Students in higher education are expected to be autonomous and to become co-owners of their learning. In practice, they need support to advance their autonomy, and formal education is assigned an important role in this development. In order to optimally support the advancement of learner autonomy, educators should be able to define, identify and…

With the advent of web 2.0 and the ease of use of many hand-held devices, access to the internet has never been easier. This has been accompanied by a growing range of sites available for learning an L2. These sites offer lessons, explanations, exercises, corrections and feedback. It now becomes time once again to question whether physical bricks…

This paper presents the results of a one-year language curriculum needs analysis project aimed at developing a deeper understanding of the learning needs of first and second year Chinese language students at a university in the United States. The purpose of this project was to provide a foundation for further curriculum development of the…

The requirement that students achieve accredited foreign language proficiency at B1 level in order to graduate from university or enrol for some postgraduate courses has prompted changes in language teaching in higher education in Spain. Given the clearly ineffective tuition received at earlier stages of their education, Spanish university…

This article attempts to shed some light on the possible learning benefits for language acquisition and intercultural development of authentic social interaction with expert peers through computer mediated communication (CMC) tools. The environments used in this study are video communication and the 3D virtual world "Second Life." For…

Plurilingualism has been targeted as an objective of the European Commission and its deployment is naturally thought to originate in the education sector. A recent study of the Commission (2012) has pointed to the poor results of French schooling with regard to foreign language instruction, but few quantitative studies have looked specifically at…

This study explores the effectiveness of guided reflective journals to improve intelligibility in a Japanese higher educational context. Based on qualitative and quantitative methods, the paper evaluates changes in speech over the duration of one semester. In particular, this study focuses on changes in prosodic features such as stress, intonation…

Since CercleS was created in 1990, language resource centres, or language centres, have offered learners various means to improve their language skills. They are often places where new pedagogical approaches and innovative learning environments are proposed (Rivens Mompean 2011). As the names of some of the associations belonging to CercleS…

As the number of university students taking part in exchange programs abroad increases, students are becoming more aware of the importance not only of improving their general language skills, but also of developing academic language skills that will prepare them for their stay and study in transnational higher education contexts. Concurrently, the…

This article provides readers with an understanding of the concept of the personal learning environment (PLE). It suggests that PLEs can be used in two complementary ways: as a developmental lens for integrating ICT and creating new pedagogical practices and digital literacies for academic language learning, and as a context in which learners can…

Recently, the use of children's picture books to teach English has been increasing in Japan. An advantage of these books is the high proportion of basic vocabulary they include. Can picture books also be useful for teaching Japanese students Italian and increasing their motivation? The present study analyses the effectiveness of employing a…

Twitter is becoming increasingly popular as a medium for language learning. This study explores self-directed learning via social interactions that use Twitter as an interactive learning environment. The participants in this study were thirty university students of Chinese as a foreign language at levels 1 and 2 of the "Hanyu Shuiping…

The study reported in this article was conducted in 2009-2010 at the University of Helsinki Language Centre. Its purpose was to produce new information on the use of learning environments, specifically in a university language centre. Data collected from student questionnaires were analysed and interpreted. The study reveals that the central…

Modern socio-cognitive and meaning-oriented approaches to foreign language teaching emphasize the role of learner autonomy, which involves being aware of and responsible for one's own ways of learning as well as the utilization of one's own strengths and work on weaknesses (van Lier 1996). Allowing learners to perform self-assessment can provide a…