Adopting an "exploratory action research" design and drawing primarily on a reflective journal and interviews, this study recounts the process of supporting first-year Applied Languages students (learning French, German and Spanish) as they started to engage in language research. Certain challenges they faced in engaging with the…

This is the first collection of research studies to explore the potential for mixed methods to shed light on foreign or second language learning by young learners in instructed contexts. It brings together recent studies undertaken in Cameroon, China, Croatia, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania and…

This paper considers what early years practitioners need to know about bilingual acquisition. It argues that bilingualism is not only an asset in the classroom and the community, but also an individual and family achievement that requires commitment and determination. The different contexts of bilingual acquisition are considered, along with the…

Phonological awareness is thought to become increasingly analytic during early childhood. This study examines whether the proposed developmental sequence (syllable[right arrow]onset-rime[right arrow]phoneme) varies according to the characteristics of a child's native language. Experiment 1 compares the phonological segmentation skills of English…

This paper discusses language planning measures in Guernsey, Channel Islands. The indigenous language is spoken fluently by only 2% of the population, and is at level 7 on Fishman's 8-point scale of endangerment. It has no official status and low social prestige, and language planning has little official support or funding. Political autonomy has…

In this article the focus is on methodology for analysing learner-learner oral conversations mediated by computers. With the increasing availability of synchronous voice-based groupware and the additional facilities offered by audio-graphic tools, language learners have opportunities for collaborating on oral tasks, supported by visual and textual…

A directory of United Kingdom (UK) organizations and centers that provide services of interest to language teachers and researchers is presented. The organizations are associations and societies that are concerned with language, linguistics, language teaching and research, and the most important groups concerned with educational technology and…