This study investigates the immediate and sustained effects of a pre-departure study abroad training on the oral production of L2 Chinese formulaic language across a range of social and transactional interactions. Eighteen upper-intermediate learners of Chinese were assigned to either an instructed or non-instructed group to determine the efficacy…

L2 pragmatics have explored the effects of different factors on different aspects of learners' pragmatic performance, but often not simultaneously. In addition, syntactic complexity is rarely examined in L2 pragmatics. This cross-sectional study aimed to conduct a multidimensional analysis to explore the effects of proficiency and study-abroad…

While there is ample evidence that study abroad (SA) enhances oral fluency in a foreign language, the effects of different types of learning context on other aspects of oral skills, such as vocabulary use, have not received much attention in academic research and are less clear. The present study tries to fill this void by investigating lexical…

One of the key topics on any Modern Languages Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) course in the United Kingdom is the hotly debated issue of target language (TL) use. When and why do teachers use the TL in delivering lessons and when and why do they code switch into the learners' language? Does their practice change over time? Does it…

This study examines the influence of pre-departure proficiency on English as a second language (L2) oral development after a semester studying abroad in two distinct learning contexts. The data analysed were collected from tertiary level students (N = 33) who undertook an ERASMUS exchange semester in a European country where English was either the…

While studies have shown benefits of plurilingual pedagogies on students' experiences learning languages, more research is needed to examine how these pedagogies can be enacted in foreign language programmes in digital environments. Moreover, prioritising oral engagement has been an urgent need among teachers who use synchronous platforms such as…

Research on task repetition in second language (L2) learning has shown the benefits of this practice for subsequent L2 learning. However, as with much L2 research, most studies on task repetition have focused on adults and there is a dearth of research in this area involving young children. This study examines the effect of task repetition on two…

This study looks into the effect of L2 learning context and different types of L2 exposure on changes in the use of communication strategies (CS). Previous findings on the possible effects of study abroad (SA) experiences on the development of CS do not allow for a clear conclusion on the issue. The present study specifically compares the effects…

This article reports the results of a study of vocabulary development by learners of Japanese during a year abroad in Japan. The particular feature of this study is that it compares the performance of two cohorts, studying at the same UK university and in degrees in Japanese in which the period of study abroad (SA) is undertaken at different…

Dynamic shifts of language learners' willingness to communicate (WtC) have been investigated in a number of studies with a view to establishing the impact of various cognitive, affective, social and contextual factors. Looking into such influences in the context of a language classroom gives an opportunity to identify variables that might remain…

This cross-sectional study provides a language learning motivational profile of undergraduates from science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degrees taking language IWLP courses (language options open to all undergraduates) in a UK institution. Trends were generated through a questionnaire (363 participants) using self-determination…

This article aims to shed light on the question of elitism in CLIL by exploring empirical evidence taken from a large-scale longitudinal investigation based in Spain. To this end, it reports on a quantitative study into the effects of CLIL programmes on the English language attainment of primary and secondary education students in monolingual…

This article explores the second language acquisition of motion events, with particular regard to cross-linguistic influence between first and second languages. Oral narratives in Spanish as a second language by native speakers of French, German and Italian are compared, together with narratives by native Spanish speakers. Previous analysis on the…

Watching foreign language programmes and films with captions (same-language subtitles intended for the deaf and hard-of-hearing) has been shown to assist learners in phonetic retuning, vocabulary acquisition and listening comprehension [e.g. Mitterer and McQueen, 2009. Foreign subtitles help but native-language subtitles harm foreign speech…

This study examines the effects of foreign language learning context (three-month study-abroad; versus "at-home" instruction) and age (10-11-year-old children versus university students) on the development of effective foreign language communication strategies (CS) in monologue production. Participants (N = 95) were all Spanish/Catalan…