In the editorial of "The Language Learning Journal" of July 2011, readers' attention is drawn to the decline in language teaching and learning in British schools and universities, and to the attempt of the British Academy to promote language teaching against this decline. The British Academy paper makes seven recommendations of which the second…

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…

In this article, we outline the challenges facing French Studies in regional Australian universities resulting from an increasingly vocational curriculum and doubts about the cost-effectiveness of language learning in higher education. These pressures have resulted in a process of discipline restructuring and significant cuts in the numbers of…

Students' assessment of their academic experience is actively sought by higher education institutions, as evidenced in the UK's National Student Survey, introduced in 2005. Erasmus students, despite their growing numbers, tend to be excluded from these satisfaction surveys, even though they, too, are primary customers of a university. This study…

This paper reports on a small-scale qualitative study of students' experience of their Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) degrees with particular regard to the relationship between language and content learning. It is framed by the identification in the recent Worton Report on MFL studies in UK higher education and elsewhere of a dualism between…

This paper reviews research to date into the foreign language (FL) gains made by the large number of FL students from the UK who undertake a period of residence abroad (RA) as a component of their degree. It examines in detail the efficacy of the most common form of RA undertaken by UK students, namely the study year at a foreign university (URA).…

In his "Review of Modern Foreign Languages Provision in Higher Education in England", Michael Worton argues that to safeguard the health of their subjects, languages academics will need to establish "greater, sustainable collaborations" with a range of partners including "extra-educational organisations". For Worton's exhortation to languages…

L2 education research has shown immense interest in learners and their views of L2 learning. Nevertheless, the different directions of learner-focused research have been inadequate in highlighting learners' learning experiences in relation to their social backgrounds, particularly in the developing world. Drawing on the first author's PhD…

This paper discusses the role of various linguistic sub-disciplines in teaching Finnish and Hungarian. We sketch the profile of the two languages, including difficulties in learning and teaching them, and the context in which they are taught in the UK. Using examples from our own teaching, we argue that a linguistically oriented approach is well…

The place of foreign language learning in education has a rich and diverse history since the introduction of compulsory schooling, with some countries including the learning of a foreign language as a compulsory part of the curriculum, whilst in others foreign language learning is seen as an optional subject suited for more academically minded…

The COLT (Community and Lesser Taught Languages) project is a consortium of five UK universities, working with various other regional organisations to set up replicable projects and structures to promote languages in North West England. It received funding under the UK's national "Routes into Languages" initiative. One objective was to promote…

This paper, based on the results of a small pilot study of a Bengali supplementary school, discusses the features of the school in relation to other studies of supplementary "mother-tongue" schools and goes on to explore the pedagogy of the school, its relationship with other sites and spaces of learning and the implications of these for the…

The realisation of plurilingualism requires a more open and inclusive approach to language teaching and one which takes account of various factors involved in working with learners who have a background in the target language and culture. This article seeks to identify these factors within the context of a set of broader principles for second…

The task of teaching non-territorial languages such as Yiddish at the university level is a complex undertaking. The teaching of Yiddish has its own particular difficulties due to an ever-diminishing population of native speakers available to students, a lack of contemporary cultural materials, and an abundance of outdated teaching materials. A…

This comparative study, conducted in multicultural London, investigates the occurrence in interviews with a researcher and in constructed same-sex peer conversations of five linguistic features characteristic of London English in the speech of two groups of British-born adolescents: ethnic Bangladeshis and ethnic Chinese of Cantonese heritage. The…