This paper explores the reasons for migrant new speakers of Welsh in Cardiff to learn the language given that English is the main communication medium in everyday life. From interviews with 10 migrant new speakers of Welsh and their language diaries, this paper shows that migrant new speakers were interested in accessing the Welsh culture and…

This paper presents findings from observations of literary translation workshops with secondary-school MFL pupils, revolving around a literary translation from L2 to L1 which does not require pre-existing language skills in the L2. Our research questions were: what skills do pupils mobilise when they work in groups on a literary translation? What…

Based on fieldwork in North West Wales, this article examines motivations of Polish post-2004 migrants to Wales to study Welsh and their learner trajectories on the journey to becoming new speakers. Previous studies on Poles in Wales, based mostly in South West and South Wales, concentrated on various social aspects of the lives of the migrants…

L2 acquisition is a complicated process in which many parameters intertwine. Reported strategy use in L2 learning has been extensively researched in relation to factors that are likely to determine it, such as positive attitudes towards English as a foreign language (EFL) learning. In this paper, we investigated another potential determinant of…

This study investigated the agency of children, parents and teachers in a Serbian-English bilingual preschool. The focus was on uncovering the kind of agency each of these groups exercised in the process of language learning by examining the children's linguistic behaviour and the role that parents and teachers had in motivating children learning…

While research data concerning study abroad experiences of tertiary level students are easily accessible, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of international programmes in pre-service foreign language (FL) teacher education. The present study involved student teachers of English from three countries and aimed to explore their…

This study investigated Korean heritage speakers' Korean language proficiency (i.e. morphosyntax, collocation, and lexicon) in relation to their attitudes, motivation, and age at immigration (AI). Seventy-six adult Korean-Australians with Korean literacy participated. Overall, participants showed high levels of Korean proficiency in all three…

The present article carries out an in-depth analysis of the differences in motivation, input-related variables and linguistic attainment of the students at two content and language integrated learning (CLIL) schools operating within the same institutional and educational context, the Spanish region of Extremadura, and differing only in terms of…

This study focuses on how beginner learners in a task-based teaching and learning (TBTL) environment perceive what is motivating to them in the process of learning Chinese as a foreign language at Aalborg University, Denmark. Drawing upon empirical data from surveys, group interviews and participant observation, this study explores which kinds of…

This study investigated the influence of cultural bias in the teaching of English and in the books used to teach English in primary schools attended by Khoe students in eastern Botswana. The study also explored the link between cultural bias and the attitudes and motivation of Khoe students learning English. One hundred and thirty-seven students…

A qualitative, ethnographic investigation of a Canadian, undergraduate, advanced Hebrew course composed of heritage language learners of diverse backgrounds examined the fluctuating notion of the target language (TL) community in second language teaching. Data collection techniques of participant observation, in-depth, semi-structured focus group…

Studied learning motivation of English by Cantonese-speaking students in Hong Kong. Students answered a questionnaire and were assigned on the basis of their responses to four categories of motivational regulation proposed in Deci and Ryan (1985): External, Identified, and Integrated. Suggests that the transition from Identified to Integrated…

There is continuing interest in the notion of learner autonomy, both as an effective means and valid goal of a language learning curriculum. However, the concept is recognised as emanating from Western tertiary educational contexts and as open to question in different sociocultural settings. This paper reports on a study of language learning…

The attitudes of 100 Israeli-Jewish students toward learning Arabic and coexistence with Arabs within Israel were investigated, as was their evaluation of characters they read about in familiar and unfamiliar texts. The students were found to possess low instrumental and low indoors integrative motivation, but their army service motivation and…

Investigated the potentiality that culture studies has to motivate Tawainese junior-high-school pupils to learn English, and tried to establish the relations between pupil interests in culture studies and their orientations, attitudes, and motivation toward learning English. Grade 1 and 2 students (n=480) from Taipei City and Taipei County…