This study looks at the effectiveness of an intervention to improve student retention on a distance language course. Of the six beginners' language courses offered by the UK's Open University, the beginners' Welsh course has consistently had the lowest retention rates since it was first presented in 2008. In order to address this, a project was…

In an increasingly multilingual world, the question of how to improve foreign language speaking skills of pupils in British schools is of paramount importance to language teachers and policy-makers today. This paper examines how an explicit focus on metacognitive strategy use within secondary school foreign language lessons impacts pupils'…

This study comes in response to recent changes in UK policy, whereby Ancient Greek and Latin have been included alongside modern languages as part of the curriculum at Key Stage 2. It aims to understand how Ancient Greek is surviving and thriving in three different types of schools. After a short overview of the history of Greek teaching in the…

This article reports on an investigation of the suitability of mobile vocabulary games for inducing a state of incidental vocabulary acquisition. Draw Something, a social digital drawing game in which players draw and guess words, was selected as a focus for this investigation. Results from an exploratory factor analysis of the questionnaire data…

In order to reinstate interest and motivation for learning foreign languages (FLs) other than English, the Swedish government has recently reformed the system for admission to higher education. Upper secondary students who continue with the FL learnt in secondary school are rewarded with extra credits that considerably enhance their grade point…

This article reports a small-scale study carried out in a beginners' Spanish class of second year undergraduate students. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of a vocabulary task in terms of its impact on vocabulary acquisition, the learners' approach to vocabulary learning and their motivation and engagement. The task…

The case study investigates what impact extensive reading of authentic picture books/illustrated books had on the learners' writing skills in a Norwegian EFL (English as a foreign language) classroom of 11-year-olds. Furthermore, the study also looks into the importance the pictures/illustrations had for the learners and what type of picture-text…

Much second language acquisition research in recent decades has assumed that a learner's main purpose for learning a second language (L2) is to develop communicative competence. Consequently, many studies have focused on investigating ways in which teachers and/or the learning environment may support the development of such competence. In…

This article is based on an analysis of a small sample of data from an international web collaboration project between four classes of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners guided by their English teachers in four different countries in Europe. As few studies have been published about intercultural communication in blended learning EFL…

This study has been prompted by a concern that the term intercultural understanding (IU) has appeared in English curriculum policy texts in order to address macro issues with scant pedagogical attention to its effective implementation at the micro level in the modern foreign languages (MFL) classroom. The article investigates pupils' perceptions…

What drives students to study German at university level? Although motivational research has been booming in recent years, students' motivation to pursue a modern foreign language beyond school level has not received much attention in the UK. This article sheds light on the various reasons that drive students in the UK to pursue a modern foreign…

Young modern language (ML) learners' heightened, yet temporary, phonological sensitivity suggests an aptitude for spoken communication with peer native target language (TL) speakers. Opportunities for this can be achieved through videoconferencing (VC). As researcher and specialist teacher at a primary school in England, I undertook a study of VC…

This article reports on a collaborative action research study carried out on three groups of Spanish beginners during the implementation of a strategy awareness raising programme (SAR). The objective was to analyse the impact of the SAR programme on the students' learning process in three main areas: strategy awareness, strategy use in learning…

Modern foreign languages (MFL) currently appear to be close to demise, as the number of pupils opting for the subject at Key Stage 4 continues to fall. This paper addresses the issue of the key role of parental support in relation to attitudes of pupils towards MFL. It reports on a study conducted at two secondary schools which made use of teacher…

This article reports on a two-year project located within one local authority (LA), Brighton and Hove City Council, which was selected in 2003 to become a Primary Foreign Language Pathfinder. The main aim of this Pathfinder was to work with 18 other LAs across the country to pilot fresh approaches towards delivering foreign languages in the…