Foreign language learning and teaching in higher education : closing the gap of learner and teacher perceptions

According to Nightingale & O’Neil (1994), students and teachers in higher education need to explore their existing frameworks, adjust misapprehensions and make the necessary connections to the material currently being studied and taught. This thesis theoretically and empirically investigates the question of how learners and teachers

define their role in the field of tertiary foreign language pedagogy in contemporary Australia. The research is based on the assumption that no such connections have been made yet and that the approach to teaching a foreign language at tertiary level still places the learner at the receiving end of the teaching-learning process. In a

media release from the Australian Department of Education (2002) it is argued that “it is not until universities that foreign language learners are turned into effective communicators in other languages.” This dissertation explores the range of external and internal factors that impact on the daily delivery of tertiary foreign language education. The research further investigates the perceived need to balance students’ language learning needs and curriculum-based language teaching and possibilities to close the gap between students’ and teachers’ beliefs about the purpose of tertiary foreign language teaching.

This thesis was scanned from the print manuscript for digital preservation and is copyright the author.

Author requested conversion to open access 03 Nov 2022