What everyone should know about SLA

Bill Van Patten

1.  What's in your head
2.  Practice doesn't make perfect
3.  Communication
4.  Don't automatically blame the first language.
5. 

Communication = the expression, interpretation and negotiation of meaning in a given context.

Classrooms are fixed contexts for communication:

• The setting is always the same.
• Participants are always the same. 

Learners create an abstract mental representation, similar to the way in which L1 learners do.
This representation bears little to no resemblance to what is traditionally practised.
This representation builds up over time due to consistent and constant exposure to input data.  Practice, as traditionally conceived, does little to foster the development of representation.

Digital Games in Language Learning

Frederick Cornillie

 

Positive attributes of digital games:

Games and simulations can enable experiential and discovery learning, transform drill-based learning to context-based acquisition and lower affective filters;

Goal-directed tasks/quests in digital games enable task-based language teaching;

Increased needs for collaboration encourage the development of collaborative social relationships and collaborative learning;

Masking the identity of the learners reduces anxiety and encourages greater risk-taking and creative use of language;

Cohesive and meaningful contexts create situated and immersive learning experience.

COTS = Commercial off the shelf games
MMPORGS = Massive multiplayer online role playing-games

Learning from COTS

Studies have found that playing commercial video games are beneficial to vocabulary learning and for improving listening and reading ability, but not for enhancing speaking and writing skills due to the fact that stand-alone video games do not offer communication opportunities and usually demand physical responses, rather than spoken and written output, for game procession.

Example Games

Little Alchemy  
GeoGuessr 

Papers please

Stop Disasters Monkey GO Happy
ESL Games Plus

MarkSharks