This study reports on the findings of a PhD study investigating the implications of the division between language and content in Modern Language degrees on students' development of intercultural competence and criticality across four universities, two in the US and two in the UK. It draws upon the theoretical frameworks of Intercultural…

In an interview with a postgraduate student about her intercultural experience of recently arriving for study abroad, it was found that the two researchers and the student were engaged in a mutual exploration of cultural identity. The interview events became conversational and took the form of small culture formation on the go in which each…

This article draws on data from an ethnographic account of the institutionalisation of 'the intercultural' within a large British university. The study finds that although the term 'intercultural' is frequently used in multiple forms, it is often aligned with the dominant discourses of the neoliberal university system in order to become an…

Instructional practices are fundamentally influenced by teacher beliefs. Cultural and pedagogical belief differences in EFL teachers can fuel a lack of professional understanding among teachers with contrasting perspectives about effective teaching practices. The present study examined the alignment between the beliefs of Chinese English teachers…

This paper explores the role that translation may play in developing the symbolic competence of advanced-level bilingual learners. To this end, it examines how a group of bilingual learners engaged with a translation task that was assigned to them as part of their study in an advanced-level Japanese language class at an Australian university.…

This article investigates the ways in which children from immigrant backgrounds view the place of "other" languages in primary schools in France and England. This article draws on findings from a cross-national ethnographic study, which investigated the experiences of 10- and 11-year-old children of immigrants in two primary schools, one…

This article theorises the relationship between language and intercultural learning from a Bakhtinian dialogic perspective, based on the language learning story of Federica, a mobile student in UK higher education (HE). I first outline the context of UK HE and its internationalisation agenda, discussing how research in this field has…

This paper reports an ethnographic study of a group of Chinese international students' emotion-management experiences in intercultural adjustment in a UK university context. Drawing on a social constructionist paradigm, it investigates students' constructions of their emotion-management strategies, and the effects of social interactions on the…

The paper highlights the role of translation in qualitative research that involves multiple languages. Its particular focus is on untranslatables, that is, those words or phrases in a source language that pose challenges to translators because no direct equivalent is available in the target language. "Untranslatables" create moments of…

This paper considers how, in the process of positioning that is implicit in every interaction, all of us employ multiple and often competing narratives when we talk about cultural identity and our relationships with new cultural environments. In interviews with newly arrived postgraduate students about their experience of travelling to study…

Based on findings from a 5-year research project called "Critical Connections", this article sets out an integrated framework for language learning in the context of multilingual digital storytelling. Following an explanation of the theoretical approach, four vignettes are presented which illustrate the principles in practice.…

Internationalisation is high on the agenda of higher education institutions across the world. Previous research on national and local policies surrounding this phenomenon has identified different discourses of internationalisation which may have an effect on practices such as student mobility. In order to understand better the role of student…

In this article, we present and discuss a collaborative project on intercultural education developed by a group of educational partners. The group was made up of 12 people representing different institutions in the community, namely primary schools, cultural and social associations and the local council. The project takes an intercultural approach…

Translingual practice is an emergent theoretical perspective which emphasizes the capacity and disposition for meaning-making across linguistic boundaries. Following on studies of globalized workplaces that have focused on lingua franca English, this article explores translingual practice as represented in interview and blog narratives recounted…

This study intends to highlight the role that Foreign Language Education (FLE), particularly in the Higher Education context, can play so as to contribute to the rapprochement of two distant and still mutually unknown countries such as Portugal and Turkey. In this sense, it ultimately aims at supporting the training of intercultural speakers,…