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Language learning beliefs create a considerable impact on the students' behavior, and thus greately affect the final learning outcome. Therefore, there exists a compeling need to explore learners' beliefs, and in particular to specify the stances of those more successful learners, to provide accordingly a better learning envoronment for all students. The aim of the current paper was to investigate the language learning beliefs among Bosnian university students, and to focus on the differences that exist between the groups of the participants based on their self-evaluated proficiency level. A one way ANOVA revealed no significant differences in the overall BALLI, whereas a significant difference was observed in one of the five subscales. The present study findings might be used to provide ground for the future improvement of language learning and teaching in a foreign language context similar to Bosnia and Herzegovina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of Krashen`s theory of second language acquisition has been disadvantaged due to the dispute over its untestable hypotheses. In his Monitor Model Krashen (1981; 1982; 1985) claims that linguistic competence can only be acquired subconsciously, while conscious learning mainly depends on learners' mood and emotions at the time of learning a second language. A review of the studies investigating the coherence of Krashen's hypotheses derived from the Monitor Model supported the validity of this approach. However, competing theories emphasize the importance of conscious learning not addressed by the Monitor Model. This paper critically reviews the five key aspects of Krashen's Monitor Model and closely looks at the relevance of the theory and its characteristics to SLA nowadays. It was concluded that while effective in some classroom applications, the Monitor Model is too restrictive to justify the conscious learning as a source of spontaneous language production, so cannot alone provide a comprehensive account of language competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the socio-cultural factors that motivate stable bilingual strategies of the technical university students, necessary for their future career and employment in the new economic and social conditions in Russia. Particular attention is paid to such factors as the intensification of the modern technical university's international activities and the formation of a cultural capital. The students' attitudes towards the priority selection of English language are reviewed, considering instrumental and universal interests. The data cited were obtained from the empirical research conducted among the students of 1-4 courses of study at Platov South-Russian State Polytechnic University (NPI) during 2010-2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]