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The European Language Portfolio (ELP) is an alternative assessment used in foreign language classes throughout Europe to support and record language learning. Directly linked to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001) proficiency guidelines, it is designed to achieve an ambitious dual goal: document students' skills and foster self-regulated learners. The question remains whether the ELP accomplishes its desired effect. To investigate it, the researcher employed an embedded mixed methods design in Saxony, Germany, comprising a total of 575 students in 28 classes with 19 teachers in 6 schools. In a preliminary two-group quasi-experimental phase, students using the ELP ( n = 318) reported higher mastery goal orientation, task value, academic self-efficacy, self-regulatory efficacy, and instructor evaluations. The ELP's effect increased with its frequency of use. Investigation into teachers' pedagogical beliefs revealed no statistical difference, strengthening the attribution of the results to ELP use. To reveal a more complete understanding of the ELP's effect, semi-structured interviews investigating student and teacher perception of the ELP were conducted with a purposefully selected subgroup of participants using the ELP. Interviews included open-ended prompts designed to illustrate the quantitative results. This study provides strong empirical evidence supporting the claim that the ELP accomplishes its pedagogical purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a study involving first-year modern foreign languages students enrolled in German degree courses at two major universities in the United Kingdom. It explores the experience of these students from a motivational angle. A longitudinal mixed-methods approach was employed in order to address the time- and context-sensitive nature of motivational attributes. The data suggest that despite students' increasing wish to become proficient in German, their effort to engage with language learning decreased over the course of the year. This change occurred in conjunction with decreasing levels of intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy beliefs. The relationships between motivational changes and contextual factors in higher education are discussed against the backdrop of students' transition experience from school to university. The article concludes by outlining pedagogical suggestions for how to counteract decreasing motivation of modern foreign languages students during their first year university studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by cognitive-interactionist frameworks for task-based learning, this study explores whether task complexity affects the extent to which learners focus on form-meaning connections during task-based work in a classroom setting, and whether this relationship is modulated by 3 individual difference factors-linguistic self-confidence, anxiety, and self-perceived communicative competence. Forty-three English as a second language learners from 6 intact classes worked in self-selected groups during their normal English classes. Each group performed 2 versions of the same argumentative task-a simple version and a complex version. The topics of the discussions were comparable, and the sequence of the tasks was counterbalanced. Twenty-three hours of audio- and videotaped data were collected and coded in terms of global and specific measures of speech production and various interactional features hypothesized to facilitate attention to second language constructions. Self-report questionnaires were employed to determine the mediating effects of the individual difference variables. Quantitative analyses revealed a few significant trends. One such trend is that participants demonstrated lower syntactic complexity but greater accuracy and lexical diversity when task complexity was increased. In addition, the more complex task proved more effective in inducing the use of specific, developmentally advanced constructions and in promoting interaction-driven language learning opportunities. However, no significant effects were observed for individual differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the relationships between decoding ability (the ability to relate graphemes to phonemes) in French as a foreign language, self-reported use of such decoding, and dimensions of motivation, specifically self-efficacy and attribution, among young-beginner learners in England. It investigated whether these factors were related to a desire to continue studying the language beyond the compulsory learning age of 14. Previous research has found low levels of motivation for learning the language after only a few years of instruction and a number of authors have called for research to discover why this should be. With a large stratified sample of participants aged 11-14, decoding ability was elicited via written rhyme and word segmentation tests. Self-efficacy, attribution, perceptions of learning French and use of decoding were elicited via self-reported statements. Findings suggest that, after 3 years of studying French, students were unable to decode accurately even though they claimed to use decoding regularly in a range of language learning tasks. At all stages of learning, students' ability to decode, together with their belief that they could do it, appeared to contribute to the likelihood of their continuing with French study. They attributed inability to decode not to the teacher or teaching method but to the 'strangeness' of French. Given the potential generalizability of these results, important implications for teaching and for curriculum review are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What factors in individualized tutoring sessions impact university students' self-efficacy for mastering a foreign language (EL)? For 29 initial sessions (Italian, Spanish, Erench, or Portuguese) at a university tutoring program, tutees completed pretutoring and posttutoring questionnaires indicating their self-efficacy for learning the FL. Transcripts of the 4 sessions with the greatest increases and the 4 with greatest decreases in self-efficacy were analyzed and compared for features, including session length, amount of overlapped speech, ratio of tutor/tutee talk, language choice, questioning, rules, examples, statements about the EL, admissions of error and of lack of knowledge by the tutor, and attributional statements. Motivationally effective tutoring sessions tended to be shorter, to focus on deeper understanding of the EL structure through explanation of rules and deep-level questioning, and to characterize and model the FL as learnable and regular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]