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Annotation. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the Council of Europe has promoted pluriculturalism and plurilingualism, focusing on language learning as a priority for Europe’s competitiveness. The Council of Europe’s language policy calls for mastery of two other languages in addition to the first language (L1). Furthermore, the Common European Framework of Languages (CERF) continues to promote methodological innovations and new approaches to teaching languages due to the growing need for plurilingual and pluricultural perspectives. Nevertheless, even these political decisions are not enough to combat the status of English as a global lingua franca, and more measures need to be taken to give equal status to minority languages. Higher education institutions are those places where such awareness needs to be raised. Therefore, the authors of this article aim to identify student attitudes towards plurilingualism and pluriculturalism in an English classroom. Specifically, student attitudes about the English curriculum, textbooks, teaching strategies used in the classroom are examined through a plurilingual lens. In this context, students’ attitudes towards plurilingual practices are analysed based on the students’ answers to a questionnaire that addresses features of a multicultural curriculum. The results reveal that students are very open to different cultures and languages and positively value pluriculturalism in the English classroom, yet the motivation to learn English is much higher than the motivation to learn other languages.

Keywords: Plurilingualism; perception; language; classroom; English.

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Annotation. The use of machine translation has become increasingly prevalent in today’s globalised society. However, despite its growing popularity, machine translation still faces many challenges, including the need to accurately convey the meaning of formulaic language, which has been identified as one of the characteristic features of legal discourse (Breeze, 2013; Biel, 2017). The present paper focuses on the machine translation of lexical bundles, which are considered to be “recurrent discourse building blocks” and, together with phrasal verbs, idioms and collocations, are constituents of formulaic language (Biber et al., 1999). Drawing on a corpus-driven principle to identify lexical bundles in the court judgements of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the compiled corpus and the manual evaluation of the machine translation of 30 selected prepositional lexical bundles from English into Lithuanian, the study aims to analyse translation patterns prevalent in the translation of lexical bundles as provided by the two machine translation engines, namely Google Translate and DeepL, and to evaluate the fluency and accuracy/adequacy of such patterns. The study sheds light on the corresponding lexical bundles provided by the two machine translation systems when the English lexical bundles are entered into the translation systems without any context and in contextualised sentences. The research findings reveal certain limitations of current machine translation systems and highlight the importance of manual post-editing for ensuring the quality of machine-translated texts.

Keywords: Court judgements; lexical bundles; machine translation; manual translation evaluation; translation equivalents.

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Annotation. Today’s teachers and students appear to be under a high level of pressure, stress, and anxiety due to various challenges such as technological singularity, lack of physical activity, inadequate nutrition, economic crises, various forms of discrimination, natural disasters, wars, as well as the recent pandemic and the subsequent changes and disruptions. The situation gets even more complicated in the case of foreign language education. While language learners try their best to put their daily worries aside and keep their morale and spirits up, they have to confront numerous obstacles to learning a foreign language. Feeling like they have too much on their plates is overwhelming and may negatively affect their classroom behavior, performance, and learning outcomes. This condition naturally contributes to lowered teacher motivation and increases the already intense pressure and burnout on teachers due to poor pay, lack of support from leadership, too many obligations, emotional exhaustion, and limited chances to recharge. Given this depressing but genuine illustration, teachers must know themselves, their students, and their classroom well to feel some control over their students’ learning. It is equally essential for teachers to develop and practice mindfulness, as emotionally aware and strong teachers focus on what truly happens in their classrooms and can better address any real-time issues to promote a classroom environment conducive to learning. Accordingly, the present study explored the mindfulness levels of pre-service teachers in a Turkish university’s English language teacher education program. The data were gathered through the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (Baer et al., 2004), covering 39 self-report items under four skills: observing, describing, acting with awareness, and accepting without judgment. The data from the self-report inventory were analyzed and descriptive statistics were calculated to depict the profile of the participants. It is anticipated that pedagogical implications based on this depiction could suggest self-awareness pathways to various parties, including language teachers, teacher trainers, learners, material designers, and policymakers.

Keywords: Mindfulness; wellbeing; wellness; awareness; EFL teachers.

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Annotation. The growing importance of English as an international language in the increasingly multilingual world has urged researchers and educators to look for alternative ways and strategies to teach languages more effectively and devise novel ideas to engage language learners better. While it is prevalent in education, particularly with special education teachers, co-teaching or team teaching—sharing the responsibility of planning and instructing a lesson between two teachers—can be considered one of these innovative choices for language practitioners that has yet to be tried and scrutinized. This study reports the preliminary findings of a research project funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye that explored the potential benefits and challenges and overall feasibility of co-teaching in middle school English classes in Türkiye. Data in this small-scale research came from several classrooms in varying grade levels co-taught by two teacher candidates (Authors #1 and 2) at a public school as part of a semester-long practicum assignment and an accompanying teacher supervision course in their senior year in an English language teaching program. The teacher candidates implemented the six different models of co-teaching suggested by Friend and Cook (2016) one at a time each week and wrote weekly reflective journals, while a third teacher candidate (Author #3) performed observations during teaching (along with the mentor teacher) and submitted observation notes. The classes were also video-recorded through consent from the Trabzon Provincial Directorate of the Ministry of National Education and students' parents or legal guardians. The recorded classes were subject to further review by two faculty mentors serving as supervisors (Authors #4 and 5), and evaluation of the implementation and viability of each co-teaching model in the Turkish context was negotiated through consultation using a checklist prepared by the research team. Collective analysis of data from various sources emphasized the anticipated pros and cons of utilizing co-teaching and helped resolve whether co-teaching was worthwhile and could be adopted in English classes in Türkiye.

Keywords: Teacher collaboration; co-teaching; team-teaching; EFL classes.

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Anotacija. Ugdymo turinio integravimas yra vienas iš svarbiausių reiškinių šiandieniniame švietimo sistemos kaitos procese. Vilniaus kolegijos Verslo vadybos fakultete daugiau nei dešimt metų taikoma modulinė sistema ir studijų procesas organizuojamas moduliais, susidedančiais iš kelių ar daugiau savarankiškų ir tarpusavyje suderintų specialybės dalykų. Šiuos modulius vienija tikslai, rezultatai, mokymo ir mokymosi turinys, studijų metodai bei vertinimas. Modulinė sistema, kuria siekiama integruoto požiūrio į teoriją ir praktiką, turi ir daugiau privalumų aukštajame moksle: modulinis mokymas yra kompleksinė sistema, padedanti siekti realių paritetinių santykių tarp pedagogo ir ugdomojo, sudaro sąlygas kompleksiškai individualizuoti mokymo procesą; modulinių programų ir atskirų modulių taikymas mokymo procese padeda pasiekti didelio ugdomųjų savarankiškumo; modulinis mokymas įgalina daug efektyviau formuoti žinių ir mokėjimų sistemą profesinio rengimo procese, o jo efektyvumas pagal įvairius rodiklius daug didesnis negu tradicinių didaktinių sistemų (Jucevičienė, 2016). Integruotas specialybės dalyko ir užsienio kalbos mokymas, kaip ir kiti metodai, keičiantis informacinėms komunikacinėms technologijoms, darbo rinkos poreikiams ir visuomenės požiūriui, nuolat kinta ir reikalauja tęstinių tyrimų ir pokyčių. Šio straipsnio tikslai – ištirti integruoto specialybės dalyko ir užsienio kalbos poreikį Vilniaus kolegijoje, studentų bei dėstytojų pasirengimą tam, išsiaiškinti studentų ir dėstytojų nuomonę bei požiūrį į tarpdalykinį bendradarbiavimą, taip pat išanalizuoti Lietuvos bei kitų šalių aukštojo mokslo institucijų, kalbų pedagogų ir edukologų asociacijų tyrėjų patirtį bei numatyti būtinas sąlygas pritaikyti integruotą užsienio kalbos ir dalyko mokymo(si) metodą Vilniaus kolegijoje. Dėstytojai pirmenybę teikia integruotoms ir iš dalies integruotoms užduotims, studentai – integruotoms paskaitoms ir integruotai dienai. Taikant šį metodą susilieja studento, besimokančio specialybės užsienio kalbos, ir studento, studijuojančio specialybės dalyką, vaidmenys, tobulėja studento ne tik užsienio kalbos kompetencija, bet ir lengviau įsisavinamas dėstomo specialybės dalyko turinys, ugdomos kritinio mąstymo ir tiriamosios veiklos kompetencijos.  

Pagrindinės sąvokos: integruotas dalyko ir užsienio kalbos mokymas(is); specialybės dalykas; informacinės komunikacinės technologijos; pokyčiai;  bendradarbiavimas.

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Annotation. Ideology has become a topic of research in various fields of study, including linguistics. Linguists define ideology to establish and keep relation of power within discourse (Fairclough, 1989; Freeden et al., 2013; Thompson, 1990). With the large number of texts consumed by the average Internet user every day, it is important to discuss and develop critical thinking skills regarding ideologically loaded language. Although studies on ideologically loaded language and its automatic retrieval have become popular in recent decades, studies on how ideology is manifested in  Lithuanian language and discourse are sparse. It is important to develop tools that help identify ideologically loaded language in Lithuanian, as it would be beneficial in understanding how relations of power are established, maintained, and abused within discourse. Moreover, a framework that helps detect ideologically loaded Lithuanian language would be useful for scientists in the fields of linguistics, historical, political, and social studies. This article discusses frameworks that can help detect ideologically loaded language in Lithuanian. A small-scale analysis, using Van Leeuwen’s (2008) framework for discourse analysis, of Lithuanian Seimas debates on the topic of the 2020 Belarusian presidential elections is presented. 

Keywords: Ideology; ideologically loaded language; Lithuanian Seimas debates; the Lithuanian discourse.

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Annotation. Tandem learning, an informal and flexible learning and teaching approach wherein two individuals mutually teach each other their respective languages, has been implemented at Vytautas Magnus University since 2014. The influx of Ukrainian war refugees into Lithuania during the spring of 2022 underscored the importance of employing effective learning strategies to help their integration into the local community. To examine how tandem language learning could assist newcomers in integrating into the host community, a survey was conducted involving 14 tandem participants with various cultural, linguistic, and social backgrounds. Additionally, 256 VMU language students were surveyed to gain further insight into the necessity for organizing tandem language learning activities in the future. The study revealed that tandem learning offers numerous opportunities for authentic language practice, fosters confidence in language usage, and enhances motivation and learner engagement. The research participants emphasized improvements in their non-linguistic competences and emotional well-being through tandem learning. The results also indicated that a majority of participants (41.5%) expressed interest in trying tandem learning, while 28.5% were interested but unsure about their ability to teach their language. These results suggest a need for increased dissemination of information or events related to tandem learning, along with formal initiatives to attract individuals who may be unfamiliar with or disinterested in this learning method. 

Keywords: tandem language learning; autonomy; reciprocity; linguistic and cultural diversity; non-formal language learning; non-linguistic competences.

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Anotacija. Lietuvoje ispanų kaip užsienio kalbos (isp. español como lengua extranjera, ELE) galima mokytis pradinio, pagrindinio ir vidurinio ugdymo koncentruose. Pagal bendrąsias ugdymo programas, viduriniame ugdyme pirmenybė teikiama anglų, vokiečių, prancūzų ir rusų kalbų mokymuisi, įvardijant jas kaip privalomus arba pasirenkamuosius dalykus. Tačiau dėl 2022 m. Rusijos pradėtų karinių veiksmų Ukrainoje ir grėsmės Lietuvai bei kitoms Baltijos šalims susidomėjimas rusų kalbos mokymusi Lietuvos mokyklose sumažėjo. LR švietimo, mokslo ir sporto ministerija užsibrėžė parengti naują užsienio kalbų mokymosi strategiją, skatindama daugiakalbystę ir pagrindinių ES kalbų mokymąsi, pavyzdžiui, ispanų ar lenkų. Atsižvelgiant į tai, būtina išanalizuoti dabartinę ispanų kalbos padėtį Lietuvos bendrojo lavinimo mokyklose. Šiame tyrime analizuojami statistiniai duomenys iš Lietuvos mokyklų, kuriose mokoma ispanų kalbos. Taip pat atliekama kokybinė analizė remiantis dešimtimi pusiau struktūruotų interviu su Lietuvos mokyklų ispanų kaip užsienio kalbos mokytojais. Kiekybinė statistinių duomenų analizė atskleidė, kad ispanų kalba yra penkta pagal populiarumą Lietuvos mokyklose, po anglų, rusų, vokiečių ir prancūzų kalbų. Interviu su ispanų kaip užsienio kalbos mokytojais rodo, kad ispanų kalbos padėtis Lietuvos bendrojo lavinimo mokyklose neturi institucinės paramos, todėl trūksta ne tik profesionalių ispanų kalbos mokytojų, bet ir mokomosios medžiagos, mokymo programų ar valstybinių brandos egzaminų, kurie padėtų ispanų kalbai tapti Lietuvos mokyklų mokymo programų dalimi.

Pagrindinės sąvokos: ispanų kaip užsienio kalba; užsienio kalbos; užsienio kalbų mokymasis; bendrojo lavinimo mokyklos.

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Annotation. This paper examines the challenges of linguistic and cultural inclusion posed to the emerging Ukrainian communities in Lithuania. It is based on a survey (N=623) conducted under the auspices of VMU Centre of Ukraine among Ukrainian refugees who started to flee into Lithuania and other European countries in February 2022 trying to escape from the full-scale war brought upon Ukraine by russia. The paper investigates the participants’ current linguistic repertoire and the ensuing sense of emotional well-being or its deficiency as well as their needs and opportunities to develop competences of the Lithuanian and other languages.

Keywords: language learning; linguistic inclusion; plurilingualism.

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