I was listening to a webinar on English learning in Japan, and it was mentioned that many Japanese students might lack the motivation to study English or see themselves as English users in the future. It got me thinking about how language choice, and if it is a choice, affects second language learning motivation. My experiences choosing languages If I first take myself as an example, I have experience learning English, Swedish, German, Latin, Cantonese, and Mandarin. When it comes to English, is a compulsory subject in Finland and as a global language, there are many incentives to learn it. I never had to consider whether I was motivated to…

Attending conferences is a great way to share your research with a wider audience, meet other researchers and PhD students, and learn scientific discussion. That is what I learned this week while attending my first international conference! For a video, click here for my YouTube channel. Submitting an abstract Each conference has its requirements, so check them carefully before preparing, and submitting your abstract. As a PhD student, you can usually give a paper presentation (a talk with presentation slides) or a poster presentation (introducing a printed poster and discussing it with others). The following details are according to my experience at the PLL5 conference. You usually submit a short…

This month I attended my very first international conference, where I presented my ongoing PhD research in the form of a poster. Psychology of Language Learning PLL5 conference was held in Madrid, and I can not even begin to describe how excited I was to both attend the conference and to visit Spain for the first time! I am a newbie when it comes to conferences, but I wanted to write down what I have learned so far, during my preparation of the poster presentation, my experience presenting it, and what I would do differently next time. The Facts I have never attended or seen how poster presentations work, so…

My first year as a doctoral researcher is now behind me and it is time to look back on what I achieved in 2023. If you want to read more about my first semester, check out my review of Spring 2023 here. My Ph.D. courses I applied to university pedagogy courses, but they are very popular and I was not chosen this time, therefore I didn’t have any courses this semester. In hindsight, that was probably for the best as I was very busy with both work and my research. My research Autumn 2023 was a very important semester for my research, as I finished data collection for both substudy…