"In 2012," European Union Member States committed to implement policies for the "Validation of Nonformal and Informal Learning" (VNFIL). In this article, we examine Austria and Italy and ask how VNFIL policies in these two countries relate to "informal learning" (IL) and how this can be interpreted from a…

A Virtual World, the "Sustainability Hub" island, was developed and widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic, to support schools with distance-learning lessons, and the new mandatory Civic Education curriculum in Italy. Using a gamification approach, students learned about Agenda 2030 and sustainability focusing especially on themes…

Purpose: Public libraries play a pivotal role in supporting education and literacy. They provide numerous services, activities, collections and resources for education and leisure. Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) is an international renowned public library that provides numerous services for different users worldwide. E-learning is an emergent and…

The paper reports the first results of an experience of university teaching innovation in progress. It is based on multiple means of "Engagement", "Representation", and "Action & Expression" in the framework of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approach. The action repeats, with some improvements, a previous…

Intensive language programs have increased in popularity in recent years. They are perceived as a means to help current or prospective university students improve their language competencies and academic skills in their medium(s) of instruction in a short amount of time prior to enrolment and/or parallel to their degree courses. However, there has…

Open Online Courses can serve different purposes: in the case of Orient@mente at the University of Torino, they aim at facilitating the transition from secondary to tertiary education with automatic evaluation tests that students can try in order to understand their capabilities in - and their attitude towards - certain disciplines, and with…

This article presents the findings of a comparative study of values-based adult learning and education (ALE) fields; specifically, in Austria, critical-emancipatory adult basic education; Scotland, learner-centered, community-based adult learning; and South Tyrol, Italy, the "Winterschule," a radical-critical popular education format. We…

This study brings together two previously largely independent fields of multilingual language acquisition: heritage language and third language (L3) acquisition. We investigate the production of fortis and lenis stops in semi-naturalistic speech in the three languages of 20 heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian with German as a majority language and…

This research assessed the impact of study abroad and classroom-based cultural experiences on traditional college students' cultural intelligence (CQ) levels, as measured through the standardized Cultural Intelligence Survey. Data from students participating in cultural experiences were collected using the Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS). The…

There is no doubt that Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) and mobile mediated communication are linked as technology continues to transform the way we communicate with each other. Campbell (2019) analyzed how mobile communication evolved into portable devices to form a complete system of mobile media, reshaping the fabric of our social lives…

The present study investigates whether exposure to multilingual pedagogies enhances emergent bilingual children's narrative abilities. These abilities are among the most reliable indicators of children's literacy skills. We compare two groups of emergent bilingual children with migrant background attending the fourth and fifth grade of a public…

The 'Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies' (PIAAC), developed and managed by the OECD, is an important source of knowledge about adult skills as well as an intervention in the field of education policy. One level of the intervention is the presence of PIAAC results in public media and debate. This article presents a…

This study compared individuals from two first language (L1) backgrounds (Italian, Mandarin) to determine how they may differ in their perception of Japanese consonant length (i.e. singleton vs. geminate) according to the phonemic status of length in L1 and experience with Japanese. The participants included two groups of non-native learners of…

In recent years, there has been a rapid rise in the number of universities offering students opportunities to study abroad. Traditional semester-long programs have been shortened with many new programs ranging anywhere from 1 to 8 weeks in length. The increased number of short-term programs has enabled professional degree programs, such as…

It has been shown that morphological skills are particularly enhanced in bilingual children, whereas they are compromised in dyslexics. The aim of this work is that of investigating how bilingualism interacts with dyslexia in a task measuring the subject's morphological abilities, to verify if the advantage typically found in bilingualism arises…