Abstracts archive

In this presentation, we present preliminary results from a longitudinal study exploring the use of epistemic constructions in L2 Norwegian. By combining perspectives from Dynamic Systems Theory and sociocultural approaches to language, the study focuses on variability in individual learner trajecto...

We investigate the construction of an "authentic instructor" in digital fitness. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a relocation of instructorhood into the virtual sphere: this implies a transition in professional identity, where authenticity needs a re-definition, otherwise instructors cannot feel su...

The study focuses on a Virtual Exchange project arranged between a Japanese and a Finnish university. Using multimodal discourse analysis, the aim is to explore how the participating students used visual images to present their identities in their self-introductory Facebook posts.

The effects of cross-modal input when learning non-native sounds is explored in a study with 5-year-old L1 Catalan/Spanish children tested on their perception (AX task) abilities with respect of the /æ-?/ vowel contrast (eg. 'cat' - 'cut'). Results show that while audiovisual tactile input was not ...

Second language (L2) vocabulary is an important area of L2 learning. Nonetheless, the field knows little about vocabulary instruction in relation to materials. This study explores how materials shape vocabulary instruction in university-level, advanced L2 Spanish culture courses by analyzing sixteen...

Listening comprehension is a difficult and time-consuming language skill to develop, but little is known about what factors contribute to learners’ varied performance in listening. This study explores the relationship between four factors (i.e., vocabulary size, oral proficiency, metacognitive awa...

Healthcare access is limited for Mexican Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker men. Low English proficiency and education level contribute to power differentials limiting health literacy and agency. Language policy considering the concept of vulgaridad (common language) equalize power dynamics between pro...

This presentation draws on current new materialist scholarship in applied linguistics and language education to unfold realms of possibilities for language teaching, learning, and the associated research. Both strength and limitations of new materialist research are considered to open lines of thoug...

We measured how L2 writing is similar to L1 writing with respect to lexical/semantic quality through topic modelling (Word2Vec). Results indicate that the quality of L2 writing approximates to that of L1 writing as proficiency increases. Writing prompts were found to affect little in this progress.

Although we all have intuitive conceptions of students' "participation" and "engagement," understanding how little we know about these in practice is a crucial step toward better pedagogy. Students are often participating when we think they are not, and likewise, students can appear engaged, when in...

This presentation revisits the relationship between late L2 learning and outcome variability. Unlike most preceding work that associates performance variability with individual differences (e.g. deriving from biographical, experiential, conative, identificational, genetic, bio-chemical, aptitude, co...

In this presentation, my aim is to reflect on the use of social networking sites to build and/or reinforce power niches and autonomous zones by the language used by certain groups. Collateral issues will be approached, such as the impermeability of power niches to discourses in opposition.

This contribution reports on the multimodal analysis of 20 (professional) portraits of foreign language learners and teachers produced by French student-teachers at the University of Hamburg, based on the instructions "How did you become a (potential) French teacher?". I discuss methodological chall...

This communication reports a study examining pre service teachers' beliefs (N=75) regarding interaction in multilingual classrooms. Trainees produced two visual narratives plus a written explanatory text. Early results show a perception of multilingualism often based on stereotypes, as well as a lim...

In my PhD project I investigate the effect of multilingualism on primary school students’ vocabulary learning strategies. In controlled settings, 35 participants carried out vocabulary learning tasks and verbalized their thoughts. In this presentation, I will discuss which strategies participants ...

We present the characteristics and outcomes of a teacher training course designed for Italian volunteer teachers according to a sociocultural and reflective perspective. 10 teachers were enrolled in the study and, via a questionnaire and classroom observation, positive effects of the training course...

Walking and talking, an ethnographic method building on participant observation and interviewing, was used to explore Gaelic-English bilinguals’ language practices – and their perspectives on these practices – en route. This method provides opportunities to consider changes over place and time...

This paper questions the ways in which language education could contribute to democratic cultural spaces and configurations through the use of purposefully selected literary texts. I argue that there is something disturbingly worrisome in the incompleteness and mimicry of the postcolonial state’s ...

This study investigates whether a teacher's language choice (English-only or translanguaging) can affect students' enjoyment, anxiety and English proficiency improvement. English-only instruction might contribute to increased enjoyment on students, while translanguaging instruction might contri...

The presented exploratory case study precedes a larger investigation on class interaction and HE students’ intercultural learning. It aims to create a set of discursive and interactional features of intercultural relation management in elicited student-student discussions. Among other phenomena, s...

Variation of noun plurals in German in Austria is investigated on the basis of adult and child language production data in different settings, with a focus on individual preferences. Results will be discussed from a psycholinguistic as well as from a sociolinguistic perspective.

This talk first provides a brief overview of the relatively short development from the first virtual exchanges in language education to its recent expansion into language teaching around the world. We will then consider key areas of concern for language teacher education and possible steps for furth...

This paper explores the potentially self-empowering ways in which young people can use the language portrait to visualise and validate their linguistic repertoire by erasing languages from its visual representation in the language portrait silhouette. These erasures are conceptualised as visual sile...

Language maps help to elicit teachers’ and children’s multilingual journeys in order to acknowledge and make visible their complex language trajectories. Language maps, introduced in a teacher training programme, provided the teachers with a unique multimodal creative tool to uncover their own a...

This study compares the vocabulary production/word association of 6th and 12th EFL learners in response to the prompt ANIMALS The results provide evidence of a significant higher word production in 12th grade as compared to 6th grade EFL learners. As to the actual words retrieved by the two groups, ...

This study examines VOT in L3 English in German-dominant HSs of Italian with differing amounts of HL use. We find that transfer from the dominant language persists and, unlike global foreign accent in the same population, no role was found for individual differences in amounts of HL use.

Walking with stories is an experiment that evokes and provokes by juxtaposing researcher wonderings with language teachers’ accounts of emotionally charged events from their work with newcomers. This non-representational technique examines material and affective relations, and intimates the becomi...

This presentation reports on how EAL students adjust to using a second language, in a new socio-culture, and in an unfamiliar higher educational New Zealand institution. It advocates for these students’ capability and autonomous life skills, and how second language use may impact positively on EAL...

In this talk I show how Conversation Analysis contributes to teacher education (1) with its role in creating flexible digital observation tools as well as (2) its power in the analysis of pedagogical interactions. Issues related to the analysis of teacher learning and developing sustainable teacher ...

This paper reports effective tutoring and writing center instruction for science students in Japan. The results of analysis show tutors are expected to possess expertise in science research as well as familiarization of Japanese/English academic papers. They also need to build a collaborative relati...