Motivation and attitudes in foreign language learning

Since 2023, primary education in the Slovak Republic has undergone significant changes in terms of goals, content, as well as teaching methods, forms, and assessment of student learning outcomes. The aim of these changes in primary education is to develop the comprehensive personality of the student through a curriculum that is not only consistent and progressive but also common, inclusive, and adaptable, providing holistic development for each student. In the context of these described changes, it was necessary to reassess the role of Slovak language teaching. The new content of Slovak as a foreign language therefore places greater emphasis on the goal of language education, which the authors see primarily in removing language barriers in education and self-development of the student. The main purpose of teaching the first (native) language and Slovak (state) language as a second language is to create opportunities for each student to explore and experience the world through language and to functionally use communication skills in various environments and situations. In this paper, we focus on describing the basis of the changes in teaching Slovak as a foreign language, the specific implementation of the intention in the state educational programme, and the vision of changes in the educational process itself. We describe the changes in goals, content, as well as strategies for teaching Slovak as a second language in the context of the comprehensive reform of primary education in the Slovak Republic. The paper is the result of research carried out within the project Creation of Textbook and Methodological Material for Teaching Slovak Language for Children of Slovaks Living Abroad' (KEGA 008UMB-4/2024).

Slovak people have emigrated to Great Britain and countries all over the world since time immemorial and nowadays when Slovakia joined the European Union in 2004, hundreds of thousands of Slovaks began to emigrate to Western European countries. From the beginning, they travelled for work individually, but later whole families emigrated. Slovak people also began to build multicultural families, which realized the importance of language education and also to keep their national and cultural identity. It is very important if they decide to travel back to Slovakia and connect with their families. It is also a basic need for the preservation of their culture for future generations. From the need to learn the mother tongue, Slovaks living abroad established educational centres. Their basic task is to teach Slovak children in Slovak language and cultural studies, so they can return back to Slovakia and can participate in the same educational process, at the same level, as their peers. However, these children have a special position in education, because they also graduate in a school, in country abroad. A number of them originate from a bilingual environment and their main language in education is English, French, German or other languages. So that is the reason, why these children need special support, educational material and encouragement from Slovak institutions. The educational centres built in Western European countries receive support from Slovak government organizations and especially from Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. The Faculty of Education at Matej Bel´s University drafted projects to address this situation and prepared educational material and support for teachers in these centres, especially for children in primary school education. In this article we characterise the bilingual environment of Slovak children living abroad, and the educational support prepared for these children. We also characterise material and actual research in new project KEGA No. 019UMB-4/2020 Preparation of interactive environment Landscape Hláskovo to support the teaching of Slovak language for Slovaks living abroad. This project is established to preserve language skills and prepare support for the education of bilingual children by preparing multimedia learning environment.

This study examines the impact of self-regulation strategies on academic performance and attitudes toward learning English as a foreign language. Self-regulation, which involves cognitive, metacognitive, and behavioral strategies, has been shown to enhance learning autonomy and motivation. The research employs a controlled experimental design with pretest and posttest measures, comparing an experimental group receiving self-regulation training with a control group following traditional instruction. Findings indicate that students in the experimental group demonstrated significantly higher academic performance in English compared to their peers in the control group. While improvements in attitudes toward English learning were observed, they were not statistically significant. These results suggest that self-regulation strategies effectively enhance linguistic competence and learning autonomy, reinforcing their value in foreign language education. The study underscores the importance of integrating self-regulation training in language curricula to foster independent and resilient learners, with implications for broader educational applications.

English for specific purposes (ESP) constitutes the minority of courses in the English language disciplines at Kazakhstani Universities. Among possible explanations are that it is costly, time consuming and an intellectually challenging specialization process on the part of the teacher and a more complex and challenging subject for the student, though students don’t lack the basic language skills necessary to benefit fully from such specific purpose classes. This article focuses on the teaching of Legal English to students of International law specialty in the Republic of Kazakhstan. It touches upon the history of language for specific purposes, material used in the Legal English classes, and the students themselves. It concludes with the case study investigating trends in Legal English classroom among students of International Legal English at Kazakh Humanities and Law University. This article also deals with the levels of skills necessary for students attending International Legal...

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Explorations of attrition attempt to gain insight into linguistic representations in the brain and to understand what supports the consolidation of information in memory so that language knowledge is retained, even after long periods of language disuse. In this study the role of extra-linguistic factors in influencing levels of knowledge retention over a long period of incubation is investigated along with the question if support for savings can be found, i.e., is seemingly forgotten knowledge in fact still intact and, therefore, may be accessed again. Four adults from Ireland currently living in Germany who had not had contact with the Irish language in approximately 30 years were tested on their knowledge of Irish lexical items and interviewed in depth on their experiences of learning Irish. Understanding language loss has important implications for the L2/FL education domain and pedagogy. If it can be established what impacts greater retention of knowledge, teaching curricula and methodologies can be revised accordingly to make them more effective with respect to long-term knowledge retention.

This paper draws on the European Union's (EU's) multilingualism language policy which highlights the importance of learning foreign languages. Considering the importance of motivation in foreign language learning (FLL) the differences in university students' beliefs about their motivation based on sociodemographic characteristics and foreign language competence factors were investigated. Self-reported data were collected from 631 first-year undergraduate university students attending different academic study programs at three universities in Croatia. The survey asked students to report if they were or were not motivated to learn foreign languages. Students' sincere answers about their motivation are important information that should not be disregarded but observed, understood, and used to find ways to support FLL. It was found that nearly one-third of participants reported they were not motivated to learn foreign languages. This result revealed a greater number of students who described themselves as unmotivated for FLL than expected. Overall, with the exception of gender, no statistically significant differences in student beliefs about their motivation for FLL were found based on socio-demographic factors. However, differences in motivational beliefs were found according to variables related to students' foreign language competence.

Despite consensus on the important role of grammar instruction, there are debates about teaching it. Teachers&#39; perceptions about grammar and how it should be taught influence their teaching. Classroom observations indicate that regardless of teachers’ experience and proficiency, their grammar teaching practices are not usually void of problems. Identifying language teachers’ areas of weaknesses in grammar teaching, finding such problematic areas, raising their awareness and providing solutions in line with effective grammar teaching principles can enhance the effectiveness of grammar instruction. This qualitative study aimed at identifying the main problems in the grammar teaching practice of 34 experienced Iranian English teachers through observing their classes, exploring their awareness of effective grammar instruction principles using a semistructured interview and finding mismatches between their grammar teaching knowledge and practice. The most frequently observed problems...

Self-assessment, as one type of alternative assessment, with the increased attention to learner-centered curricula, needs analysis, and learner autonomy has gained popularity in recent years. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of self-assessment on Javanroodian Foreign Language (Kordestan) Learners' Oral Performance ability. Methods: The assessment program involved training, practice, videotaping, feedback, assessment and discussion. Twenty English as a foreign language students of foreign language institutes in Javanrood participated in the study. They were divided into experimental and control group, based on the results of English oral performance pre-tests. The research instrument consisted of a self-assessment checklist containing subcategories related to the organization of the presentation, content, linguistic factors (vocabulary use, grammatical rules and pronunciation) and interaction with the audience. It was developed as a result of interviewing participants and their teachers and then adapting results based on the results of reviewing available checklists in the literature. The data was collected by the experimental group members' self-assessments of their 6 oral performances and the teacher's assessment of their performances. Results: The obtained data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential methods. Results indicated that participating in self-assessment process had positive effect on learners' oral performance ability. Discussion: Results will have implications for policy makers, material designers and developers, teachers and learners. It will also open up the doors of introducing new trends in assessment to teachers and learners.

Student engagement is vital in ESL education, with various pedagogical approaches emphasizing its importance. This research reviews literature on learner engagement in ESL and EFL classrooms, while also collecting data on students' attitudes towards native and non-native ESL teachers. The study aims to examine three types of teaching-learning engagements and explore learners' responses to instructions from native ESL teachers. A purposive sampling method was employed, selecting 41 participants consisting of 24 first-year and 17 second-year students. A survey research design utilizing a nonexperimental approach was used, employing a Likert scale and polling instrument. The study found that students had positive responses to instructions from native ESL teachers in Central Asia. This suggests that the presence of these teachers has had a significant impact and efforts should be made to recruit more. These findings could improve ESL teaching approaches and methodologies.

This study investigates the effects of English Medium Instruction (EMI) on African educational systems, focusing on the barriers to education that students encounter due to limited English proficiency in countries where English is not the native language. The authors employed a mixed methods approach, uncovering students' systemic challenges, particularly the high English proficiency requirements for university admissions, which risk excluding those with lower English fluency. By addressing the complex challenges that African students face with EMI, this study advocates for an educational system that respects and aids students from various linguistic backgrounds. The research emphasizes the critical role of English language skills in students' academic success across all subjects, given the exclusive use of English for teaching. Drawing from a dataset of 36 participants, the study offers a range of pedagogical and policy recommendations to advance inclusivity, equity, and diversity in EMI settings. These recommendations include recognizing student diversity, implementing fluency-centered teaching methods, differentiated instruction, task-based and flipped classroom approaches, cultural exchange activities, the integration of bridge English courses into higher education, parental involvement, curriculum reform, focused teacher training, professional development, equitable resource allocation, bilingual education programs, controlled translanguaging adoption, and gradual policy implementation. These recommendations will help educational systems accommodate diverse linguistic backgrounds, provide essential language support, and promote a supportive academic environment. This paper contributes to the broader discussion on inclusion, equity, and diversity in second-language education, offering valuable insights and recommendations for policymakers, educators, and researchers.

This study explores the relationship between 15-year-olds results in the PISA 2018 assessment of global competence and citizens’ political views. In particular, we look at the correlations of 18 EU nation-states citizens’ political preferences (right-leaning) and students’ non-cognitive skills, attitudes, and values. Data from the OECDs’ PISA global competence and European Social Survey for the year 2018 were used. After the analysis, it can be presumed that the higher share of the right-leaning population in the country is associated with lower students’ global competencies.

The main goal of modern second language (L2) pedagogy is to engender appropriate communication skills among its learners. Hence, willingness to communicate (WTC) in L2 emerged as an important variable in recent years. Several factors have been found to influence students’ L2 WTC directly or indirectly. For this purpose, many scales and questionnaires have been developed so far to examine the factors influencing WTC among L2 students. However, a comprehensive questionnaire on WTC inside ESL classroom is still lacking. Likewise, WTC in relation to language use and motivational orientations in a single study has yet to be investigated. Thus, this study was aimed to develop and validate questionnaires on WTC, language use and motivational orientations. For this purpose, a five-phase model was used.  After an extensive literature review, questionnaires on WTC, language use and motivational orientations were framed. Operational definitions of the three constructs were established and the ...

Languages differ in their preferences for particular intensifying constructions. While intensifying adjectival compounds (IACs) (e.g. ijskoud, ice-cold) are productively used to express intensification in Dutch and English, in French this construction is hardly productive. Consequently, French-speaking learners may encounter difficulties acquiring IACs in Dutch/English. As part of a research project on CLIL in French-speaking Belgium, we explore the effect of CLIL on the acquisition of IACs in the target language (TL) Dutch/English through a multiple-choice test. The results confirm that CLIL students (learning English/Dutch) develop greater receptive knowledge of these constructions. Furthermore, the more frequent IACs are more likely to be recognized by the learners. Moreover, even when the CLIL effect is considered alongside other factors, such as the students' extracurricular exposure to the TL and their overall vocabulary, CLIL is still an important predictor of the learners' receptive knowledge of English IACs, in addition to productive and receptive vocabulary. By contrast, current informal contact with the TL and receptive vocabulary are significant predictors of learners' receptive knowledge of Dutch IACs, but CLIL does not significantly contribute to the regression model for the latter language.

This article attempts to realize the dominant approach in developing the academic curriculum of language degree and French literature in Iran. It concentrates on analyzing the content of the curriculum approved by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology in Iran and the University of Tehran. It was concluded that the first curriculum opts an approach of broad areas by considering the isolated components of language learning. It encompasses the literature of each century. Yet, Tehran University has sought to review the curriculum of Bachelor degree in 2011. With regard to the course of the general French, curriculum decisions are influenced by the corporation, specifically by French companies (under the influence of the action-oriented perspectives in language teaching). In these courses, the approach is based on the general areas. The courses in French literature are based on learning objects and are part of a multidisciplinary approach.

This article attempts to realize the dominant approach in developing the academic curriculum of language degree and French literature in Iran. It concentrates on analyzing the content of the curriculum approved by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology in Iran and the University of Tehran. It was concluded that the first curriculum opts an approach of broad areas by considering the isolated components of language learning. It encompasses the literature of each century. Yet, Tehran University has sought to review the curriculum of Bachelor degree in 2011. With regard to the course of the general French, curriculum decisions are influenced by the corporation, specifically by French companies (under the influence of the action-oriented perspectives in language teaching). In these courses, the approach is based on the general areas. The courses in French literature are based on learning objects and are part of a multidisciplinary approach.

This article presents the results of a study that investigated the effectiveness of the Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) method in improving the grammatical skills of a group of 67 (N=67) English language learners in the first year of the HAVO-track of secondary education in Curaçao. For this research, a classroom-based experiment was performed with the test group which included grammar tests that were administered at two different measurement moments, before the experiment (MM1) and after the experiment (MM2). In addition to the grammar tests, questionnaires were administered to measure students' language attitude (α=0.90), involvement (α=0.87) and acceptance (α=0.89). Results of the analyses showed that students who were taught using the TBLT method performed significantly better (p<.001) on grammar tests compared to students taught using the traditional teaching method. Furthermore, there was a significant positive correlation between the scores on the grammar test (MM2) and all other variables, including students' attitude toward the English language (r=.323**), students' engagement during the experiment (r=.271*), and students' acceptance of the new method (r=.335**). The strongest variable influencing the TBLT experiment is the students' attitude toward English (β=.69), and a weaker influence appears to be age (β=-.19).

Training plays an important part in supporting educational reform in Oman. This report looks at the effectiveness of the 2005 Primary Teachers' Course (PRIT) for cycle 1 (grades 1-4) in preparing and supporting English teachers in implementing the new national curriculum. A number of key issues are identified, such as the importance of training courses and their need to focus on teachers' requirements and interests. The need to update the course and introduce more activity types and modes of input is discussed. The article ends with suggestions for ways to continue supporting teachers in implementing the new curriculum. These include an ongoing system of support where the trainer develops links with supervisors and senior teachers, and also the development of self-assessment and small-scale classroom-based research strategies, with which teachers can investigate their own practice.

This paper presents the findings of a pilot study carried out among American students coming to the Czech Republic for one semester within their study abroad programme at Charles University, Prague, taking Elementary Czech Course as a part of their compulsory syllabus. The aim of the study was two-fold: 1) to assess the options such research may bring and 2) to gather some data for the upcoming research to create hypotheses regarding the attitudes and motivation towards learning Czech as a second language. During three consecutive semesters, 174 students participated in filling out questionnaires. The findings have confirmed that the students&#39; attitudes change throughout the semester and they have also shown some factors influencing the initial and final attitudes. The majority of students display rather negative emotions (anxiety) relating to learning Czech at the beginning but at the end most of them express a positive attitude. The findings imply some pedagogic suggestions re...

The aim of this study is to investigate the EFL teachers‟ expectations, voices and their ideas on their dynamic process of teaching. To this end, some discrepancies may have an influence on EFL teachers‟ beliefs and their practices in teaching which needed to be discovered. Using a semi-structured in-depth interview, the research explored tension faced by EFL teachers while exercising their autonomy. The participants of this study were EFL teachers from Mashhad, Iran. They were interviewed about their jobs, uncovering the job stressors that they faced, the job satisfaction that they found, and the reasons they continued in their jobs. This paper has significant contributions to stakeholders involved in the professional development and teacher education.

The teaching of English as a second/foreign language to Arab students has received considerable attention during the past decade. The use of English as a medium of instruction in the Arabian Gulf has become prominent but has only recently been examined academically. In Kuwait, the need to learn and use English is emerging. Attention toward how English is learned and taught is considered important for students’ achievement of success and teachers’ awareness of learners’ needs. Many Arab students consider English difficult to learn, and as such, it has an impact on students’ motivation and attitude toward learning English. Students are often able to communicate effectively in educational and social settings, but struggle with reading, writing, speaking, and listening. This study aims to identify challenges to learning and teaching English in Kuwait. Using the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery, we measured various components of the socio-educational model of second language (L2) acquisi...

The current study investigates how foreign language enjoyment (FLE), foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) and attitude/motivation (AM) of 360 learners of English, German, French and Spanish in a Kuwaiti university was shaped over the course of one semester by three teacher behaviours: frequency of using the foreign language (FL) in class, predictability and frequency of joking. Linear mixed modelling revealed a positive relationship between the three teacher behaviours and FLE as well as AM, but no significant relationship emerged with FLCA. Multiple comparison analyses showed that levels of FLE dropped significantly among students whose teacher joked very infrequently and infrequently. It thus seems that the absence of teacher jokes had a delayed cumulative effect on FLE. No interaction effects were found with time for FLCA and for AM. We conclude that teacher behaviours affect both AM and FLE, and that frequency of joking actually shapes FLE over time.

Covid-19 has a severe impact on the way we teach and learn today. As the global pandemic has severely impacted our education sector, adaptation is much needed in the way we teach and learn as we adapt to the new normal. This comparative study involves four sets of data involving two teachers from Malaysia and two teachers from Iraq. The researchers interviewed the respondents and sorted their feedbacks according to the themes of this study. The study reveals the differences and similarities in how teachers adapt to the new way of teaching English and teaching methods for receptive and productive English skills to high school students in both countries. It also reveals teachers’ opinions on using first language materials in their English teaching. The study highlights the teaching theories and principles applied by teachers in both countries in teaching in the new normal. The study also reveals that the respondents managed to adapt authentic teaching and learning materials for online...

The current study uses a pseudo-longitudinal design to investigate the trajectory of three lowerorder dimensions of Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE): FLE Teacher, FLE Personal and FLE Social (Botes et al., 2021) as well as 11 items/scales reflecting attitudes and motivation in the mini-Attitudes/Motivation Test Battery (Tennant & Gardner, 2004) of 85 Beginner, 322 Intermediate and 95 Advanced Moroccan English Foreign Language learners. Data were collected through an online questionnaire. One-way ANOVAs revealed a significant but non-linear increase for the values of three FLE dimensions across skill levels. Further one-way ANOVAs showed that the values of seven positively oriented motivation scales increased significantly and that the two anxiety scales decreased significantly across skill levels (very small effect sizes). Scheffé post-hoc tests confirmed that the strongest increase happened between Beginner and Intermediate levels for the FLE dimensions before levelling off at an Advanced level. This non-linear pattern was less clear-cut for the motivation scales. Correlation analyses revealed stronger relationships between the FLE dimensions and motivation scales at higher skill levels. We argue that FLE and motivation gradually reinforce each other at high skill levels. Some pedagogical implications are formulated.

Knowing and analyzing the "culture of learning and teaching" in a coursebook or series of course books can contribute to teachers' and students' success in the educational and pedagogical goals and objectives. Cultures of learning and teaching refer to the perspectives of teachers and learners towards learning and teaching. Most of the research studies conducted in this field have referred to values and attitudes related to good learning and teaching as reflected through observations, interviews and questionnaires. However, just few studies have examined this term with regard to language teaching materials, and course books. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to introduce, investigate, and analyze the cultures of learning and teaching in Iranian secondary school course books entitled Prospect series. Based on the model used in this study, the cultures of learning and teaching in Prospect series were investigated as reflected in their external features including aims and objectives cited in the introduction, tables of content, and layout of the students' books, and internal features including task instructions and visual images in students' book plus the instructions in the teacher's book. Each of these features as well as the pedagogical issues of the Prospect series were provided and elaborated.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the applicability of Certificate of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (CELTA) in the Turkish context and the necessity for Turkish teachers to obtain it. For this qualitative study, the data was collected by means of three tools: A CELTA survey, semi-structured interviews with teachers and the administrators and classroom observations in order to validate the data. The findings suggest that teachers are glad to take it; they admit that it contributed to them in many ways. However, they agree that it is nearly impossible to apply all the CELTA techniques in their classrooms. From the employers" perspectives, it can be inferred that CELTA is an efficient tool for professional development,but it is not must.

Although many claims about the necessity to restructure teacher education, not least pre-service training at universities, are aroused here and there, few attempts are made to update teacher education programmes that are responsive to the needs and expectations of future teachers of English as a foreign language. This work tried to test the adequacy of the pre-service training programme in use at the level of the Department of English at the University of Tlemcen. It attempted to limit the students' needs to attain professional quality in teaching English. The researcher took many routes to find answers to all these concerns: First, the students were observed during their performances of teaching; and then, they were approached through questionnaires to stand on each individual's needs. To cross check the results of the classroom observation and the questionnaire procedures, the researcher tried to collect EFL inspectors' opinions about novice English teachers' problems, through interviews. The findings of the study revealed that inadequate preparation of students in terms of the English language itself, first-and second-language acquisition processes, assessment procedures, educational psychology and lack of teaching practice... are among the major problems that should be treated to render the actual pre-service teacher training programme able to prepare a kind of professionally qualified EFL teachers.

Known as what educational contexts do not teach, null curriculum has been considered one of the most significant types of curricula due to its absence, being left out or overlooked. This non-existent curriculum brings an important theoretical tool to the field of curriculum development for the idea that something which is not offered to students has an educational significance and effect. To follow the purpose of the study which is teachers' perspectives on the null curriculum at the BA level, 300 university instructors were selected to participate in this study. To answer the research questions various statistical methods (one-way ANOVA, independent sample t-test, Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Scheffe's test) have been utilized. Results of this quantitative study revealed that among the subconstructs of the 21 st century, critical thinking, collaboration skills, creativity and innovation skills, self-direction skills, technological literacy, global and local connection skills, economic and financial literacy, business and entrepreneurial literacy and media literacy should be considered as aspects of the null curriculum in TEFL curriculum in BA level in Iran, and they should be added to the present curriculum; however, communication skills are not regarded as aspects of null. In addition, Iranian EFL university instructors' ratings on different components of 21 st-century skills as one aspect of the null curriculum significantly differed. Finally, a model was proposed to describe the relationship between the ratings of the components of 21st-century skills as one aspect of the null curriculum by Iranian EFL university instructors. The findings of the present study can help to a better understanding of the ELT curriculum, aspects of the null curriculum, and 21 st-century skills in the Iranian context.

Recently, there is a surge of interest in a wide range of learner
emotions in the SLA field, underlining a holistic perspective of
language learning emotions. The present study examines the
relationships between the three prevalent emotions among
language learners – foreign language enjoyment (FLE), foreign
language anxiety (FLA), and foreign language boredom (FLB) –
and their potential correlates including a set of learner-internal
and teacher-related variables among a specific sample of Chinese
high school students. When it comes to the links among the three
emotions, we found that FLE was negatively correlated with FLA
and FLB, while FLA and FLB were positively correlated. Various
learner-internal (gender, age, attitude towards the FL, attitude
towards the teacher, self-perceived achievement, relative standing
in class) and teacher-related variables (teacher enthusiasm,
friendliness, strictness, frequency of FL use, foreign accent,
frequency of joke, unpredictability) were found to be related with
the three emotions to a different degree. In addition, the positive
emotion of FLE was found to be more related to teacher-related
variables than the negative emotions of FLA and FLB.

School-based teaching placements have a central place in Initial Teacher Education [ITE]. The classroom teachers to whom student teachers are assigned play a role in shaping students' practice and may impact on these students' learning, confidence and competence. The questions then arise of: • what expectations do classroom teachers have of students?; • how do they represent their actions with students?; • what do they see as key matters for students on placement? This thesis has engaged with these issues with a focus on mathematics teachers in secondary schools. It reports on a study which was guided by the following research question: How do mathematics teachers in Scottish schools conceptualise their actions with students on placement? I would not have completed this journey if not for Dr Charles Anderson. You are motivational and inspiring. Words are not enough to express my deep-felt gratitude. I would also like to thank Dr Paul McMillian, for your valuable advice and enthusiasm throughout the thesis process. A huge 'thank you' goes to all of the teachers who agreed to participate, taking an interest in my research and giving their time for the interviews. Without them, there would be no thesis. To my amazing friends, thank you. You have kept me going when things were tough and understood when I wasn't around. I must also thank Aunt Pam, for all the laugher and the days of essential digital detoxtime now to plan our holiday adventure! Last, but not least, Fred, Evie, and Minnie-thanks for keeping all those piles of paper safe and warm.

Teaching approaches and techniques shape classroom practices and ultimately contribute to students’ learning and achievement. While abundant research exists on how such practices impact student learning in EFL classes around the world, this research still remains scarce in Kosovo. Therefore, the current research addresses this existing gap by exploring the link between teacher classroom practices and student learning. Participants of this study included 10th and 11th grade students across six municipalities in Kosovo (N=237). The respondents were asked to complete a questionnaire inquiring about practices adopted by teachers to teach EFL. The results reveal disparate teaching practices adopted by teachers to teach the material. To that end, female students report enhances participatory and collaborative approaches used by teachers and in the meantime an overall higher perception of the chances given by teachers to express opinions and ideas in class, compared to male students. Simil...

The relation between Swiss German dialects and Standard German has been subject to public and scholarly debates for over 100 years. Among the most frequently discussed points are the appropriateness of spoken Standard German in different contexts and the attitudes of Swiss people towards the two varieties. This paper summarises the results of a completed research project (Oberholzer in Vorb.), which surveyed language use and language attitudes in Swit-zerland for a specific group of speakers: pastors and priests working in German-speaking Switzerland. The paper shows how pastors and priests make use of the diglossic situation and the possibility to code-switch in Sunday services. The use of Standard German emerges as an important communicative resource in German-speaking Switzerland. In addition, real language use and intended language use match to a high degree; this shows the degree of language awareness of this particular group in a diglossic situation. Furthermore, a relatively ...

The aim of this study is to determine secondary school teachers' views about the refugee students. In this direction, the secondary school teachers' views about refugee students' attention, and attitude toward their subject, refugee students' readiness, attention, and attitude toward their lesson content, and the suitability of methods, techniques which they use in their class to the readiness of refugee students were determined. Moreover, their views about the suitability of their equipments and materials to readiness of refugee students; the suitability of assesment and evaluation instruments for refugee students; and their views, ideas to develop and enrich their lessons were determined. In this study, qualitative research design was used. The study group consisted of the secondary school teachers worked at a state school in Elazig city center in 2017-2018 academic year, second term. Maximum variation sampling method was used in the study. In determination of school, whether there are refugee students or not at that school was considered. From each branch two teachers were selected and totally 22 secondary school teachers were included in the study. In determination of these teachers, the views of headmaster and deputies head of the secondary school were considered. Volunteer branch teachers participated to the study. A semi-structured interview form, which was designed by the researcher was used for data collection. Six semi-structured questions were asked to identify teachers' views about refugee students. These questions were reviewed by a professor and two assistant professors. The clarity of questions were negotiated with three secondary school teachers. Study results revealed that secondary school teachers have some problems in instruction of refugee students because of several reasons. Several recommendations are offered based on the research findings.

This paper explores agency in a collectivist culture to investigate whether, and if so how, school-children experience agency as supportive to learning to speak English in the classroom of a collectivist culture. It draws on Ryan and Deci's (2019) Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to examine nine primary classrooms in three schools in Alexandria, Arab Republic of Egypt. The research involved 281 primary-schoolchildren who completed open-ended sentences about experiences in the ELT classroom, observations of the nine participating classes and 18 individual interviews. Our findings provided support for the universality of the need for autonomy (reflecting agency) in learning to speak English within a collectivist culture, in that the sample children expressed the need for greater autonomy. They also the inter-relatedness of the three basic needs of SDT, competence, autonomy and relatedness. Our findings suggest that children were encouraged by their schooling system to develop Control or Impersonal Orientations rather than Autonomy Orientations. These were sustained through children's fear of making mistakes and teachers scolding them which inhibited their sense of agency and capacity for speaking in English. Some children found that agency was less inhibited when they did simultaneous pairwork, if their needs for competence and relatedness were also satisfied.

This paper reports on an inquiry that examined groups of New Zealand students’ motivational shifts related to learning Chinese before and after relocation to China. In the inquiry, we encouraged 15 participants to write reflective journals and conducted two rounds of interviews before and after their study abroad trip to China. The analysis revealed that most participants had their motivation enhanced by the trip, and expected to sustain their heightened motivation for learning Chinese in the future. The findings suggest that the participants’ motivational shifts happened during their period of study abroad in China, and were prompted by their new pedagogical environment and individual learning experiences. In other words, the motivational enhancement emerged from ongoing interactions between the participants’ L2 self-concepts (e.g., ideal L2 selves) and learning and sociocultural contexts in China. These findings offer fresh insights into the dynamic nature of Chinese language lear...

This chapter addresses English language education and writing pedagogy in secondary schools in Bahrain and explores the impact of societal factors on the operational delivery of education programs that have been borrowed from another country. The authors draw on data from focus groups held with teachers from 10 secondary schools in order to gain a better understanding of how a new teaching policy is indigenized by people on the ground. The chapter concludes that Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) borrowing in Bahrain presently reflects merely the government’s great expectations, with real outcomes suffering from a time-lag. The authors argue that the students’ personal context competes with general economic developments in the country, resulting in discordant readings of the importance of the new reforms.

This paper investigates young learners" attitudes towards learning English as a foreign language (EFL) under different learning conditions. It reports on the findings of a quantitative study conducted between two comparable groups of Greek young learners (N=88), following English instruction, while attending Grade 6 in two primary schools with quite distinct approaches to teaching English. The data was collected with the help of a questionnaire, which explored the learners" attitudes towards the English language and learning English as well as their motivation to learn English. The results illustrate clearly that favourable learning conditions can spur learners" positive disposition towards the process of language learning at school.

Previous research on the foreign language (FL) learner has yielded a rich body of knowledge on personality, individual differences, and conceptions of the self as a measure of motivation. While these contributions have greatly enriched our understanding of learner psychology, the current paper proposes an analytical framing of language learning based on relational theory, which positions human relationships with others as the main driver of the psyche and behavior. As human beings are relationally dependent from birth, according to this theory, the self can only be conceptualized in relation to others. Applied to language learning, this perspective shifts the focus from the attainment of knowledge as an individual, private endeavor, to a relational process in which students and teacher are interwoven perforce. As part of a larger study on student perceptions of teacher emotion, qualitative data were collected as case studies from eight adult learners and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results support the power of the teacher-student relationship to influence and motivate students both positively and negatively, affirming the notion of FL learning as a relational process in accordance with Gergen's (2009) notion that relationships are not merely the self interacting with the other but a true confluence.

This study was conducted to examine the impact of formative and summative assessment in the professional development of Iranian EFL Instructors at universities. Moreover, an attempt was made to figure out whether the formative assessment is more effective than the summative assessment. Since the present work is qualitative/quantitative research in nature, it was conducted within the ethnography of Islamic Azad University South Tehran Branch. To do so, two M.A classes were chosen and the data were collected via observations, field notes, interviews, stimulated recalls, questionnaires and through audiovideo recordings. The findings of this study suggest that the formative and summative assessment enhance the practices of teaching by university instructors and that the formative assessment is more effective and beneficial.

This paper investigates young learners’ attitudes towards learning English as a foreign language (EFL) under different learning conditions. It reports on the findings of a quantitative study conducted between two comparable groups of Greek young learners (N=88), following English instruction, while attending Grade 6 in two primary schools with quite distinct approaches to teaching English. The data was collected with the help of a questionnaire, which explored the learners’ attitudes towards the English language and learning English as well as their motivation to learn English. The results illustrate clearly that favourable learning conditions can spur learners’ positive disposition towards the process of language learning at school.

Die Region um den Bodensee weist eine Vielzahl verschiedener Sprachvarietäten auf, mit denen Kinder im Spracherwerb, Pädagoginnen und Pädagogen in Kita, Kindergarten und Spielgruppe sowie Lehrerinnen und Lehrer konfrontiert sind. Sprachliche Fähigkeiten gelten als Schlüsselkompetenz zum Gelingen von schulischen Bildungsprozessen. Entsprechend bedeutend ist die Frage nach der Wahl der sprachlichen Varietät zur bestmöglichen Unterstützung der sprachlichen Entwicklung von ein-und mehrsprachig aufwachsenden Kindern. Die Einstellungen von Pädagoginnen und Pädagogen zum Gebrauch von Dialekt und Standardsprache im Alltag sind kontrovers. Sie gehen in der Praxis sehr unterschiedlich mit Dialekt und Standardsprache um. Auch in der Bildungspolitik gibt es kontroverse Diskussionen, was den sprachlichen Umgang in dialektal geprägten Regionen betrifft. Das Forschungsprojekt Sprachförderung im Alltag von Spielgruppe, Kita und Kindergarten (SPRIMA), unterstützt durch die Internationale Bodensee Hochschule von 2012 bis 2014, verfolgte als Interventionsstudie das Ziel, zur Professionalisierung von pädagogischen Fachkräften aus Deutschland und der Schweiz im Bereich der alltagsorientierten Sprachförderung beizutragen. Die für das Projekt konzipierte Weiterbildung umfasst die Vermittlung von Fachwissen zum kindlichen Spracherwerb, zur Beobachtungskompetenz sowie zur praktischen Umsetzung von alltagsintegrierten Sprachfördermassnahmen. Neben der Verbesserung der förderdiagnostischen Kompetenzen im Bereich Sprache lag der Fokus im SPRIMA-Projekt auf der Vermittlung der praktischen Umsetzung von fünf Sprachförderstrategien (Löffler/Vogt 2015). Die erste Strategie «Im Dialog mit Kindern» zeichnet sich durch das Aufgreifen von Themen des Kindes auf. Im Gespräch im Sinne des gemeinsam geteilten Denkens werden die Themen und Interessen des Kindes erweitert und vertieft und durch die Verbalisieren werden die Handlungen des Kindes sprachlich begleitet.. In der zweiten Strategie «Schritt für Schritt den Wortschatz fördern» steht der Auf-und Ausbau des kindlichen Wortschatzes im Fokus. Durch das gezielte Angebot von Wörtern unterschiedlicher Wortarten, der Erarbeitung von Merkmalen einzelner Wörter sowie der Vertiefung durch die Herstellung eines kindlichen Lebensweltbezugs wird die Wortschatzarbeit durchgeführt. In der Strategie «Sprache modellieren» greift die frühpädagogische Fachperson die kindliche Äusserung auf und korrigiert bzw. erweitert diese. «Den Spracherwerb mit Fragen fördern und begleiten» steht im Fokus der vierten Strategie. Durch Fragen, die sich am Spracherwerbsstand des orientieren, hält die frühpädagogische Fachkraft den Dialog aufrecht und bekundet Interesse am Thema des Kindes. Die fünfte Strategie, das «Redirect» fördert die-sprachlichen-Interaktionen unter den Kindern. Die frühpädagogische Fachkraft initiiert und unterstützt Gespräche zwischen den Kindern und leitet kindliche Anliegen weiter.

The study set out to investigate the impact of language anxiety on the tertiary ESL undergraduate students' communicative competence at the three selected universities in Lesotho. Present research point to language anxiety as a hindrance to second language learning and acquisition. This means that students who are anxious cannot learn the target language towards being communicatively competent. In exploring this impact, the study thus adopted a qualitative approach rooted in a case study. Through this design, data were collected in two ways; focus group discussions with (n=100) students from the three selected institutions and the face-to-face interviews with (n = 9) lecturers from the three institutions. Findings from the focus group discussions with students bring to surface students' fear to speak because of negative evaluation from their peers as well as constant error correction by their lecturers. The findings from face-toface interviews with lecturers reveal amongst others that students' anxiety is manifest as a result of lack of exposure to English from high schools. The study thus recommends that high school teachers be equipped with communicative language teaching skills, so that students can be adequately exposed to language for ease of progression to tertiary level.

This paper explores the motivations of American college students to study Arabic. A sample of 229 students enrolled in Arabic classes in six colleges were administered a survey. Theywere given a list of 29 reasons to study Arabic, each reason reflecting a different kind of motivation. The respondentswere asked to choose their top four reasons and rank them in order of importance (1,2,3,4).The results show that a variety of motivations can play an important role in a student's decision to learn Arabic. Whereas many students are career-oriented, others are interested in the language itself and pursue it for its academic stimulation. Still, others learn Arabic to be more knowledgeable about the culture, history, and religion of the Arab people. However, there are those who feel a greater sense of national threat due to changes in the sociopolitical context, and they learn the language out of patriotism.Finally, the study also reveals an interesting finding which points to respondents' perception that due to globalization and advancement in technology they now belong to the wider community of the world. This becomes a dimension of their identityand motivates them to learn foreign languages.

The purpose of the research project described in this paper is to examine the salient features of motivation driving tertiary level learners of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in the Israeli student population at Bar Ilan University. The quantitative study included 228 undergraduate university EAP students studying in various disciplines. Dornyei’s L2 Motivational Self-System Questionnaire was translated to Hebrew and modified for cultural appropriateness and language clarity. Exploratory factor analysis of the students&#39; answers revealed seven salient features, ranked from highest to lowest, underlying motivation in second language learning with varying degrees of perceived importance. The results present an Israeli perspective which differs from other studies conducted on English Foreign Language (EFL) populations. This leads to the conclusion that a broad perspective toward motivation in the language classroom is important in order to understand motivation among EAP studen...

Attitudes toward a foreign language and the motivation to learn a language have been of interest to many educators and researchers. However, the majority of research has been conducted with language learners. There is a lack of literature concerning the attitudes of teachers and teacher trainees toward the language they are or will be teaching. Thus, the current study aims to investigate English Language Teaching (ELT) teacher trainees attitudes toward the English language and their self-reported difficulties when using their foreign language skills in daily and academic language. Two hundred teacher trainees participated in the study. The questionnaire, which was developed via an extensive literature review and adaptations of Karahans (2007) and Al Zahranis (2008) studies, was found reliable (Conbachs alpha, .876). The study showed that trainees have mildly positive attitudes toward the English language, with females being more positive than males. The findings also suggest that tr...