Il ruolo dei cartoni animati nell’acquisizione dell’italiano come L2: il caso degli studenti L1 sloveno dell’Università del Litorale

The first part of the article deals with cartoons as a possible source of authentic language input and the effect that exposure to them can have on incidental language learning in childhood. The second part presents a research work on the impact that watching cartoons in Italian can have in childhood on a group of Slovenian L1 students studying Italian at the Univerza na Primorskem / University of Primorska in Koper (Slovenia). The research work showed no correlation between the linguistic input of cartoons and the linguistic production of students. However, watching cartoons stimulated their motivation to learn Italian and produced a long-term loyalty to the network that broadcast the animated series. Key words: incidental L2 acquisition, childhood, cartoons, Italian language as L2, students of Italian as L2

EMOTIONS IN INCIDENTAL LANGUAGE LEARNING

We investigated how positive, negative, and neutral mood states influence aspects of second language acquisition, either directly or in interaction with certain personality characteristics (openness, intuition, emotional intelligence, foreign language anxiety, and impulsivity). After completing individual differences questionnaires, 120 participants were randomly assigned to either a Comparison group or one of three emotionally induced treatment groups. They were trained on a semiartificial language under incidental learning conditions. Immediate testing measured participants’ knowledge of the target syntactic forms, while source-attribution data gauged the nature (implicit, explicit, or a combination of both) of their knowledge. Contrary to some previous studies, knowledge gains were chiefly conscious-explicit. Participants exhibited substantial variability in how emotions impacted their learning, with self-reported stress management and premeditation resulting in higher learning in the Negative group. Overall, participants that claimed higher levels of intellect showed the best results.

Gamers' Experience on Incidental Language Learning by Playing Defense of the Ancient 2

<p>As information and communication technology (ICT) plays more important role in recent years, the use of ICT tools and media is more common in learning language. One of ICT media that is promising for language learning is online games because they facilitate incidental language learning as they inherently form part of reading, listening, speaking, and writing. This case study aims to investigate the opinion of gamers about the use of online game <em>Defense of the Ancient 2 (DoTA 2) </em>to learn language. Data were collected through field observation, semi-structured interview, and documentation. Two participants were interviewed. The findings of this research is that <em>DoTA 2</em> supports incidental English language learning because it is easy to use and understand the langauge in the game platform; the content encourages gamers to use English so that gamers learn new vocabularies and practice their English reading skill while playing; the social interaction through chat room and voice chat in planning strategies encorage gamers to communicate in English; the enjoyment from the motivation to win the game makes gamers practice English in team strategy discussion. However, <em>DoTA 2</em> only focuses on the action of strategies to win the game rather than intended interaction to learn language.</p>

Game on! Young learners’ incidental language learning of English prior to instruction

In this paper the incidental language acquisition of 11-year-old Flemish children (n = 30) who have not received any formal English instruction is investigated. The study looks into children’s English proficiency and the learner characteristics that can be associated with it. In order to measure the children’s English proficiency, a receptive vocabulary test and a proficiency test (which measured listening skills, speaking skills, reading skills and writing skills) were used. Information about learner characteristics was gathered through two questionnaires (for children and parents). The results show that a significant proportion of the 11-year-olds can already perform tasks at the A2 level (The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) without having had any formal instruction. The study confirms that children learn English from the input they receive through different media (especially gaming and computer use). Furthermore, the data reveal a strikingly positive attitude towards English and demonstrate that in some situations Flemish children prefer using English over their L1 with their peers.