When asked about their goals, students learning a foreign language generally say they want to speak the language. Despite the value placed on speaking, however, various studies on the foreign language competence of Swiss school students reveal that many learners have difficulty in meeting the learning outcomes set for spoken language (Peyer et al. 2016, Wiedenkeller/Lenz 2019).

The learner's native language(s) have an impact on second language acquisition. All speakers ‘ languages share the processes that enable their functioning and also their knowledge repertoires, such as the phonological repertoire (Flege, Bohn & Jang, 1997; Kartushina & Frauenfelder, 2014). The functioning of languages and their common repertoires can generate cross-linguistic interferences and transfers, which either hinder or facilitate second language acquisition.

The project looks at learning and teaching German as a Foreign Language in Israel, where after 1945 the German language was looked down upon and where learning German still does not seem self-evident today. Proceeding from the historically complex relationship between Germany and Israel and situated at the interface between sociolinguistics and foreign language didactics, the study addresses the so far underexplored question of who is nowadays learning German why, where...

Literacy courses designed for adult migrants have been offered for decades in countries experiencing significant immigration. The recent past has seen an increase in research on the teaching and learning processes that are involved in successful and sustainable literacy development for adult migrants in a non-native language and that therefore should be taken into account in literacy classes; nevertheless, significant research gaps remain. Current practice in literacy development for...

This PhD project explored multimodal pictorial, musical and movement-based interventions that are intended to promote self-regulated learning processes. Scholarly findings increasingly indicate that scholastic success is not rooted solely in subject knowledge and general intelligence, but that scholastic achievement is also influenced by psychosocial factors with little known significance in learning (Kuhl, 2001).

Financed by Fond d’Innovation de la Faculté des lettres, University of Fribourg The aim of this project is to test the use of the digital collaborative writing tool FRAMAPAD https://framapad.org to support the note-taking skills of allophone students attending courses in the humanities.

The overarching goal of this project is to investigate how knowledge of a substandard variety of the first language (e.g., a local dialect) affects the learning of another language.

Concluded at the end of 2013, the project "Italiano ricettivo" developed the teaching material Capito?, which is intended for use either in classroom settings or as self-study tools. The aim of  Capito? is the development of receptive skills in Italian, allowing learners to gain access to the language and culture of the Ticino (and Graubünden). Concentrating on receptive multilingual skills advances a form of communication based on mutual ability to understand one another and...

The aim of the current project it to evaluate the learning impact of an age-appropriate, feasible exchange setting (two short, direct interactions embedded in contact via e-mail and video) at the primary level in Eastern and Western Switzerland. The focus is placed on the motivation to learn a foreign language as well as on changes in the productive language skills of the school children.

This project was dedicated to measuring students' compentences in French in the skills listening, reading, speaking and writing by the end of primary school as well as by the end of the 8th class. In order to compare results, the 8th-class students' skills in reading and writing in Englisch were also tested. Analyses focused on whether aspects such as number of teaching hours and different variables related to students and teachers influence the students' competences in foreign languages....