A Systematic Review of Video Games for Second Language Acquisition

This study overviews contemporary studies on the use of video games for second language acquisition within the past ten years spanning the development of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and its connections to SLA, definitions of video games, empirical studies on the facilitative roles played by video games for second language (L2) learning and utilizing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) for language learning. The purpose of this chapter is to help the readers obtain a systematic understanding of the development and application of video games in second language education. Findings of this study suggests that players are able to acquire L2 knowledge while playing video games. It also suggests that future research should focus more on the actual integration of video games into language instruction.

Machine Translation in the Teaching and Learning of Chinese as a Foreign Language

Due to its rapid development and increasing availability, machine translation is now being used by an increasing number of teachers and students to facilitate their teaching and learning of second languages. This has provoked heated debate over the role of machine translation in second language education among L2 educators. This chapter sets out to provide an analytical overview of the existing body of research on this topic. It is revealed that the controversy and complexity regarding the use of MT for language education are two-fold. First of all, significant differences reside between L2 educators and L2 learners in their general attitudes to, perceived usefulness of, and actual uses of machine translation. Furthermore, among L2 teachers and L2 students respectively, the views, understandings, and uses of machine translation are also divergent.

Language teachers’ accounts of challenges in two European settings of integration training

This study investigates the work of second language teachers in two institutional settings responsible for integration training. By exploring teachers’ accounts in Finland and Germany, we seek to deepen the understanding of the daily practice of second language education. Bridging conceptual and practical approaches, the aim is to contribute to the current discourse on the development of adult second language education in Europe. A phenomenographic analysis of semi-structured interviews reveals challenges that influence instruction from inside and outside institutional practice. Accounts in the Finnish setting depict issues in how language education, teachers’ work, and adult education are perceived. Administration and language teachers disagree on what needs to be improved in a changing societal environment. Professional pride and appreciation are strongly demanded in a profession that is still being established, and challenges specific to adult education translate into priorities in delivering instruction. In the German setting, expressions culminate in prerequisites, and challenges lie in the way external factors influence course design and instruction. They also touch upon learning: methods, materials, and abilities. Feelings of inadequacy describe teachers’ psychological working environment. A comparison concludes a need to defend contact teaching in Finland and to improve tracking of slower learners’ progress in Germany.

Language norms in L2 education for adult migrants – translanguaging pedagogy in the age of mobility

International mobility has caused a need for language education where adults can learn the language(s) used in their new country. In Sweden, the language programme SFI (Swedish for immigrants) provides basic second language education for adult immigrants. For those learners who are not yet functionally literate, basic literacy education is included. This article aims to explore the concept translanguaging pedagogy in relation to the articulated and embodied language norms of one SFI teacher. The empirical data, produced by ethnographic methodology, consists of classroom observations and semi-structural interviews. The method of analysis comprises a set of sociolinguistic questions, three categories of language norms (double monolingualism, integrated bilingualism and polylingualism) and discourse analysis, centering on deictics, indexical signs and reported speech. Findings show that although the teacher does engage in translanguaging practices, her teaching practices cannot be referred to as translanguaging pedagogy because she has made no deliberate decision to include the students’ full linguistic repertoires and there are contradictions both within and between her articulated and embodied language norms. It is concluded that it is crucial for educational development in contexts characterised by mobility that teachers in linguistically heterogeneous classrooms increase their awareness of their language norms and the students’ linguistic resources.

Verstaanbaarheid als interactioneel en contextgebonden fenomeen

As a result of growing mobility and migration flows, the number of non-native speakers of Dutch in Belgium and the Netherlands have gradually increased over the past decades and so have the number of people enrolled in Dutch as a Second Language education. While there is huge variation in the profiles of these non-native speakers, they almost exclusively have in common that their Dutch sounds, in some way and at some stage, accented. In line with worldwide trends in foreign language teaching, the pronunciation goal in Dutch as a Second Language education has shifted from native-like to intelligible. Indeed, the notion of intelligibility has become prominent in language teaching and assessment. In this paper, we discuss the complexity of this notion and set it off against related terms like ‘comprehensibility’ and ‘foreign accent’. Through a literature review, we argue that intelligibility is an interactional and context-sensitive phenomenon: it is as much a responsibility of the speaker as it is of the listener or conversational partner(s) in general, whose attitudes will have an impact on the intelligibility and thus on the conversational flow and communicative success. After reviewing literature on the intelligibility of Dutch as a Second Language, we end by formulating some promising lines for future research.