In today's globalized, multicultural and multilingual world, diverse social processes and macrocontextual factors are influencing people's motivation to learn a new language. According to OECD, the students' mobility to study abroad has increased more than two times during the past 2 decades, which plays a significant role in the world's future development. This paper aims to obtain a deeper understanding of international students' motivation for learning Hungarian in Budapest, Hungary. To achieve this aim, in-depth interviews were conducted with 17 international students who were awarded the Stipendium Hungaricum scholarship and have achieved between A1 and B1 level in Hungarian as a foreign language. The interview guide was adapted from Dörney's L2 Motivational Self System and Taguchi, Magid, and Papi scales. The collected data was analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings revealed that international students have integrative and instrumental motivation for learning Hungarian. However, their integrative motivation purposes are more common than their instrumental motivation.

While the L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS) (Dörnyei, 2005, 2019) has been researched extensively in the Hungarian context, it has not been used to test international students' motivational dispositions towards learning foreign languages. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to report a study that aimed to test the L2MSS on 34 international students who learned Hungarian or English as a foreign language (EFL) during their studies in Hungary. The pilot questionnaire contained nine scales adapted from Taguchi, Magid, and Papi (2009). Besides the ideal L2 self and ought-to L2 self, the scales measured other influential learning and environmental impacts that exert their influence on the L2 learning experience, the third constituent of the model, with a view to better understanding what motivates international students to learn foreign languages. The findings of the pilot revealed that the adapted instrument worked in the Hungarian context and that international learners' motivational dispositions were mostly affected by learners' attitudes towards the foreign language community. Linear regression analysis revealed that the participants' motivated learning behavior could be predicted by their intrinsic and instrumental motivation. Significant differences were found between male and female respondents regarding their L2 ought-to selves and instrumental motivation. Besides explaining the attitudes that the learners have towards the foreign language community, the findings can be utilized to further enhance learners' motivation once the results are fed back to the community of professionals teaching similar students.

This study examines the efficiency of a model aimed at teaching 21st century skills to preservice teachers at Damascus university. Two fundamental aspects were explored, firstly, promoting the teaching of 21st century skills; and, secondly, incorporating 21st century skills in the educators’ pedagogical training. Quantitative data was collected from 106 student teachers, and 34 teacher educators through two survey questionnaires. Results from the teacher educator’s survey data showed that the model to promote all 21st century skills in student teachers was efficient. The student teachers felt that the pedagogical training of this model was efficient in terms of promoting cognitive skills, but only average when considering information literacy and problem-solving skills and performed poorly in fostering communication skills. Thus, even though the model is efficient in promoting 21st century skills for future teachers, it lacks a training framework that places equal emphasis on applying the skills during teacher training.