There has been increasing concern over the poor performance and lack of interest in modern language learning among secondary-school students. Although there is some evidence as to the under-achievement of boys in modern languages (ML), there is less information as to the degree to which other factors such as social class, and bilingual or…

The purpose of this study was to explore the concept of play through the eyes of talented and gifted (TAG) fifth- and sixth-grade students. Three focus groups consisting of fifth- and sixth-grade TAG students were conducted in one urban, one suburban, and one rural school district in the Midwest. Students were asked to describe the value of play…

This paper focuses on young foreign language learners' attitudes and motivations. An overview is given of the main issues in this research area, based on key European studies. Approaches to studying these affective learner characteristics are described. Some attention is devoted to data elicitation techniques and the importance of triangulation.…

Direct behavior rating (DBR) has been described as a hybrid of systematic direct observation and behavior rating scales. Although single-item (DBR-SIS) and multi-item (DBR-MIS) methods have been advocated, the overwhelming majority of research attention has focused on DBR-SIS. This study employed generalizability theory to compare the…

Motivation is a well-researched construct; however, few studies have investigated how teachers perceive and make sense of situations in which learners are not motivated to learn. Thirty-two EFL teachers working in Japanese universities were surveyed and interviews with three of these teachers were conducted to reveal their perceptions of student…

The study assesses the effect of social and emotional learning (SEL) integrated in a literature class, named here "affective teaching," as compared to conventional teaching. Dependent variables include relationships, behavior, motivation to learn, and content knowledge. Participants were 36 teacher trainees in one college in Israel and…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of Facebook among college students in a cross-cultural collaboration project between Taiwan and the United States, and focuses specifically on Taiwanese students' perceptions. Questions explored are: (1) Is Facebook a feasible platform for cross-cultural collaboration? (2) How does this…

Boy culture is out of sync with school culture. There are several reasons for this, including zero tolerance policies that are too often taken to extremes, the lack of male teachers, and the compression of the curriculum. What's more, boy culture is not socially accepted, and boys quickly come to feel that they are not good at school. For many…

This paper examines the content-language integrated (CLI) second language (L2) education offered by the CCUEI Research Collaborative in China. It explores how CCUEI-developed curriculum reflects the theoretical foundations of an immersion experiment and how the research-based theoretical foundations of CLI L2 have been applied in practice. It…

Rewards are frequently used in classrooms and recommended as a key component of well-researched methods of cooperative learning (e.g., Slavin, 1995). While many studies of cooperative learning find beneficial effects of rewards, many studies of individuals find negative effects (e.g., Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999; Lepper, 1988). This may be…

The article reports results of a study of beginner-level learners of Zulu in higher education in the UK, focussing on learners' linguistic background, their motivation and reasons for studying Zulu, and their self-assessed progress at the beginning of the second term of teaching. The study shows that participants typically studied Zulu as an…

These proceedings contain the papers of the 14th International Conference on Mobile Learning 2018, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society, in Lisbon, Portugal, April 14-16, 2018. The Mobile Learning 2018 Conference seeks to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of mobile…

One of the trump cards of digital educational games is their enormous intrinsic motivational potential. Although learning game design is often understood on a one-fitsall level, the actual motivational strength of an educational game strongly depends on the individual learners, their very specific goals, preferences, abilities, strength and…

Grades should reflect and help motivate learning. This book illustrates ways teachers can shift their practices to conduct accurate, constructive assessments that not only maintain the integrity of essential education objectives, but also motivate students and enhance learning. Through detailed strategies, educators will learn how to grade…

The purpose of this study is to explore and describe the essence of pupils' experiences of motivation in school. The empirical material has been gathered in Sweden through self-reports and focus groups and analysed by means of an empirical phenomenological method. The research results show that two constituents--interest and progress--are…