Mobility and Localisation in Language Learning ― A View from Languages of the Wider World

For most language learners, mobility is now the starting-point rather than the end-point of language learning. Rather than learning a language in order to go abroad, learners are used to moving from country to country, from culture to culture. This volume of essays explores the different attitudes to language learning generated by globalisation and shows how the local still has an impact on the language-learning classroom. The contributors have collaborated through the Languages of the Wider World Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning based at University College London and the School of Oriental and African Studies. The essays in the book span both reflection on language learners’ shifting identities and the pedagogies of a range of less widely taught languages in which the national language has acquired fresh emphasis in the context of globalisation. How might the tension between mobility and localisation best be exploited to the benefit of language learners?

Jane Fenoulhet is Professor of Dutch Studies at University College London. She teaches and researches Dutch literature in a European context, literary translation and literary pedagogy. Her interests also extend to the history and future of humanities disciplines in the context of globalisation. Recent publications include Making the Personal Political. Dutch Women Writers 1919-1970 (2007); book chapters on the history of Dutch Studies, the place of history in the literature curriculum and Dutch women writers; as well as articles on pedagogy, cultural history and feminist literary history.
Cristina Ros i Sole is Principal Research Fellow in Language Pedagogy at University College London where she has led a number of research projects on the teaching of culture in language learning, less commonly taught and heritage languages, and mobile assisted language learning. Previously, she was Head of Spanish at the Open University, UK. Her publications include several courses on Spanish language teaching, research articles and chapters on the construction of language learners’ identities, the teaching of culture and the use of technology in language learning.