Foreign language and culture learning suffers from a bad image in Danish Upper Secondary schools and German is not an exception. It means that the majority of Danish Upper Secondary school students are not particularly interested in learning the language. Therefore, intrinsic motivation plays a pivotal role in German language and culture learning in Denmark. One didactic initiative proposed to remedy the lack of intrinsic motivation is the introduction of various ICT (Information and Communication Technology) tools. This is the background for the research described in this article. Our study which was conducted on the basis of semi-structured focus group interviews with n=50 high school students and n=2 high school teachers shows that the ICT tools Photostory, MovieMaker and Voki indeed have an influence on students' perceived intrinsic motivation in connection with German language and culture learning. Depending on the nature of the tool, our thematic analysis indicates that such tools facilitate different aspects of perceived intrinsic motivation. Still, our study shows that the tools have a limited effect on perceived intrinsic motivation, unless they are addressed and used strategically in the proper pedagogical context.

Purpose -The paper is based on the chapter "How Social Media Enhanced Learning Platforms Challenge and Motivate Students to Take Charge of Their Own Learning Processes -A Few Examples" from the publication Increasing Student Engagement and Retention using Social Technologies: Facebook, e-Portfolios and other Social Networking Services and on the authors' research on ICT and social media enhanced learning in the foreign language/intercultural learning high school and university environment. Design/methodology/approach -The paper discusses learning in general and didactic practices in the two sectors and how social media enhanced learning platforms challenge and motivate students in their learning processes. Findings -The paper provides examples from didactic experiments carried out at the Copenhagen Business School and in Danish high schools. The authors focus on the changing role of teachers from the traditional role of (almost) full teacher responsibility for classroom action to a coaching and facilitating role where students assume increasing responsibility for their learning and for classroom activities. The paper also discusses the transfer and application of experiences made on the basis of changing didactic practices and views the positive and less positive experiences. Originality/value -The paper shares work-in-progress experience in regard to the growing body of knowledge about the use of ICT in the twenty-first century classroom.

University educators and researchers face new generations of “digitally native” students, who approach academic disciplines in novel ways, thus creating a changed university-learning environment that demands new ways of building knowledge in a bottom-up process. A case in point is the area of corporate communication where we need new methods of approaching adult cultural/communicative learning since these integrated competences are much asked for in the business community. One way of approaching university pedagogy within these fields is asking whether social software could provide better tools that support social, collaborative processes that are fun, motivating and better support learning. The article therefore discusses collaborative and individualized learning processes and how social software platforms may better harness collective and personal knowledge in order to enhance learning outcome. The theoretical foundations of the article have been established at the crossroads between general learning theory, cultural/communicative learning theory and social media applications that facilitate collaborative, synchronous and interactive learning platforms. Data evaluation and comparisons in regard to learning outcomes are based on empirical data from two cases applying different learning platforms used in CBS programme courses involving culture and communication learning elements.

The headline "So how would you translate that?" is an authentic informant comment from our data and we think it very accurately sums up what this part of our research is actually about. Also, it highlights the type of problem-solving strategy that stands out in our data. Most readers will probably also recognise the phrase from the classroom, where we as teachers desperately try to fight the feeling among students that there can be only ONE correct solution to any given translation problem.This article presents a status report of our ongoing research. The POR-TAL project is a spin-off from our main project -FOCAL (free oral communication in adult learners). However, we have found it relevant and rewarding also to look at likenesses and differences between the communicative elements that students draw on in free oral communication and in oral translation.Our reasons for focusing on oral translation are a.o. that it gives us the opportunity to • Identify information processing strategies through the use of introspective methods, and to • Identify pedagogical implications for teaching, interpretation, free oral communication as well as oral and written translation.

Kan sociale medier anvendes som læringsredskaber til støtte for sociale, kollaborative processer, der er udfordrende og motiverende, og som samtidig understøtter (fremmedsprogs)tilegnelsen?Artiklen diskuterer eksempler på fagdidaktiske udfordringer i sprogundervisningen på CBS med fokus på engelsk.