Foreign language learning is highly interactive and requires opportunities for academic speaking. The focus of this paper is how foreign language undergraduate students experienced this process in an online learning context. Through semi-structured interviews with seven undergraduate French, German and Spanish students, participants highlighted…

This study explores speaking self-efficacy for university EFL students in Japan. The primary objectives of the study were to analyse the growth of self-efficacy over time, potential differences between male and female students, and the relationship between self-efficacy, casual attribution, and outcome satisfaction. While several studies have…

Given the significant role vocabulary plays in second language acquisition, how to help learners acquire vocabulary has always been a concern for educators. Despite the general consensus that beliefs influence learners' behaviour, limited research effort has been devoted to the exploration of English as a second language (ESL) learners' beliefs…

Mobile-assisted language learning is a growing feature of contemporary language learning, and their distinct gamification design produces new and increasingly popular contexts for language learning. This paper explores the gamification features of the two most popular EFL vocabulary learning applications widely used by Asian learners --…

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,…

While Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is recognised as an effective approach worldwide, its implementation in foreign language (FL) classrooms remains difficult. Earlier studies have identified factors impeding CLT implementation, such as a lack of communicative lesson materials or teachers' more traditional views on language learning. In…

The present study explores the effects of distributed practice by extending this area of research to L2 learning from audiovisual input. A total of 96 L1 Russian elementary to advanced learners of English watched five episodes of captioned TV series under three viewing distribution conditions: longer spacing of viewing once per week; shorter…

This study investigated the systematic and principled teaching of foreign language (FL) literacy in two young learner classrooms in England. Over the course of 23 weeks, two classes of 9-11 year olds (N = 45) learned spoken and written language through an integrated pedagogy. The underpinning rationale was to explore principled ways of teaching FL…

Modern foreign languages (MFL) are now established on the timetable of English primary schools. This study accesses the views of the pupils on the experience of learning this relatively new subject and of making the transition to secondary school languages classes. By means of semi-structured interviews with the same sample of 18 pupils in Year 6…

This paper considers the languages on offer in secondary schools in England and the possibility of enacting curriculum change with a view to reducing the dominance of French, Spanish and, to a lesser extent, German as a possible way to increase take-up of modern foreign languages post-14. Questionnaires were completed by 666 students aged 14-15,…

This study examined the impact of providing access to word pronunciation on the assessment of L2 Chinese learners' vocabulary knowledge. Chinese heritage learners (HLs) and foreign language learners (FLs) studying in American universities undertook a computer-based test in which they had first to select a picture that represented the meaning of a…

Taking a contextual approach to research on language learner beliefs, this longitudinal study of 49 Swiss university students learning Danish as a foreign language investigates how and why the participants change their beliefs over time. At the beginning of the three-semester language course, the participants believe that form-focussed approaches…

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 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…

The present study aims to investigate the effects of gloss use, L2-gloss frequency and learner proficiency on incidental L2 lexical acquisition. A total of 163 university students in China were assigned to one of the three reading conditions: no gloss (NG), higher frequency L2 gloss (HFLG) and lower frequency L2 gloss (LFLG). The participants read…