Wellbeing in language learning and teaching

Abstract

It is a pleasant challenge for us to compile each issue of Language Learning in Higher Education by capturing an underlying theme in its contributions and the threads running through them. The thoughts that go through our minds for this collection of papers is, for teacher and learner alike, a sense of wellbeing and of feeling comfortable in whatever aspect of the teaching-learning continuum the author is focusing on. The papers show that researchers give voice to learners and teachers through the number of questionnaires and surveys they present and discuss in response to their research questions. These forms of investigation give space to both individual and collective testimonies that are, on the one hand, food for thought for critical reflection from which to develop future scholarly activities. On the other, giving voice to participants in a research experiment is a means of stimulating them (be they teachers or learners) into thinking critically about what they are doing, how and why they are doing it, and whether they are satisfied with the outcome. In this Issue 11.2 in which, once again, learning is considered a dynamic aspect of the language classroom, the opening paper invites readers to focus their attention on the CercleS survey on the Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on foreign language teaching in higher education carried out by Katarina Zamborová, Isabella Stefanutti and Blanka Klimová, under the coordination of Sabina Schaffner. The authors present a survey aimed at studying teachers ’ re fl ections on teaching during the pandemic and on the future of foreign language instruction in Higher Education (HE). The fi ndings, which were collected through the feedback received from several European University Language Centres, highlight the fact that the respondents were able to see the bene fi ts of a blended and hybrid mode of language instruction despite the dif fi cult worldwide conditions. In addition to the data carefully described, the paper presents implications for teaching practices that will be useful for professionals involved in the daily action of language the paper The impacts of reading strategy instruction on improving the reading comprehension of students with different learning styles by Mojtaba Tadayonifar, Mohammadreza Valizadeh, Mahnaz Entezari and Mosfata Bahraman. In fact this paper explores the short- and long-term impacts of explicit reading strategy instruction and its aim is to help students with different learning styles improve their reading comprehension. A group of Iranian learners participated in the study. The authors describe the different steps of the research study which included a pre-test, 12 weeks of explicit a model for the purposes of developing The an interactive and participatory model draws on the of for rather than evaluation of authors a