Search results for "Second-language acquisition"
showing 10 items of 25 documents
Collaborative Game‐play as a Site for Participation and Situated Learning of a Second Language
2009
This paper addresses additional language learning as rooted in participation in the social activity of collaborative game‐play. Building on a social‐interactional view of learning, it analyses some of the detailed practices through which players attend to a video game as the material and semiotic structure that shapes play and creates affordances for additional language learning. We describe how players engage with the language resources offered by the game, drawing on the vocabulary, constructions, prosodic features and utterances modelled on game dialogue, in building their own actions during collaborative play. With these resources, the players display their ongoing engagement with the g…
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FOREIGN LANGUAGE ENJOYMENT AND GENDER AMONG SECONDARY GRAMMAR SCHOOL STUDENTS
2018
In the context of second language acquisition, foreign language enjoyment (FLE) is a relatively new concept. For that reason, none of the few research carried out in the field thus far has been focused on whether gender might be an important determinant of either a high or a low level of FLE. Thus, the purpose of the present paper was to examine the influence of FLE on learning English as a foreign language, as well as to investigate this relationship from the perspective of gender. The results of this study revealed that there are no statistically significant differences between males and females in FLE, while such differences are found in terms of the sources of FLE each gender perceives …
Why have I failed? Why have I passed? A comparison of students’ causal attributions in second language acquisition (A1–B2 levels)
2019
Background Previous literature highlights the importance of causal attributions in achievement and motivation. However, the studies about causal attributions in second language acquisition (SLA) are limited and scarce. Aims This study was designed to determine the frequency of successful and unsuccessful activities per English level and to compare the causal attributions (explanations of outcomes) on successful and failure authentic tasks undertaken in the context of learning English as a foreign language (EFL) acquisition in an Official School of Languages (OSL). Sample To this aim, 407 native Spanish students from levels A1 (n = 111), A2 (n = 113), B1 (n = 98), and B2 (n = 85) in OSL part…
Grammar is the heart of language : grammar and its role in language learning among Finnish university students
2015
This article presents and discusses views on grammar and its role in formal language learning amongst Finnish university students. The results are based on a questionnaire which was distributed to students at the University of Jyväskylä as part of institutional action research. The background to the project was a feeling amongst some teachers of increased divergence between student respectively language teacher understandings of the role of grammar in language teaching. This concern raised the need to find out how students view grammar. The knowledge about thoughts on grammar amongst students would then help teachers to adjust and adept the way grammar is used in language teaching. The main…
Language Learning Methodology for Adults: A Study of Linguistic Transfer
2014
Abstract The purpose of the present research is to bring together the evidence on transfer in adult L2 and L3 language acquisition and investigate the use and the relationship between languages in contact. The role of linguistic transfer ( Odlin, 1989 ) i.e. the imposition of previously learned patterns onto a new learning situation, has a facilitation or inhibition effect on the learner's progress in mastering a new language (L2 or L3). Our findings reveal that the cross-linguistic influence occurs both from the direction of the L2 to the L3 and from the L3 to the L2 ( Odlin, 2003 , Jarvis and Pavlenko, 2008 ). In the case of our participants, in the acquisition of L2 as the foreign langua…
The effects of training on the grammar of preschool children
1974
The acquisition of morphological and syntactic rules of language during early childhood has been the object of intensive study in many languages during the last few years. As regards English, some surveys have already been published on the results (McNeill, 1970; Slobin, 1971). Research on the acquisition of morphological and syntactic patterns has been influenced on the one hand by psycholinguistics, on the other by the psychology of learning. This duality of starting points manifests itself also in the way of presenting problems and in the interpretation of results. One of the methodological difficulties when studying the acquisition of grammar was for a long time how to separate those la…
Enjoyment in the Foreign Language Classroom: Does Gender Matter? A Review of Selected Empirical Studies
2021
The present contribution offers an overview of a new research avenue in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) which began to flourish with the advent of Positive Psychology (PP). The study presents the findings of selected empirical studies on foreign language enjoyment (FLE) conducted in various countries, among foreign language (FL) learners at different ages, and at different proficiency levels. As there is a relatively small body of literature that directly concerns gender differences in FLE, the main aim of the present study is to fill the existing research gap in the field. One of the most significant findings to emerge from this study is that the relationship between FLE and…
ICT-SUSTOUR and MARKETOUR: Two second language acquisition projects through a virtual learning environment
2009
We are presenting a methodological approach that aims to increase students' motivation by asking them to develop tasks based on professional settings. In order to meet this objective a collaborative methodology was designed and applied to two multidisciplinary projects: MARKETOUR and ICT-SUSTOUR. Both projects made students face real workplace situations by working collaboratively through the use of a virtual learning environment (VLE) and other information technology (IT) tools at a national and international level. The methodology proposed offers students a professional scenario in which they are required to develop purpose-based tasks using IT. A virtual learning environment was devised …
From a bodily-based format of knowledge to symbols. The evolution of human language
2013
Although ontogeny cannot recapitulate phylogeny, a two-level model of the acquisition of language will be here proposed and its implication for the evolution of the faculty of language will be discussed. It is here proposed that the identification of the cognitive requirements of language during ontogeny could help us in the task of identifying the phylogenetic achievements that concurred, at some point, to the acquisition of language during phylogeny. In this model speaking will be considered as a complex ability that arises in two different steps. The first step of competence widely relies on a bodily-based format of knowledge. The second step relies on more abstract meta-representations …
Can research into the diagnostic testing of reading in a second or foreign language contribute to SLA research?
2011
Language testing researchers have recently shown interest in diagnostic testing. However, diagnostic testing requires a better understanding of language abilities at a less general level than has been normal in language testing, and this has posed challenges to testers to define their diagnostic constructs both theoretically and operationally. In theory, second language acquisition (SLA) should be able to offer insights into the construct of reading in a second or foreign language (S/FL), and testing ought to be able to base diagnostic tests of S/FL reading on theoretical insights from SLA. It is, however, unclear whether this happens in practice. In this paper we examine the potential syne…