Language Textbook Selection: Using Materials Analysis from the Perspective of SLA Principles

Brave New Digital Classroom: Technology and Foreign Lan- guage Learning by Robert J. Blake. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2008, vii-189 pp. Reviewed by Hye Ri Stephanie Kim University of California, Los Angeles Technology in the 21st century is not an option, but is a vital part of students’ lives. In the efforts to keep up with and take advantage of technological advance- ment, many schools integrate technology into their curriculum. However, one some- times comes across teaching practices that are technology-driven on one end of the extreme while on the other are teaching practices embodied by teachers’ resistance to use technology. Brave New Digital Classroom: Technology and Foreign Language Learning by Robert J. Blake aims to address all prevalent issues of instructional technology use and provides an overview of the most successful technologies used in language classrooms. In short, this small but highly resourceful book is the first of its kind to offer a comprehensive summary of technologies developed to assist language learning, with an emphasis on foreign language classrooms. It would serve as an excellent resource for language curriculum developers or instructors considering incorporating technologies into their program or teaching, as well as for graduate students who wish to get an overview on this topic. In the Preface and Chapter 1, Blake clearly sets the goal of the book and the theoretical basis from which his view on the incorporation of technology originates. The book is not intended to provide instructions on how to use technological tools. Instead, it offers an overview and evaluation of research and successfully used tools, thereby helping the readers to gain a broader understanding of them and encouraging the readers to conduct further research. The asset of the book lies in the fact that incorporation of technology is motivated based on Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theories, in particular the Interactionist Model, which states that social interaction is necessary for and facilitates L2 learning. It is an undeniable fact that living in a country where the target language is spoken provides students with abundant opportunities for input and social interaction. However, this is not a possible option for all learners. By presenting this gap between the ideal and the reality, the book guides the readers to the big question: Can technology then provide more opportunities for social interaction in classrooms? The book mainly focuses on answering this question. In addition, Blake emphasizes that the deci- sion to incorporate technology should be driven by principles of second language acquisition and should only be used in the service of language teaching and learning. By presenting such viewpoints in the beginning, Blake first sets up a rationale for and then justifies the use of technology in language classrooms. Issues in Applied Linguistics © 2009, Regents of the University of California ISSN 1050-4273 Vol. 17 No. 1, 67-69

The concept of learning spaces has moved beyond the walls of the classroom and language learning is now, more than ever, in the hands of the learner. Teachers must accept that their role in the learning process has changed, in many situations, becoming that of facilitator. As facilitators, they should promote the use of learning materials that are motivating, engaging, and useable in both the classroom and in autonomous learning contexts. A valid alternative to traditional language learning materials can be found in digital game-based language learning (DGBLL), which offers a means for all four language skills to be practised in a flexible, highly empowering and engaging way. This chapter proposes and evaluates the use of the text-based video game genre of Interactive Fiction (IF) as an authentic learning material in line with the principles of second language acquisition (SLA). Furthermore, it describes how IF, in addition to creating conditions in which reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills may be practised, can be a particularly useful tool for improving reading for fluency and promoting reading for pleasure.KeywordsVideo GameReading FluencyDigital GameAutonomous LearningGame WorldThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This paper offers an analysis of various typologies of speech rhythm with a Second Language Acquisition (SLA) perspective. The notion of isochrony and the enduring stress- and syllable-time theory are shown to be perception-, rather than production-, related. Duration-centered statistical approaches are found to measure phonotactics rather than establish a functional typology. It is further argued that no existing rhythmic typology can be recognized as efficiently organizing data to enable grouping and comparison of languages, a highly coveted tool in SLA. The outline of an SLA relevant classification, taking into account phonological elements and phonetic processes, is sketched.

As a result of rigorous scholarship efforts over the past 50 years, a rich understanding has been gained regarding the processes associated with teaching and learning Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL). CFL particularly benefits from research in second language acquisition (SLA). This chapter provides a critical review of major SLA theories by examining three key constructs: learner language, second language learning processes, and second language learners. Implications of SLA findings on CFL learning and teaching are discussed in terms of setting realistic expectations for CFL learners, creating an optimal learning environment for CFL learning, and tailoring teaching to individual learners. The chapter concludes by highlighting areas in need of increased attention and alternate perspectives that will contribute to our understanding of the complexities associated with CFL learning and also generate theory-guided practices for CFL teaching and learning.

This study reports on how language teachers in preparation integrate key concepts from second language acquisition (SLA) theory into CALL curricular design. The need for language teachers who have had SLA coursework to receive orientation to student-centered learning in a CALL context has been identified previously (Kessler, 2010). This research is intended to provide insight into the ways that students can more effectively design CALL environments with activities that are based on SLA-informed pedagogy. The suggestion is made that in order to successfully integrate SLA theories and CALL, not only is it beneficial for SLA principles to be incorporated into CALL courses but also for SLA theory courses to address the opportunities that CALL may offer for integrating SLA principles within the language classroom.

Reviewed by: Second language acquisition by Roumyana Slabakova Tania Ionin Second language acquisition. By Roumyana Slabakova. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xxi, 483. ISBN 9780199687275. $40. Introduction This book is a textbook of second language acquisition (SLA) written within the theoretical framework of the generative approach to SLA research. The intended readers are advanced undergraduate students and graduate students who have some background in linguistics, in particular in syntax and semantics. The text is intended first and foremost for students with a prior background in generative linguistics. While the main linguistic concepts are explained when they are introduced, such explanations are necessarily brief, and students with no prior background in linguistics would find the more technical parts of the text somewhat difficult to follow. However, students or other readers who have a general interest in language and/or language acquisition, but lack a background in generative linguistics, should still be able to follow the main concepts presented in the book. This textbook is quite unique in that, while its focus is on theoretical research on SLA, it explicitly makes the link to potential pedagogical relevance of the research findings. Brief summary The book consists of thirteen chapters, divided into three parts. Each chapter ends with a section of exercises; at the end of the book are a glossary, references, and an index. Part I, ‘Language’, provides a brief overview of the relevant background information that readers need to have in order to fully appreciate the rest of the book. Ch. 1, ‘Language architecture’, lays out the central argument of generative linguistics for the innateness of language and introduces the reader to several famous proposals on the structure of the language faculty. Ch. 1 then addresses the task faced by a second language learner and lays out the logic of the methodology used in generative SLA research. Ch. 2, ‘Language variation’, walks the reader through the history of the generative study of language variation, from principles and parameters through the minimalist program. Like Ch. 1, Ch. 2 ends by considering the implications of the theoretical linguistic research for the learning task of a second language learner. The goal of Ch. 3, ‘The psychological reality of language in use’, is to prepare the reader for later chapters that address second language processing by reviewing the central models and findings of the literature on language processing and psycholinguistics more generally. Part II, ‘Language acquisition’, has the goal of placing the study of SLA into the study of language acquisition as a whole by considering a number of different language-acquisition scenarios. The focus of this part is on the respective contributions of age of acquisition and of input quantity and quality to the task of language acquisition. Ch. 4, ‘The critical period hypothesis’, goes over the history of critical period studies and addresses the debate about the existence of critical or sensitive periods in SLA. This chapter also considers the role of input, bringing together a number of quite distinct phenomena, including variable input, comparisons between heritage speakers and second language learners, and variability among native speakers at different educational levels. Ch. 5, ‘First language acquisition, two first languages’, provides an overview of the process of first language acquisition; most of the chapter is devoted to monolingual first language acquisition, but the last section discusses simultaneous bilinguals, who form a natural link between monolinguals and adult second language learners. In Ch. 6, ‘Child second language, multilingual and heritage language acquisition, language attrition’, a variety of other types of language acquisition scenarios are discussed. Throughout this chapter, and especially in the last section, the focus is, once again, on the relative contributions of age of acquisition and input quantity and quality to the outcome of the language acquisition process. The position taken in this chapter, and [End Page e198] throughout the rest of the book, is that the effects of age can potentially be overridden by rich input, and that universal grammar remains active in SLA by adults. Part III, ‘Second language acquisition’, is the heart of the book. In addition to providing an overview of SLA research in the core areas of linguistics (with the one exception of...

This chapter reports on current issues and recent findings on the acquisition of polysemous words from the perspective of second language acquisition (SLA), focusing on Korean as a second language (KSL). For second language (L2) learners, acquiring a word means gaining diverse types of knowledge: recognizing its sound pattern and orthography, understanding it at the conceptual level, and – as many words have more than a single meaning – being able to recognize semantic relationships among its senses. In the field of KSL, studies have shown that the most common lexical errors made by L2 Korean learners are related to L1 interference, typically due to direct translation from L1 to L2. Another related type of error, however, arises from the polysemous nature of individual lexical items because the sets of meanings of L1 and L2 counterparts rarely overlap entirely. This chapter first describes how current theoretical and pedagogical approaches are utilized in the field of KSL to help learners acquire the various senses of polysemous Korean words. It then explores the applicability and effectiveness of these approaches for both research and teaching, discusses pedagogical implications for natural classroom settings, and suggests future directions for this line of research.

Acknowledgements Introduction PART ONE - BACKGROUND Introduction 1. Second language acquisition research: an overview PART TWO - THE DESCRIPTION OF LEARNER LANGUAGE Introduction 2. Learner errors and error analysis 3. Developmental patterns: order and sequence in second language acquisition 4. Variability in learner language 5. Pragmatic aspects of learner language PART THREE - EXPLAINING SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: EXTERNAL FACTORS Introduction 6. Social factors and second language acquisition 7. Input and interaction and second language acquisition PART FOUR - EXPLAINING SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: INTERNAL FACTORS Introduction 8. Language transfer 9. Cognitive accounts of second language acquisition 10. Linguistic universals and second language acquisition PART FIVE - EXPLAINING INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Introduction 11. Individual learner differences 12. Learning strategies PART SIX - CLASSROOM SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Introduction 13. Classroom interaction and second language acquisition 14. Formal instruction and second language acquisition PART SEVEN - CONCLUSION Introduction 15. Data, theory, and applications in second language acquisition research Glossary Bibliography Author index Subject index

Instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) is a subfield of second language acquisition (SLA) that investigates any type of second language (L2) learning or acquisition that occurs as a result of the manipulation of the L2 learning context or processes. Learners' self‐study of the target language is also considered part of ISLA; however, ISLA research has generally focused more on traditional, face‐to‐face classrooms, as well as online instruction. The defining feature of L2 instruction is that there is an attempt, either by teachers or instructional materials, to guide, facilitate, and manipulate the process of L2 acquisition.

Research shows many problems and ambiguities of second language acquisition (SLA), which have made learners and readers worldwide unsatisfied. Therefore, this study attempts to highlight theories and research that have comprehensive explanations of the problems and ambiguities of second language acquisition, which learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) face while learning a second or foreign language. After that, the study discusses a framework discussion on second language acquisition (SLA). It discusses the historical background of SLA research on different decades and the most notable views of different scholars throughout the past decades on second language acquisition. This study is a longitudinal research that identifies the advantages that could be an assist to English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Longitudinal research is always based on the qualitative method. This study's data is based on the qualitative method that collects views, opinions, materials, and earlier studies on second language acquisition (SLA). It reveals the most significant theories which precisely connected to second language acquisition (SLA) and largely to applied linguistics. The study resulted in that: (i) second language acquisition still has several doubts and ambiguities in its many different aspects, (ii). In this study, the researcher summarizes second language acquisition (SLA) research's main goals and draws comparisons on the scholars' dissimilarities between language learning and second language acquisition (SLA) on different perceptions that could give insights towards learning of second and foreign languages easily by the English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners.

Reviewed by: The lexicon-syntax interface in second language acquisition ed. by Roeland van Hout, Aafke Hulk, Folkert Kuiken, and Richard J. Towell Liang Chen The lexicon-syntax interface in second language acquisition. Ed. by Roeland van Hout, Aafke Hulk, Folkert Kuiken, and Richard J. Towell. (Language acquisition and language disorders 30.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2003. Pp. vi, 232. ISBN 158811418X. $119 (Hb). This volume contains ten papers, including introductory and concluding chapters by the editors. These papers were presented at ‘The interface between syntax and the lexicon in second language acquisition’ seminar organized by the editors and held in Amsterdam in 2001. Richard Towell (1–20) first outlines the linguistic and psychological perspectives of second language acquisition (SLA) as a context against which the eight papers are then briefly introduced and evaluated. The complementary nature of such different perspectives of SLA research is highlighted. Roger Hawkins and Sara Liszka (21–44) attribute errors in tense marking made by Chinese speakers of English in their spontaneous oral production (e.g. The police CAUGHT the man and TAKE him away.) to the difficulty in assigning the formal feature [past] to the category T(ense), as such a feature is not selected in their first language (L1). Norbert Corver (45–68) analyzes second language (L2) expressions produced by Turkish L2 learners of Dutch within a minimalist interface perspective and argues that ‘L2-expressions are perfect grammatical objects, where perfection amounts to legibility of its information to the systems with which it interacts’ (66). Ineke van de Craats (69–96) uses longitudinal data of eight adults with Turkish and Moroccan Arabic L1 backgrounds learning Dutch as an L2 to explore how the grammatical knowledge of an L2 learner is encoded in the lexicon. It is argued that while these L2 learners are more aware of crosslinguistic differences in morphological and lexical properties of words, they originally assume the L1 formal feature constellation, which gradually changes in favor of the L2 ones. Nigel Duffield (97–128) proposes a dual model of competence to account for both the categorical aspects and the various types of lexical and syntactic gradient effects of our implicit grammatical knowledge. Ton Dijkstra (129–50) reviews available literature on the lexical storage and retrieval in bilinguals, which suggests (i) a largely automatic bilingual word identification system, (ii) the slower activation of L2 than L1, depending on relative L1/L2 proficiency, and (iii) the potential influence of experimental and contextual factors on patterns observed in experiments. John N. Williams (151–74) focuses on the similarities and differences between human and connectionist learning of noun classes. In particular, it is argued that while an arbitrary noun class system with masculine and feminine genders is learnable both by humans and by connectionist networks (via distributional information), gender is a persistent problem in SLA as well as in connectionist learning. Laura Sabourin and Marco Haverkort (175–96) show that differences in linguistic processing are quantitative between aphasic speakers and normative speakers, but are qualitative between native speakers and second language learners. David W. Green (197–218) reviews current research on the representation and processing of lexicon and grammar in L2 and claims that they ‘marginally favor the convergence hypothesis’, that is, ‘as proficiency in L2 increases, the networks mediating L2 converge with those mediating language use in native speakers of that language’ (212), rather than the differential representation hypothesis (i.e. an L2 learner’s representation and processing of the lexical and grammatical knowledge of the target language differ from that of a native speaker of that language). Roeland van Hout, Aafke Hulk, and Folkert Kuiken (219–26) highlight the lexicon as the driving force of language acquisition in their concluding remarks. They suggest that varieties in methodology, learners and languages, linguistic domains, contexts and tasks, and perspectives all need to be considered in order to address more fully the issues in second language acquisition examined in this volume and beyond. This work represents the latest developments in the generative/psycholinguistic studies of second language acquisition. It will certainly advance our understanding of this important...

This article explores the linguistic challenges encountered by English as a Second Language students in mathematics education and introduces a psycholinguistic approach to mitigate these challenges by integrating principles of second language acquisition and cognitive psychology. The study employs a mixed-methods design, combining quantitative assessments of language proficiency and mathematical problem-solving with qualitative data from classroom observations and student interviews. Key findings reveal a significant correlation between language proficiency and mathematical performance, highlighting the importance of targeted language support. The article concludes with practical recommendations for educators to enhance ESL instruction in mathematics, fostering improved comprehension and academic success.

This article investigates the effects of ethnic acceptance and prejudice on English language learning among immigrant nonnative speakers. During 2004 and 2005, the author conducted participatory dialogues among six Vietnamese and Mexican adult immigrant English language learners. The researcher sought to answer five questions: (1) What are some nonnative English speakers’ experience regarding the way native speakers treat them? (2) How have nonnative English speakers’ experiences of ethnic acceptance or ethnic prejudice affected their learning of English? (3) What do nonnative English speakers think they need in order to lower their anxiety as they learn a new language? (4) What can native English speakers do to lower nonnative speakers’ anxiety? (5) What can nonnative English speakers do to lower their anxiety with native English speakers? Even though many of the adult immigrant participants experienced ethnic prejudice, they developed strategies to overcome anxiety, frustration, and fear. The dialogues generated themes of acceptance, prejudice, power, motivation, belonging, and perseverance, all factors essential to consider when developing English language learning programs for adult immigrants.

This article discusses sociolinguistically oriented research on second language acquisition (SLA) in the decade since Firth and Wagner (1997). Over the last 10 years, substantial progress has been made in developing a model of the sociolinguistic processes that inform second language acquisition. This model is supported by empirical evidence on the relationship between social context and second language use and acquisition, which shows that learners' second language (L2) input and processing of L2 input in social settings are socially mediated, that social and linguistic context affect linguistic use, choice, and development, and that learners intentionally assert social identities through their L2 in communicating in social contexts. A strength of sociolinguistically oriented SLA research is its strong focus on linguistic outcomes, tracking the impact of contextual factors in producing those outcomes. Preston (2000, 2002) and Fasold and Preston (2006) provided a central sociolinguistic framework to integrate research on the interaction of social factors and cognitive processes in producing interlanguage, which is a variable linguistic system.

The field of second language acquisition (SLA), a relatively new field of academic study, traces its roots only to the second half of the last century. The field of SLA has roots in various disciplines and areas of study, including the fields of child first language (L1) acquisition, linguistics, psychology, and language pedagogy. Thus, SLA has moved well beyond a one-sided focus on learner internal mechanisms, be they linguistic or cognitive. A great deal of SLA research has concentrated on differences between L1 and second language (L2) acquisition in terms of ultimate attainment. Some SLA researchers argue that learning is based on experience of language usage. More recent SLA research conducted within a cognitivist approach has been designed to provide online measures of processing and interpretation of the L2 and has thus shifted somewhat away from the analysis of naturalistic corpora.