Abstract
AbstractHow can we leverage digital technologies to enhance language learning and bilingual representation? In this digital era, our theories and practices for the learning and teaching of second languages (L2) have lagged behind the pace of scientific advances and technological innovations. Here we outline the approach of digital language learning (DLL) for L2 acquisition and representation, and provide a theoretical synthesis and analytical framework regarding DLL's current and future promises. Theoretically, DLL provides a forum for understanding differences between child language and adult L2 learning, and the effects of learning context and learner characteristics. Practically, findings from learner behaviors, cognitive and affective processing, and brain correlates can inform DLL-based language pedagogies. Because of its highly interdisciplinary nature, DLL can serve as an approach to integrate cognitive, social, affective, and neural dimensions of L2 learning with new and emerging technologies including VR, AI, and big data analytics.
Highlights
Our society today is faced with significant challenges, one of which is the lack of effective communication through multiple languages
The advantages conferred by autonomy in digital language learning (DLL) are considerable, and the data derived from learner autonomy often provide information about learner characteristics, learning strategies, and L2 achievement outcomes that are otherwise unavailable
We will need to rely on recent advances in network science (e.g., Bassett & Sporns, 2017) to delineate the specific connections, dynamic pathways, and overall organizations among the key brain regions, as well as the cooperation between the left and right hemispheres; in the case of DLL, we need to identify the particular impacts that mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), virtual reality (VR), and game-based language learning (GBLL) may have on the structural brain change and functional connectivity due to L2 learning
Summary
Our society today is faced with significant challenges, one of which is the lack of effective communication through multiple languages. Digital technologies have developed alongside advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics These developments have changed human behavior in all aspects of our lives including how we learn a new language. Significant gaps exist between the DLL tools that the tech companies develop and the needs that learners and instructors have It is clear, though, that the industry does not always have in mind learner-specific characteristics or the assessment of learning success, as will be discussed in this article. The societal challenges, the advances in digital technologies, the gaps between DLL tools and their fit to learner characteristics, and the impacts of DLL on brain and behavior, form the bases of our discussion in this article. Our goal in this article is to provide a theoretical synthesis and analytical framework with respect to DLL’s current promises, theoretical and pedagogical implications, and future directions
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