Jelena Djigunovic

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Zagreb

This article offers insights into trends found in 74 empirical studies on teaching and learning a foreign language (FL) in pre-primary schools in 25 countries. The emerging picture is like that of primary-school programs: most are implemented in English, mostly owing to parents’ enthusiasm rather than evidence on long term FL benefits. Researchers...

This is a later publication. Please email me at nikolov.marianne@pte.hu and I will send you the chapter.

This chapter focuses on motivation and self-concept and their role in oral production in early learning of English as a foreign language. A review of major research findings considering the relationship of these individual learner differences and oral performance by young foreign language learners is followed by presentation and discussion of the s...

This book offers an insight into the dynamics and complexities of learning and teaching English as a foreign language at primary level. Taking a Dynamic Systems Theory perspective, the chapters present the findings of longitudinal research undertaken in Croatia into the development of English in young learners. The book includes both qualitative an...

This review paper focuses on research carried out in the field of foreign language education. After an introduction in which she defines foreign language education as a research field, the author discusses different approaches to researching topics related to the processes of foreign language learning and teaching. In order to make the current tren...

In this qualitative study the author focuses on age effects on young learners? L2 development by comparing the L2 learning processes of six young learners in an instructed setting: three who had started learning English as L2 at age 6/7 and three who had started at age 9/10. Both earlier and later young beginners were followed for three years (duri...

This paper focuses on young foreign language learners' attitudes and motivations. An overview is given of the main issues in this research area, based on key European studies. Approaches to studying these affective learner characteristics are described. Some attention is devoted to data elicitation techniques and the importance of triangulation. Re...

Affective learner factors were first considered as a cause of success in language learning. This was followed by a change in approach and recently authors (e.g., Edelenbos, Johnstone, & Kubanek, 2006) have considered them an important outcome, especially in early foreign language learning (FLL). Current research into affective learner factors in ea...

In today's fast moving world when students mention Google more often than going to the library, colleges and universities have to adapt to Net Generation students who have grown up with information technology and value experimental learning, working in teams and social networking. The paper presents the main guidelines of the research performed wit...

The study looks into the multi-competence of early and late beginners by studying the interaction of achievement in their L1 and L2. In the context of this study L1 was Croatian and L2 English. Early beginners are defined as learners who started learning English before age 10 and late beginners as learners who started at 10 or later. The findings o...

This comparative research aims to provide insights into how Croatian and Hungarian 8th graders' proficiency in English as a foreign language (EFL) compares to one another in relation to organizational macro factors. A total of 717 14-year-old students participated in the study in two neighboring regions and towns of Croatia and Hungary examining ho...

This paper focuses on two studies into the effects of language anxiety on language processing. Using samples of Croatian L1 — English L2 speakers performing two picture description tasks (one in L1 and one in L2), the studies analysed their oral productions in order to identify a number of temporal and hesitation signals of planning processes. The...

The authors first look into the current status of the English language in the world and in Croatia. Starting from the fact that, in contrast to other foreign languages taught in Croatia, English distinguishes itself by the amount of exposure in everyday life, they carried out a study to see whether this exposure facilitates incidental vocabulary ac...

This study compares Croatian and Hungarian 8th graders' EFL proficiency taking into account organizational macro factors (starting age, size of groups, frequency of weekly classes). Based on the results on the same EFL measuring instruments, Croatian participants' performance was found to be significantly better than that of their Hungarian counter...

The author focuses on affective learner characteristics as individual differences among Croatian learners of EFL. In the introduction to the paper she contextualizes affective aspects of FL learning by identifying those factors that are relevant for this paper and through referring to relevant second language acquisition and FL theory research stud...