Following the current research in conversation analysis in the field of second language (L2) learning, the present study demonstrates that beginner-level adult learners actively contribute to vocabulary explanation sequences by mobilising multimodal resources including depictive gestures, gaze, and short verbal turns. The data consist of…

This paper explores ways to integrate social justice issues pertaining to decolonization and anti-racism into the world language classroom at all levels of instruction. It describes tasks designed to introduce language learners briefly to German colonialism, raise awareness of colonial legacies in contemporary German-speaking societies, and…

University students, especially language learners, have increasingly been using machine translation (MT) systems in the last decade and for all kinds of texts, including homework, assignments and exams. This ubiquity does not translate into visibility as few teachers address the subject in class. Several researchers have shown that MT systems,…

This paper is grounded in the evolution of our reflection on the relationship between plurilingualism, plurilingual speech and language learning. That is, it refers to research on the construction of plurilingual repertoires, over a period of more than thirty years, as documented in Lüdi and Py (1986 [2009]. "To Be or Not to Be … a…

Becoming a professional worker involves a wide range of cognitive, social, and cultural processes that have received extensive attention over the past decades amongst various disciplines. It is also not external to language use and communication. Novices in any occupation have to learn technical terms and are expected to master specific discourse…

The scholarly praise for linguistic diversity stands in an interesting contrast to the way diversity in standard and non-standard languages is referred to in language policy discourse. Drawing on recent debates in Switzerland, this article focuses on ideologies on linguistic varieties in the German- and Romansh-speaking areas. The two contexts…

Poor literacy skills can result in exclusion and reduce people's capacity to participate in political, social, cultural and economic life. This is important for migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) who seek to live and work in a dignified, safe and fair environment and to be engaged members of their new communities. The…

More than ever, faculty need to ensure that undergraduate curricula not only provide students with tools to gain linguistic proficiency but also teach them to analyze both written and visual information to attain historical literacy. Developing both intercultural proficiency and insights into various historical memorialization processes ensures…

The aim of this article is to stress the importance of a dynamic systems or complexity theory approach as a necessary prerequisite to understanding the development of multi-competence in multilingual learners. Selected results from a study on emergent multilingual awareness in children, carried out in South Tyrol, are outlined and discussed. The…

This article originated in a creative attempt to engage audiences visually, on a poster, with ideas about language(s), teaching and learning which have been informing language education at university language centres. It was originally locally grounded and devised to take soundings with colleagues and with participants at the CercleS 2014…

Phraseology has long been used in L2 teaching of academic writing, and corpus linguistics has played a major role in the compilation and assessment of academic phrases. However, there are only a few interactive academic writing tools in which corpus methodology is implemented in a real-time design to support formulation processes. In this paper,…

While the idea of plurilingual competence is widely established theoretically and promoted in European language policies, it is not implemented in educational practice, where separate plurilingualism is still dominant. The idea of languages as autonomous entities is e.g. reflected in the "Common European Framework of Reference for…

This article argues for a "D-A-CH" approach, which stands for Germany (D), Austria (A), and Switzerland (CH), in language classes from the introductory level on. I begin by tracing the emergence and development of distinct Standard Swiss and Austrian German varieties. I then discuss marketing efforts for Swiss and Austrian German, and…

This article explores ways in which learners' achievements can be assessed and reflected in both the domains of linguistic performance and subject-content learning. The content and language integrated learning (CLIL) approach adopted by the authors is one in which language learning and content learning are truly integrated and where neither…

We present a new feedback strategy implemented in a natural language generation-based e-learning system for German as a second language (L2). Although the system recognizes a large proportion of the grammar errors in learner-produced written sentences, its automatically generated feedback only addresses errors against rules that are relevant at…