Today, higher education (HE) faces new challenges, such as incorporating consideration of diversity and inclusion into its operations. Such challenges, many of which are part of strategic institutional plans, offer teachers an opportunity to introduce new practices in the classroom. In this paper, we look at introducing language students to the…

The purpose of this paper is to gain insights into the strategies employed by beginning learners of Spanish, German, Chinese and Japanese as Foreign Languages at university level in order to comprehend texts in their target languages. It also investigates possible relationships between strategic behaviour and success in reading comprehension…

Sign language learners are a heterogenous group who have different motivations for embarking on formal studies. It is apparent at the outset that many learners are uninformed about sign languages and the deaf community. It has been previously noted that societies often lack the understanding that signed languages are valid languages, and have…

This paper presents results of a study investigating four teaching methods used to introduce Chinese characters to beginner learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) in an Irish secondary school between September 2016 and October 2016. Approximately 98 learners aged 14-16 were divided into four groups and taught for two one-hour classes per…

This paper considers the attitudes and behaviours of university language lecturers and their students regarding the use of the L1 in the higher education L2 classroom. A case study of one Irish higher education institution was carried out and qualitative interviews conducted with six lecturers in Japanese and six in German. The results indicated…

A drive for the development of European citizenship (EC) through Modern Foreign Language (MFL) teaching has existed for some time within the academic literature as well as policy institutions. Nevertheless, the views of MFL teachers on the role of MFL in developing EC have rarely been given a voice. This article presents the findings of a study…

At a time when languages in universities are under pressure, community-based learning language courses can have many positive benefits: they can increase interest in language learning, they can foster greater engagement with learning, and they can encourage active learning, creativity and teamwork. These courses, which link the classroom and the…

Discusses the experiences of a Malaysian student studying Spanish as a Second Language in an all-female Irish secondary school, focusing on common difficulties encountered by Asian students of Romance languages. It is argued that the teaching of Romance languages often unfairly presupposes a knowledge of Latin or French on the part of learners.…