Foreign language teaching achieves best learning outcomes when individual differences of learners are taken into account. While it is difficult for teachers to support internal differentiation in the classroom, digital tools can adaptively propose individual learning paths through activities so that students can practice with appropriately…

Working independently helps students develop a series of skills and strategies that will continue to be useful in their future professional careers. Teachers in Higher Education (HE) have a role in facilitating Independent Learning (IL) for their students. When creating opportunities for students to develop autonomy in learning, teachers may wish…

Creative writing can be both an effective and attractive English learning activity at university departments where students speak English as a Second Language (ESL). Language skill courses might not be always effective enough in improving learners' communicative skills and motivating them to learn, particularly when adopting old style…

This contribution reflects on some of the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced for languages in Higher Education (HE). In particular, two areas are discussed: the delivery of teaching and learning activities, including assessments, and the year abroad. These two areas, on which the enforced move to online provision has had a significant…

The results of a transatlantic survey on technology-mediated Task-Based Language Learning (TBLL) are presented and discussed. The study was conducted within the scope of the European-funded Pan-European Task Activities for Language Learning (PETALL) project. The aim was to determine the teachers' acquaintance with TBLL and with the potential of…

Language researchers and teachers have long been interested in the timing of learning, and the distributed practice effect, whereby greater inter-session intervals result in longer retention, is well-known (Kim & Webb, 2022). Many L2 studies have focused on the intentional learning of lexis (Edmonds, Gerbier, Palasis, & Whyte, 2021),…

The song 'La ballata dell'amore cieco (o della vanità)' (1966), by Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio De André (1940-1999), offers students opportunities to practise their language skills, stimulate their cultural appreciation, and expand their knowledge of a musical and poetic form (the ballad), while reflecting on the close connection between…

The present volume investigates the relevance of language teaching and learning in the contemporary job market, highlighting how language graduates can provide a substantial contribution to the multilingual needs of the UK. It also explores how the sudden spread of COVID-19 impacted on the acceleration of the online pedagogical shift which had…

Empathy is widely perceived and understood as an unquestioned component of Intercultural Competence (IC). The authors see the ability to empathise with others and to see their point of view as an important condition for developing an ethnorelative viewpoint, and therefore consider it important to incorporate activities into the intercultural…

Assessing the skills of the students who take part in a Virtual Exchange (VE) project is a challenging and complicated task, especially if it aims to engage both the students and VE co-organisers in the feedback and evaluation process. The objective of this chapter is to outline the pedagogical design of a business communication skills course and…

Tangible visual thinking activities can enrich long-distance intercultural learning experiences by improving realism, respect, and equity. This occurs through the creation of boundary objects, which can be physical objects that generate shared understanding across diverse teams and disciplinary boundaries. In the case of this study, visual…

The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) proposes Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) as an important strategy to develop the learners' linguistic competences along with their communicative skills. Since it is learner-centred and relies mostly on engaging learners in meaningful communicative interchanges in a foreign language, it allows…

The advent of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has dramatically changed the way people learn a language. But how can we design an efficient language learning environment for a massive number of learners? Are there any good practices that showcase successful Massive Open Online Language Course (MOOLC) design strategies? According to recent…

This project aimed to explore how online open communities and resources could be used for language learning in a higher education context. Advanced language learners were introduced to translation and subtitling, and the use of open content to maintain their language skills post-graduation whilst engaging in a meaningful activity, namely sharing…

Wall Street English has built online activities that allow students to record phrases and receive word-level Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) driven pronunciation feedback. Students in language centres in China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Italy (N=2,867) used ASR-Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) activities, and some (N=482) completed a…