Classroom Foreign Language Learning Research Articles

Esperanto as a tool in classroom foreign language learning in England

AbstractPrevious work has examined the potential of Esperanto as a pedagogical tool in classroom foreign language learning in England, where limited language input of sometimes as little as one hour per week is the norm. The work reviewed here focuses on child learners aged 6 to 12 and was carried out between 2006 and 2016. Two Esperanto-based language awareness programmes have provided primarily descriptive insights, suggesting that learning Esperanto may result in greater metalinguistic awareness and more positive attitudes to other languages and cultures. However, the language awareness programmes were implemented without matched comparison groups and therefore could not reveal whether the learning of Esperanto would lead to different results than the learning of other languages. Classroom-based research that included matched comparison groups has sought to address this issue. Specifically, three studies investigated the questions of whether learning Esperanto as opposed to learning other languages would help enhance children’s metalinguistic awareness and thus contribute in turn to more successful learning in a limited-input classroom context. On the one hand, results indicate that for novice child learners, Esperanto was easier to learn than French, and that learning Esperanto may have a levelling effect that compensates for individual differences between children. On the other hand, the findings also show that these apparent advantages of Esperanto did not translate into measurably greater benefits for the development of metalinguistic awareness, or greater subsequent success in learning another foreign language. Moreover, learning Esperanto could not compensate for low language learning aptitude. In view of these sobering results, a number of proposals are made on how to take forward the research agenda. These proposals include further research into the potential benefits of using form-focused instruction (based on any language) with children as well as the effects of learning Esperanto in novice adult learners.

Theorizing Affect in Foreign Language Learning: An Analysis of One Learner's Responses to a Communicative Portuguese Course

In this study we explore a student's affective responses to classroom foreign language learning. In 2 meetings each week throughout an 8‐week Portuguese course for beginners, the first author described her language learning experiences to the second author. Sessions were transcribed and then coded and analyzed. A theoretical model grounded in the learner's experiences was developed to understand the learner's affective responses to the language learning process, the events from which her affect sprang, and her affective trajectory over the 8 weeks. This study is a response to the need for methodological and epistemological diversity in second language acquisition research and contributes to studies that focus on the affective responses of the learner to the language learning experience. Implications for the role played by emotion in learners' classroom foreign language learning and the development of sociocultural competence in a second language are discussed.

Rote or Rule? Exploring the Role of Formulaic Language in Classroom ForeignLanguage Learning

This article investigates the role in learning of rote‐learned formulas orchunks. We examined data from a longitudinal study of 16 child beginner classroom learners ofFrench for occurrences of three chunks, against which we first tried out definitional criteria. Wethen tracked these forms for 2 years to chart their breakdown and explore their contribution tothe development of a creative language capacity. Our data showed that most of the learners notonly gradually “unpacked” their early chunks, but also used parts of themproductively in the generation of new utterances. These findings demonstrated that rote‐learningof formulas and the construction of rules are not independent processes, but interact and activelyfeed into one another.

Second Language Acquisition/Foreign Language Learning

Part 1 Some perspectives on SLA-FLL: theory and research in SLA and FLL - on producers and consumers what is foreign language research second and foreign language learning - same, different or none of the above models, processes, principles and strategies - second language acquisition in and out of the classroom. Part 2 Frameworks and approaches to research issues: Terence Odlin - word-order transfer, metalinguistics awareness and constraints on foreign language learning the acquisition of clitic pronouns in Spanish - two case studies, co-existing discourse worlds - the development of pragmatic competence in and outside the classroom foreign language learning - a social interaction and perspective on topic choice in oral proficiency assessment. Part 3 From research and theory to practice: second language acquisiton/foreign language learning, nothing is more practical than a good theory prefabricated speech for language learning a role for communicative competence and the acqusition/learning distinction in translator training can foreign language learning be like second language acquisition? - the curious case of immersion conservation of language resources.

The Dynamic Interlanguage: Empirical Studies in Second Language Variation

1: On Chameleons and Monitors.- 2: A Cognitive View on Interlanguage Variability.- 3: Does the Bioprogram Affect Second-Language Acquisition?.- 4: Assessing an Interaction-Based Paradigm: How Accommodative Should We Be?.- 5: Incorporated Repairs in Nonnative Discourse.- 6: Interlinguistic Variation and Similarity in Foreigner Talk: Illustrated with Respect to English-Speaking and German-Speaking Contexts.- 7: The Effect of Cultural Empathy on Second-Language Phonological Production.- 8: Variation and Convergence in Nonnative Institutionalized Englishes.- 9: Different Paths to Writing Proficiency in a Second Language? A Preliminary Investigation of ESL Writers of Short-Term and Long-Term Residence in the United States.- 10: Variation and Transfer in English Creole-Standard English Language Learning.- 11: Dialect Variation and Second-Language Intelligibility.- 12: Systematic Variability in Second-Language Tense Marking.- 13: Sociolinguistic Variation in Face-Threatening Speech Acts: Chastisement and Disagreement.- 14: The Social Dynamics of Native and Nonnative Variation in Complimenting Behavior.- 15: That Reminds Me of a Story: The Use of Language to Express Emotion by Second-Language Learners and Native Speakers.- 16: Classroom Foreign Language Learning and Language Variation: The Notion of Pedagogical Norms.- 17: Discourse Conditioned Tense Variation: Teacher Implications.- 18: The Colloquial Preterit: Language Variation and the ESL Classroom.

Classroom foreign language learning and language variation: the notion of pedagogical norms

ABSTRACT: This article comprises three parts. In the first part, a model of interlinguistic variation is developed which, unlike those presented heretofore, attempts to take into account inherent variation in the target language. In the second part are presented the results of a pilot study which suggests that advanced learners, including foreign language teachers, differ significantly from target language speakers in the way they handle variation. In the third part an argument is constructed for the establishment of special classroom replicas of the target language labelled pedagogical norms. Finally, the notion of pedagogical norm is illustrated with two variable features of French, the phonological ‘è’ variable and interrogative structures. These two examples illustrates the important point that pedogogical norms must take into account the full range of target language variability, including sociolinguistically stigmatized features. Although all the examples in this article are drawn from French, the model of interlinguistic variation that is developed and the notion of pedagogical norm that stems from the model are applicable to all types of foreign‐ and second‐language learning, including that of English as a second language.