The aim of our study is to explore several possibilities to use virtual worlds (VWs) and game-applications with learners of the A1 level (CEFR) of German as a foreign language. Our interest focuses especially on designing those learning tools which increase firstly, learner motivation towards online-learning and secondly, enhance autonomous…

This report focuses on a study of three affective variables in second language acquisition: anxiety, self-concept, and timidity. The study was conducted on 92 high school English-as-a-foreign-language students in Barcelona, Spain. Subject performance was measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Scale, the Spanish version of the Tennessee Self-Concept…

This paper discusses Wilga Rivers' seven language teaching objectives. Particular focus is on the following three language teaching objectives: (1) giving students the experience of expressing themselves linguistically and culturally in a context different from that in which they grew up; (2) fostering students' understanding of other peoples'…

This study investigates the application of Krashen's Input Hypothesis, studying the relationship between exposure to the target language and language acquisition within the context of the English-as-a-foreign-language secondary classroom in Spain. The project studied the effect of additional reading instruction with emphasis on reading for…

Drawing on writings by recent post-modernist thinkers and semioticians, this paper focuses on a combination of hermeneutic and semiotic viewpoints and applies them to defining the nature of interpretation in an educational setting (e.g., text interpretation), the interpreter, and the essence of the act of comprehension and interpretation. The main…