This study investigates criteria that influence the development of students’ mobility at the University College of Teacher Education in Lower Austria over the last 12 years. Generally, there is an increase on the number of incoming students while there is a decrease on the number of outgoing students. To identify reasons for this development, a total of 223 learning agreements have been analysed. In order to help interpret results, interviews with students engaging in an Erasmus programme aiming at spending a term studying abroad and a person in charge of coordinating Erasmus programmes have been held. In accordance with other studies on student mobility, this research identifies aspects that are generally conducive and others which are unfavourable for study abroad. The analyses of the outcomes show that the prospect of gaining intercultural experience, the interest in further developing soft skills, the language of instruction at the university and country of destination on the one hand, and the conditions at the home university including the amount of credits recognised by the sending institution on students’ return, as well as the probability of time loss on the other hand are the main criteria that are influential on a teacher trainee’s decision whether to spend a semester studying in a foreign country. Moreover, strategies for encouraging student mobility such as the organisation of information events, the provision of language courses, and a more extensive credit transfer system for outgoing students are identified.

The study aims to investigate how gender and achievement affect foreign language anxiety (FLA) scores among 379 Austrian students in upper secondary education. The analysis revealed that the majority of students display moderate levels of overall foreign language anxiety, a compound variable of general foreign language anxiety, foreign language reading, writing and listening anxiety. A two-way ANOVA showed a significant main effect of both gender and achievement on the participants’ overall foreign language anxiety scores, but no significant interaction effect. Moreover, a two-way MANOVA proved that both gender and achievement had a significant main effect on the combined variables with large effect sizes. The interaction effect of gender X achievement on the combined variables was significant, albeit with a much smaller effect size. Gender and achievement thus emerged as influencing factors in the creation of FLA in Austrian upper secondary education, in particular with regard to the productive language skills.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the importance of feedback in the learning process. It focuses particularly on the relation between different types of feedback and language development. The definition of feedback is given in the introductory part, and the importance of differentiation between error, mistake and attempt is highlighted. The roles of input and output are being argued in the chapter that follows, with emphasis on the significance of output. The theory of corrective feedback focuses on the types of negative feedback, the role of implicit and explicit negative feedback in the second language classroom, and the importance of interaction in order to increase the knowledge and acquisition of the target language. The aim of this paper is to review different approaches and provide a conclusion accordingly.

The use of videos in teaching is becoming more and more widespread. For this purpose, not only existing videos are used, but also exclusive videos are created. There are different types of instructional videos used and created for teaching. It is useful to know which design principles these videos should follow in order to evaluate the quality of existing learning videos and to know the criteria one should consider when creating exclusive instructional videos. Therefore, questions arise as to how these videos should be designed to equally support theory and practice and what educational requirements they should meet for the use in teaching. These questions are answered with the framework of the study in hand that applied the method design-based research, incorporating qualitative and quantitative research methods. Survey instruments were guided interviews with experts, questionnaires for school students and a focus group. Participants in the study were teachers and students from the Vienna University of Teacher Education. The field of application was nutrition and consumer education for teaching students of the middle school. The results are presented in the form of design principles.

The world has become a huge marketplace wherein trade between various cultures and nations is taking place, thus leading to an overwhelming need for one common language used worldwide among speakers of various native languages. Historically, this role has been occupied by different languages, even though the use of none of them can be compared to the current omnipresence of English. Thus, the aim of the present paper is to discuss the notion of English as a global language, global lingua franca with a major focus on the development of Business English as lingua franca (BELF), which has been embraced as a common language in multilingual and multicultural companies. Furthermore, this paper examines general characteristics of BELF and compares it to other similar concepts such as Business English (BE) and English as Lingua Franca (ELF). With the growing importance and presence of BELF worldwide, the teaching aspect has arisen as an important issue, so this paper touches upon it as well.

It is important for the effectiveness of learning environments to consider group or individual learners’ characteristics, competences and experiences throughout the process of planning learning environments. This study aimed at investigating the differences of language learning styles between males and females and among four high school grades. The participants were 90 male (46.2%) and 105 female (53.8%) high school students studying at public religious high school (Madrasa) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For testing the main research questions, a 5-point likert scale questionnaire was distributed to 195 high school students. While no significant correlation was found between learning styles and gender, a significant correlation was unexpectedly found between learning styles and grades. These results are a good platform for the research of gender and grade based differences among language learners.

This work presents an overview of the style and technique which William Shakespeare used in order to create his own form of sonnet sequence. In other words, this article presents a detailed analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 66 through the lens of the American New Critical approach. It means that the precise fourteen-line structure of the sonnet is examined, and such a structure reflects the Bard’s themes and ideas inside of the sonnet. The article gives an analysis of particular features of the American New Criticism and the people who contributed to the creation of such a literary criticism. Furthermore, the article explains the notion of how the language used reflects the meaning behind Sonnet 66. Also, the article explains the ways in which the Bard influenced other poetry writers, such as Laza Kostic, as well as the manner through which he was able to insert elements of his poetic craft into the famous Shakespearean dramas.

Ideally, journalism makes current information public and facilitates democracy therewith. For accomplishing this task, comprehension as well as interest in the sense of engagement and in the sense of selecting a message are the most important effects of a journalistic message. As these effects are attributed to narratives, 15 experiments from 13 publications, which investigate the differences between traditional and narrative news writing style, were analysed. While the studies reported positive effects of narrative news on narrative engagement, news selection was not part of the investigation. The results for comprehension were intermediate except for a favourable effect of narratives on information recognition. Implications for further research are discussed.

The English language has for a long time occupied a central position on a global scale and been used by speakers of various linguistic backgrounds for successful communication. This has especially been proven in practice by the world of business, with an overwhelmingly large number of corporations operating across state borders and linguistic and cultural barriers. With the change of field and medium, it is inevitable that the language itself is going to change and adapt to new needs and applications. Electronic communication is the main means of correspondence between such internationally operating companies, and this paper took it up to investigate how the medium influenced the language of e-mail messages between business people with different native languages. 59 e-mail messages between a company from Bosnia & Herzegovina and a company based in Romania were gathered and manually tagged for syntactic variation. To answer the question of whether BELF favoured linguistic purity over matter or vice versa, we looked into grammar, syntactic structures, vocabulary, e-mail openings, and request-making strategies. All these parameters were considered as indicators of BELF formality/informality. The conclusions reached here are generally in line with the way in which BELF was characterised by some of the most important investigators in the field. Significant variations from regular grammatical standards were displayed in the language at hand, and BELF was here marked as being semi-formal, with some aspects leaning towards informality and other towards formality. Overall, it seems that business people have no regard for linguistic purity, while they value the main point of the message, facts and numbers to a much greater extent.

In schools where the English language is taught, it might be challenging to treat and teach students equally, if they are of diverse cultures. Potential problems may occur because students have different understanding, background knowledge, learning abilities and cognitive skills, as well as challenges related to comprehension, pronunciation, and vocabulary and language acquisition in general. The paper investigates teaching English to students of diverse cultures in schools. The results showed large differences in terms of learning and acquiring English evident in: difficulty acquiring vocabulary, frequent occurrence of code switching, and cognitive challenges.. The results showed a relationship between learners’ motivation and attitudes towards learning. The evidence indicated that culturally diverse students in elementary school are more active and verbal in English learning classes while those in high school face more difficulties related to pronunciation, speaking in large groups and motivation. Culturally different students at the university level develop into introverted students with less cognitive skills. With proper methods applied by the teachers, students’ achievements can be upgraded which would eventually influence students’ skills of mastering the English language.

U okviru ovog rada analizirana je etika javnog komuniciranja kao platforma za samoregulaciju odnosa s javnostima. U analizi je korištena deduktivna metodologija, a problematika eticke samoregulacije analizirana je na prakseološkom, fenomenološkom i ontološkom nivou. Analizirana je primjena etickih principa i teorija, baziranih na utilitaristickim i deontološkim pristupima na podrucju odnosa s javnošcu. Posebnu pažnja posvecena je dilemema u vezi sa primjenom etickih postulata u komunikacijskoj praksi, a predstavljeni su i eticki kodeksi koji se primjenjuju u PR profesiji kao i osnovne smjernice za primjenu PR etike u rješavanju komunikacijskih izazova.