Despite an increasing number of studies that explore language learning beyond the classroom (LBC), research examining LBC activities in relation to in-class learning is very limited. This paper investigates what kinds of LBC activities university students of Chinese and Japanese in Australia engage in and how they connect these activities to…

Despite the difficulty of defining young adult literature (YAL), the benefits of it have been well recognised for adolescent learners. With the aim of exploring pedagogical approaches to L2 literature, this study reports on a YAL reading programme carried out in a secondary EFL classroom in China. To gain both teacher and student perspectives,…

The aim of this study is to investigate the outcomes of teacher educator-initiated action research (AR) process at a teacher education institution in southern Argentina. This process was triggered by a challenge which emerged in the 2016 academic year: how to teach a linguistics module through English to low-level English language users in the…

This study reports on the evaluation of long-term impact of four intercultural citizenship projects undertaken in university foreign language classrooms. Curricular developments based on Byram's intercultural citizenship theory have demonstrated the immediate impact including the development of self and intercultural awareness, criticality, social…

This study explored the experiences and language gains of Chinese-background English language learners living in homestays during a short-term study abroad (SA) programme in Australia. Forty-one learners took part in listening dictation pre- and post-tests to assess their acquisition of idiomatic phrasal verbs, and also completed weekly journals…

Watching foreign language programmes and films with captions (same-language subtitles intended for the deaf and hard-of-hearing) has been shown to assist learners in phonetic retuning, vocabulary acquisition and listening comprehension [e.g. Mitterer and McQueen, 2009. Foreign subtitles help but native-language subtitles harm foreign speech…

Studies of reflective practices among pre-service teachers focus mostly on teaching practice and very rarely on the acquisition of academic knowledge. The aim of this study was to examine the reflections of 25 pre-service teachers in online forums and weblogs focused on their learning in two literary pedagogical courses. A total of 97 online forum…

This paper reports on a quasi-experimental study of the effect of different vocabulary study materials and strategies used by upper-intermediate English as a foreign language students in higher education. Students were assigned a selection of 163 words from the Academic Word List and were provided with different types of study materials. They were…

The research reported here explored how students' use of language learning strategies (LLS) was affected by their academic major. The data were collected by asking students to keep a four-week diary, and then the findings were examined within the model of learning developed by Biggs. An analysis of diary entries showed that, although there were…

This article reports on part of a larger study of the impact of strategy training in listening on learners of French, aged 16 to 17. One aim of the project was to investigate whether such training might have a positive effect on the self-efficacy of learners, by helping them see the relationship between the strategies they employed and what they…

Discusses a case study of student diaries kept by second-year learners of Portuguese in a university Hispanic studies degree program. Diary entries reflected students' attitudes toward the course, the instructor, particular lessons, and to the Portuguese language in general. (15 references) (MDM)