Digital translation tools and dictionaries have become an indispensable part of language use. DeepL, Leo and Co. are used extensively and for various purposes, however, their benefits for foreign language teaching and learning remain contested. Some consider these tools to be of educational value, while others express their doubts on the sustainability of their contribution to language learning.

Vocabulary is the basis for receptive and productive language use. Influential theories on second language acquisition and learning consider vocabulary and grammar to be complementary, rather than opposing elements of language. Vocabulary is viewed as an integral component of learner grammars that is worth promoting and consolidating in the foreign language classroom. In recent years, digitialisation has seen the development of many learning apps and platforms that provide new opportunities...

This doctoral thesis used qualitative research methods and adopted an exploratory-interpretative approach. Although conducted as an independent study, it forms part of the RCM project “Innovative forms of assessment (IFB)”, a quantitative study that aimed to better understand the validity of new, scenario-based task and item types.

Comparatively little research has been conducted on how adult migrants – both those with low literacy skills (non-literates) and those who have competence in a non-Latin alphabet (non-roman alphabet literates) – acquire reading and writing skills, and scholarly findings on the subject are correspondingly sparse. This condition is all the more surprising as specialist discourse on the topic of “literacy levels in adults” has long revealed that traditional differentiations between so-called...

Language exchange activities are widely viewed as a means of promoting language and intercultural competence and as a way to motivate students to learn a foreign language. Indeed,  recently, educational policy has strengthened its commitment to advance and intensify language exchange.

In Switzerland, language immersion and bilingual education programmes have been both promoted and in demand for quite some time. The topic has also been the focus of numerous scholarly studies that, however, are not always known or accessible. In addition, there is a degree of uncertainty about which findings can be compared or generalised. This project aims to collect existing scholarly literature and documentation and to analyse the information according to theme.

Research cooperation with the Glossaire des patois de la Suisse romande - GPSR

The basis of this report, commissioned by the association BERNbilingue, is a systematic evaluation of current studies on French as a foreign language lessons at primary and secondary schools that use the Mille feuilles and Clin d'oeil learning materials. The report aims to compile findings on the following three questions: 1) How well do students in the Passepartout region master the basic competences and achieve the curriculum goals? 2) How do teachers rate the Mille feuilles/Clin d'oeil...

The Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK) planned to verify how well students are mastering the Basic Competences (educational standards) in foreign languages for the second time in spring 2020. Due to the covid-19 pandemic, classroom teaching in schools was prohibited from mid-March to mid-May. As the verification could not be carried out as planned, the EDK decided to postpone it to 2023.

This collaborative project aims at moving beyond common and acritical assumptions about capitalism and language that tend to take them for granted, without sufficiently interrogating their historical development, their heterogeneous manifestations in time and space, or their complicated interrelationship. We believe instead that a thorough exploration of the co-relation of language and capitalism is needed in order to grasp how, where, why, to what extent, with what consequences, and...