Interreligious dialogue is a central objective in European and UNESCO policy and research documents, in which educational institutions are seen as central places for dialogue. In this article, we discuss this type of dialogue under the conditions of asymmetry and categorisation in two Finnish schools. Finnish education has often been lauded for…

Vietnam's open-door policy, its socialist-oriented market economy, recent growth in cross-border education and skills mobility, regionalisation and globalisation have created an increasing demand for Vietnamese graduates to develop not only their English language but also their intercultural competence. This paper discusses the issue of…

This study aims to contrastively examine Korean and international students' experiences of taking subject courses at a Korean university. Focusing on the viewpoints of the students, rather than central authorities, we attempt to reveal how language use and cultural factors are interpenetrated in the praxis of English-medium instruction (EMI).…

Despite having almost no familial or social connection with English speakers and English-speaking countries, 19 interviewees, all preservice English teachers residing in the Israeli periphery, ascribe a central and surprisingly emotional role to English in their lives. The article presents the conclusions of a qualitative research project…

Interlingual subtitling has been extensively investigated for language learning and teaching purposes in the last decade. However, there is a lack of research into the creation of subtitles as a means of intercultural learning. This article is a first empirical attempt to verify the potential of subtitling for intercultural language education. It…

This paper focuses on language classes where Greek-Cypriot students learn Turkish as their second Modern Foreign Language (MFL). Literature on MFL learning and emotions tends to focus on learners' emotions in relation to the production of the new language; however, MFL learning is also a space that provides the opportunity to language…

Recent years have witnessed rapid growth in language learning within online collaborative learning projects constructed between educational institutions in different cultural and pedagogic contexts. This qualitative case study investigated the role of teacher communication in a short online project between language classes in secondary schools in…

This paper reports on an exploratory study of one specific aspect of intercultural literacy: the activation of intercultural intertexts. Readers of intercultural intertexts fall into two general groups: knowing readers (who know the source text) and unknowing readers (who do not know the source text). This paper aims to explore Taiwanese unknowing…

This paper presents a synthesis of a pioneering study that approaches the sociolinguistic and educational reality of the area of Navia-Eo, a region in the western part of Asturias (Spain). This research aims to provide an insight into the language attitudes and the sociolinguistic awareness of students in the final year of primary education. Using…

This article will discuss why cursing and swearing, as manifestations of emotional language, should be addressed in foreign language learning (FLL). Psycholinguistic and pragmatic studies have argued that cursing and swearing are a central component of an individual's communicative repertoire, fulfilling a variety of functions, including…

For many language learners, studying a foreign language is a compulsory, high-stakes activity. It is perhaps for this reason that positive feelings about language learning are rarely mentioned in the literature on language learning. The focus is predominantly on negative feelings: the anxiety caused by being asked to speak in the foreign language…

Appreciating difference and combating intolerance are inadequate to effect intercultural transformative experiences in an age of complexity, ambiguities and mobilities. I argue that the tolerance view of intercultural communication is patronising and does not prepare students for future roles in which they can impact upon the world. To realise…

This paper uses two autobiographical accounts of language learning within the context of highly significant personal relationships to argue that the functional emphasis of communicative language teaching has narrowed our understanding of the potential personal and educational meaning of what it is to learn a language. The author's learning of…

This paper explores how questions of ethics and questions of method are intertwined and unavoidable in any serious study of language and intercultural communication. It argues that the focus on difference and solution orientations to intercultural conflict has been a fundamental driver for theory, data collection and methods in the field. These…

This paper examines the different social categories that are made relevant when geographically dispersed speakers of English as an additional language communicate in chat rooms. Although the literature characterizes these interactions as English as a lingua franca, this paper explores to what extent interactants see themselves as lingua franca…