The rhetoric around global connectedness and advances in information communication technologies (ICTs) suggests that: Professional life for the marginalised and isolated language teacher should beeasier; the experience of language learners in Australian schools should be more meaningful andbring them closer to the languages and communities that they are studying; and collectively thisshould be empowering for students and teachers and, in turn, empower the languages learning areawith respect to its status and place within the curriculum. This paper examines these assumptionsthrough a qualitative multiple case study investigation of the use of information communicationtechnologies (ICTs) in secondary school language classes. The study explores the perceptions andexperiences of early adolescent language learners and those of their teachers. It also identifies andexamines a range of contextual factors that both complicate and nuance the technology andlanguages learning nexus. The findings of the study question the assumption of “automaticity”associated with ICTs and an enhanced/improved language learning experience for all those involved.This study finds that experience with technologies can impact negatively on both learners andteachers. This, in turn, can have an adverse influence on perceptions about languages and theirstatus in schools. At a time when schools are investing heavily in information communicationtechnologies, and when they are having to manage the introduction of theAustralian Curriculum:Languages, the findings of this study serve to highlight the place of the “critical” in terms of languagesin Australian schools.

No abstract

This paper reports part of a broader qualitative case study of Asian students "translation" (Agar, 2006) to study in an Australian university. The paper is concerned with the experiences of eight participants and their involvement in a training programme in the use of language learning strategies (LLS) to support their engagement with second language (L2) academic and social discourses. Agar's (1994) concept of languaculture is used to frame the study. The participants' ability to translate between languaculture 1 (LC1-their home linguistic and cultural context) and languaculture 2 (LC2-the linguistic and cultural context of Australia) is investigated. The findings indicate that LLS can be assistive in this process but that there are contextual and linguistic factors that mediate success. These findings, and the data from the study, have enabled a refinement of Agar's (1994; languaculture model to better accommodate how training in the use of LLS can support translation from LC1 to LC2.