Although there is a body of research on the teacher first language (L1) use in English-medium-instruction (EMI) classrooms, very little research has probed into how international students perceive local teacher L1 use and their learning practices in the English as a lingua franca (ELF) context. To address the gap, the present case study explored a…

International students' attitudes towards teachers' codeswitching to the first language (L1) have not been adequately investigated in cross-cultural English-medium instruction (EMI) settings, where teachers and international students do not share the same L1 while they interact in English as a lingua franca (ELF). To fill that void, this study…

This article examines the connection among university students' lived experiences of language, ideologies, and linguistic repertoires through visual and verbal representations. It demonstrates that linguistic repertoires are crucial for students' identities, yet impeded by restricting, homogenizing policies, which reproduce the "monolingual…

This paper provides insights into online language practices among bilingual teenagers who speak and learn a lesser-used language. Regarding language diversity, the internet is seen to pose both challenges to and opportunities for smaller languages. Focusing on German-Upper Sorbian adolescents, this study enquires to what extent new media and…

This paper discusses the potential of immersing foreign language learners in Social Virtual Reality (SVR) in an international seminar, designed by the authors, called SpEakWise VR, combining the tandem language learning paradigm with gamification in immersive virtual environments. SpEakWise VR builds on an existing telecollaboration (SpEakWise)…

This paper investigates the relationship between multilingualism, code-switching, target language contact and pragmatic and grammatical awareness in learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). Participants (N = 144) were university students enrolled in English language courses at a German university. The study employed a cross-sectional…

A recent surge of findings on bilingual cognitive advantage has attracted attention from both researchers and the media. An advantage has been demonstrated with regard to, inter alia, inhibiting, switching, monitoring and updating. However, Paap et al. argue that the advantage does not exist or is only limited to executive functioning. Both sides…

International comparisons of languages have shown how mathematical concepts can be expressed and conceptualised in different languages. For multilingual students, these findings raise the question of how the interplay of languages and conceptualisations shape multilingual learning processes. This paper presents an investigation of case studies of…

This article examines the discursive construction of social presence and identity in a bilingual collaboration between tertiary distance learners of German in New Zealand and Academic English students in Germany. Drawing on positioning theory, this small-scale study investigated the collaborative practices of a group of students, whose synchronous…

Developing the ability to speak in a foreign language is an arduous task. This is because it involves the mastery of different language subsystems, simultaneous focus on comprehension and production, and the impact of a range of social factors. This challenge is further compounded in situations in which learners have limited access to the target…

This study examined the views of college learners of German regarding desired degrees of first language (L1) versus second language (L2) use, how desired language use related to observed language use for students and teachers, gaps between desired and observed language, tasks for which students expressed strong preference for L1 and for L2, how…