Search

Social aspects of second language acquisition (SLA) and the contexts in which people attempt to learn and use languages and seek to become integrated within new and changing cultures have been examined for decades from various theoretical perspectives. In this article, I present some of the ways in which 'social' experience is being theorized in SLA and in broader fields that intersect with SLA, such as linguistic anthropology. I then discuss how the Douglas Fir Group (DFG, 2016) originally portrayed the many interlinking factors affecting SLA in our multilingual world on several analytic levels and suggest ways of perhaps reconceptualizing the model while retaining its powerful heuristic value. Next, I describe language socialization research as 1 productive social approach and provide examples of research in 2 transnational domains—study abroad and heritage language learning—that demonstrate a multiscalar approach to examining social dimensions of language development and use. The article ends with a discussion of transdisciplinarity in SLA research. I suggest possibilities for team‐based research projects that aim to understand cases from multiple, integrated perspectives on different scales of analysis, and then provide a brief reflection on some of the troubling political ideologies that SLA researchers who embrace multilingualism must now confront on a daily basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing themes from the Douglas Fir Group's (2016) transdisciplinary framework, this paper bridges boundaries between cognitive and social disciplines by showing how social contextual factors can affect the psycholinguistic development of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) in learner language. Sociolinguistic and sociocultural frameworks are blended with use of a multidimensional psycholinguistic frame, CAF, to analyze speech samples produced by 10 adult learners of English across different developmental levels as they all produced narratives containing constructed dialogue. Learners enacted imagined 'voices' that were significantly more accurate and fluent compared to their narrative baseline voices. Our findings suggest that emerging L2 proficiency consists of many distinct voices that can significantly differ in accuracy of grammatical forms and fluency; related studies show they also differ in suprasegmentals, nonverbals, discourse style, and expressed social stance. Learners' ability to produce such voices in constructed dialogue supports a view of their proficiency as heteroglossic, complex, dynamic, and holistic, and of language play as facilitative of SLA. Theoretical and practical implications for L2 learning, instruction, and assessment are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article summarizes and responds to each of the main articles in the current issue, a special issue on transdisciplinary approaches to understanding second language acquisition (SLA), which the author notes grew out of a group of SLA researchers known as the Douglas Fir Group. Topics include the relationship between cognitive and social approaches to SLA, how political changes such as rising xenophobia intersect with SLA, and the usage-based approach to language.

The article looks at transdisciplinary approaches to analyzing second language acquisition (SLA) which prioritize multilingualism and social aspects of language acquisition. The author discusses the article "SLA and the Study of Equitable Multilingualism" by Lourdes Ortega, in the current issue. Topics include the relationship between language, social action, and meaning.

The article offers information on group interaction strategies and students' oral performance in Chinese English as a Foreign Language classrooms. Topics discussed include role of group interaction in second language (L2) acquisition; factors affecting peer interaction such as learners' language proficiency and other sociolinguistic factors; information on problems in classroom group work; and relationships between learners' use of group interaction strategies and their L2 oral performance.

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of language dominance in loanword phonology. It is investigated how onset clusters in loanwords are integrated into Turkish by two groups: English- Turkish bilinguals in Turkey and Swedish-Turkish bilinguals in Sweden. It is hypothesised that the bilinguals in Sweden will display significantly higher rates of cluster adoption because Turkish is not the dominant language there. The data were collected through an oral loanword elicitation task, a text recitation task in the second languages and a questionnaire on language proficiency and use. The study had 53 participants (24 in Turkey and 29 in Sweden). The material consisted of 29 loanwords from English and French, and of 50 structurally comparable words in the bilinguals' second languages. The data were analysed auditively by the author and subjected to an interrater reliability test. The results confirmed the hypothesis as the bilinguals in Sweden displayed significantly higher cluster adoption rates. The difference between the groups' medians was 36.5 percentage points. Furthermore, it was shown that in individual speakers the combination of accurate second-language pronunciation, and clearly higher proficiency in the second language (corresponding to the donor language) compared to the L1 (i.e. the recipient language) guaranteed very high cluster adoption rates. This paper provides the first rigorous quantitative proof for the theoretical assumption that accurate pronunciation is not sufficient for structural adoption in loanword phonology but needs to be complemented with sociolinguistic variables. Furthermore, it demonstrates in greater detail than before how societal and individual dominance are connected and through which channels they impact loanword integration. Self-reported relative proficiency in the donor language was shown to be a powerful predictor of the sociolinguistic incentive to adopt and could therefore be used as a quick and reliable alternative to elaborate and time-consuming attitude investigations in loanword phonology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Britain's already poor record for language learning might be exacerbated by the Global English phenomenon, in that utilitarian reasons for learning languages other than English are increasingly undermined (Lanvers, 2014; Lo Bianco, 2014). This article offers a state-of-the-art review of UK research on second language (L2) learning motivation and attitude. The introduction is dedicated to a review of language education policy and numerical evidence on the decline in language learning. Part I reviews UK motivational literature under the headings Primary school; Secondary school; University and beyond; Teachers, parents, milieu. The evaluation of the literature reveals some striking lacunae, as well as a misfit between common explanations of the UK's language learning crisis and the social divide between those who choose to learn languages and those who do not. A motivation-in-context understanding of UK language learning needs to account for the many contradictory Other influences impacting on learner motivation. Therefore, Part II presents a new motivational model, based on Higgins's Self-Discrepancy Theory, a model which includes multifaceted Others as well as Own selves, including that of resistance/rebellion against Others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores adolescent students' attitudes toward learning English and other European languages studied at secondary school. The study is based on 2255 qualitative responses to a survey conducted in Bulgaria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain. The data reveal that, although differences between countries shape the experience of foreign language learning in different ways, students in all four countries are highly aware of the global status of English. This can be a positive stimulus for students' attitudes toward English but it can also negatively affect their attitudes toward learning other languages, as these can be perceived as less valuable. While perceived societal importance can differ from personal relevance and while identity issues, ability beliefs, contextual factors on the school and classroom level, as well as social-relational contexts (especially the relationship to the teacher) also play a role in shaping students' attitudes, the data demonstrate that macro-contextual factors exert considerable influence. They also suggest that more attention must be paid to stimulating positive attitudes toward language diversity and to fostering plurilingual aspirations in young Europeans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which discusses the theme of the current issue, a special issue on transdisciplinary approaches and multilingualism in the study of second language acquisition (SLA). They cite specific articles in the issue on topics including social aspects of SLA, the concept of agency in SLA, and sociocultural narrative activity.

This 4-year case study used a photo-elicitation approach to language learning history research in an individual case study of an Indonesian student's experiences of communities of practice while studying abroad in Japan. The study showed how the student's opportunities for interaction in Japanese were at first limited by his peripheral participation in institutionally organized communities of practice that consisted of international students and local Japanese support staff. Toward the end of his 4 years, however, the student succeeded in becoming a central participant in an informal self-organized community of practice that consisted mainly of local Japanese friends, who were more supportive of his interactions and language development. The study also shows how earlier experiences of peripheral participation scaffolded the student's later experience as a central participant. Photographs taken by the student over the 4 years were both a valuable source of data on the nature of his participation in communities and a stimulus to reflection that enriched the language learning history data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vocabulary size of 16- to 30-month-old children (N = 1235) was assessed using the Estonian adaptation of the MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences (ECDI-II). The relationship between children’s expressive vocabulary size and different factors of the child and his/her social environment was examined. Results confirm the findings of studies from other languages showing that girls have larger vocabularies than boys, and first-born children are at an advantage compared to later-born children. Children of highly educated parents have bigger vocabularies than children whose parents have a lower educational level; this effect was significant for both maternal and paternal education. It was found that children of less-educated fathers who spend a high amount of time per week (> 40 hours) in daycare have smaller vocabularies than children of fathers with higher educational attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors discuss aspects of the changing landscape of literacy education within North America. They highlight the increase recognition of the needs of second language students associated with the rise of income inequality across the country. The authors examine the reading achievement gap in the middle school and high school students.

Although researchers often acknowledge the importance of linguistically rich interactions in the academic language development of emergent bilingual students, few studies have explicitly examined the role of linguistic peer support and the underlying structure of social relationships in the second language learning experiences and outcomes of immigrant adolescents in schooling contexts. This mixed methods study investigates the role of peers-including bilingual peers-in the development of oral academic English during adolescence. Using social network analysis, this study describes the unique contribution of peer linguistic resources to the oral Academic English Proficiency of 102 adolescent Spanish-speaking immigrant students. Findings show that having bilingual peers who collaborated on academic tasks with participants, in English or Spanish, contributed to academic English proficiency beyond individual predictors of second language acquisition (age, time in the United States, gender, and maternal education). Peer social network composition indexed the opportunities adolescent English learners encountered at school to learn and use academic English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates willingness to communicate (WTC) and its determinants through structural equation modelling (SEM). Building on models by MacIntyre and Charos (1996) and Yashima (2002), it addresses 3 apparent gaps in the current knowledge base: It is the first SEM-based WTC study in a Western European context, investigating French as a second language in a representative sample of over 1,000 grade 12 students in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium; it is among the few studies that compare classroom WTC with WTC outside the classroom; and it investigates the underexplored relationship between WTC and language proficiency through extensive standardized listening tests. Among the study's findings are that classroom WTC is a strong predictor of WTC outside the classroom; however, in naturalistic settings the role of integrativeness decreases while anxiety levels play a larger role. The study provides new support for several existing suggestions for L2 pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robinson's (2001) Cognition Hypothesis claims that more complex tasks promote interaction and language development. This study examined the effect of task complexity in the learning of request-making expressions. Task complexity was operationalized as [+/− reasoning] following Robinson's framework. The study employed a pretest-posttest research design and was conducted over 6 weeks. Korean junior high school students from 3 classes ( N = 73) were assigned to one of the following groups: simple, complex, or control. Both task groups performed a pretest, 2 collaborative tasks, and 2 posttests, whereas the control group performed the pre- and posttests only. Learners' oral interaction during tasks was audiorecorded and analyzed by the number of pragmatic-related episodes (PREs). Learners' knowledge of request expressions was measured by a discourse completion test (DCT). The results indicated that task complexity levels influenced the occurrence of PREs, but no difference was found in the quality of task outcome between the simple and complex groups. In terms of learning outcomes, both task groups outperformed the control group, but no difference was found on the immediate posttest. However, the complex group maintained its gain on the delayed posttest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As international students navigate in a foreign educational environment, having higher levels of coping or stress-resistance resources—both internal and external—could be related to increased satisfaction with personal and university life. The internal coping resources examined in this study were host language proficiency, self-esteem, intercultural social self-efficacy, and academic self-efficacy. The external resources studied were perceived social support from (a) hosts and (b) non-hosts. Survey participants were 385 Asian-born international students in Australian universities. Regression analyses revealed that academic self-efficacy and social support from hosts were significant predictors of both personal and university life satisfaction, but the effects of English language proficiency and social support from non-hosts disappeared when other resources were considered. Additional predictors of personal satisfaction were intercultural social self-efficacy and self-esteem. We discuss the implications for future research on the international student experience and for learning support provision for international university students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Miscommunications appear to offer powerful L2 learning opportunities. In particular, they often arouse emotions that facilitate event recall, and may motivate learners by providing implicit evidence of the communicative importance and personal relevance of underlying language features. This article reports on a pedagogical approach to utilizing learners' miscommunications, and illustrates how communicative problems can become the basis of effective micro-lessons that highlight the often complex ways in which elements of the language system combine to create meaning. Miscommunication also provides a suitable platform to introduce the mechanisms of repair, through which learners can better manage communicative difficulties. Suggestions are made for how to establish a miscommunication focus in lessons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language is a social and engaging process (Bloom & Lahey, 1978), which is not fully formed until a child is six or seven (Roseberry- McKibben, 2007). Language is developed through social experiences, modeling, observing, and experimenting. Yet our educational system operates on the premise that typically developing children enter kindergarten, at age five with a firm foundation in speaking and listening, and equivalent exposures to pre-literacy skills (Roseberry-McKibben, 2007). For many children who speak a first language other than English, this is not the case. Typically, their first language is not supported in school, and the expectation is that they will learn to speak, communicate, and use English in order to understand grade level core content. Thus, they begin their education at a disadvantage. For many children this expectation creates an initial learning knowledge gap that appears to widen annually. This chapter will examine the literature related to language development and second language learning and the laws and mandates that drive our classroom practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A lot of research has been devoted to explaining immigrants' acquisition of the language of the receiving country. However, less attention has been paid to explaining the acquisition of the heritage language among children of immigrants. The most important determinant for young children is exposure to the language. Language exposure can occur in various contexts, such as within the family, during preschool, through peers or via media. Our empirical analysis therefore explores which of these contexts is most statistically significant for the acquisition of the heritage language among children of Turkish immigrants. Using data from the project Preschool Education and Educational Careers among Migrant Children, we show that all contexts are important at different age levels but the acquisition of the heritage language is mainly determined by the exposure to it within the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In any language education program, there are both commonalities and divergences in the ways in which students negotiate and form their identities. While work on bilingual education has revealed important similarities that students come to share, fewer studies have focused on explaining variation. In this paper, we explore individual differences by considering the unique sets of discourses and everyday lived experiences that surround 3 students at a bilingual Mandarin Chinese–English school. We offer implications for designing a reflective pedagogy that capitalizes on individual students’ understandings and interpretations of the bilingual self, language, culture, and race. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigated the roles of schooling types in first language (L1) development of Korean overseas children. 93 missionary children were recruited and measured for L1 competence and individual variables. Of these, 62 attended an immersive bilingual school with Koreans, and 31 attended an international school with a Korean language program. L1 competence positively correlated with individual variables, as in previous studies, but in different ways, by school. No correlation existed between L1 competence and daily hours of L1 contact for the immersive bilingual group, or with identity or age of leaving Korea for the international school group. These findings show that the correlation between L1 competence and individual variables was limited, compared to schooling types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of formal linguistics was founded on the premise that language is mentally represented as a deterministic symbolic grammar. While this approach has captured many important characteristics of the world's languages, it has also led to a tendency to focus theoretical questions on the correct formalization of grammatical rules while also de-emphasizing the role of learning and statistics in language development and processing. In this review we present a different approach to language research that has emerged from the parallel distributed processing or 'connectionist' enterprise. In the connectionist framework, mental operations are studied by simulating learning and processing within networks of artificial neurons. With that in mind, we discuss recent progress in connectionist models of auditory word recognition, reading, morphology, and syntactic processing. We argue that connectionist models can capture many important characteristics of how language is learned, represented, and processed, as well as providing new insights about the source of these behavioral patterns. Just as importantly, the networks naturally capture irregular (non-rule-like) patterns that are common within languages, something that has been difficult to reconcile with rule-based accounts of language without positing separate mechanisms for rules and exceptions. WIREs Cogn Sci 2015, 6:235-247. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1340 For further resources related to this article, please visit the . Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: to verify the repair strategies used in the acquisition of obstruents in two municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul with different dialectal influences, describing and comparing the intervening variables in this process. Methods: 72 children participated in the study, 36 from municipality of Santa Maria 36 from Agudo, aged between 1:0 and 4:0 (years: months). The corpus of Santa Maria was composed by 3,178 obstruents analyzed and 3,847 in Agudo. The repair strategies were analyzed: desonorization, omission, posteriorization, anteriorization, stopping fricative and others. The extra linguistic variables were: age, sex, tyoe input, metrical foot, number of syllables, preceding and following syllable context, position in the word, grammatical class, voicing and class of obstruent. Statistical analysis was performed using the computer package VARBRUL, with a significance level of 5%. Results: there was a prevalence of omission strategy to Santa Maria and posteriorization to Agudo. The feature was desonorization less used for both groups. There were both similarities and differences when comparing the intervening variables. Conclusion: according to the results, it was concluded that the dialectal variation did not interfere in the choice of resources employed for subjects residing in Agudo, which could occur due to input received in this municipality, with desonorization phonemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the value of monocultural acculturation orientation to the host culture (assimilation) and bicultural acculturation orientation (integration) for language learning is critical in guiding educational policy and practices for immigrant students. This study aimed to enhance our understanding on the relationship between acculturation orientation and second language (L2) learning. It generated two conceptual models to describe how cultural identification affects language learning as hypothesized in different theories on identity and L2 learning and tested these two hypothesized models in the immigration context of Hong Kong. A survey was conducted among a group of senior high school South Asian minority students on their learning of the language of the host culture, Chinese, to provide the basis for comparison. It was found that the students mainly adopted the bicultural/integration orientation and that bicultural orientation was the optimal acculturation orientation for learning Chinese. Bicultural orientation influenced the participants' Chinese language learning outcome through impacting psychosocial well-being and engagement with the target language and community. The findings suggest that we need to take both linguistic and psychosocial adjustment factors into consideration when conceptualizing the role of identity in L2 learning. Furthermore, this study cautions us against a context-independent stance toward the utility of assimilation for language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Infants' language exposure largely involves face-to-face interactions providing acoustic and visual speech cues but also social cues that might foster language learning. Yet, both audiovisual speech information and social information have so far received little attention in research on infants' early language development. Using a preferential looking paradigm, 44 German 6-month olds' ability to detect mismatches between concurrently presented auditory and visual native vowels was tested. Outcomes were related to mothers' speech style and interactive behavior assessed during free play with their infant, and to infant-specific factors assessed through a questionnaire. Results show that mothers' and infants' social behavior modulated infants' preference for matching audiovisual speech. Moreover, infants' audiovisual speech perception correlated with later vocabulary size, suggesting a lasting effect on language development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual differences have been the center of attention of a considerable number of linguists and educators for decades (see, e.g., Krashen, 1980; Skehan, 1989, 2014; Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991; Dornyei, 2006; Robinson, 2012). This could be attributed to the hypothesis that individual differences are fundamental psychological factors which could predict success or failure of a language learner (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). Aptitude factor is one of these major and controversial individual characteristics (Brown, 2007). It is believed that language aptitude is one of the primary learner attributes noticeably involved in second language acquisition (Skehan, 1989). It is also assumed to be the most successful predictor of language learning attainment (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1992). This has been supported in a study conducted by DeKeyser, Alfi-Shabtay, and Ravid (2010) who concluded that language learning aptitude can play a fundamental role in adult second language acquisition. That could be attributed to the aptitude tests such as Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) which have been proved to have positive relation with language learning. For instance, Bain, McCallum, Bell, Cochran, and Sawyer (2010) indicated that MLAT could be "the strongest predictor of foreign language learning success" (p. 140). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will begin by outlining influential attempts by historians and sociologists to develop a more adequate theoretical understanding of past and contemporary childhoods, focusing on the major problems that stem from the pivotal role that ‘developmentalism’ plays in their arguments. I will argue that sociologists can overcome some of their deepest fears about the role of developmental psychology by developing a relational approach that integrates the biological and social aspects of children’s development. In the development of a relational sociology of early childhood we need to make important connections with closely related disciplines, but at the same time draw on and integrate research findings from relevant areas within the social and natural sciences. An alternative perspective drawn from the writings of Norbert Elias will be put forward and illustrated by discussing some of the key concepts that Elias and Vygotsky used to explain the language development of young children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Acquired disorders of language represent loss of previously acquired skills, usually with relatively specific impairments. In children with developmental disorders of language, we may also see selective impairment in some skills; but in this case, the acquisition of language or literacy is affected from the outset. Because systems for processing spoken and written language change as they develop, we should beware of drawing too close a parallel between developmental and acquired disorders. Nevertheless, comparisons between the two may yield new insights. A key feature of connectionist models simulating acquired disorders is the interaction of components of language processing with each other and with other cognitive domains. This kind of model might help make sense of patterns of comorbidity in developmental disorders. Meanwhile, the study of developmental disorders emphasizes learning and change in underlying representations, allowing us to study how heterogeneity in cognitive profile may relate not just to neurobiology but also to experience. Children with persistent language difficulties pose challenges both to our efforts at intervention and to theories of learning of written and spoken language. Future attention to learning in individuals with developmental and acquired disorders could be of both theoretical and applied value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to improve contemporary understanding of intergenerational variation in English (L2) and ethnic language (L1) proficiency. Analysis using wave 1 data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU) on 1,032 fifteen-year-olds living in England across six generations shows that there is a strong effect of generation on L1 and L2 proficiency. Intergenerational variations in individual attitudes to assimilation, family contact factors and community contact factors affect oral and literal proficiency in both languages. Pro-assimilation attitudes have a strong association with increasing oral and literal proficiency in L2 across all generations, but especially for earlier generations. Anti-assimilation attitudes have neither similar associations with L1 proficiency, nor negative associations with L2 proficiency. Frequent visits to parental birth countries have the strongest positive associations with L1 maintenance. Exposure to L2 in school and local neighbourhood settings does not contribute to increased L2 proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on heritage language learners, study of grammar and linguistic development. It mentions that research on language accession has obsessed in a way that humans are not only the sole species in terms of language as they can acquire more than one language. It adds that language acquisition research differentiates acquisition types by characterizing the acquisition process and attained knowledge.

Immigrant students may use and develop language and literacy skills differently depending on the dominance of the first and second language (L1 and L2) in the neighborhoods where they live. In this study, neighborhood effects on students' reported language use at home and with peers, and on measured language and literacy proficiency, were investigated in a sample of 42 Turkish–Norwegian fifth-graders living in two cities in Norway. Differences were not found in the students' use of Turkish and Norwegian with family members, but the students living in the neighborhoods with co-ethnic concentration reported using more Turkish with peers across settings. Further, the students living in neighborhoods of more co-ethnics outperformed the students living in neighborhoods marked by fewer co-ethnics in Turkish proficiency, while students living in neighborhoods with fewer co-ethnics were more proficient in Norwegian vocabulary. An interesting finding was that in spite of differences in language use and vocabulary skills, there were no neighborhood effects on students' topic knowledge and L2 reading comprehension of content-area texts. Attending schools with many L1 peers may have offered access to L1-based information and topic knowledge (both through informal interactions and instruction in the L1) that supported the students' L2 content-area reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing number of Japanese speaking immigrants in the United States and the pronounced linguistic dissimilarity between Japanese and English, few studies have examined English proficiency levels or Japanese language maintenance. We use 2000 data from the 5 per cent IPUMS file to examine English proficiency and language maintenance among first-, second-, and third-or higher- generation Japanese immigrant youth in the United States. Before presenting multivariate results for our dependent variables, descriptive statistics are presented detailing numerous significant differences within and across generations. Furthermore, the second-generation is divided into subgroups based on each parent's birthplace. This study also contrasts the results of Japanese-Americans with those of Korean-Americans, speakers of another language very distinct from English, in an attempt to ground the significance of our findings. Findings provide support for many of the hypotheses advanced. They also reveal that our regression models generally did a much better job explaining English acquisition among Japanese-Americans than Korean-Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language learning is inextricably linked to a social context, and this implies that context-related social variables, such as ethnicity or attitudes, can influence how language learning unfolds. Among the many group-engendered social factors, ethnic identity appears to have interesting consequences for language teaching and learning (Pavlenko & Blackledge 2004). Indeed, issues of personal and group identity often become important when individuals or groups come in contact with one another to learn a language. Briefly, ethnic identity refers to a person's subjective experience of being a part of an ethnic group (Ashmore, Deaux & McLaughlin-Volpe 2004). For second language (L2) learners, the two relevant groups are usually their primary (home) ethnic group and the L2 community. We report here on the research that we have been conducting at Concordia University in Montreal, as part of the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance, with the goal of investigating the role of ethnic group identity in L2 learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Each year more than 800 native English-speaking language assistants are brought into Madrid's bilingual/Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) primary schools to assist local teachers and promote students' foreign language and intercultural competence. In spite of these high numbers and the cost to the bilingual programme, no specific guidelines are provided by the bilingual programme administrators regarding how the assistants should collaborate with the local teachers in the classroom. This article sets out to describe how these two different groups of educators interact in the classroom, how they distribute their corresponding teaching roles, and how these roles are articulated linguistically. Drawing on three broad strands of literature, namely (a) Systemic Functional Linguistics and the distinction between instructional and regulative classroom registers, (b) Discourse Analysis and classroom discourse functions, and (c) Second Language Acquisition and interactional strategies, this study analyses team teaching situations and provides a description of the discursive practices enacted. The data suggest qualitative differences in the type of discourse produced by both sets of participants while interpretations are offered in the light of native and nonnative speaker status, novice and expert teacher profiles, and possible intercultural differences. In closing we briefly discuss some of the implications for team teaching practice in bilingual/CLIL programmes across contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the beliefs of second language learners regarding peer interaction and peer corrective feedback (CF) as well as the feasibility of a second language intervention, aimed at changing those beliefs. The classroom intervention was designed to promote collaborative learning and to train learners to provide CF to each other. Participants were university-level learners in 4 required English classes in Japan ( N = 167), each assigned to 1 of 4 treatment conditions. While all experimental classes were given peer interaction instruction, 2 classes were given CF training (prompts or recasts). Another class served as the control group. Questionnaires were administered before and after the intervention and selected learners ( n = 36) were interviewed. The quantitative (factor-analysis and matched-samples t-tests) and qualitative (grounded theory methodology) analyses revealed that, while learners held positive beliefs about peer interaction and peer CF from the onset, the intervention facilitated trust in their classmates as learning resources, and those who were given CF training displayed an increased willingness to and confidence in providing CF. Also, 2 classroom-specific variables emerged for the intervention to be effective on language development: a collaborative classroom environment and positive social relationships between learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a conceptual replication of Leeser and DeMil (in press) and examines the effectiveness of Processing Instruction, Traditional Instruction, and no instruction for primary and secondary effects with a primary target form (Spanish accusative clitics) and a secondary form (Spanish dative clitics) (N = 134). Leeser and DeMil (in press) failed to find gains in production similar to previous research. The present study differs in design from the original study in terms of the production measures (type and number of opportunities for production) and more closely resemble those used in previous secondary effects research. In part, the findings show that significant gains for PI were found for primary and secondary form interpretation, whereas the gains for TI were less robust. As such, we discuss the theoretical and methodological ramifications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers in second language socialization (SLS) often examine those interactions relating to a learner's integration within a target community. Kramsch and Whiteside (2008) noted the importance of symbolic competence in this integration. Symbolic competence, defined as the ability to access contextually relevant social and political histories in order to "play with various linguistic codes and the various spatial and temporal resonances of these codes" (p. 664), is viewed at least partially in interaction. The current article contains an analysis of how one individual performed his own orientations of symbolic competence--what I term symbolic performance--in the context of his community of practice. Through a close discourse analysis of a conversation between Mejandro, a native speaker of Spanish, and members of his Quichua-speaking community, I highlight how certain symbols and histories were performed in what was, on the surface, a lighthearted interaction. This analysis reveals how members of the target community resisted some aspects of Alejandro's performance and examines the implications of this resistance for Mejandro's socialization into the community. The findings of this study add to a new body of literature that operationalizes and problemafizes the notion of symbolic competence in multilingual communities of practice and other SLS contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gaining proficiency in the host country language is a key element to successful integration of new immigrants. In this article, the author adopts Bourdieu's perspective that accumulation and conversion of forms of capital is only possible through practice in a social field; therefore, the author puts forward the idea that language capital acquisition occurs through active participation in the hos: society. By employing data from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada, this article demonstrates the variability in premigration language capital among recent adult immigrants to Canada and the effect of premigration language capital and individual factors on language proficiency gains over 4 years of arrival. The study examines opportunities for language acquisition through formal and informal learning and demonstrates that vulnerable groups, such as women, older immigrants, and less educated immigrants who have less language capital at arrival, report also limited access to learning opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]