in diverse sectors throughout the French-speaking world, or becoming a language assistant. This wealth of…

This article describes the extra support required for outgoing students on their Year Abroad (YA) journey. It highlights the increasing need for and relevance of peer mentoring of YA students in preparing them to deal with different structures and organisations where external support might be insufficient or even non-existent. It also outlines…

Corona Virus Disease or known as COVID-19 has had a profound impact that has spread among every cycle of educational context in a short period of time. In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, foreign language education, which was one of those affected cycles of educational context, had to be conducted by quitting physical settings, and the new…

This chapter will discuss how a Year Abroad (YA) assessment can incorporate language progress, cultural understanding, and personal development by showcasing the Interim Self-Reflection Evaluation Report (ISER), which was introduced in 2017-2018 as a piece of assessment for the YA in Japan at the University of Leeds. At the end of their first…

This volume draws together a selection of papers from YAC2018, the first meeting in the annual Year Abroad Conference series, which took place at Newcastle University in September 2018. The contributions collected here examine some of the opportunities, gains, and challenges the Year Abroad brings for both students and staff. They are presented…

This chapter examines a student-led internship project to repurpose a Residence Abroad (RA) reflective survey in order to achieve better meta-cognitive self-analysis and more productive communication between outgoing and returning students and staff. Evidence from the project and from scholarships pointed to the limitations of free-text reflective…

The Year Abroad (YA) is one of the most valuable parts of our language degree programmes. Here we discuss some of the elements that constitute the assessment Nottingham Trent University students carry out to earn a YA diploma. More specifically we compare the two elements (blog and dossier) that we think contribute most to reflective practice, by…

The recent technological developments and widespread use of mobile technologies challenge traditional knowledge and skills, with language learning increasingly taking place beyond the language classroom in learners' own environments. The paper presents the ImparApp study that focuses on a pervasive and gamified approach to language teaching and…

Language educators' goals include promoting cultural understanding and improving the language skills of their students. Virtual Exchange (VE) is a powerful means to do this. Students in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms often have few opportunities to communicate with other users of English. VE gives them virtual mobility, enabling…

Second Life is one of the many three-dimensional virtual environments accessible through a computer and a fast broadband connection. Thousands of participants connect to this platform to interact virtually with the world, join international communities of practice and, for some, role play groups. Unlike online role play games however, Second Life…

In recent years, several initiatives relating to pedagogical innovation have been implemented at the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (UPV), Spain, in order to integrate ICT into current teaching practices by means of combining the efforts made by teachers, students and the institution itself in terms of the support it provides. These three…

Enrollment in a foreign language course increasingly is becoming an essential part of college students' programs of study. As a result, there has been an influx of students with diverse backgrounds, interests, and aspirations enrolling in foreign language courses in order to fulfill degree requirements. Unfortunately, many students underachieve in…

A study conducted in the intensive English language program at Indiana University investigated: (1) the effects of students' language learning background (formal learning of English, exposure to and use of English in class, and extracurricular exposure to and use of English) on their performance on the Test of English as a Foreign Language…

This paper reports on a 2-year project carried out in a foreign language department at a research institution in the United States that intended to professionalize the language teaching faculty. A change in the university's core curriculum resulted in the implementation of the foreign language requirement for undergraduate students. This led to a…

The concept of equal educational opportunity is examined as it applies to recent Asian immigrants who are university students. It is proposed that recent immigrants, especially refugees, are deprived of equal education due to life circumstances and inadequate academic preparation. As such, many of them cannot be expected to compete with other U.S.…