Assessing foreign language skills in near-authentic settings : Scenario-based test tasks on the computer – an in-depth study

For our research project “Innovative forms of assessment”, test tasks were designed and embedded in so-called scenarios: narrative frameworks that incorporate highly realistic task questions as well as the use of digital text types to simulate near-authentic language use in the foreign language and thus motivate test takers to mobilise their entire linguistic repertoire.

Assessing reading comprehension in a foreign language Task Lab – an empirical study of computer-based tasks in French

Our “Task Lab” team developed reading comprehension tasks that are suitable for use in a Swiss-wide large-scale assessment of foreign language skills. The overarching aim was to shed light on success factors for reading comprehension and, in the end, to attain more valid interpretations of test results and assessment scales in large-scale assessments.

Vers une pédagogie des contacts dans l’enseignement des langues-cultures

Aujourd’hui, tout apprentissage d’une langue-culture étrangère (LCE) devrait inclure l’opportunité d’utiliser la langue apprise dans un contexte réel avec des interlocutrices de cette LCE. Pour cette étude, Nous partons de l’idée que les expériences faites lors de séjours peuvent exercer une influence notable dans la constellation des représentations et croyances du répertoire didactique en construction des futures enseignantes.

Preschool language education in linguistically heterogeneous playgroups

The aim of the project MePraS was to gather basic knowledge to support playgroup leaders in integrating language education into the daily structures of linguistically heterogeneous playgroups. The core objective was to situate the complex playgroup setting in the context of preschool language instruction.

Figures of interpretation
Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2021
This ground-breaking book assembles 31 portraits of people who interpret languages, cultures and situations, and offers graphic interpretations of their collective experience. Their individual stories are part of the larger history of interpreters, interpretation and interpretive readings, and they demonstrate how language intersects with race, class, gender and geopolitical inequalities. The book allows the unexpected to unfold by passing control from the writers to the reader, who will see connections and ruptures unfold between space, time and class while never losing sight of the materiality of living. Together and individually, the portraits tell a powerful story about the structure of contemporary society and the hierarchical distributions of power that permeate our lives.

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.21832/9781788929400-004/html

Raphael Berthele, Isabelle Udry: Individual differences in early instructed language learning: The role of language aptitude, cognition, and motivation
Berlin: Language Science Press, 2021

Variability in predispositions for language learning has attracted scholarly curiosity for over 100 years. Despite major changes in theoretical explanations and foreign/second language teaching paradigms, some patterns of associations between predispositions and learning outcomes seem timelessly robust. This book discusses evidence from a research project investigating individual differences in a wide variety of domains, ranging from language aptitude over general cognitive abilities to motivational and other affective and social constructs.

https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/313

Zorana Sokolovska : Les langues en débat dans une Europe en projet
Lyon: ENS éditions, 2021

Cet ouvrage s’intéresse à l’émergence et à la circulation des idées sur les langues au Conseil de l’Europe, notamment sur ce qu’est le plurilinguisme, sur son rôle et ses enjeux pour la gestion de l’Europe. Il met en avant une réflexion critique sur la mobilisation et la promotion d’une certaine vision des langues et du plurilinguisme afin d’exercer un pouvoir sur la scène internationale. Cet ouvrage s’adresse à des sociolinguistes, à des analystes du discours et à des anthropologues ainsi qu’à des étudiants ou à des professionnels du domaine politico-éducatif.

https://bcufr.swisscovery.slsp.ch/permalink/41SLSP_BCUFR/13cv4r8/alma991018680096405509

Stockwell, Glenn: Mobile assisted language learning : concepts, contexts and challenges
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022

The increased use of sophisticated mobile devices opens up new possibilities and challenges for language teachers and learners, which has led to an increasing need to consider issues relating to mobile technologies specifically. To date, there is no comprehensive book-length treatment of issues relating to mobile-assisted language learning (MALL). This book fills that gap, providing a resource for present and future language teachers, and for graduate students of applied linguistics and TESOL, to understand how mobile devices can best be used for language teaching. It is founded on existing research, practice and theory, and offers a balanced perspective, based on the author's own experiences with mobile learning - considering the limitations of such an approach, as well as the benefits.

https://bcufr.swisscovery.slsp.ch/permalink/41SLSP_BCUFR/13cv4r8/alma991018766004405509

There is ample evidence that language users, including second-language (L2) users, can predict upcoming information during listening and reading. Yet it is still unclear when, how, and why language users engage in prediction, and what the relation is between prediction and learning. This volume presents a collection of current research, insights, and directions regarding the role of prediction in L2 processing and learning.

https://bcufr.swisscovery.slsp.ch/permalink/41SLSP_BCUFR/13cv4r8/alma991018807396805509 

Zehra Gabillon : Apprentissage de langues additionnelles dans un cadre scolaire plurilingue : langues autochtones, étrangères, régionales et patrimoniales
Bruxelles: Peter Lang

Cet ouvrage destiné aux lecteurs s’intéressant au plurilinguisme et à l’enseignement de langues additionnelles examine les approches pédagogiques qui intègrent l’enseignement de contenus disciplinaires. Il présente un compte rendu de l’enseignement d’une matière par l’intégration d’une langue étrangère, il explique les raisons des transformations qui ont influencé la perception, la pratique et l’apprentissage des langues et ont conduit à l’émergence des positions épistémologiques actuelles sur l’enseignement des langues additionnelles. L’ouvrage aborde ces changements de paradigmes théoriques, didactiques et pratiques et établit des liens entre la recherche, la théorie et la pédagogie.

https://bcufr.swisscovery.slsp.ch/permalink/41SLSP_BCUFR/13cv4r8/alma991018772128405509