This chapter argues for the integration of public engagement into language teaching in order to respond to the current challenging environment for language study. "Impact teaching" seeks to develop language education through engagement with audiences beyond the classroom and especially outside higher education. One illustration of this…

Within the parameters of the new Erasmus programme, this Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) combines virtual exchange with physical mobility. There were three institutions involved in this project: Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Ireland, Hochschule Bremerhaven, Germany, and Malaga Healthcare College, Spain. The virtual exchange ran for five…

This paper focuses on the impact of introducing a Group Dynamics Training Activity (GDTA) on learners' reported engagement during the course. The context is a university Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR) B2 French language online course over the course of two semesters. Data was collected in the form of online surveys…

While an extended stay abroad is generally assumed to be a valuable experience, some students are reluctant to take up the opportunity. To understand this phenomenon better, this study looks at students' concerns before they embark on their time abroad (to undertake a study placement, work placement, or a language assistantship) and looks at…

In this study we explore how the physical movements teachers use can lead to improved interactions between students in a university language course. The study used video to capture and analyse an intervention focusing on the effects of teacher nodding. Results showed that positive measurable differences were found in students' physical postural…

There is no doubt that telecollaboration currently plays an important role in foreign language learning and, not less so, in the field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Guth (2020) highlighted how telecollaboration has rapidly evolved in the past years as an innovative approach, and how it has brought together a whole community of academics…

This paper examines learners' perceptions of using Moodle books in the online course module "Contemporary society: conflicts and consensus" at Casa Grande University, Ecuador. It describes how learners perceived the use of Moodle books in 48-hour English content based courses. Courses were designed for final year students with a B2…

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…

This chapter examines student experiences of wellbeing during the Year Abroad (YA). Drawing on the responses to a student questionnaire by a cohort of language students at Warwick, this piece identifies the challenges to student wellbeing while abroad. Defining wellbeing as a 'see-saw' which requires a balance of challenge and resource to remain…

The purpose of this chapter is to present peer group mediation as one of the assessment practices within Teletandem Brasil, a Virtual Exchange (VE) project which uses tandem practice between university students of different countries for foreign language learning, carried out through videoconferencing tools. Peer group mediation sessions are…

Although smartphones have become normalised in people's everyday behaviours, they remain under-exploited from a language learning perspective. This paper describes a study in an Irish university which explored the nature and extent of language learners' existing use of smartphones for informal learning purposes through a survey, a case study, and…

The year abroad is one of the most exciting yet challenging aspects of studying modern languages. In addition to the difficulties that all students face in transitioning to the year abroad, students of Arabic face the challenge of Arabic diglossia, given the existence of different written and spoken language varieties. To help with the transition…

Globalisation amplifies the need to improve Intercultural Communicative Competences (ICC). However, telecollaborative cross-cultural communication may be affected by different factors such as morals, values, and differences in viewpoints, as observed in numerous European and North American projects. Still, there is a dearth of experiments from the…

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the on-campus teaching mode at local universities in Iceland changed to distance teaching and synchronous classes online. This rapid and unexpected change also affected the learners. Although videoconferencing was used as the main point of reference, this method turned out to be less suitable for synchronous online…