scholarly journals Reframing the L2 learning experience as narrative reconstructions of classroom learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil Hiver ◽  
Gabriel Obando ◽  
Yuan Sang ◽  
Somayeh Tahmouresi ◽  
Ashlee Zhou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Critical Case ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Qualitative Comparative Analysis ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
Life Story Interview ◽  
L2 Learning ◽  
Characteristic Features

In this study we investigate the situated and dynamic nature of the L2 learning experience through a newly-purposed instrument called the Language Learning Story Interview, adapted from McAdams’ life story interview (2007). Using critical case sampling, data were collected from an equal number of learners of various L2s (e.g., Arabic, English, Mandarin, Spanish) and analyzed using qualitative comparative analysis (Rihoux & Ragin, 2009). Through our data analysis, we demonstrate how language learners construct overarching narratives of the L2 learning experience and what the characteristic features and components that make up these narratives are. Our results provide evidence for prototypical nuclear scenes (McAdams et al., 2004) as well as core specifications and parameters of learners’ narrative accounts of the L2 learning experience. We discuss how these shape motivation and language learning behavior.

Attitudes of Adult EFL Learners Towards Preparing for a Language Test via CALL

2019 ◽  
pp. 1730-1745
Author(s):  
Nilüfer Bekleyen ◽  
Serkan Çelik
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Computer Assisted Language Learning ◽  
Language Test ◽  
State University ◽  
Adult Language Learners ◽  
Traditional Classroom Teaching ◽  
Higher Education Preparation

The present study focuses on the attitudes of adult language learners towards an Internet-based computer program designed to prepare the users for a language test. The participants were the attendees of a YDS (National Foreign Language Examination offered by the Turkish Council of Higher Education) preparation course which was conducted at a state university in Turkey. Sixty participants contributed to the study. Their attitudes towards Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) were measured via two different instruments: a questionnaire and an interview. The results indicated that lower level learners had significantly better attitudes towards CALL compared to higher level learners. In general, the participants found computers to be more interesting, motivating and encouraging but did not consider the traditional classroom teaching substitutable with CALL. The findings revealed no significant changes pertaining to the participants' attitudes towards CALL after their language learning experience with computers for four months.

Language choice and second language learning opportunities in learners’ social networks

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 5.1-5.18
Author(s):  
Naomi Kurata
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
L2 Learning ◽  
On Line ◽  
Natural Interactions

This paper examines the patterns of language choice and the construction of L2 learning opportunities in foreign language learners’ social networks by focusing on how these patterns and opportunities are socially structured in a Japanese language learner’s natural interactions. It is based on a range of data, including a script of on-line chat occurring in natural environments as well interview data. Drawing on Cummins’ (1996) concept of interpersonal space, the findings indicate that there were a number of social and contextual factors that seemed to affect the learner’s language choice and L2 learning opportunities in complex ways. Most of these factors appeared to be related to the learner’s and/or his network interactants’ identity as an adequate L2 user and their perception of each other’s L2 proficiency and/or role. This paper provides insights into how to create environments that promote the learners’ opportunities for L2 use and learning.

scholarly journals Self-directed use of mobile devices for language learning beyond the classroom

ReCALL ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chun Lai ◽  
Dongping Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Mobile Learning ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Learning Experiences ◽  
Educational Interventions ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Learning Tasks

AbstractThe essence of mobile learning is learners’ agentic use of mobile devices to create learning experiences across time and space. Thus, understanding learners’ perceptions and preferred use of mobile devices for learning are critical to realizing the educational potentials of mobile learning. This study explored language learners’ self-directed use of mobile devices beyond the classroom through a survey and interview study with foreign language learners at a university in Hong Kong. A total of 256 learners were surveyed and 18 were interviewed to understand the nature of mobile language learning experiences that these learners engaged in autonomously beyond the classroom. Exploratory factor analysis yielded three dimensions of self-directed out-of-class mobile learning experience. Among the three dimensions, learners were found to use mobile devices more for facilitating the personalization of learning than for enhancing the authenticity and social connection in learning. This study further revealed that selective use was an outcome of the interaction between learner-defined affordances of the devices, their culturally informed and habitual use of the devices, their perceptions of the nature of the learning tasks, and the tempo-spatial circumstances of task implementation. The findings suggest that these factors need to be considered when designing mobile learning activities and educational interventions that promote mobile learning beyond the classroom.

scholarly journals Metalinguistic awareness in children with differing language learning experience

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 81-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Tellier ◽  
Karen Roehr-Brackin
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Metalinguistic Awareness ◽  
Learning Difficulty ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
L2 Learning ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Explicit And Implicit Knowledge ◽  
Levelling Effect

Theoretical research concerned with the notion of second language (L2) learning difficulty has resulted in specific criteria that can be used to predict the learning difficulty of different languages in terms of both explicit and implicit knowledge. The characteristics of the constructed language Esperanto suggest that this language has lower explicit and implicit learning difficulty than other languages. It may therefore be a suitable ‘starter language’ for child L2 learning in the classroom. Specifically, we propose that Esperanto may facilitate the development of metalinguistic awareness and, as a consequence, boost children’s budding capacity for explicit learning. This would be particularly advantageous in the minimal-input setting of the average foreign language classroom. We present findings from an empirical study which compared 11 to 12-year-old English-speaking children who had learned Esperanto and a European L2 (N = 35) with children who had learned various combinations of European and non-European L2s (N = 168) in terms of their performance on a measure of metalinguistic awareness. No significant differences in overall level of metalinguistic awareness were identified, but the Esperanto group significantly outperformed the comparison group on one of the eleven metalinguistic tasks included in the measure. Moreover, the Esperanto group displayed a more homogeneous performance than the other groups of children. This suggests that learning Esperanto may have a lasting levelling effect, reducing differences between children with varying metalinguistic abilities.

scholarly journals Refugees’ L2 learning: new perspectives on language motivation research

XLinguae ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 64-80
Author(s):  
Monica Ortiz Cobo ◽  
Roman Kralik ◽  
Rosella Bianco
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Learning Motivation ◽  
Refugee Students ◽  
Motivation Factors ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Language Learning Motivation ◽  
L2 Learning

This study analyses the factors that influence the second language learning motivation of refugees in Italy. To do so, we have conducted an ethnography by making interviews and questionnaires to adult refugee students of the Italian language. The analysis of the data highlights that the peculiar migration experience of this type of students results in specific language learning motivation factors. Starting by the existing paradigm, we discuss the refugee second language (L2) learning motivation as composed by the following dimensions: Ideal L2 Self, Ought-to L2 Self, Social Distance, Learning Experience, Self-confidence, and Anxiety and Multilingual Self.

scholarly journals Towards a better understanding of the L2 Learning Experience, the Cinderella of the L2 Motivational Self System

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Dörnyei
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Motivated Behavior ◽  
L2 Motivational Self System ◽  
L2 Learning ◽  
Main Dimension ◽  
Self System

The theoretical emphasis within the L2 Motivational Self System has typically been on the two future self-guides representing possible (ideal and ought-to) selves, leaving the third main dimension of the construct, the L2 Learning Experience, somewhat undertheorized. Yet, this third component is not secondary in importance, as evidenced by empirical studies that consistently indicate that the L2 Learning Experience is not only a strong predictor of various criterion measures but is often the most powerful predictor of motivated behavior. This paper begins with an analysis of possible reasons for this neglect and then draws on the notion of student engagement in educational psychology to offer a theoretical framework for the concept. It is proposed that the L2 Learning Experience may be defined as the perceived quality of the learners’ engagement with various aspects of the language learning process.

scholarly journals The relationship between language learning experience, motivation and some other individual variables of mature foreign language learners

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 69-79
Author(s):  
Zofia Chłopek
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Learner Motivation ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Individual Variables ◽  
The Relationship

The present paper investigates the issue of motivation of foreign language learners. The main research question, concerning a possible link between the amount of language learning experience and learner motivation, remains unanswered. However, it turns out that a few learner characteristics which some researchers believe to correlate with language learning experience can probably serve as good predictors of foreign language learners’ motivation.

scholarly journals A study of retrospective and concurrent foreign language learning experiences: A comparative interview study in Hungary

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 225-246
Author(s):  
Kata Csizér ◽  
Csaba Kálmán
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Learning Experiences ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
English Language Teachers

Despite the fact that the influence of learning experiences on foreign language learning motivation has been widely acknowledged and emphasised, there are hardly any studies concentrating on these learning experiences. Hence, the aim of this study is to map the language learning experiences of former and current language learners in order to provide a detailed account of the possible components of the foreign language learning experience. Data were collected with the help of a qualitative interview schedule involving 22 language learners in two subsamples. Ten participants are English language teachers as former foreign language learners, while 12 students, current learners of English, have also been recruited. The most important result of our study is that foreign language learning experience seems to be a complex construct including immediate and present aspects as well as self-related components and attributions. Language learning success, the teacher’s personality, contact experiences, as well as attitudes towards the L2 seem to stand out as important components for both groups of learners. Apart from discussing the differences and similarities between retrospective and concurrent experiences, we will provide pedagogical and research-related implications as well.

The motivational self of the novice language learner

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 203-221
Author(s):  
Maria Villalobos-Buehner
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Language Class ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Professional Self ◽  
Motivational Focus

Abstract Novice learners comprise the majority of language students in higher education, but very few decide to continue their foreign language education beyond the required credits. Educators must develop a deeper understanding of what motivates this group of students so they can design pedagogical practices that will help students shift from a checklist mindset to a lifelong commitment approach to language learning. This qualitative study examines the role that a motivational focus and future-self guides play in the language learning experience of novice language learners, taking a language class for the first time, from the USA, and the role that a grammar-based pedagogy has on the formation of those self-guides. Interviews with ten novice language learners showed that six students exhibited a strong promotion focus with an ideal L2 self available in their professional-self concept. Prevention-focused students with an available ought-to L2 self preferred classroom experiences centered around grammar topics while those with a promotional focus preferred culture-based lessons. This study makes recommendations on how language educators could maximize students’ level of engagement by knowing their students’ motivational focus.

Language choice and second language learning opportunities in learners’ social networks

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 5.1-5.18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Kurata
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
L2 Learning ◽  
On Line ◽  
Natural Interactions

This paper examines the patterns of language choice and the construction of L2 learning opportunities in foreign language learners’ social networks by focusing on how these patterns and opportunities are socially structured in a Japanese language learner’s natural interactions. It is based on a range of data, including a script of on-line chat occurring in natural environments as well interview data. Drawing on Cummins’ (1996) concept of interpersonal space, the findings indicate that there were a number of social and contextual factors that seemed to affect the learner’s language choice and L2 learning opportunities in complex ways. Most of these factors appeared to be related to the learner’s and/or his network interactants’ identity as an adequate L2 user and their perception of each other’s L2 proficiency and/or role. This paper provides insights into how to create environments that promote the learners’ opportunities for L2 use and learning.

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