Second Language Educational Experiences for Adult Learners

John M. Norris, John McE. Davis, Veronika Timpe-Laughlin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351863155
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Second Language Educational Experiences for Adult Learners provides an up-to-date review of the theory and practice of adult second language education. The primary objective is to introduce core ideas that should inform the design, development, and delivery of language learning experiences that take the typical forms of materials, courses, teaching, and assessment. Divided into three sections, the book first addresses what we know about adult second language acquisition and how individuals may acquire languages differently from each other. In the second section, key educational design elements—from pedagogical methods to curriculum to assessment—are then introduced from the perspective of research-based understandings about effective practices. Rounding out the volume is an overview of critical issues for language educational innovation, including supporting teachers, localizing materials and instruction, evaluating and improving education, and working with technology. Each chapter concludes with a set of recommended "design principles" that should guide readers toward high-quality, valuable, and empirically supported language educational experiences. This volume will be of interest to researchers and students investigating instructed language learning, designers creating useful language learning materials, and language teaching innovators seeking to improve outcomes in diverse instructional settings around the world.

1
Introduction

Foundations for Designing Second Language Educational Experiences

Genesis and Purpose of This Volume

This volume is intended to provide an up-to-date review of relevant understandings about the theory and practice of primarily adult instructed language learning. The review was commissioned by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in order to establish a foundation and primary reference for audiences interested in the nature of second language (L2) learning, including critical aspects of the learning context and learners themselves, as well as possibilities for thoughtful educational efforts that stand a good chance of encouraging successful and efficient second language acquisition (SLA). The focus on designing “educational experiences” is fundamental to the approach adopted here. Language learning currently occurs in a variety of possible settings and in response to a variety of factors. Although some learners have the opportunity and proclivity to acquire languages other than the first “naturalistically,” immersed in target language settings and via daily exposure and interaction, many others attempt to learn languages in foreign language classrooms through planned courses of study, preselected materials, and the often-considerable efforts of language teachers. Increasingly, learners may also take advantage of self-access or tutored language learning in the form of burgeoning materials, courses, assessments, environments, and applications available via computers and the Internet. The range of possible language learning experiences, and the diversity of learning environments, is therefore considerable, as are the resulting outcomes in terms of learning achievements (i.e., ranging from quite dismal failure, to knowing a few words and phrases, to the development of functional degrees of proficiency). Given the plethora of routes into language learning, it is becoming decreasingly accurate to conceive of fixed-syllabus structures, textbook-driven courses, and prescriptive teaching methods as guidelines for the conduct of language instruction. Rather, language education (i.e., intentional efforts at fostering language acquisition) can be delivered in numerous ways—via numerous “experiences” from the perspective of the learner—and it is the accumulation of language learning experiences that determines, by and large, SLA achievements. At stake, then, is how those experiences (whatever they might be) can be designed, arranged, delivered, and supported in order to maximize learning.

The primary objective of this volume is to establish something of a baseline set of core ideas, along with attendant recommendations, underlying the design and development of language learning experiences that take the typical forms of materials, courses, teaching, tasks, assessment, and other activities.¹ The envisioned audience for this work is intentionally very broad: it includes researchers who are engaged in work that is informative of instructed language learning; materials designers, or those responsible for creating useful language learning curricula, syllabi, units, lessons, tasks, resources, and assessments; and language teaching innovators and evaluators, or those responsible for delivering and implementing new pedagogies in diverse instructional settings around the world, as well as those responsible for understanding and improving educational programs. Although some historical background is important for situating this work, the focus here is primarily on recent ideas that have emerged in the domains of instructed second language acquisition (ISLA), language education, and language assessment broadly conceived. Three basic questions are addressed in the volume:

1. How and to what extent does adult SLA occur, and in what ways does acquisition differ across learners in response to individual factors?
2. How can educational experiences be designed to bring about SLA, and what are the critical elements of education (i.e., from curriculum to assessment) in need of attention?
3. How are new educational designs to be delivered in diverse language learning contexts around the world, and what are the key concerns for supporting their ethical and effective use?

Although the scope of review required to answer these questions is quite broad, this work is not intended to serve as a systematic synthesis of research related to language teaching and learning—indeed, such a synthesis would comprise numerous volumes and thousands of pages given the range of topics covered. Rather, the approach adopted here is to provide high-level summaries of key issues, to make general recommendations, and to point to additional references and resources for more detailed information. Hence, each chapter offers a relatively brief overview of relevant content along with a deeper exploration of what seem to be the most critical contemporary issues for guiding future practice. The intent is to highlight major dimensions of theory, research, and practical knowledge that underlie current thinking about effective language education. Each chapter thus leads to a handful of concluding “design principles” that should guide future practice toward the delivery of high-quality, high-value, and well-supported language educational experiences—at least insofar as such goals are currently understood.

Overview of Chapters and Suggestions on Reading This Volume

The volume is divided into three sections. Although each section covers a distinct set of topics related to understanding, designing, and delivering L2 educational experiences, the sections are interrelated and cumulative. Thus, the largely theoretical ideas in part 1 provide a conceptual basis for the review of key educational design components covered in part 2, and these serve as a foundation for considering issues in delivering and supporting language educational innovations in part 3. Reading the entire volume, start to finish, should establish a substantial initial knowledge base for engaging in the development and implementation of language educational experiences. At the same time, we recognize that some readers may be particularly interested in only a selection of the topics covered here. Thus, each chapter, or each section, may also be read independently of the others and still provide relatively coherent advice. In addition, the inclusion of a summary and set of recommendations for educational design at the end of each chapter should enable readers to extrapolate the main ideas offered on each topic from the perspective of the upshot for language teaching and learning. Here, we provide a brief overview of each section to help guide readers.

Part 1 (chapters 2–4), “Second Language Acquisition and the Language Learner,” reviews essential background information on language learning, including relevant theories and research addressing what we know about SLA, as well as the role that individual learner factors may play in impinging on or facilitating the language learning process. In chapter 2 we briefly introduce theories of foreign or L2 learning, acquisition, and development, and then summarize the relationship between theories of acquisition and instruction (i.e., planned language learning). In chapter 3 we review current thinking about a number of important learner variables that are relatively stable at any given moment of instruction or learning effort, such as age, L1, proficiency, aptitude, personality or identity, educational experience, and so on. By contrast, in chapter 4 we consider learner-related variables that are relatively unstable and therefore amenable to influence and change (e.g., in response to particular types of materials or particular efforts by teachers), such as motivation, strategies, and others. The basic thrust of these initial chapters is that adult SLA is a unique kind of learning that may benefit most from certain types of experience (and not from others) but that is also moderated considerably by the characteristics of individual learners. Understanding these ideas provides an important backdrop for current thinking in relation to the design of L2 educational experiences.

Part 2 of the volume (chapters 5–9), “Second Language Instruction, Assessment, and Educational Design,” considers some of the main components that can be “engineered” to influence L2 learning. In chapter 5 we review contemporary approaches to language pedagogy, with an emphasis on educational practices that seek to foster the integration of knowledge and ability to use the target language for engaging successfully in “real-world” communication, whereas in chapter 6we summarize current thinking related to the teaching of specific language skills (i.e., reading, writing, listening, and speaking). In chapter 7 we introduce the essential contributions of language learning assessment, including both formative assessments that are fully integrated into daily teaching and learning practices, as well as more summative assessments that offer important opportunities for reflection on learning outcomes. In chapter 8 we move on to an overview of considerations in designing curriculum and materials, and in chapter 9 we cover specific issues having to do with sequencing of language educational units for establishing systematic learning progressions. Note that the recommendations issuing from each chapter in part 2 are relatively agnostic to details of the teaching-learning context. Thus, although they are intended to suggest basic and up-to-date dimensions of good practice, it is also clear that many would require carefully considered adaptation in light of the particular, situated realities of language teachers, classes, programs, delivery approaches and platforms, and other dimensions of instructional settings (all considerations of part 3).

Finally, part 3 of the volume (chapters 10–13), “Second Language Educational Innovation and Support,” explores important dimensions of the operationalization and delivery of effective language learning experiences that stand a chance of having positive impact. That is, what do we need to think about as we distribute new educational ideas and products to diverse possible users? In chapter 10 we address issues and practices in localizing instructional designs, and materials in particular, in response to the constraints and affordances of actual language learning contexts. Recommendations here focus on the distinct realities of language educational cultures in different parts of the world and the need to build processes of adaptation into delivery. In chapter 11 we turn to the specific challenges of innovation from the point of view of teachers, who are often the primary users of new materials and designs, and we suggest approaches to supporting teachers in the use of innovative language instruction. Key to the success of any educational innovation is the active monitoring and evaluation of overall design, as well as materials effectiveness, instructional implementation, and apparent effects on learning outcomes, all of which we cover in chapter 12. Finally, in chapter 13, we address the reality that constantly evolving technologies and their incorporation into education are having profound effects on language teaching and learning. Accordingly, we review implications of some of the main ideas presented in previous chapters in relation to the delivery of language education within technology-mediated environments.

Note

1 Whereas our intent is that the design of educational experiences for any target language should be amenable to the recommendations provided here, inevitably many of our examples and references to research will primarily have to do with English, given a primary interest in this language at ETS.

Part 1
Second Language Acquisition and the Language Learner

2
Second Language Learning Theories

This chapter introduces theories of foreign and second language learning, acquisition, and development, and it summarizes current thinking regarding the relationship between acquisition and instruction (i.e., planned language learning). The chapter is thus intended to provide a basic theoretical foundation for considerations related to language instruction—that is, intentional efforts to bring about language learning. Although the theories covered here do not (and are not intended to) have specific implications for pedagogic design, they do sketch out the landscape of current thinking about second language acquisition (SLA) and some of the factors that foster or inhibit it (see also chapters 3 and 4 on additional factors related to learner variables). Accordingly, these theories offer something of a backdrop to design considerations that appear in later chapters, and the chapter concludes with a set of theory-generated recommendations that establish baseline assumptions antecedent to the development of language materials, instructional activities, assessments, and other components of educational design.

Second Language Acquisition

The term second language (L2) describes any language that is learned—regardless of the level of proficiency achieved—at any time after the acquisition of the first language (L1), be it in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood (Mitchell, Myles, & Marsden, 2013; Ortega, 2009c). Thus, the term encompasses literally a second language, as well as a third, fourth, fifth, or nth language, learned after earliest childhood, whether the learning context is local (e.g., in an English-dominant environment) or foreign (e.g., English in the classroom in a non-English-dominant environment) or other (e.g., English in a heritage or home-language environment). Subsuming local, foreign, heritage, and other language learning contexts under the term “second language” makes sense insofar as “the underlying learning processes are essentially the same for more local and for more remote target languages, despite differing learning purposes and circumstances” (Mitchell, Myles, & Marsden, 2013, p. 1). Moreover, the second-foreign distinction is becoming ever more blurred in the current era, as access to the target language via the Internet increasingly cuts across learning contexts.

SLA is a relatively new academic discipline devoted to studying the processes of, and factors related to, learning additional languages. It emerged in the 1960s as an interdisciplinary field of study that drew upon related disciplines such as linguistics, language teaching, L1 acquisition, and psychology. Ever since, SLA has grown into an established field of inquiry that has investigated aspects that influence and shape L2 acquisition processes and outcomes (e.g., Ellis & Shintani, 2014; Mitchell, Myles, & Marsden, 2013; Ortega, 2009c). Moreover, subdomains of SLA have emerged over the intervening years, such as instructed second language acquisition (ISLA), which focuses particularly on how systematic manipulation of learning mechanisms and environments can facilitate L2 acquisition in planned or taught contexts (Loewen, 2015). Although differing in scope, SLA and its subdomains jointly deal with the same immensely complex phenomenon of L2 learning. Thus, efforts to obtain a better understanding of L2 learning processes in an organized and comprehensive way are commonly guided by some form of SLA theory (Mitchell, Myles, & Marsden, 2013).

Theories of SLA

Two different types of SLA theory have traditionally been distinguished: property theories and transition theories. Although property theories tend to be concerned with modeling the language system that is to be acquired (i.e., the structure of the target language), sometimes in comparison with the system tha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editors’ Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• List of Illustrations
• 1 Introduction: Foundations for Designing Second Language Educational Experiences
• Part 1 Second Language Acquisition and the Language Learner
• Part 2 Second Language Instruction, Assessment, and Educational Design
• Part 3 Second Language Educational Innovation and Support
• References and Suggested Readings
• Index