Today, the power of discourse is incontestable. Within the field of language policy and planning (LPP), language policy (LP) has been conceptualized in various ways. One paradigmshifting conceptualization is viewing LP as "discourse." The discursive power of language policies is quite real as it can be contested in official state…

The Moroccan Ministry of Education has recently implemented a multilingual programme, called 'language alternation' (LA). The programme aims at improving students' foreign language (FL) proficiency level and promoting plurilingualism by using French, English, and Spanish, for the teaching of math, physics and life and earth sciences at the…

The aim of the research and investigation methodology was based on an expert survey, using questionnaires translated into German, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese languages. The experts, interviewed in this study as part of the international community, represent institutions or organizations, that are involved in educational policy or in…

The awarding organizations that create and administer high-stakes assessments for beginner-to-low-intermediate 16-year-old learners of French, German, and Spanish in England provide optional topic-driven word lists as guides for teachers and textbook writers. Given that these lists are developed by the awarding organizations, they exert a powerful…

This paper investigates trends in the study of Modern languages or second foreign languages (SFLs) in Swedish lower secondary school between 2000 and 2018. Over the last decades, SFLs, i.e. French, German and Spanish, have been the target of several policy measures as a response to a declining interest. However, few reports on their impact have…

Recent policy reforms in Scotland mean that all primary teachers are expected to teach a foreign language (FL) to children from age 5, introducing a second language around age 9. This small-scale research study aimed to ascertain 38 primary teachers' perceptions of their confidence to teach an FL to primary learners and what they felt would be…

The aim of this study is to explore whether latent classes, i.e. subgroups of students, representing specific motivational profiles can be found among learners of different foreign languages (L2s) in Finnish comprehensive schools. The focus is on whether motivational profiles are different for learning a compulsory foreign language (English) or an…

In the high-stakes accountability English educational system, decisions made by government and agencies about curriculum, pedagogy and assessment drive school planning and actions. This paper analyses the drivers for the recent change to French German and Spanish GCSEs and highlights particular areas of the new specification which may damage the…

In contrast to the waning interest in learning languages other than English (LOTEs) worldwide, mainland China is pursuing to diversify LOTE education because of the 'Belt and Road Initiative.' In response to language policy shifts, individual stakeholders in local contexts such as universities have to take actions to initiate LOTE programs or…

In many countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the release of each year's results for the end of high school examinations heralds an annual ritual of public commentary on the poor state of national education systems. However, the exoglossic/monolingual language regime for these examinations is infrequently acknowledged as contributing to the dismal…

This overview of seven years of research on language learning and teaching in Austria reflects a period of steady growth for the language teaching and learning research community, a development due to a national policy agenda aiming for a stronger research base in teacher education. The target languages of the teaching and learning processes…

Like other anglophone countries, the UK is experiencing a language 'crisis', in that fewer and fewer students opt to study a foreign language (FL) beyond the compulsory phase, and that the UK's language skills do not match its economic needs. Despite strong statements of commitments to increase FL uptake, decline in FL uptake in the UK's four…

This study sought to explore the ideological and implementational spaces for mainstreaming multilingual pedagogies (MPs) in initial teacher education (ITE) policies and curricula across the European Union. The concept of linguistically sensitive teaching (LST) was used as a lens to examine inclusive, equity-centred MPs in ITE. A multi-sited…

The assessment of dual language immersion (DLI) students' proficiency in the partner language plays a key role in program evaluation. This article reports findings from a large-scale study, drawing on cross-sectional assessment data from 73 schools and longitudinal data from 25 schools. Students were tested in the interpretive (listening and…

This article presents the Film in Language Teaching Association (FILTA) project, a community of practice (CoP) whose main goals are first to engage language teachers in practical uses of film and audio-visual media in the second language classroom; second, to value the artistic features of cinema; and third, to encourage a dialogue between…