"I liked it, because her teaching was lively ... " Beliefs of German students of Spanish on language learning. A case study

This paper, as a part of a wider research, studies a German university student's ideating about foreign language learning. She is taking a degree to become a French teacher and she is also attending an intensive Spanish course. The investigation shows a remarkable dichotomy in her thinking between lively teaching, as experienced in her Spanish course, based on active, dynamic and communicative learning, and her studies in teacher training, with a strong focus on formal linguistic reflection and translation. As a result, she begins to question her university studies and, furthermore, her future as a secondary school language teacher.