Beyond the Language Classroom

Beyond the Language Classroom

Also by Hayo Reinders *KEY CONCEPTS IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (with S. Loewen, forthcoming) TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING AND TECHNOLOGY (co-editor with M. Thomas, 2010) THE TERTIARY TEACHER’S HANDBOOK (with M. Lewis and A. Kirkness, 2010) THE EFFECTS OF TASK TYPE AND INSTRUCTIONS ON SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (2010) IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE IN A SECOND LANGUAGE (with R. Ellis, S. Loewen, R. Erlam, J. Philp, C. Elder, 2009) *THE INTERNATIONAL STUDENT HANDBOOK (with N. Moore and M. Lewis, 2008) LEARNER AND TEACHER AUTONOMY: CONCEPTS, REALITIES, AND RESPONSES (co-editor with Terry Lamb, 2008) INDEPENDENT LEARNING CENTRES: TIPS FOR TEACHERS (with N. Lázaro, 2008) USING STUDENT-CENTERED METHODS WITH TEACHER-CENTERED STUDENTS (2nd revised edition, with Marilyn Lewis, 2007) TRANSFORM YOUR TEACHING: STRATEGIES FOR THE MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOM (with Marilyn Lewis and Alison Kirkness, 2008) INDEPENDENT LEARNING: ISSUES AND INTERVENTIONS (co-editor with Terry Lamb, 2006) *STUDY SKILLS FOR SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE (with Marilyn Lewis, 2003) LEARNER STRATEGIES: A GUIDE FOR TEACHERS (with Sara Cotterall, 2004) * published by Palgrave Macmillan Also by Phil Benson THE APPLIED LINGUISTIC INDIVIDUAL: AUTONOMY, AGENCY AND IDENTITY IN SOCIAL APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE LEARNING (co-editor with L. Cooker, forthcoming) TEACHING AND RESEARCHING AUTONOMY (2nd edition, 2011) LEARNER AUTONOMY: TEACHER AND LEARNER PERSPECTIVES (editor, 2007) LEARNERS’ STORIES: DIFFERENCE AND DIVERSITY IN LANGUAGE LEARNING (co-editor with D. Nunan, 2005)

Beyond the Language Classroom Edited by

Phil Benson Hong Kong Institute of Education

Hayo Reinders Middlesex University, UK

Selection and editorial matter © Phil Benson and Hayo Reinders 2011 Chapters © their authors 2011 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–0–230–27243–9 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beyond the language classroom / [edited by] Phil Benson and Hayo Reinders. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978–0–230–27243–9 (hardback) 1. Language and languages—Study and teaching—Methodology 2. Second language acquisition—Methodology 3. Task analysis in education. 4. Non-formal education. I. Benson, Phil, 1955– II. Reinders, Hayo. P53. 82. B49 2011 418. 0071—dc22 2011004885 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

Contents Acknowledgements

vii

Notes on Contributors

viii

Introduction Phil Benson and Hayo Reinders

1

1 Language Learning and Teaching Beyond the Classroom: An Introduction to the Field Phil Benson

7

2 Family, Friends, and Learning Beyond the Classroom: Social Networks and Social Capital in Language Learning David M. Palfreyman

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3 Places for Learning: Technology-mediated Language Learning Practices Beyond the Classroom Leena Kuure

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4 From Milk Cartons to English Roommates: Context and Agency in L2 Learning Beyond the Classroom Paula Kalaja, Riikka Alanen, Åsa Palviainen and Hannele Dufva

47

5 Affordances for Language Learning Beyond the Classroom Vera Menezes

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6 Becoming Multilingual: An Ethnographic Approach to SLA Beyond the Classroom David Divita

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7 Talk about Language Use: ‘I know a little about your language’ Erica Zimmerman

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8 A Possible Path to Progress: Out-of-school English Language Learners in Sweden Pia Sundqvist

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9 Teenagers Learning Languages Out of School: What, Why and How Do They Learn? How Can School Help Them? Sophie Bailly

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10 Older Language Learners, Social Learning Spaces and Community Garold Murray v

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11 Tandem Learning in Virtual Spaces: Supporting Non-formal and Informal Learning in Adults Ursula Stickler and Martina Emke

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12 Home Tutor Cognitions and the Nature of Tutor–Learner Relationships Gary Barkhuizen

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13 Materials Development for Learning Beyond the Classroom Hayo Reinders

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References

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Index

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Acknowledgements This book originated in a call for papers for a volume on the subject of language learning beyond the classroom, to which we received a unexpectedly large response. We are grateful to the contributors whose papers have made it into this volume, both for their faith in the project and their tolerance of our requests to shape their chapters to the overall scheme that we had in mind. We are also grateful to those whose contributions we were not able to include. We hope we will see them in print soon, as language learning beyond the classroom grows as a field of research. We would like to thank Kathy Wong and Nikita Chan at the Hong Kong Institute of Education for their patient work on the manuscript, as well as Priyanka Gibbons, Melanie Blair and their colleagues at Palgrave Macmillan.

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Notes on Contributors Riikka Alanen is Professor of Applied Language Studies, Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, where she specializes in L2 learning and teaching as mediated activity, and the role of consciousness and agency in the learning process. She is a co-editor of Language in Action: Vygotsky and Leontievian Legacy Today (2007). Sophie Bailly is a Professor of Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching and Learning in the Department of Linguistics at Nancy-Université, France. She is Head of the university’s French as a Foreign Language Learning Centre, a member of the CRAPEL (Centre de Recherches et d’Applications Pédagogiques en Langues) team at ATILF (CNRS), and an active language learning advisor and advisors’ trainer. Her research interests include foreign language learning autonomy, multilingualism teaching and learning, and gender and language. She is the author of Les hommes, les femmes et la communication: Mais que vient faire le sexe dans la langue? (2008). Gary Barkhuizen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of sociolinguistics, teacher education and narrative inquiry. Phil Benson is Professor in the Department of English at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. He has published widely on the subject of autonomous and independent learning, including the book Teaching and Researching Autonomy (2011). His current research interests also include narratives of language learning and teaching and popular culture in education. David Divita is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He specializes in Spanish and French linguistics, linguistic anthropology and second language acquisition. Hannele Dufva is Professor of Language Learning and Teaching in the Department of Languages, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her research focuses on the influence of Bakhtin Circle dialogism on the theory of language learning. She has written a number of articles on, for example, a socio-cognitive and embodied framework for language learning and on language learners’ beliefs. viii

Notes on Contributors ix

Martina Emke has taught ESL to adults in different adult education organizations in Germany, both in face-to-face and in virtual environments. Her special interest lies in different forms of intercultural, telecollaborative learning, such as tandem learning, and with the social skills needed to support virtual learning communities. She now works for the b.i.b. International College in Hannover, Germany, as a Lecturer in English and Business Studies. Paula Kalaja is Professor of English in the Department of Languages, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, where she specializes in issues related to L2 learning and teaching. She is a co-editor of international collections of articles on learner and teacher beliefs: Beliefs about SLA: New Research Approaches (2003) and Narratives of Learning and Teaching EFL (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). Leena Kuure is a Lecturer in English Philology in the Faculty of Humanities, at the University of Oulu, Finland. Her teaching includes courses on language learning and new technologies. She conducts research, in a multidisciplinary group, on engaging children and young people as active citizens in technology-rich neo-communities, with special attention to languages and multimodal literacies. Vera Menezes, a former president of the Brazilian Association of Applied Linguistics (ALAB), is Full Professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, where she teaches and carries out research on second language acquisition and computer-assisted language learning, sponsored by CNPq, the main research agency in Brazil. She is also co-editor of Narratives of Learning and Teaching EFL (Palgrave, 2008) and the editor of Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada. Garold Murray is Associate Professor in the Language Education Center, Okayama University, Japan. His research employs ethnography and narrative inquiry to explore self-direction, metacognition, imagination and community in relation to classroom, out-of-class, and self-access language learning. David Palfreyman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Languages at Zayed University, Dubai. His research interests include the role of cultural factors in language learning and teaching. He is co-editor of Learner Autonomy Across Cultures (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) and Learning and Teaching Across Cultures in Higher Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

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Åsa Palviainen is a Lecturer in Swedish in the Department of Languages, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her research focuses on the teaching and learning of Swedish as L2 by Finnish-speakers. She has published articles on language proficiency and language education in Finland, with special regard to the situation of Swedish. Hayo Reinders (www.innovationinteaching.org) is Head of Learner Development at Middlesex University in London. He is also editor of the journal Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, and Convenor of the AILA Research Network for CALL and the Learner. Hayo’s interests are in CALL, autonomy, and out-of-class learning. He is a speaker for the Royal Society of New Zealand. His most recent books are on teacher autonomy, teaching methodologies and second language acquisition and he edits a book series on ‘New Language Learning and Teaching Environments’ for Palgrave Macmillan. Ursula Stickler is a Lecturer in German in the Department of Languages at the Open University, UK, a distance teaching institution. Her research interests are in the areas of independent language learning, including technology-enhanced language learning, and tandem learning. She is involved in international projects researching interaction in online language tutorials, the use of VLE tools for language learning, collaborative learning online, and tutor training for technology-enhanced teaching. She has published research articles in all the above areas. Pia Sundqvist is a Lecturer and Researcher at Karlstad University, where she is currently involved in a project on young learners’ informal learning of English. Her research interests focus on second language acquisition, in particular vocabulary acquisition, and informal learning. She has extensive experience of teaching English, Spanish, and Swedish in secondary and upper secondary education. Erica Zimmerman is an Assistant Professor of Japanese in the Languages and Cultures Department at the United States Naval Academy. Her research interests include Conversation Analysis (CA), Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA), identity construction in conversation, discourse analysis, second language acquisition and computer-mediated communication.

Introduction Phil Benson and Hayo Reinders

This volume brings together 13 chapters that have been especially written for this collection in response to an international call for contributions to a book devoted to research on language learning and teaching beyond the classroom. In one sense, the common factor among the chapters lies in what they are not; there are no studies of classroom language learning or teaching in this volume. This is a significant point, because so many studies are based on research carried out in classrooms or with classroom learners and quite possibly informed by hidden assumptions related to the classroom setting. Studies of language learning and teaching in settings beyond the classroom are valuable, therefore, because they provide alternative perspectives on the meaning of, and social and cognitive processes involved in, language learning and teaching. At the same time, we are aware of the risks involved in describing this volume in terms of what it is not – risks that are highlighted by the difficulty of avoiding terms such as informal, out-of-class, noninstructed, and so on, which appear to take this way of describing our object of inquiry for granted. We are also aware of the risk of treating the world beyond the classroom as an alternative to the classroom, as if classrooms were the natural place for language learning to take place and the world beyond the classroom a strange and hostile territory in which languages are learned with difficulty, if at all. With the rise of mass education over the past fifty years or so, there has certainly been a tendency for language learning to migrate into educational institutions, to the point where research often views language learning as an ‘effect’ produced by the ‘cause’ of classroom language teaching, which is likely to be stronger or weaker according to the teaching method or style and a variety of social and individual difference variables among 1

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the learners. Yet it is also common knowledge among teachers that the progress made by students who learn languages only in the classroom tends to be limited, especially in their ability to use the language for spoken or written communication as contrasted with receptive skills. Well-rounded communicative proficiency, it seems, depends to a large extent on the learner’s efforts to use and learn the language beyond the walls of the classroom. For this reason alone, settings for language learning beyond the classroom deserve much more attention in research than they have received hitherto. The balance of published research suggests that language learners spend more time learning languages in classrooms than outside them. Whether this is an accurate reflection of current patterns of language learning worldwide is open to question. We suspect that it is not and that vast swathes of the territory for language learning beyond the classroom remain undiscovered by research. One of the interesting features to emerge from this volume, therefore, is the range of settings investigated, several of which, such as those that deal with language learning in the learners’ homes, have not been the subject of research to date. A second interesting feature to emerge has been the significance of teaching in settings beyond the classroom. The dichotomy between classroom and out-of-class learning is often paired with a dichotomy between instructed and non-instructed, or ‘naturalistic’ learning, which can also lead to an assumption that the classroom is a place for teaching and learning, while the world beyond the classroom is only a place for learning. The contributions to this volume suggest that this is a false assumption, and that much of the interest in language learning beyond the classroom lies in the distinctive modes of pedagogy that are found in different settings. These issues are addressed at a theoretical level by Phil Benson in Chapter 1, which offers an analytical framework for investigating language learning beyond the classroom, involving dimensions of location, formality, pedagogy and locus of control, and a distinction between settings and the modes of practice in learning and teaching that they support. The chapters that follow report data-based studies of learning and teaching in a variety of settings, using a variety of theoretical perspectives and research methodologies. Chapters 2 to 5 each explore patterns of language learning beyond the classroom from four different, but related, theoretical perspectives. In an interview study of female English learners and their families in the United Arab Emirates, David Palfreyman (Chapter 2) uses Social Networking Theory to focus on the role of relationships with family and friends, arguing that interaction with ‘significant others’ is a crucial element in language learning beyond

Introduction 3

the classroom. Palfreyman’s study is particularly valuable in showing how access to target language resources, such as reading materials or native speakers, is likely to be mediated through learners’ family and friendship networks. Leena Kuure (Chapter 3) uses Mediated Discourse Analysis to analyse case study data of a Finnish English learner’s out-ofschool, technology-mediated language learning. Here the setting is both the home and the virtual gaming environments in which the learner spends much of his spare time. Kuure shows how online games and the activities around them provide important affordances for language learning, although language learning is not necessarily the objective, as a means of nurturing social relationships through collaborative problem-solving and networking among online peers. Paula Kalaja and her research team report (Chapter 4) on a study based on Vygotskyan theory and using qualitative analysis of open-ended questionnaire responses, comparing the different ways in which young Finns learn English and Swedish in and out of school. They find that while their school-based experiences are similar, their out-of-school experiences are very different, with students being much more active in exercising their agency in learning English – an illustration of how different modes of practice can develop in very similar settings, in this case for the learning of different languages. Vera Menezes (Chapter 5) uses narrative data from a collection of written language learning histories, to explore the concept of ‘affordances’ in Ecological theory as a metaphor for understanding how Brazilian learners of English seek out opportunities for learning beyond the classroom. Arguing that affordances do not simply exist in the environment, but are constructed within the learner’s relationship with it, she examines how learners exercise their agency to find their own particular ‘niches’ and reconstruct their learning environments. Chapters 6 to 8 look more closely at what is actually learned in language learning beyond the classroom. In an ethnographic study of two Spanish women who arrived in France as refugees from the Spanish Civil War and learned French largely ‘naturalistically’, David Divita (Chapter 6) makes the important point that in non-institutional settings, ‘language acquisition’ might be better conceived as a process of becoming multilingual that unfolds in idiosyncratic ways and is shaped by experiences of the sociohistorical conditions in which it occurs. Adopting an approach that pays close attention to language data, Divita seeks evidence for this process in the two women’s use of language and, in particular, their use of codeswitching. Erica Zimmerman’s study (Chapter 7) is also based on close analysis of language data, using

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Conversation Analysis techniques, consisting of interactions between Korean learners of Japanese and their homestay hosts. Zimmerman provides important evidence of ‘teaching and learning’ episodes in these interactions, which illustrate the sense in which pedagogy may always be present in language learning beyond the classroom. Pia Sundqvist’s quantitative study (Chapter 8) directly tackles the question of whether Swedish students who engage in English language learning beyond the classroom actually learn more than those whose learning is limited to school. The results are interesting, if not entirely predictable: she finds a strong correlation between time spent on out-of-class learning and oral proficiency/vocabulary size, as well as correlation between these factors and gender patterns in the types of activities, which meant that learning beyond the classroom had a greater impact on boys than girls. Chapters 9 to 12 examine issues arising from institutional initiatives to provide opportunities for language learning beyond the classroom: a self-directed language learning programme for young people in France, a self-access English project for elderly people in Japan, a tandem learning project involving participants in Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom, and home tutoring in English for migrants to New Zealand. Sophie Bailly’s project (Chapter 9) provided learners in a vocational high school in France with the opportunity to learn a language of their choice outside school, supported by advisory sessions, web-based learning materials and opportunities to talk with native speakers of the target languages. Evaluation of the project identified continuities between outof-school language learning and the learners’ school, personal and social lives and three important conditions for success in self-directed language learning: motivation, learning resources and learning skills. Garold Murray’s project (Chapter 10) was also designed to provide language learning opportunities to people who would not otherwise receive them, in this case elderly Japanese attending a university self-access language learning centre designed for use by the general public. His evaluation suggests that older language learners can especially benefit from the creation of social learning spaces offering possibilities for participation in a community of learners and pedagogical support. Ursula Stickler and Martina Emke (Chapter 11) report on a tandem learning project for adult learners involving partners in four European countries. Using language data from the project, they investigate how formal, non-formal and informal learning processes support the acquisition of key competences, arguing that non-formal learning plays an important role in adult language learning. Finally, in Chapter 12, Gary Barkhuizen’s narrative interview study with

Introduction 5

home tutors of New Zealand migrants deals directly with language teaching beyond the classroom and in the homes of the learners. Focusing on the interpersonal, emotional dimensions of teaching, which come to the fore in one-to-one teaching in the learner’s home, he argues that the nature of the tutor–learner relationship is a major factor in the decisionmaking processes and practices of tutors and, ultimately, in the success of their learners. A number of chapters highlight the role of teaching and, indeed, of teachers in language learning beyond the classroom, which suggests that the distinction between classroom and out-of-class learning is a fuzzy one at best. In particular, language learning beyond the classroom is often initiated by teachers who work in educational institutions, and may even take place in these institutions or in off-campus locations. The important role that teachers often play is highlighted in Hayo Reinders’ concluding chapter (Chapter 13), which offers principles and practical advice on the design of language learning materials for use in a range of out-of-class settings. Language learning and teaching beyond the classroom is not a new area of research, in the sense that studies have appeared in the literature from time to time over the years. This volume is timely, however, because the number of studies is increasing and, indeed, it is unlikely that our call for contributions would have received such a positive response twenty or even ten years ago. In our view, this opens up the possibility of exploring language learning beyond the classroom as an area of inquiry with its own theoretical assumptions and issues of particular concern. Increased interest in out-of-class learning is prompted, in part, by a shift in the basic assumptions of second language acquisition research among many researchers, who no longer see acquisition in purely cognitive terms, but in terms of participation in communities and contexts of various kinds. This view has led to interest in qualitative studies of learners’ lives and often to the use of ethnographic or retrospective self-report data to investigate learning in out-of-class settings. The studies in this volume illustrate this trend, but are also diverse in their use of research methods, especially in the use of quantitative methods and close analysis of language data. The key issues to emerge from the volume, which readers may wish to keep in mind as they read, include: (1) how we might develop a more comprehensive view of the shared and distinctive features of diverse settings for language learning beyond the classroom; (2) the distinctive characteristics of learning processes and what learners actually learn in these settings; and (3) the roles and distinctive forms of teaching and

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pedagogy. These issues are likely to be most of interest to the growing number of educators who work with learners in non-conventional settings for language teaching and learning; but the possibility of developing a more general understanding of relationships between settings (including classroom settings), learning and pedagogy means that they are equally relevant to teachers who do most of their work in classrooms.

1 Language Learning and Teaching Beyond the Classroom: An Introduction to the Field Phil Benson

1. Introduction In a review of research on the effectiveness of formal foreign language instruction, Ellis (2008: 855) observes that acquisition probably proceeds most rapidly through a combination of form-focused instruction and exposure to the target language. He also suggests that in studies that have compared classroom learners with ‘naturalistic’ learners, we can not be sure whether the advantages for classroom learners are due to formal instruction or access to comprehensible input in classroom language. While the jury remains out on the effectiveness of language instruction, the wise language learner might be well advised to seek out a combination of instruction and exposure to language input (Krashen 1985), as well as opportunities to produce language output (Swain 1985). Most language teachers would also agree that students learn best when they combine classroom learning with out-of-class learning. But in comparison to studies of the effectiveness of instruction, there are very few studies on the effectiveness of language learning beyond the classroom. On one side of the scale, we have comparative studies showing certain disadvantages for naturalistic learners (Ellis 2008: 289–90; Pica 1983) and studies of self-instruction that report high levels of drop-out and relatively low levels of proficiency among those who persist (Fernández-Toro and Jones 1996; Umino 1999, 2005). On the other, we have studies showing that learners who achieve high levels of proficiency often attribute their success to out-of-class learning (Nunan 1991; Pickard 1995). While the jury also remains undecided on the effectiveness of out-of-class learning, the wise learner will, again, be well-advised to adopt the view that classroom and out-of-class learning are equally important. 7

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If there is no strong reason to suppose that out-of-class learning is any less effective than classroom learning, we could reasonably expect researchers to devote equal attention to both. But this has clearly not been the case to date. In contrast to the many thousands of published studies on classroom language learning in the recent literature, there are very few studies of language learning beyond the classroom. There is also no field of study devoted to language learning beyond the classroom comparable to the fields of ‘classroom language learning research’ (Allwright and Bailey 1991; Bailey 2006; Lightbown 2000; van Lier 1990) or ‘instructed language learning’ (Ellis 1995, 2005; Housen and Pierrard 2005). The main reason for this may be no more complicated than the fact that most language learning researchers and their readers are teachers who work in classrooms. As classroom teachers, we become accustomed to the idea that classrooms are the ‘natural’ place for learning to take place. Out-of-class learning processes are also often ‘invisible’ to classroom teachers, or at least less easily accessed than classroom processes. The number of studies of language learning beyond the classroom is growing, however, partly in response to interest in autonomy and independent learning (Benson 2011; Lamb and Reinders 2008) and partly in response to interest in qualitative case studies of language learners’ lives (Benson and Nunan 2005; Kalaja, Menezes and Barcelos 2008). This chapter provides an introduction to the field covered by this volume, by proposing a broad framework consisting of four major dimensions of language learning beyond the classroom – location, formality, pedagogy, locus of control – and two key analytical constructs – setting and mode of practice.

2. Language learning beyond the classroom: defining the field The main task of this chapter is to attempt to define the scope of language learning beyond the classroom as a field of inquiry and to outline some of its basic parameters. If language learning beyond the classroom is to be concerned with everything that classroom language learning is not concerned with, it will evidently be an extensive, and not easily delimited, field. Readers will no doubt have their own, fairly well-defined, ideas of what a classroom is, although definitions from classroom research may challenge them. Van Lier (1988: 47), for example, defines the language learning classroom as ‘the gathering, for a given period of time, of two or more persons (one of whom generally assumes the role of instructor) for the purposes of

An Introduction to the Field 9

language learning’, a definition that seems to leave very little room for the world beyond the classroom. Assuming that most classroom research is more narrowly concerned with conventional classrooms in educational institutions, however, the scope for research on language learning beyond the classroom is considerably widened. Key questions that we need to address, therefore, concern the kinds of places, other than conventional classrooms, where language learning takes place, the characteristics of these places, the kinds of learning activities that take place in them, and their role in the wider picture of individuals’ language learning. In discussing the scope of the field, we are also faced with a number of alternative terms that we have largely chosen to avoid here in favour of the more inclusive term ‘language learning beyond the classroom’. These include ‘out-of-class’, ‘out-of-school’, ‘after-school’, ‘extracurricular’ and ‘extramural’; ‘non-formal’ and ‘informal’; ‘self-instructed’, ‘noninstructed’ and ‘naturalistic’; ‘independent’, ‘self-directed’ and ‘autonomous’ language learning – terms which point to those four distinct dimensions of language learning beyond the classroom – location, formality, pedagogy, and locus of control. 2.1

Location

‘Out-of-class’, ‘out-of-school’, ‘after-school’, ‘extracurricular’ and ‘extramural’ learning all focus on location or setting and usually imply something that is supplementary to classroom learning and teaching. ‘Out-of-class’ and ‘out-of-school learning’ are often used to describe non-prescribed activities that students carry out independently to broaden their knowledge of a subject, while ‘afterschool’, ‘extracurricular’ and ‘extramural’ usually refer to additional programmes in school that are less formal than regular lessons and possibly organized by students themselves. It would be unusual to describe a person who was learning a language without attending classes of any kind as being engaged in any of these kinds of learning, and it is mainly in order to include such learners that we prefer the term ‘language learning beyond the classroom’. Interestingly, out-ofclass language learning activities can also take place in school and are common, for example, in Hong Kong schools, where ‘English-only’ days, debates, public speaking competitions, performances, and school magazines are popular English language activities. Because ‘out-ofschool’ learning only refers to location, the term might also reasonably be applied to attendance at private tutorial schools after the school day is finished. Although the teaching and learning takes place in

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classrooms, tutorial lessons can be considered as ‘out-of-school’ activities from the perspective of the main location of the students’ learning. A more clear-cut example of out-of-class learning can be found in the one-to-one tutorial lessons that younger students often take from older students in the home. To take Hong Kong as the example once again, many university and senior secondary students help to finance their own studies by offering one-to-one English tutorials to younger students. 2.2

Formality

The terms ‘non-formal’ and ‘informal’ contrast with ‘formal’ teaching and learning, which are generally understood to take place in educational institutions and to involve classroom teaching and officially recognized qualifications. Although this distinction is not always clearly made, non-formal education often refers to classroom or school-based programmes that are taken for interest and do not involve tests or qualifications, while informal education refers more to non-institutional programmes or individual learning projects. In the context of adult education, Livingstone (2006: 211) defines informal learning as ‘anything people do to gain knowledge, skill, or understanding from learning about their health or hobbies, unpaid or paid work, or anything else that interests them outside of organized courses’, a definition that fits well with our understanding of learning beyond the classroom. The dimension of formality, therefore, essentially refers to the degree to which learning is independent of organized courses leading to formal qualifications. Language learning beyond the classroom does not necessarily imply the absence of tests and qualifications (many students study for a qualification independently of educational institutions), or the absence of teaching, which is more or less implicit in any form of learning. In understanding the role of teaching in informal learning, the concept of public pedagogy (Giroux 1994), which has received little attention in language learning research, may prove useful. In their introduction to a recent handbook on the topic, Sandlin, Schultz and Burdick (2010: 2) describe public pedagogy as being concerned with ‘informal spaces of learning such as popular culture, the internet, public spaces such as museums and parks, and other civic and commercial spaces, including both old and new social movements’. They also argue that ‘public pedagogy has come to signify…that schools are not the sole sites of teaching, learning, or curricula, and perhaps they are not even the most influential’ (ibid.). When we think of learners learning foreign languages independently while watching television or movies or while

An Introduction to the Field 11

using the internet, public pedagogy refers to the sense in which they are also being ‘taught’. 2.3

Pedagogy

The terms ‘self-instructed’, ‘non-instructed’ and ‘naturalistic’ learning contrast with ‘instructed’ language learning on a dimension concerned with the role and types of pedagogy involved in language learning beyond the classroom. The term ‘instruction’ is understood here as a particular kind of pedagogy, involving formal processes, such as sequencing of material, explicit explanation, and testing. When learners watch, for example, a TV soap opera in a foreign language, we are likely to say that the show is ‘teaching’ them the language, but not that it is ‘instructing’ them. If they turn the channel to a programme that is specifically designed to teach the language, however, then we would say that instruction is taking place. In this sense, self-instruction and naturalistic learning lie at two ends of a pedagogical continuum that is situated, by definition, beyond the classroom. In self-instruction, specially designed books or television and radio broadcasts take on the role of classroom instructor and there is a strong intention to learn on the part of the learner, while in naturalistic learning, there is no instruction or specially designed materials and, in principle, no intention to learn. Naturalistic learning may be a hypothetical state, however, and elsewhere I have described the more typical process of ‘self-directed naturalistic learning’, in which the learner sets up a naturalistic learning situation with the intention of language learning, but once engaged in the situation, switches the focus of attention to communication, enjoyment or learning something other than the language itself (Benson 2011). A further point worth noting is that ‘classroom language learning’ is not necessarily synonymous with ‘instructed language learning’. Van Lier’s (1988) suggestion that a classroom is a situation in which one of the participants ‘assumes the role of instructor’, suggests that the act of instruction may, in itself, turn a space into a ‘classroom’. It also suggests that instruction (other than self-instruction) is, in principle, incompatible with language learning beyond the classroom. Instruction is not the only type of pedagogy that takes place in classrooms, however, as Ellis’s (1995, 2005) discussions of task-based instructed language learning suggests. The fact that pedagogy is part of learning inside and outside classrooms, together with the fact that classroom language teaching often aims to emulate naturalistic processes that occur outside the classroom, means that any comparison of their effectiveness is likely to be muddied by variables along the dimension of pedagogy.

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Locus of control

Lastly, the terms ‘independent’, ‘self-directed’ and ‘autonomous’ language learning refer to a dimension concerned with the locus of control in learning and teaching. At times these terms are used to signify learning without a teacher, but the wider usage refers to who makes the major decisions about learning and teaching – the learner or someone else? In order for learning without a teacher to be ‘autonomous’, for example, the decision to do without a teacher must, in principle, be made by the learner, who might equally well opt for a taught or instructed course. In practice, the initial decision to participate or engage in language study is often not made by the learner, especially for younger learners of English and other world or regional languages that form part of the compulsory school curriculum in many parts of the world. In some cases, school and university students choose to study foreign languages and the particular languages they study – although having once made this decision, their options become limited. For adult learners, foreign language learning is often a matter of self-improvement or recreation, in which they have far more room for manoeuvre. The underlying conditions for locus of control in language learning are, therefore, highly variable. There also appears to be no simple relationship between the location of learning (in or out of class) and locus of control. There is now a good deal of interest in learner autonomy in the classroom (although the extent to which there can be ‘genuine’ autonomy in compulsory language education remains questionable) and classroom study may be freely chosen in non-compulsory education (Benson 2008). There is, however, a clear relationship between language learning beyond the classroom and locus of control, in that non-classroom settings often demand that the learners make many of the decisions about their learning. This observation also provides us with an example of how the four dimensions of location, formality, pedagogy and locus of control interact. One way that many learners shift the locus of control away from themselves in out-of-class settings is by opting for self-instructional materials which have a high level of formality and instructional content. Locus of control shifts back to learners when they gain confidence in their ability to learn in more naturalistic, informal ways.

3. Settings and modes of practice One way of defining language learning beyond the classroom as a field of inquiry, therefore, is to say that it is centrally concerned with

An Introduction to the Field 13

locations for language learning other than the classroom and with relationships between these locations and aspects of formality, pedagogy and locus of control. Because we assume that language learning beyond the classroom always involves pedagogy, in some sense of the word, this field could also be called ‘language learning and teaching beyond the classroom’, as it is in the title of this volume. Just as classroom research puts the emphasis ‘solidly on trying to understand what goes on in the classroom setting’ (Allwright and Bailey 1991: 2), research on language learning beyond the classroom is concerned mainly with what goes on, or how people learn and teach languages, in a variety of non-classroom settings. We may also learn from Bailey’s (2006: 8) observation that ‘the classroom is both the setting for and the object of investigation in language classroom research’. What we take this to mean is that research focuses on both the characteristics and affordances of settings and the learning and teaching processes that actually take place in them. In order to develop this observation into a rudimentary framework for research on language learning beyond the classroom, ‘setting’ and ‘mode of practice’ will be discussed as two distinct but connected concepts. Setting: The locations in which language learning beyond the classroom take place are geographically anchored, but they are perhaps more usefully thought of as social spaces, or ‘settings’ for language learning. The term ‘setting’ implies here, not simply a location, but also a particular set of circumstances within a location that offer affordances for and constraints on possibilities for language learning. The following is a somewhat technical definition, designed to be usable in research: Setting = An arrangement for learning, involving one or more learners in a particular place, who are situated in particular kinds of physical, social or pedagogical relationships with other people (teachers, learners, others) and material or virtual resources. This definition can, no doubt, be improved upon, but its main purpose is to suggest that a description of a setting for language learning will cover several elements, including the main features of the space in which it is physically located and the learner’s relationship to other people and objects in the setting. A description of a setting will, therefore, spill over into aspects of formality, pedagogy and locus of control by providing clues to its potential for language learning and teaching

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activities, but it will not describe these activities, which are relatively independent of the setting itself. Mode of practice: The second term within this framework broadly covers the ways in which aspects of formality, pedagogy and locus of control are actualized in settings. The following is a similarly technical definition for the purposes of research: Mode of practice = A set of routine pedagogical processes that deploy features of a particular setting and may be characteristic of it. This definition can, again, no doubt be improved upon, but the point to highlight concerns the distinction between settings and the modes of practice they support. Classrooms, self-access centres, computer labs, language cafés, spaces in the home, community and street, and virtual spaces on the internet, are all examples of settings that can be described in terms of their features and affordances. A conversation between language learners could take place in any of these settings, although it would take a different form, and thus constitute a distinct mode of practice, in each setting. Similarly, settings typically support a range of modes of practice: a classroom, for example, may support both teacher-fronted formal instruction, or less formal, student-directed task-based activities, just as a self-access centre might support individual self-directed use of self-instructional materials or group activities led by a teacher. The relative independence of settings and modes of practice is an important point to bear in mind in any discussion of language learning beyond the classroom, as an example from the published literature illustrates. This example is drawn from a study of an extensive language support programme in the United Kingdom, in which new migrants are encouraged to improve their English language skills using interactive language learning software located in several hundred ‘learndirect’ centres around the country (Ibarz and Webb 2007). The basic setting for language learning consisted of a number of workstations equipped with the software, which was intended to function as a ‘tutor’, a member of staff who was expected to provide basic technical and learning support, and the other learners who happened to be in the centre at any given time. The modes of practice supported by the centres, therefore, appeared to be limited to the learners’ individual interaction with the software. An evaluation of a pilot scheme, however, showed that learners found the system effective for two main reasons: first, the ability

An Introduction to the Field 15

of the software to encourage learners to interact with it as ‘a tutor and as a private, low-anxiety space for language practice’ and, second, the support staff and learners ‘reconstructed the learning environment as a place for sociability and interactivity to practise and develop language skills’ (Ibarz and Webb 2007: 222). While the first outcome was predictable in terms of the primary mode of practice that the centres are designed to support, the second outcome was not. In this sense, the setting supported more than one mode of practice, one of which was unanticipated and worked out by the learners themselves as a way of making the best use of the affordances of the setting. As Ibarz and Webb put it, ‘the technology-driven pedagogy was subverted by motivated learners and committed tutors to re-establish the learning ethos more typically found in principle-oriented pedagogic settings’ (ibid.). Ibarz and Webb’s study, therefore, provides a good example of the relative independence of modes of practice from settings in language learning beyond the classroom. It also illustrates how strands of formality (the formal instruction provided by the software vs. the informal learning through interactions with support staff), pedagogy (the transformation of the learning support staff into unofficial English tutors), and locus of control (the learners’ initiative to ‘reconstruct’ the learning environment) are woven together in modes of practice.

4. Conclusion What I have proposed in this chapter is a somewhat rudimentary framework for describing, discussing and analysing language learning beyond the classroom that involves dimensions of location, formality, pedagogy, and locus of control (important if we are to arrive at fully rounded descriptions of settings for learning beyond the classroom), and a distinction between settings and the modes of practice they support (important if we are to avoid simplistic inferences about teaching and learning from descriptions of settings). To move beyond this framework, we might also speculate whether we might also ultimately arrive at a theory of language learning beyond the classroom similar to the theory of instructed second language acquisition proposed by Ellis (1995). At present this seems unlikely, if only because the range of settings beyond the classroom is far wider than the range of classroom settings. The requirements that Ellis sets out for such a theory are instructive, however. In addition to meeting requirements for a general theory of second language acquisition, Ellis argues, a theory of instructed second language acquisition must also address the role played by formal

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study and be relevant to the particular language pedagogy employed (1995: 79). Using the terminology discussed in this chapter, the theory must be sensitive not only to the classroom setting, but also to the modes of practice typical of classroom settings. Working primarily with input/output processing models of second language acquisition, the proposed theory covers issues such as the ways in which formal instruction modifies or calls attention to features in the input, or the ways in which classroom tasks facilitate or impede the production of relevant output. This approach is useful, I would argue, because it insists upon close inspection of language data for evidence of learning and upon relevance to particular factors that contribute to this evidence. A more problematic aspect of the theory concerns the concept of instruction and how narrowly or broadly it is defined. Does instruction imply a particular way of transmitting knowledge or does it refer more broadly to everything that teachers do in classrooms? And is instruction, in either of these senses, necessarily more characteristic of classroom language learning than it is of language learning beyond the classroom. In this chapter, I have made a distinction between instruction (for the narrower sense of knowledge transmission) and pedagogy (for the broader sense of the term). I have also suggested that pedagogy, in this broader sense, is very much a characteristic of language learning beyond the classroom. If this is the case, the field of inquiry that this volume attempts to carve out may be both much broader and much closer to the field of classroom language learning than is often acknowledged.

2 Family, Friends, and Learning Beyond the Classroom: Social Networks and Social Capital in Language Learning David M. Palfreyman

[My uncle] said for me: ‘you must not learn [Persian… because] it will be confusing between languages: you must only learn English, and concentrate in English’. And I said: ‘no, I want to learn’. And I learn it from a neighbour: always I call to him and I say some words, and he say ‘No, this is wrong, this is that word’ […]; and I learned it right. (Asma).

1. Introduction Language learning beyond the classroom is often seen as a pursuit of target language resources such as reading materials or native speakers, and these clearly have a role to play. However, this chapter focuses on another key element which mediates access to these other resources: patterns of interaction with other people, analysed here as social networks. Language learning beyond the classroom is not unstructured; on the contrary, it is structured by the contexts in which a learner uses and internalizes the language, and by the strategies which the learner uses to pursue her goals within particular contexts. In order to understand learning beyond the classroom, we need to consider how learners interact with ‘significant others’ (other people who are often more significant to them than their teachers are). For the female Arabic learners from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) described in this chapter, their family and friends play a key role in their learning outside the classroom.

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2. Key concepts First I will review some concepts which are key to understanding the role of social networks in learning beyond the classroom. I referred above to strategies (for learning and communication) used by a learner in order to mobilize and develop her language outside the classroom, and to the contexts within which she chooses and uses these strategies. I will be focusing on social aspects of the out-of-class environment, and specifically social resources on which a learner can draw. I will be concerned not simply with the quantity of such resources, but their quality and their structure. I will consider the social structure known as a learning community, as well as an institution which is familiar and influential the world over: the family. 2.1

Strategies and contexts

There is now a considerable literature about learner variables that contribute to learning, including language aptitude and language learning strategies. On the other hand, there is also a growing literature concerning how the learner’s context can contribute to learning (e.g. Gao 2006). Learning beyond the classroom is situated in particular contexts (Lave and Wenger 1991); it is likely to be more effective in a context which offers comprehensible input and supports noticing of language forms and functions, practice and positive affect. In my own context, the UAE, Midraj and Midraj (2005) found that learner attributes such as female gender and using English at home correlated positively with higher English proficiency among students applying to university. It would be interesting to know how such variables influence language learning – the processes by which the context facilitates or shapes learners’ strategies. Oxford’s (1990) ‘social learning strategies’, (e.g. practising with native speakers) are closely linked to the contexts which the learner can access. Newcombe (2007: 86) outlines how contexts and strategies are linked in the learning of Welsh in Wales: Learners need to either find [a native speaker to practise with] or an interest such as a choir, a sports club, a church, or a public house where Welsh can be practised. As well as working on the linguistic skills in class […], learners need good time management skills and the resolve to seek out opportunities to use Welsh outside class. Palfreyman (2006) found that female UAE university students made use of various opportunities for learning beyond the classroom. As well as

Family, Friends, and Learning Beyond the Classroom 19

practice with native or non-native speakers, this included seeking input from family members, most often from older sisters who were perceived as having a higher level of English. Learning strategies can thus be seen as emerging from an ongoing interaction between the individual learner and his/her context. This context consists not simply of a physical place, but of a set of affordances, activities, people, identities and communities with which the learner engages. 2.2

Social resources

Brookfield (1986) found that for people learning about a hobby outside any formal educational setting, ‘other people’ were the main learning resource cited. Learners’ acquaintances provided social resources for learning: information, support, feedback and models of learning or performance. These resources in turn are linked to long-term ‘evolutions of personal networks and life events’ (Bidart and Lavenu 2005); as people move into new contexts and form new relationships, they gain or lose access to people who facilitate or hinder their learning in different ways. Norton (2000), for example, studied the struggles of ESL learners to access social resources, and the role that their identity plays in this process. Social Network Theory represents people as living within networks of relationships. Through these networks, resources such as information or gifts are transferred between people, and people’s activities are facilitated or constrained by their social networks. Krackhardt and Hanson (1993) distinguish between ‘advice networks’, ‘trust networks’ and ‘communication networks’. In terms of learning beyond the classroom, a learner’s advice network would consist of relationships with people on whom she depends for guidance or action (or to whom she provides such help); her trust network would include relationships within which she would share difficulties or look for support; and her communication network could support her in discussing and clarifying what she is learning. Bourdieu’s (1985) concept of ‘social capital’ has also been used to describe the ways in which networks of relationships between individuals structure society, ‘establishing obligations, expectations and trustworthiness, creating channels for information, and setting norms backed by efficient sanctions’ (Schuller, Baron and Field 2000: 6). Coleman (1988) focused on the social capital built up within close, dense networks within families or neighbourhoods. Such networks can help people to discuss problems or get advice and support. However, reliance on these closed networks can also be limiting, leading to lack of change and the growth of cliques. Putnam (2000) uses the term ‘bonding social capital’

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to refer to this type of in-group contact, but emphasizes also the importance of ‘bridging social capital’: links across groups (e.g. acquaintances in other neighbourhoods or other communities), which can offer access to new ideas and perspectives. Field (2005: 101) points out that ‘when it comes to new ideas or skills or information, many people prefer to trust their networks rather than rely on educational institutions’, and that workers in many fields prefer to learn from co-workers rather than from perceived outsiders. Field highlights how such reliance on bonding ties with family or neighbours can cut learners off from a wider and more varied range of learning options. In a second language learning context, Wiklund (2002) found that adolescent immigrants in Sweden with larger, more varied networks (not necessarily networks including only Swedish friends) tended to show higher proficiency in the second language. 2.3

Learning communities

Learners in different contexts will learn within different kinds of social networks; for example their learning may draw on the resources of a work-based group, a peer group or a neighbourhood. In this chapter I will focus especially on the family, a key social resource in the lives of female learners in the UAE. The family is a network of relationships, and also a site where various kinds of ‘capital’ can be accumulated. Wolf (1966, cited in Vélez-Ibáñez and Greenberg 1992) discusses the ‘household economy’ in terms of various kinds of ‘funds’: tangible or intangible goods (such as a car or a good reputation) which have both practical and social value for the family. Vélez-Ibáñez and Greenberg focus on funds of knowledge, or ‘bodies of knowledge of strategic importance to households’ (p. 314). These funds of knowledge can be built up through education or other kinds of learning; their value to the family may vary according to changing circumstances, and they are put to use via contacts between the family and others, maintained through social rituals such as birthday parties, household visits, or employment. Learning beyond the classroom may be supported by the internal network of the family, and the benefits of this learning, as well as the learning itself, may spread to other family members. Thus a family becomes a ‘learning community’ (Wenger 1998). Lave and Wenger’s (1991) concept of ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ suggests that communities (including families) learn through the interaction between core members who use and develop skills, and ‘apprentices’ who become increasingly aware and skilled. Traditionally, parents tended to be the experts

Family, Friends, and Learning Beyond the Classroom 21

and children would learn from them, but Field (2005: 120) notes that nowadays ‘the flow of socialization within contemporary families is increasingly multi-directional’. Cases of what Field calls ‘inverse socialization’ include parents learning computer skills from their children. The aim of the study reported here was to investigate how social context contributes to the out-of-class language learning experiences of young Gulf Arab women in the UAE. The learners in question displayed a variety of learning strategies which are shaped by social resources. The setting for many of these resources is the family, which, along with many other roles, can function as a language learning community.

3. Research context In contrast to their parents’ generation who experienced a subsistence economy, Emiratis born in the 1980s and 1990s have grown up in a stable, prosperous, globalizing state (the UAE) with rapidly developing infrastructure and educational opportunities. People from other parts of the world have flocked to work in the UAE, so that the majority of the present-day population are expatriates from Southern Asia, other Arab countries and the West. Although Arabic is the official national language, Urdu/Hindi and Tagalog are widely used, and English is the predominant lingua franca. The five female learners central to this study were aged 18–25, and were from the Emirati (local Gulf Arab) community, which forms approximately 15 per cent of the country’s population. They were all based at the Dubai campus of the Englishmedium Zayed University (ZU). The social structure of the Emirati community is relatively conservative. Families are generally patriarchal, social contacts outside the nuclear family are gender-segregated, and women’s roles are circumscribed compared with societies in the West. However, women of the younger generation have a wider range of options than previously. They have access to a wide variety of media, are much more likely to work than their mothers were, and are more likely to study at university than are their male counterparts. In terms of networks and access to English, Palfreyman (2006) found that students’ fathers were usually breadwinners and had varying familiarity with English as a functional lingua franca, while their mothers, although influential in the family, typically knew little English. Families tend to be larger than in the West, often with six or more children. Elder siblings tended to be more familiar with English than their parents were, through higher education (especially in the case of elder sisters) and/or

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work (in the case of elder brothers). In general, the local Emirati community keeps fairly separate from the expatriate majority. Although Emirati men may marry women from other countries (especially as a second wife), Emirati women do not usually marry outside their community.

4. Methods I wanted to gather a range of data on particular learners, triangulated and enriched with perspectives from ‘significant others’ in those learners’ lives beyond the classroom. The data, therefore, consist of a series of linked case studies, exploring a range of social influences in language learning. I began by asking for student volunteers to be interviewed. In each case, I asked the volunteer to bring a friend with them to the interview if possible: this helped them feel more at ease, and also expanded the sample of students in a way that reflected their peer group networks. Another reason for interviewing in pairs was to stimulate discussion in the interview, as the students listened to and built on each other’s contributions. The student interviews were conducted in English and lasted approximately an hour. At the end of each interview I asked the students whether any of their family members were available for interview. Most of the family interviews were conducted on the telephone in Arabic by a female Emirati research assistant, and lasted an average of 25 minutes, with less extended discussion of answers. Each interview (both face to face and telephone) focused on the interviewee’s experience of learning and using languages, and on their participation in family members’ learning. In the extracts below, italics indicate translation from Arabic. The final list of informants therefore included students at various levels, as well as their friends and relatives. Table 1 shows the informants discussed in this chapter, grouped according to the initial student (marked with *) who gave access to her friends/family members. For example, Aisha, after my interview with her, referred me to her sister, brother and uncle, who are listed below her name. Aisha and Fatima were also part of each other’s network of friends; one of the earliest interviews was with Fatima and Aisha together, and each of them referred me to members of their respective families.

5. Findings 5.1

Sites of learning

In discussing the development of their English, the informants referred to formal as well as non-formal sites of learning. School was often

Family, Friends, and Learning Beyond the Classroom 23 Table 1 Informants Informant (* = core informant)

Age

Education, occupation

*Aisha

23

ZU graduate; auditing a course in Communication Vocational college graduate; works at telephone company Vocational college graduate; accountant Manager

Amira (older sister)

26

Saeed (older brother )

28

Ahmed (uncle)

51

*Fatima

25

Abdulrahman (father) Mona (younger sister)

49 22

*Asma Amal (younger sister) Yusuf (uncle)

21 20 32

ZU student (Foundation) ZU student (Education major) Businessman

*Sara Munira (friend) Khawla (older sister) Abdallah (younger brother)

19 19 25 18

ZU student (Foundation) ZU student (Foundation) ZU student (Business major) Vocational college student

*Noora Maryam (friend) Khalifa (brother)

22 22 23

ZU student (Education major) ZU student (Education major) Military avionics student

ZU graduate; working at ZU as an administrative assistant Lawyer Student at Arabic-medium university

mentioned, but dismissed as inadequate in terms of teaching methodology and learning outcomes. For example, Munira says: I start from grade 4, and they taught us the basic, […] but the problem is that their strategies were not very good. I wasn’t able to speak in English. The informants (particularly the university students) often linked knowledge of English to further education. However, Emiratis moving directly from school to work may also find themselves in need of English: Munira mentions various strategies in connection with her sister, who began work as a secretary without finishing high school but who found that she needed English at work. Her sister apparently tries to speak English with Munira, and to understand English on the television; however, she did not follow Munira’s advice to read in English.

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This example shows how work and home life are potential sites for English learning beyond the classroom. In the UAE, shopping is another potential context for learning or practising English, although, as with Munira’s sister, these opportunities might not be taken up: Sara: [I] try to use the proper English in every situation; like before when I went to shop I say: ‘How much this?’ (laughs) but now I ask: ‘How much does it cost?’ But some girls feel shy to use English. […] I feel my mother sometimes she know what she wants and she have the word but she can’t [bring herself to speak]. At work, at home and in shops, then, Emiratis find themselves in situations where they may act as learners or users of English. In some cases they take up such opportunities, while in others they refrain from doing so, sometimes because of their perception of how they will be viewed by others. 5.2

Networks and genre-based communities

As discussed earlier, learning beyond the classroom is situated within social networks, and the nature of the learners’ social networks affects their language learning. Some families provide a mutually supportive environment for learning English. For example Maryam, studying to be an English teacher, notes that she speaks English with her sister, who is also an English teacher. Noora has several sisters and brothers, whose English proficiency she attributes to their education, but also to their social contacts: Noora: Most of them they have good English, because they communicate with people. For example [one] works in hospital, and lots of English people there, so she communicate with them in English. […] Even my mother, she studied in American school […] so she know; but my father he don’t know English. My father is uneducated, he didn’t go to any school. The difference in proficiency between Noora’s father and his children is typical of the overall generational pattern described above (Palfreyman 2006). In some families the place of English is more marginal. Sara’s family for example seems to have little time for English, even though her father knows some. Indeed, Sara presents this (at times) as a good thing: Sara: My father know some English but he stopped… He knows some of the words, phrases but not that much; where other

Family, Friends, and Learning Beyond the Classroom 25

students, their parents know some English. If their parents know how to speak English, these students […] keep talking in English at home and they forget the Arabic language. In addition to family members, many Emirati households include servants, whose roles lie somewhere between employee, confidante and family member. These servants are often from countries where English is a second language, such as India or Sri Lanka. Sara attributes her own non-use of English at home to the fact that the servants in her home do not speak English, ‘because they are from Indonesia’. Sara’s home therefore is something of an ‘Arabic-only zone’. In general, family relationships afford bonding ties, linking family members closely and having a strong facilitating or hindering effect on learning beyond the classroom. However, over time these relationships may become closer or looser: Aisha: I and my sister were always close to each other, so we started listen to English songs together, watching series together, and we kind of compete with each other […] But she is working now so we’re not so close. English is often associated with looser, bridging ties outside the family and the local community. Most of the informants mentioned having to use English with foreigners in the UAE (e.g. in shops and hospitals), and also in interacting with global media. English, rather than Standard Arabic, is also used sometimes by choice as a lingua franca among speakers of different Arabic dialects: Aisha: Even if [my friends] are Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, the accents are different. When I sit with them and talk in Arabic, even [if] we talked in Arabic the accent is very different, so we rather to talk in English to understand each other; it’s a bit funny. Although perhaps ‘funny’ from a linguistic perspective, this practice shows that this group of friends have embraced an English-speaking identity and use it as an opportunity for practice. Like Newcombe’s (2007) learners of Welsh, these learners engage with activities and genres associated with particular communities. Although Sara’s family uses little English, she seeks opportunities to learn from English media: Sara: I like to see English movies. […] I look channel 2 [which] is in English; [… the] advertisement in Arabic, but films [are in

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English]. I try not to see the subtitle in Arabic, and to learn some words… the accent also. Sharing information about English genres also contributes to English use in family talk: Maryam: [If my sister and I] are talking about a[n English] novel I read, I will tell her the summary of the novel and we will talk in English, because it’s much easier. Note that Maryam and her sister are also predisposed to use English together because they are both involved in teaching English: various factors in their relationship support English use. Other cultures and languages circulate in UAE media. Noora mentioned reading Japanese manga comics in English on the internet, while Fatima was part of a community of fans of Bollywood musical films in Hindi of which her friend Aisha was only a peripheral member: Fatima: I learn [Hindi] from movies […]. I used to watch Hindi movies since I was six. Interviewer: Do you ever speak Hindi with anybody? Fatima: Not a lot, no […] I can speak, but I didn’t practise a lot. Interviewer: Could you say something in Hindi? Fatima: Oh! (laughing) Aisha: She always sings in Hindi! Fatima: [inaudible] kya tum jane he? (Laughing) Interviewer: Aisha, Do you understand? Aisha: No. […] I started watching films with her, so not all the films just a few. My sister and brother watch Indian movies, but I don’t enjoy it that much. Note that engaging with Bollywood films has developed mainly Fatima’s listening skills; and according to Aisha, Fatima is more likely to sing bits of Hindi (from films) than speak them. Fatima presents her Hindi as a hobby, in contrast to English, which she sees as necessary: Interviewer: Why is using English more important than Hindi? Fatima: You know, I use English with everyone, and I need it; even [if] I’m in Dubai, [and] it’s an Arabic country, I need English here because now Dubai is a mix of […] different nationalities. And the way to communicate with others [is] English, not Hindi […] I didn’t plan to learn Hindi, by the way! (all laugh).

Family, Friends, and Learning Beyond the Classroom 27

Despite her reticence about Hindi in front of her friend, Fatima has since (unusually for Emirati females) married outside her local community, to an Indian citizen, and she continues to develop her spoken Hindi. In a recent comment on an earlier version of this chapter, she revealed that her learning of English beyond the classroom, too, had been fuelled by her passion for Bollywood, which led her to read English language magazines about it and to notice English words used in Hindi films. Asma expresses a similar passion for literary Persian, linked to the genre of Persian poetry: Asma: I didn’t learn [Persian] from school or something, no, it is like hobby. I love it because I love their poets very much. Several learners revealed that L2s other than English were significant in their networks. For example, Noora’s mother is Indian and speaks Urdu and English more than Arabic. Indeed, it is possible that students with such a background have more interest in multilingual issues, and so volunteered to be interviewed. The parents of Sara and Khawla, although Emirati citizens and ethnically Arab, are of Iranian origin, and speak ‘Ajami, a Persian dialect; the sisters have learned some ‘Ajami: Khawla: They used to speak ‘Ajami, because they don’t want us to understand; but now we [understand] (laughing). And even some [people] who come from Iran to visit us, they don’t speak Arabic. But sometimes they speak to us in ‘Ajami and, we answer them in Arabic. We can see in these examples that learners develop learning strategies situated in particular communities into which they are born or to which they aspire. These strategies work in the learning of a variety of languages outside classroom contexts. 5.3

Flow of resources

Palfreyman’s (2006) findings gave a general idea of how often and in which directions learners’ knowledge of English may be mobilized through family/other networks to help others. Learners in that study mentioned, for example, looking out old schoolbooks to share with siblings, as well as helping parents with English in work, shopping or medical activities. The present study gave the opportunity to investigate this kind of ‘teaching’ role in more depth, and to relate it to the idea of the family as a learning community.

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5.3.1

Siblings and help

The most common pattern of help mentioned in Palfreyman (2006) was from older sisters to younger siblings. The core informants in this study mentioned giving help more broadly to younger members of their extended family, e.g. Maryam (an Education student) helping her nephews and nieces with English. Several informants mentioned getting help from older sisters. Increasing use of the internet has led to a widening of contacts in the younger generation, especially with English. Aisha says of her younger sister, aged 17: Aisha: In our time we didn’t start using the net till we went to college; she is using that now: she have this chat, messenger and forums; and she comes to us when she needs to know, she ask questions: ‘How can I say that, how to express that?’ She imitate us, and listen to music, watching TV. I think when she is my age her English will be better than [mine]. Aisha’s sister seems to be an active learner, making use of various resources in her environment, and her older sisters constitute one of these resources. Similarly, Asma’s younger brother seeks help from her. However, she does not necessarily give the help he asks for, and other informants do not necessarily embrace the role of ‘teacher’. Khawla describes the negotiation in her/Sara’s family about who will help their 10-year-old sister with homework: Khawla: My mother usually help her with the homework, but because English she doesn’t know, she usually ask us to do it. And Sara usually escape from the situation: she stays upstairs and never come down (both sisters laugh). Similarly, younger siblings do not necessarily welcome attempts by older siblings to help them. Fatima, as oldest sister and a university graduate, has an educating role at home, but when she tries to start conversations in English with her younger brother, he apparently responds unfavourably. Likewise Asma is rebuffed in her attempts to practise English at home by her sister, who says ‘Stop it, it’s enough in the university!’ Khalifa, although seeing himself as a competent English speaker, admits to weaknesses in reading and writing, and describes seeking help from his (Indian) mother, from Noora and from another sister older than him. In this case, age and gender seem to matter less than

Family, Friends, and Learning Beyond the Classroom 29

perceived literacy level. Indeed, as mentioned by Aisha above, younger siblings have often started English at an earlier age, and may be seen as sources of help as much as recipients. Fatima explains that I learn from my brother when I teach him, because […] he is 12 but his level is better than my level when I was in university […] and I learnt a lot of vocabularies from him in science, in history. In this case Fatima’s ‘teaching’ role (as an older sister) seems to consist of focusing and organizing her brother’s study, but both ‘teacher’ and ‘taught’ learn in the process. ‘Inverse socialization’ (Field 2005: 120) can be seen in Asma’s humorous account which highlights the reversal of expected sibling roles, mediated by their mother’s intervention: Asma: When I crying, my mother say [to Amal]: ‘go and help your sister’. [Amal] say: ‘she is older from me, she must help me, not me’. And my mother say: ‘OK, but she is not like you, smart’. […] After that she come and […] she helped me, give me idea, and she said for me ‘[…] change your vocab, change your voice’. She[‘s] like my older sister. 5.3.2

Parents and help

Since parents are often not proficient in English themselves and/or not highly educated, their support for learning tends to be in the form of motivation. When I asked Fatima if her parents had, despite their limited knowledge of English, helped her learning, she immediately answered that they provided encouragement. Parents are seen as setting the tone of the family environment, and are key to learners’ trust networks. Maryam describes her mother’s role in the context of a supportive family culture: Maryam: She always ask about my study and am I doing good or not; and she helped me emotionally, support. We have a good family and everybody cares for the other. If I have a problem they will listen, and discuss it. Fatima’s father Abdulrahman was keen for all his children to learn English. He himself was hoping to stay with a family in Australia or Canada to practise the language. When asked how people could improve their English, he readily listed activities based on social contacts: by travelling, and social communication, and making friendships with people: if I have a friend who is American, or English, or Canadian or Australian or whatever, I learn from him, definitely.

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As well as a general desire to support their children, parents feel pride in their children’s skills, which enhance their own prestige: Munira: [When my father] listen to me speak in English he feel […] proud, because he says everywhere he go, he feel everybody speak English, and he need this language. Munira gives an example of her father asking Munira to speak English with her brother in front of him, and the pride he felt in seeing this. The above illustrates the role of ‘bonding ties’ in learning; but the family may also encourage ‘bridging ties’ (Putnam 2000). Communication between young unmarried males and females is traditionally frowned upon in Emirati society on cultural and religious grounds, but in this extract we see Aisha and Fatima discovering differences in the legitimacy which their families assign to such contact: Interviewer: What do your parents think about your sister chatting [online]? Aisha: If they knew, they wouldn’t like it. They say chatting and these kinds of thing are taking us from our culture – I don’t know in what way, but that’s what they think. [… My brothers] think that the net is only to communicate with guys, and they don’t like it […]. Interviewer: Fatima, how about in your family? Fatima: No no, actually I thought that they might not like it, but I was shocked – my sister has an Irish friend, and she used to chat with him and she learnt a lot from him actually, she improved her English. And she was telling my father he was coming to Dubai but he doesn’t know the place, and he said ‘OK, I’ll take him round’. Aisha: yaaaaah! (laughs) Fatima: My father thinks that if there is a point from chatting with a guy […], if we are not wasting our time by chatting with a guy so why not? But my mother doesn’t agree at all. Fatima’s description fits with her father’s expressed support for Fatima’s language learning. When asked about possible disadvantages or dangers in learning English, he replied that learning a language is a clearly positive activity. He cited an Islamic saying, ‘learn people’s language, and you will be safe from their harm’, and emphasized that knowing a foreign language enables a person to learn from other cultures. Abdulrahman’s openness to foreign languages, and to English in particular, leads him to take an active role in his children’s learning,

Family, Friends, and Learning Beyond the Classroom 31

exploiting resources such as television to develop their learning strategies. He described situations while watching a programme in English on television, when he would ask them questions about the programme, such as ’You understood what he said now? Tell me what he said in the film, what is the subject of the film?’ Similarly Asma’s uncle engages her in focused practice (e.g. word games) and feedback. She emphasizes however that he tries to support her own use of learning strategies: if I did any mistake he will say ‘in this sentence […] there is a mistake’ – he didn’t say ‘this is mistake’ – and I must thinking. Thus while less educated and less linguistically proficient family members may be seen as supportive in a general way as described above by Maryam, male parent figures in particular may take an active pedagogical role in scaffolding learning by younger family members. This role is presumably enabled by the educational background of the ‘teacher’ and his greater access to intercultural contacts. In Khawla’s family, three generations of females are involved in her 2-year-old daughter’s learning of English; she emphasizes her own commitment to her daughter’s learning: She has to [learn English]! She will! (laughing). If I am her mother, she will know [it]. Khawla describes how her own mother, although ‘she doesn’t know English’, teaches her grand-daughter some words such as ‘no’, ‘wash’ and ‘nice’. Conversely, Emirati parents are often the recipients of their children’s English skills. Fatima’s mother, for example, is part of a network of material and social resources, acquiring a receptive grasp of English from her younger son, his teachers and his homework: My mother does not know English; she learned from my brother […] because she is the one who is meeting with his teachers and helping him in his homework; I think she has to learn. [… ]. She doesn’t understand everything, but she knows what they are talking about. Note how Fatima describes her mother’s English competence: although her mother ’does not know English’ in a formal educational sense, she shows a receptive competence in particular social situations (both

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at school and at home) linked to her son’s education and to her own role in this education. Note also that although Fatima says that her mother ‘has to learn’ English, clearly her mother could in principle have abdicated responsibility or used an interpreter (as does Khawla’s mother – see below); however, instead she shows this commitment to her son’s education and hence to her own language learning. This educational differential between parents and their children means that literacy skills are shared in an ‘inverse’ direction. For example, Fatima’s and Aisha’s parents ask them to translate medication instructions in English, and Noora helps her parents even with the formal Arabic of government communications. Khawla (the oldest daughter in her family) feels this responsibility to provide support for her mother. Khawla’s English skills in particular are seen as a family resource, and her mother uses shaming to mobilize these skills: Khawla: If my mother wants to go to somewhere and there she know that they will talk to her in English, like hospitals… If I refuse to talk, she will say, ‘You know English, you know everything, you studying in the university and you don’t help us, you don’t help anyone!’ (laughs). […So] I have to go. Fatima’s father also treats it as natural that he seeks help and advice on language from his daughters, although unlike the ‘real life’ situations described above with Fatima’s or Khawla’s mothers, he describes a more dialogical situation: ’I talk with them and they help me understand this subject’. However, traditional parent–child roles may inhibit such strategies. Munira reveals an inner conflict which can stop her offering her father help or correction: she sometimes sees her father in difficulties understanding English on the telephone, for example, and wants to help, but feels unable to put herself forward in this way, particularly with an older male relative whom she respects. In contrast to Abdulrahman (above), Aisha’s uncle Ahmed’s response when asked about such situations suggests an ambivalent attitude to daughters offering help, apparently seeing such episodes in terms of correction: It is not ‘help’ as you put it, but, well, it is possible that when you are talking to someone outside on the phone […] they tell you: ‘Baba, if you tell him like this, it will be better…’ […] So yes, it happens and you accept it with magnanimity: you don’t insist that what you said is right.

Family, Friends, and Learning Beyond the Classroom 33

It therefore seems that the family may function as a learning community, as in the case of Fatima’s family; but other social expectations may inhibit this process, as in the case of Munira or Ahmed.

6. Conclusion At the beginning of this chapter I discussed the concepts of social context as a shaper of learning strategies, social resources (including social networks and social capital) and the role of communities in learning (including small communities such as the family). The data analysed above show how these concepts can help us to understand learning beyond the classroom. Learning strategies develop in multiple contexts; the classroom may be one of these, but a fuller picture of learning includes other contexts: the household, the peer group, the workplace or neighbourhood shops, and the activities and roles linked to these contexts. Each of these contexts offers affordances which may be taken up by learners as opportunities to practise or develop language skills. An understanding of social networks and their properties helps us to get an overall picture of how a learner is interacting in and about the target language. For one thing, a social network is the means by which an individual learner can truly access, engage with and benefit from L2 resources such as books or native speakers. A social network can also carry other contributions to learning, such as encouragement and advice. For these reasons, understanding the patterns and the nature of the different relationships in an individual’s network will help us to understand what s/he has to work with in learning beyond the classroom. Social Network Theory also highlights the fact that languages (like other skills) are learned not just by individuals but by families or communities. Abdulrahman, for example, encourages and quizzes his children on English. In turn his daughters help him and his wife to interpret texts which are important to them, while helping each other to develop in complementary areas of the language. This notion of a learning community, enriched with an understanding of how social networks can vary in their form and content, is relevant to understanding learning beyond the classroom in a broader sense, and how this can be facilitated or inhibited by social expectations and roles. A language learned is usually not a static body of knowledge, but is mobilized and shared with others. It constitutes not just human capital, but social capital too. Making language skills learnt in the classroom relevant to use outside the classroom can capitalize on learners’

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investment in real or imagined communities of which they wish to be part (such as Fatima’s passion for Bollywood, or Aisha’s interest in joining a wider English-speaking community). In the quotation at the head of this chapter, Asma shows how the family can support language learning in one area (English) while inhibiting it in another (Persian); she also shows how she negotiates this situation by seeking help from other social resources (a neighbour). Language programmes which build on the language-related resources that learners take from and give to others in their life beyond the classroom could support learners who are less proactive than Asma, and so be more sustainable in the long term. Social networks in language learning beyond the classroom is a fairly new area of research, which would benefit from further investigation. For example, the importance of the family in Emirati society is not mirrored in many other modern societies, where a learner’s peer group may be more influential than the family. Research on other settings and other kinds of social network would enrich the data base available. Longitudinal case studies of language learning outside the classroom (e.g. Kiely 2009) would also help to illuminate the microgenesis of strategies in particular contexts and particular experiences. Kurata (2008) offers an example of how Social Network Theory in particular can be used to analyse the patterns and quality of learners’ foreign language use outside the classroom.

3 Places for Learning: Technologymediated Language Learning Practices Beyond the Classroom Leena Kuure

1. Introduction This chapter presents a case study of a Finnish English language learner’s everyday, out-of-school, technology-mediated, multimodal language learning practices. The study is based on Mediated Discourse Analysis, a research framework that draws on multiple methods and data in the study of social action, to investigate how technology-mediated language learning takes shape in learners’ lives outside the classroom. The data for the study were collected from within the everyday environments of the participant, extending to his peer networks online, and include observation logs, video-recordings of in situ action and interaction, interviews and various types of computer data. The study shows that online computer games and activities around such games may provide important affordances for language learning, not as an objective as such, but as a means of nurturing social relationships and participating in collaborative problem-solving and networking among peers.

2. Media multitaskers and new literacies Lankshear and Knobel (1997: 172) point out the discrepancy between practices of learning in the classroom and outside school. They also suggest that school-based learning approximates more to the discourse universes of some social groups than to others. As for the Finnish context today, the out-of-school literacy worlds of school children (aged 15–16) seem to be to a great extent multimodal, interactive and social, while the teachers’ literacy practices are still characterized by the use of print media (Luukka et al. 2008: 237). As many as nine out of ten Finnish 11-year-olds are reported to be regular internet users, while 35

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every second child uses the internet daily (Oinas-Kukkonen and Kurki 2009). The FICORA (2009) study confirms the increasing accessibility and use of telecommunication services in Finland in recent years. In 2009, practically everyone had a mobile phone and approximately 90 per cent of inhabitants under the age of 45 had a broadband connection at home. The number of mobile broadband connections also doubled within a year, up to 15 per cent at the end of 2009. As the accessibility of wireless networks for public use is also increasing, it seems that the communicative affordances provided by technologies will rapidly change the language-learning and teaching landscape. For example, as Kukulska-Hulme (2009: 164) points out, if language learners’ preferences and needs are allowed to affect what is learnt and how, mobile technologies have a clear role to play in realizing such an objective, as they facilitate movement between indoors and outdoors, across formal and informal settings. Roberts, Foehr and Rideout (2005: 3) argue that children and young people in the United States seem increasingly to be media multitaskers, while media and technology gain an ever-expanding presence throughout their daily environments (Oinas-Kukkonen and Kurki 2009: 147). Jones (2004: 27) suggests that polyfocality is part of the ethos of new communication technologies and is bragged about by their users. A participant at a particular moment in interaction can engage in several simultaneous actions on differing levels of attention and awareness (Norris 2004: 98–9). Jones (2005: 152) refers here to the notion of `attention structures´, which are also cultural tools made available by our sociocultural environment (see also Cresswell 2004; Latour 2005; Benwell and Stokoe 2006). Jones (2004: 28) calls for further research on what he terms ‘attentional choreography’, through which users manage multiple interactions and activities and move in and out of synchrony with different interlocutors. Our multimodal environment is also constituted by the linguistic landscape and soundscape in which we live (Kress and Van Leeuwen 2001; Scollon and Scollon 2003; Norris 2004). English has gained a particularly prominent role in Finnish homes through various media technologies. Films and television programmes, for example, are not usually dubbed. Internet resources are abundant and available, as are internet games, console games, computer games and music (Luukka et al. 2008). Many children also seem to be fearless in looking for solutions to problems in various manuals, instructions, tutorials and ‘walkthroughs’ in the English language, even if their paths as language learners in formal education are only just beginning (Saarenkunnas 2006). From the point

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of view of foreign language teaching, it seems that curriculum and materials designers should carefully consider the positions of different languages in the context of languages in the surrounding community, not only as they are represented in the public media but also across informal networks and social media (see Block 2003). In the case of English in Finland, for example, it may be that much of the existing knowledge and skills of children and young people, and sometimes advanced multimodal literacies, remain under-utilized in schools.

3. Apprenticeship in cross-functional teams Online computer games seem to provide increasing numbers of people with an important environment for language learning outside the classroom. It seems that children learn important skills through game-play and find game-like formal learning motivating and effective (Arnseth 2006; Gee 2008). Games are also seen to foster learning through collaboration and sharing of ideas and strategies (Arnseth 2006; Crook 1998; Hakkarainen, Lipponen and Järvelä 2001; Sawchuk 2003). Players seem to orient to the situation-specific opportunities for language learning afforded by the game and employ these affordances creatively in organizing their own activities, for example, by recycling game vocabulary between themselves in interaction while playing (Piirainen-Marsh and Tainio 2009: 165–6). Although games may share affordances and constraints in relation to learning in general, it seems that some games may provide better learning opportunities than others. Salen (2008: 6) suggests that it is exposure to flexible rule sets and iterative, cyclical play embodied in both design and gaming practices that is critical for thinking about literacy today. Gee (2008: 24) makes an important distinction: The term ‘game’ refers to the software itself, but `Game´ (with a capital G) refers to the social setting in which the game is placed. Gee suggests that games advance learning because they require and produce shared cognition, collaboration, cross-functional teams and shared expertise. He further argues that gaming provides children with abundant opportunities for practising in simple form the same complex routines that in a school context they might consider tedious and unmotivating (Gee 2003: 208). As Gee (2008: 36) points out, video games allow language to be situated in real contexts of dialogue, experience, images and actions. Games, therefore, create a connection between affect and cognition, a feeling of active participation and ownership. Salen (2008: 10), indeed, emphasizes that while it is important to understand how the qualities of

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games themselves support learning, it is equally critical to address how players take on active roles in determining how, when, and why they learn. (See also Stevens, Satwicz and McCarthy 2008 for a discussion on transfers between ‘in-game’ and ‘in-world’ environments.)

4. Places and spaces for learning ‘Place’ is understood here as a social construct, a site of multiple identities and histories, made unique and defined by its interactions, providing the conditions for creative social practice (Cresswell 2004: 74; Massey 1997). Places are constantly being performed, i.e., they are always in progress as people negotiate a place, and the way in which sense of place can be developed (Cresswell 1996; Relph 1976; Benwell and Stokoe 2006). For Giddens (1991: 146–7), ‘place’ becomes thoroughly penetrated by disembedding mechanisms such as the internet, which recombine local activities into time-space relationships of ever-widening scope. Cresswell (2004: 39) suggests that ‘place’ is the raw material for the creative production of identity, rather than an a priori label of identity. According to White (2003: 214), learning environments are seen as being constructed by learners from available learning resources, often with pre-prepared content within the dominant paradigms of distance language learning. She envisions future learning architecture, however, as arising from emergent paradigms of distance education. Such architecture would build on a broader range of presentation options than before, but also on rich affordances for interaction, collaboration and support, providing learners with an open learning space, i.e. an area in which events may take place (White 2003: 214–15). Considering our technology-rich everyday situation and the computermediated networks enabling collaboration between people regardless of location, it seems that a great deal of language learning takes place elsewhere than in the classroom. The internet affords the emergence of collaboration and multifunctional teams for gaming, but also for other purposes. As Kuure and McCambridge (2007) argue, participants may be moving across different networks and ‘places’ when engaged in intertwined practices of community building and maintenance, apprenticeship and problem-solving. As the internet allows presence in a range of ‘places’ and connections between different networks simultaneously, this changes the set-up for possible participation frameworks. The domains of home and workplace, or ‘here’ and ‘there’, also pervade each other. In an analysis of an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel, and a focus group of Sign Language users, for example, we found that

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the participants distributed tasks among themselves over the internet, despite the fact that they were physically close to each other (Kuure and McCambridge 2007). The notions of place and space thus seem to be in accordance with each other, as they both refer to openness and the role of participants in their construction and maintenance. The terms are here seen as aspects of the same phenomenon: ‘place’ can be seen as a more general concept referring to a site or network of mediated activities, where language, people, artefacts and technologies are entangled together (McIlvenny, Broth and Haddington 2009) while ‘space’ refers to the interactional side. In other words, ‘space’ is a ‘practiced place’ (de Certeau 1984: 117).

5. The case of Oskari In the following, some technology-mediated language learning practices outside the classroom are examined from the perspective of a young Finnish man, Oskari (19 yrs). At the time of data collection, Oskari was in his final school year and preparing to take his matriculation examination. Oskari’s mother tongue is Finnish, and English was a foreign language that he had studied at school since the age of 9. The aim of the study was to find out what kind of practices Oskari was engaged with when spending time on his computer at home. The research interest was connected with language learning, but the language aspects were expected to be identified in their broader contexts of social action. 5.1

Research approach

The research approach applied in this study is based on Mediated Discourse Analysis (Scollon 2001; Scollon and Scollon 2003, 2004), which focuses on social action as the intersection of ‘historical body’ (Nishida 1958), ‘interaction order’ (Goffman 1963) and ‘discourses in place’. ‘Historical body’ entails the lifetime of personal experience; ‘interaction order’ refers to any of the possible arrangements by which we form relationships in social interactions; and ‘discourses in place’ refers to the idea of meaning located in the lived world rather than in language only (Scollon 2001; Scollon and Scollon 2003, 2004: 13–14). Because of the complexity of the phenomena in focus, the research approach combines ethnography with multimodal discourse analysis (Hine 2000; Norris 2004; Jones 2004). In order to capture and understand Oskari’s everyday technologymediated language learning practices, a range of multimodal data was collected, i.e. video- and audio-recordings on the computer in home

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settings (interviews and discussions), computer logs, screenshots and field notes. No micro-level analysis of interactions in the video data was conducted in the case of the present study. Rather, the different sets of data were employed in order to gain a broader understanding of what kinds of language learning practices people engage themselves with outside the classroom. 5.2

Multitasker and networker

Oskari was an eager gamer who spent most of his free time at the computer playing online games or waiting for a game to start. Examples of games on Oskari’s computer include Medieval: Total War, a historic real-time strategy game set in the Europe of the Middle Ages, Half-Life, a science fiction first-person shooter game and Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters, a science fiction action game. From the point of view of his parents this did not seem to be satisfactory, as Oskari appeared to be alone in his room, ‘just playing’ (the family home was located in a typical suburbian condominium, and it was shared by Oskari, his brother Ville and their parents). A more complex picture of the situation started to unfold, however, in the course of the study. A 40-minute interview at Oskari’s computer provided a starting point for the analysis. Typical activities during Oskari’s days were connected with gaming, information searches and exchanging mail or forum posts in order to participate in sharing expertise and problem-solving across various interest networks. He was a member of as many as 17 Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels, many of them forums for current or former clans, or groups of gamers who work together as teams. Becoming a member seemed to proceed by gradually entering the community from the outskirts, e.g. by following the website forum for the games magazine: Researcher (R): Well, does one have courage and can you go into a new place and how do you get started. Oskari (O): Well, often game-specific channels are created and the gamers, we often talk this and that in general so I suppose it is quite easy if you know how to behave. When Oskari and his fellow gamers were starting to organize themselves into a team, the channels were used, among other things, for negotiation with possible partners. Not all the channels were active. Members stayed around on channels ‘just in case’ something appeared, i.e. previously created connections had not been cut off when the gaming teams had dissolved.

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When Oskari was sitting in his room, he would keep his door open. When he started drawing the curtains and switching off lights, the family would know that in a moment Oskari would not be available for interaction for a while. Closing the door, together with appropriate mouse-clicks would open up other networks, for the purpose of gaming. At the same time, these indications for changes in participation networks would also imply moving from peripheral participation to intensive action as regards a particular network community. The gaming situation itself was a kind of ‘semiotic aggregate’ (Scollon and Scollon 2003: 215), joining together different semiotic actions that were necessary to be performed simultaneously for the benefit of the game. In addition to managing the game itself, and its functions for interaction, the players also used the IRC channel for less urgent strategic planning, and earphones and a microphone for group audio exchanges for in-game communication (e.g. urgent requests, commands and suggestions for organizing the team for action). Oskari seemed to be a legitimate member in his cross-functional teams for gaming and an efficient multitasker who was able to create and regulate his attentional, multimodal choreographies in intensive action at the computer and across the net with his co-gamers. When considering off-game situations, a lot was also happening at the computer, even if at a less intensive pace. Kuure and McCambridge (2007) have reported on some of Oskari’s activities on the web on the basis of a four-month chatlog of one IRC channel. It became apparent that three focal areas could be distinguished: (1) task-oriented activity (e.g. problem-solving and organizational work), (2) communityoriented activity (e.g. routines for entering and leaving the interaction, joking, sharing links and information and telling stories), and (3) learning-oriented activity (e.g. guiding newcomers on how to use tools, how to use appropriate language, how to share conventions). The age range in Oskari’s communities was wide (16–25 in some of the teams), which is not typical of school groupings but rather a feature of out-of-school internet environments. Some of the teams have persisted to the present day and some of the connections, originally made on the net, have become realized in face-to-face meetings and turned into long-term friendships. Oskari’s community of friends and socially more distant partners for games and other interests consists of people both online and offline: R: So, they’ve just happened to find each other... well do you find it easier to act on the net than face-to-face?

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O: Well, it is different people on the net so you cannot make any comparisons. When Oskari was asked about the uses of his out-of-school practices for the benefit of school work, he did not have any ready answers to the question. However, he did envision the possibility of connecting the whole school or a course together for the kinds of activities that he was used to outside gaming situations, in joint problem-solving and sharing of knowledge: R: Well perhaps on some course one could create an IRC channel of its own and chat with course mates and ask for advice. [--] O: I dunno, perhaps school pupils could be joined together with that kind of software. R: The pupils in the whole school? O: Yes. In other words, as a member of multi-age cross-functional teams in his free time, he was, indeed, open to the idea of being a member of a school community with participants of different ages (13–19 in his school). This is interesting from the point of view of designing future learning spaces, as traditional schools seem to stick strongly to the principle of age-based grade division. The multiplicity of Oskari’s networks and the technologies used as an environment and enabler for interactions and collaboration are illustrated in Figure 1. In Figure 1, the larger square indicates the home where Oskari and his brother Ville spend time after school. when the parents (‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’) are still in their workplaces. The slightly smaller rectangle refers to another important home for Oskari and Ville, i.e. the student residence in the same town where their sister Mari lives with her boyfriend Janne. The smaller squares refer to different individuals or groups beyond the family, the styles of lines (dotted, dashed, etc) connecting them to the family member in question. The arrows show which technologies are used for communication between different participants (e.g. Internet Relay Chat and the Ventrilo group audio tool between Oskari and his gaming teams and online friends, the mobile phone with his father, IRC and email with his mother). Although Oskari and his brother Ville communicated usually face-toface (irl = ‘in real life’), sometimes, interactions between them were accomplished online via their mother as they did not share a communication tool (i.e. Oskari was using IRC, Ville the Messenger chat,

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#1 ClanA app.40 #3 ClanB #6 student association_big #8 friends from the old school

#2 ClanA_2 (members only)

#10 Mari’s friends

Ami

Sari

Jokke #4 ClanC

#5 ClanD

#7 student assoc. 1st y #9 Suburb

Liisa

Heka Student friends

Anni Pami

Riina

Bass players 10−20

Other band friends 10

Mari

Oskari

Janne #11–17 old Clans “just in case” Mom irl Dad irc GSM Messenger Ventrilo www learning environment email

Ville

Mika Jani Toni

Teea Sini

Mia

Figure 1 Oskari’s networks

and Mom was using both). All in all, the networks of all the family members were often utilized, using different means of communication, for assistance in problem-solving or partnership in gaming or spending free time. 5.3

Language learner

We should ask next what kinds of consequences might arise from everyday technology-mediated multimodal practices in the case of Oskari’s language learning. It must be observed that Finnish society is pervaded by the English language as a result of the high degree of access to ICT, and, hence, daily access to English language media and resources. Although most of Oskari’s interactions with his peer networks were conducted in Finnish, he occasionally had some international partners in his gaming teams. Using English in these settings seemed to be commonplace (e.g. when using the chat and audio devices to coordinate gaming at an intensive pace). If there were language problems to sort out, usually when looking for a correct term or suitable phrase, Oskari turned to family members, who in turn used dictionaries and the internet to arrive at the best possible solution, or

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to his peer networks through IRC. As for the texts that Oskari used on the internet, they were overwhelmingly in English. It is difficult to say what aspects of English Oskari learned and when he learned them, but the data analysis clearly showed how interactional skills and complex coordination of work in multifunctional teams were practised persistently every day. Language learning seems to be delicately intertwined in these practices. Considering the affordances that games might offer Oskari for language learning, a good example is from Medieval: Total War, which is a historical real-time strategy game set in the Europe of the Middle Ages. The historical, strategic and linguistic dimensions of the game as affordances for learning, in many more respects than language, became apparent. During gaming, much special vocabulary and many concepts were met with – usually cursorily but occasionally for a longer time for negotiation of meaning. The issues, whether historical, strategic or linguistic, were related to cultural geography, historical events, administrative structures and practices, trade, merchandise, transport, prices, warfare, religion and politics. Medieval Total War can be played at a relatively slow pace, but other games such as Half-Life, which is a science fiction first-person shooter game, provide the language learner with a multimodal environment with a special kind of ‘soundscape’ or fusion of voices and sounds (e.g. from the game, from the interactions of the gamers over the audio connection, with Finnish and English merging into each other) and a visual landscape with text from different channels (e.g. the interface, the dialogue boxes in the game, the chat tool used for team management, and the game environment).

6. Challenges for teachers and teacher education With respect to the nature of multimodal practices in our technologyrich everyday life, schools and teachers have a special challenge in attempting to develop curricula in a direction that seriously takes into account the learners’ world, outside the classroom. Dooly (2009: 352–69) argues that the increasing use of new technologies and social media in our everyday life has not yet been greatly reflected in classroom culture (see also White 2003: 215). When mobile technology takes learning out of the classroom, this may even be experienced as a threat by teachers, according to Kukulska-Hulme (2009: 164). It is likely that the situation is similar as regards the use of open and distance-learning technologies in general, when the learners are at a distance from the teacher. KukulskaHulme maintains that the challenge is to develop designs that identify

Places for Learning 45

what is best learnt in the classroom and what outside, and to consider how connections between these might be created. Dooly (2009) suggests that the practices of reflective thinking that have been taken into consideration for a long time should be further strengthened in the education of future language teachers. She also stresses the importance of supporting novice language teachers when becoming attached to the communities of teachers in the field, through social networking, for example. Benson and Huang (2008: 435) point out that earlier research on fostering teacher autonomy has, indeed, concentrated largely on mature teachers, instead of on pre-service teacher education students, or foreign language students who are likely to become language teachers. They propose that learner and teacher autonomy could be seen as aspects of the same continuous transition process towards personal autonomy during an individual’s learningteaching career. For teachers at schools and universities (especially those in teacher education), it is crucial to provide opportunities to distribute knowledgebuilding and problem-solving by way of collaborative negotiation, not only as regards directions in language teaching, but also as regards aspects of learning, teaching and professional growth in general (Lave and Wenger 1991; Mondada and Pekarek Doehler 2004; Bailly and Ciekanski 2006; Reinders 2008; Benson and Huang 2008).

7. Conclusion The starting point for the present work was to consider the types of affordance in the technology-rich everyday life of one study participant, Oskari, in connection with language learning beyond the classroom, and what kinds of ‘places’ he and his peers would create for learning. It seemed that in late adolescence, at the age of 19, games and gameoriented free-time activities played a central role. The computer in his room was a hub for opening up and moving around various participation networks, both virtual and offline. Oskari was already an experienced gamer and he seemed to be an expert member in his gaming communities in terms of gaming practices and taking part in cross-functional teams. He moved smoothly between in-game and in-world foci through complex, intertwining systems of interaction and game management. He seemed to have a high degree of multimodal literacy, with strong competence in the English language. The games provided an opportunity for language learning, not as an objective as such, but as a means for nurturing social relationships and

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participating in collaborative problem-solving and networking among peers. As for ‘places’ for learning, it seems that while seated at his computer, Oskari had his online networks, communities and technologies available to be called upon for help and collaboration, when needed. Thus, the space for learning was potentially created when attention structures changed, making something salient at a particular moment, and, thus, a target for negotiation. For example, during a gaming session, Oskari encounters a multitude of special vocabulary and concepts related to cultural geography, historical events, administrative structures and practices, trade, merchandise, transport, prices, warfare, religion, politics, among others. During gaming these become relevant in various ways in connection with ‘real’ problem-solving. Nevertheless, for Oskari, his learning space was strongly anchored to his desk computer in the home, even though fluid and far-reaching virtually. It is likely that increasing mobility due to easy access to wireless networks and social software will change the situation in the near future. If we consider what can be learnt from this look into the study participant’s world as regards language teaching and language teacher education, it becomes clear that there cannot be straightforward answers. Although the study was focused on one case only, the wider surveys referred to above indicate that the results could be representative of a great number of children and adolescents in Finnish schools. It is a challenge for language teachers to create language-learning designs supporting communities of practice and activities for children in a way that allows the participants’ own worlds to become shared resources in collaboration. Looking back at the methodological choices for this study, it seems that the approach allowed insights into life spheres that are generally not within reach of researchers. It was encouraging to note that Oskari was eager to participate in the research process and saw the researcher as a collaborative partner solving a joint problem rather than a distant collector of facts. It seems on the basis of the results of similar case studies, that a participatory approach to research such as Mediated Discourse Analysis often raises genuine interest among the participants in exploring phenomena that may have otherwise appeared mundane to them. What would be interesting would be to tie more case studies of this type together, looking at different people’s lives across the world, and see how their ‘places’ for language learning emerge.

4 From Milk Cartons to English Roommates: Context and Agency in L2 Learning Beyond the Classroom Paula Kalaja, Riikka Alanen, Åsa Palviainen and Hannele Dufva 1. Introduction In recent years there has been an increasing interest in examining L2 learning outside the classroom in terms of learners’ emerging identity, autonomy and agency (Benson 2011; Norton and Toohey 2001). Agency has been adopted relatively recently by L2 scholars as a key notion through which to capture critical social and cognitive aspects of L2 learning (Darhower 2004; Hunter and Cooke 2007; Gao 2010). Agency can be defined as ‘the socioculturally mediated capacity to act’ (Ahearn 2001: 112). In many ways, agency goes to the very heart of the main problem facing researchers into L2 learning: what is the relationship between the individual language learner – his or her cognitive, affective and social self – and the context? L2 learners are no longer viewed as individuals working on their own to construct the target language, but very much as social agents collaborating with other people and using the tools and resources available to them in their surrounding environment. The surrounding environment can be construed as comprising the social structures existing in a state of constant tension with the hopes and intentions of individual agents, or, alternatively, as contexts for activity within which the individual agents act with mediational means to achieve the goals they set for themselves (Giddens 1984; Engeström 2005; cf. Wertsch 1998). When context is thought of in the latter way, it cannot be reduced to an environment; instead, there is an ambiguous and dynamic relationship between an object and its context: ‘the combination of goals, tools, setting […] constitutes simultaneously the context of behaviour and ways in which cognition can be said to be related to that context’ (Cole 1996: 137). 47

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Exploring how social agents act with the tools and resources available to them while engaged in an activity is a complex question. In this chapter, we seek to shed light on the interplay between individual language learners’ agency and their context by focusing on the out-ofclass language learning experiences of Finnish learners of two different foreign languages: English and Swedish. We argue that it is not a matter of exposure, or even of greater opportunities for using the language that makes the difference. The learners in this study all share the same L1 – Finnish – and live in the same country – Finland – where in addition to Finnish, Swedish and English are readily available. Both English and Swedish are taught in school as L2s. Yet the context for learning these two languages – beyond the classroom in particular – is different for their particular learners, depending on how they perceive their capacity to act, and how they seek out and make use of the opportunities to do so. Thus, as we shall show, the learners of Swedish may be content to read the Swedishlanguage labels on milk cartons at the breakfast table and never watch Swedish-language programmes on television, while the learners of English are active in developing their agency and expanding their contexts for learning.

2. Context and agency in L2 learning: background to the study In this study, L2 learning is considered to be a mediated activity taking place in a specific setting: it is a process that occurs with the help of socially and culturally mediated means – either other people or a number of semiotic and material tools (Lantolf 2000; Lantolf and Thorne 2006). The learner is also viewed as an active participant in the learning process, exercising his or her will or agency, and acting accordingly. Above all, the learner is an intentional agent. Intentionality, or goaldirectedness, is one of the key issues in the Vygotskian and activitytheoretical understanding of human agency (Engeström 2005; Holland et al. 1998; see also Edwards 2005). How students’ identity and agency develop both in and out of school has been a focus of interest in education, sociology and anthropology (e.g. Ahearn 2001; Emirbayer and Mische 1998; Holland et al. 1998; Hull and Greeno 2006; Hull and Katz 2006). Holland et al. (1998) adopted the notion of semiotically mediated activity from Vygotsky and the notions of voice and heteroglossia from Bakhtin in a series of studies of narrative selves constructed in the stories of participants ranging from

From Milk Cartons to English Roommates 49

alcoholics to college students and Nepalese women. In L2 learning, Darhower (2004) examined the use of dialogue journals as a tool for investigating L2 learner agency. His findings highlight the role of learners in constructing their own agency. On the other hand, Gao (2010) looked at the language learning strategies of mainland Chinese students in an English language-medium university in Hong Kong as a function of context and agency. Using interviews as data, Gao found that on the mainland, the Chinese students’ will and capacity to act seems to have been ‘profoundly mediated by contextual realities, including social agents, societal and traditional discourses and (material/cultural) artefacts’ (p. 78). There is a constant tension between the individual and social aspects in the way learners develop their agency. As Hull and Katz (2006: 47) argue, ‘people can develop agentive selves, using the unique repertoire of tools, resources, relationships, and cultural artifacts […] that are available at particular historical moments in particular social and cultural contexts’. The beliefs held by students can be regarded as one such resource (Alanen 2003); others include social and material resources such as other people, other discourses, computers, books, etc. (Gao 2010: 31). Beliefs are mediated by the different heteroglossic ways of speaking and constitute an important aspect of L2 learning – and also of non-learning. The beliefs that students hold about learning or about different languages may help them to notice affordances and seize learning opportunities, but they may also prevent them from doing so. However, it is important, as van Lier (2000) points out, to understand learners’ agency and affordances as embedded in the environment where they occur. Thus, beliefs cannot be considered stable mental states or characteristics of the individual, but dynamic and situated processes (see also Dufva 2003; Aro 2009). In this chapter, we examine the agency of L2 learners both within and beyond the classroom by looking at their responses in an openended questionnaire. The participants of this study were L1 speakers of Finnish. They had all studied both English and Swedish in school. Most of them had chosen English as their first foreign language in grade 3 (at the age of 9). English does not have an official status in Finland, but it is very widely used and its influence is considerable in all spheres of life, particularly in the media and popular culture and in working life (Leppänen, Nikula and Kääntä 2008). English is the most commonly studied foreign language at all levels of education and popular as a school subject. Both in informal discussions and in the media, English is frequently spoken of as a ‘useful’, ‘international’ and ‘global’ language.

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Although a discourse about English as a ‘danger’ and ‘threat’ to less widely used languages exists, ways of speaking about it are on the whole fairly positive. All of the participants in this study had also studied Swedish in school, most starting in grade 7 (at the age of 13). Swedish is one of the two official languages in Finland, with 5.5 per cent of the population speaking it as L1. As part of basic education, each Finn – whether an L1 speaker of Finnish or of Swedish – is expected to study the other official language. The Swedish language is fairly widely used in the media (newspapers, radio stations and television channels, literature), and there are Swedish-speaking schools and other educational institutions. It is also used as a spoken language of everyday life, but only in certain parts of the country. In this respect, the situation in Finland is somewhat similar to Canada (McRae 2007). Importantly, attitudes towards the Swedish language are polarized: as a school subject, Swedish is quite often referred to as pakkoruotsi (‘obligatory Swedish’), that is, something that is imposed on L1 speakers of Finnish. On the whole, the attitudes of students towards learning Swedish are ambivalent (Nordqvist Palviainen and Jauhojärvi-Koskelo 2009). At the same time, the cultural and pragmatic value of knowing Swedish is stressed by many L1 speakers of both Swedish and Finnish. In sum, both English and Swedish are learned in school but the duration of studies is considerably longer for English – ten years instead of six years for Swedish (in grades 3 to 12). It also appears that the preconditions for encountering and using the two languages out of school are fairly different. In what follows we will let the students talk about their learning of English and Swedish both in and out of school.

3. The study This study is part of a longitudinal project entitled From Novice to Expert (for a more detailed description of the project, see Kalaja, Alanen and Dufva 2008), which seeks to examine the relationship between agency and contexts for learning by focusing on what students of English and Swedish said they had learned about the two languages both in and out of school. By analysing their experiences (and underlying beliefs) through their own words we hope to show how the students’ capacity to act was, on the one hand, mediated by the tools and resources of the context, while on the other, the students themselves made choices that either restricted or expanded the context further, thereby creating new opportunities for learning or limiting existing ones.

From Milk Cartons to English Roommates 51

An open-ended questionnaire was used to collect data about the students’ previous positive and negative experiences of learning either English or Swedish in school and out-of-school contexts. More specifically, the students were asked what they had learned of English or Swedish both in and out of school and what they had not. The participants were first-year university students of English (N=116) and Swedish (N=83) as a major or minor subject. Some of the students had been admitted to a five-year integrated language and teacher education MA programme, while others were studying the language only. The data were collected from the students of English during the academic year 2005–2006 and from the students of Swedish in 2009. The data were subjected to qualitative content analysis (e.g. Mayring 2000; Morgan 1993). The students’ responses were analysed in terms of what they revealed about the students’ perceptions of their capacity to act, or their agency. In particular, we looked for any mention of areas of language knowledge, tools or resources in their responses, and related them to the sociocultural notion of agency. 3.1

Findings

3.1.1 L2 learning in the classroom The students’ responses to the question of what they had learned in school were remarkably similar for both languages: what they had learned in school was grammar and vocabulary. The students of Swedish were more specific about the grammar items that they had learned, providing lists of them (e.g. word order, verb conjugation, noun declension). In addition, both the students of English and Swedish mentioned such things as pronunciation, reading, writing, listening, speaking, translation, or culture (left unspecified); spelling was only brought up by the students of English. In other words, what the students of English and Swedish seemed to share was that the main emphasis in school had been on formal aspects of the two languages (grammar and vocabulary). The social and material resources that emerged from the data comprised schoolbooks only, and even then were expressed quite implicitly: ‘[we did] a lot of grammar exercises, e.g. fill-in-the-missing-item tasks’ (all quotations are translations from Finnish). An additional issue that emerged from the responses was how much English or Swedish the students said they had learned in school. The answers provided by the students of English ranged from ‘all the basics’ of the language to ‘most of it’. In contrast, the students of Swedish were more modest: again to quote, ‘quite a lot about grammar’. The responses seem to suggest that

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the students view language in the classroom as a quantifiable set of formal entities (‘words’ or ‘grammar rules’), something to be mastered to a measurable degree. To sum up, the experiences of learning English and Swedish turned out to be fairly similar in school. The students seem to have adopted the role of learners of English or Swedish and viewed the learning of the languages as proceeding from the basics (i.e. basic grammar and vocabulary) to full (native-speaker) mastery. Furthermore, they seemed to compare studying the languages to studying any school subject. So the learning of both English and Swedish in school was viewed as a matter of memorizing the formal aspects of the languages – and not, for example, their meanings or functions, or using them as means of communication. The social (the teacher or classmates) and cultural/material resources (textbooks) were not explicitly mentioned, although their presence could be inferred. This is in sharp contrast to out-of-school contexts, as we shall see. 3.1.2 L2 learning beyond the language classroom Vocabulary emerged as the most prominent aspect learned by the students of English out-of-school. In their accounts, they were specific about the types of units they had learned (i.e. not only words but also phrases and idioms) or the quantity or quality of the vocabulary items learned. As one student explains: (1) Outside of school I’ve learned for the most part vocabulary, e.g., [by watching] TV and [reading] magazines. I’ve also learned how to pronounce words, new phrases and culture. However, what also emerged in the responses was the students’ diverse experiences of using English in different situations. As one student writes: (2) You can hear English all the time – on television, on the radio, you see it on the internet, in newspapers, etc. I’m sure you learn something even in a passive language contact situation like this, at least the language starts to sound familiar. Above all you understand how ubiquitous and important a language English is! After grade 11 I took a course ‘Technology for girls’ in [a town in Finland], where the medium of instruction was English. There were 20 girls from Finland and 20 from England there, and we all had an English roommate. The course lasted a week. You learned new vocabulary there.

From Milk Cartons to English Roommates 53

What comes across in this student’s response is how useful English is as a language, and even more importantly, how the student actively sought out new opportunities for learning English. She took it upon herself to expand the contexts for learning, from school and casual freetime use to extra coursework in English. Some aspects brought up by the students of English were related to the language learner, including courage (to speak) and (self-) confidence. The student in the excerpt below explains how she realized that grammatical correctness did not matter: (3) Practical experience, that is, how language is used in different situations. I also noticed that it doesn’t matter even if you don’t speak grammatical totally correct English! I ‘sucked in’ language from TV, music, books. I read (and still read) a lot of English-language books. The responses by the students of Swedish to the question of what they thought they had learned of Swedish in out-of-school contexts are illustrated by Examples (4) and (5) below: (4) Outside school I learned an occasional word of Swedish. (5) One learned about the pronunciation of Swedish by listening to the radio and TV, and one’s vocabulary increased and reading skill[s] improved by reading magazines. One aspect mentioned by the students of Swedish, too, was vocabulary. However, unlike the students of English, they did not elaborate on this issue. In sharp contrast to classroom learning, there were a number of material and social resources that emerged from the students’ responses. The students of English mentioned one or more of the following: television, movies, music, radio, internet, books, magazines, and other people. They had made use of various types of media, both electronic and print. Especially by watching TV and listening to music, this group said they had picked up vocabulary items of different types, learning at the same time about their pronunciation. Furthermore, the students of English felt they had managed to interact in real-life communication when they had used English while travelling abroad or meeting foreigners in Finland who knew little or no Finnish at all. Like the students of English, the students of Swedish reported that they had made use of different types of media (though a few denied that

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this was the case, ‘… I didn’t watch programmes broadcast in Swedish or read literature in Swedish’.) This group of students had occasionally watched the Finnish-Swedish TV channel or listened to radio stations, watched movies, listened to music (e.g. Kent) or read Swedish newspapers or magazines. Unlike the students of English, the students of Swedish mentioned one particular resource in their answers: product packages or labels. In Finland, products made in Finland are required by law to have food labels in both the country’s official languages. Product labels of course often include a number of other languages as well, including English. However, there are milk cartons on practically every breakfast table in the country, and the labels are always in both Finnish and Swedish. One student, in her answer, even had a quotation in Swedish: ‘Mjölk innehåller rikligt med kalsium’. It translates as ‘Milk contains plenty of calcium’. The statement comes directly from a milk carton. However, only a few students of Swedish mentioned other people as a social resource that they had resorted to either in Finland or abroad. To illustrate: ‘[I occasionally spoke Swedish] with a friend who had spent her childhood in Sweden’ or ‘a couple of times I had an opportunity to speak Swedish when I was working as a cashier at a supermarket’. This is in marked contrast to the experiences of the students of English. Again, an issue that emerged from the responses was how much the students claimed to have learned the languages out of school. The students of English had all learned English in out-of-school contexts. One student noted: ‘[I learned] something about culture, everyday English, and survival [skills] in different situations’; another remarked: ‘[I learned] quite a lot. For the most part vocabulary [items]’; and a third went as far as to claim: ‘[I learned] practically everything: I had learned English before we began to have it in school and my knowledge of English was always above the level it was taught all through my school years’. In comparison, the students of Swedish had mixed experiences. On the one hand there were students who claimed ‘I don’t think I learned anything outside school’, and on the other hand there were those who said ‘[I learned] some words and phrases from TV programmes and magazines’ or ‘In my opinion, I learned to understand Swedish better outside school.’ Thus some students of Swedish denied having learned anything while others admitted having learned something. However, even in the latter case their learning outcomes had not been very encouraging: ‘I didn’t learn much’ or ‘I learned very little’. To sum up, when the students described their learning beyond the classroom, they continued to regard language as a quantifiable achievement. However,

From Milk Cartons to English Roommates 55

what was quantified differed from the school context: communication and vocabulary were mentioned more often and grammar hardly at all. Most importantly, what emerged from the students’ responses was the significance of their own will to search (or not to search, as was the case with a few students of Swedish) for opportunities to use and learn the two languages. Some of the students of Swedish acknowledged that they could have been more active in making use of the media: ‘After all one hears Swedish on so few occasions, and so an extra effort would be required to find those occasions …’ Also in sharp contrast to the students of English, the students of Swedish explained that as there were not very many speakers of Swedish in the area where they had been living, they had had little or no use for the language. To quote one student, ‘I live in Eastern Finland and so you seldom come across a Swedish-speaking person.’ In this way they excused themselves from finding (other) opportunities to practise or use the language. After all, there are not that many native speakers of English in the country either, but the students of English did not resort to such excuses. In addition, the students of Swedish had missed opportunities to use the language when travelling. As one student noted, ‘I’ve always got on better in English [when travelling in Sweden].’ So instead of speaking Swedish, the student had resorted to English as a lingua franca.

4. Discussion This study sought to compare and contrast the experiences of learning two languages – English and Swedish – in two contexts: in school and out of school. What emerged from the students’ answers is that there are a variety of contexts for L2 learning outside the world of school, and a great deal depends on the learners’ perception of and willingness to exercise their power to act, or agency. School seemed to be the place where the basics of both languages are learned, i.e. grammar and vocabulary. However, while for the students of Swedish school was definitely the major provider of learning opportunities, for the English students this was not necessarily the case. By contrast, out-of-school activities were seen as the means to actually get to use the languages in all modalities. The media were clearly seen as important material and semiotic resources since the students had listed the types of media they had made use of. However, the extent to which the activities involving the media provided learning opportunities varied from one language to the other. Whereas all students of English said that they had learned English out of school and some even claimed that

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the media had been the most important provider of learning opportunities, the students of Swedish did not appear to consider them so important. However, there are plenty of opportunities to choose TV and radio programmes broadcast in Swedish or to use other types of affordances readily available: the internet, newspapers, magazines and literature. Thus it seems that the students of Swedish failed to seek out and make use of the affordances that in principle would have been available to them. In Section 1, we defined agency as the socioculturally mediated capacity to act. Since similar material and semiotic artefacts (television, newspapers, radio, music, internet) were available to most students of both languages during their school careers, it seems that it was the semiotic artefacts and social agents that made the difference: the students’ beliefs about the Swedish language and their own power to seek out learning opportunities, the discourses they engaged in, e.g. about the popularity and usefulness of English, and other people who might speak Swedish. Encounters with L2 speakers were experienced as very significant occasions in which the students had realized that they could indeed get by with their language skills in out-of-school contexts. Yet neither the school nor the out-of-school contexts had provided very many opportunities for speaking. The difference between them was that in school, speaking was considered another skill to be practised, whereas in the students’ spare time it was experienced as actual language use or communication with real people. While English was used with other people both in Finland and abroad, the use of Swedish appeared to be limited to the Nordic countries and Swedish-speaking regions in Finland. In our opinion, the students’ responses reveal two important points: the heteroglossia of language use in society and the multivoiced nature of the students’ beliefs. Every language community has a variety of discourses and it is clear that those of the classroom differ from those of informal contexts. In the classroom, the students’ conceptualization of language as an object of learning is represented most often in terms of formal knowledge, e.g. grammar. The discourses about language outside the classroom are more affectively laden, echoing, for example, the social and cultural language attitudes in the country. Drawing on these heteroglossic ways of speaking, students may have a variety of beliefs concerning languages and learning. Do they see English as a ‘nice’ language and Swedish as an ‘obligation’? Do they see both languages just as different ‘grammars’ and ‘vocabularies’? Either, neither – or both: as argued by Dufva (2003). People’s beliefs may involve various elements and positions that are not necessarily consistent and that may

From Milk Cartons to English Roommates 57

occasionally even be rather incompatible and contradictory. However, some beliefs that echo dominant social discourses, such as the representation of Swedish as ‘obligatory’, are likely to have an impact on how learners shape their agency. As for language education, we consider it important to talk about the conceptualizations that are involved, i.e., how students see different languages, how they position themselves (e.g. learners vs. users, other-regulated vs. self-regulated) and how they conceptualize learning. Edwards (2005), working within the activity theoretical framework, has expanded on the concept of relational agency – participants’ capacity to work with others that involves, among other things, ‘recognising that another person may be a resource’ (p. 172), while Holland et al. (1998) talk about the positional nature of identity and agency. In their own ways they both stress the dynamic and contextual nature of agency. As argued above, there seems to be a gap between the world of formal teaching and the various spheres of informal language use. As a consequence, pupils might miss learning opportunities present in informal contexts (as in the case of Swedish). However, the opposite effect is also possible: when students realize the benefits of informal contexts (as in the case of English), they may turn against institutional language teaching. The contexts in which languages are used, learned and taught are constantly changing. Social and cultural changes and rapid developments in information technology not only may make the line between the worlds of school and non-school fuzzier, but may also challenge the traditional goals, ideals and practices of L2 teaching. In view both of the social and cultural changes and pedagogical considerations, we feel that a timely solution would lie in attempts to bridge the gap between the worlds of school and non-school. Finally, we can ask what the students’ responses might tell us about the teaching practices and classroom interaction of their school years. Before entering the integrated language and education MA programme at the university, the students had spent a number of years studying English and Swedish in school. As a result of this socialization into school practices, the students of English and Swedish seemed to share a set of beliefs about languages and language learning in school. Accordingly, languages can be described as monolithic and monologic (see e.g. Aro 2009; Dufva et al. 2011), highlighting the formal nature of what is being learned (e.g. grammar and vocabulary) at the expense of meaning and pragmatics, and also the Cartesian, rationalist model of learning where the emphasis is on individual capacities and where the environment plays only a minor role. Furthermore, the students seemed to regard

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learning as a gradual, accumulative process which starts from the basics and proceeds in a sequential manner to the study of particular aspects or (sub)skills one at a time. Thus the learner is depicted as an independent, autonomous agent who learns by the power of his or her mental capacities, supported by textbooks, home assignments and evaluation practices, rather than, for example, by being engaged in tasks or other types of classroom interaction with others. Such interpretations have led scholars such as Hunter and Cooke (2007: 74) to prefer agency to autonomy as ‘a socially co-constructed relationship that broadens and deepens the term autonomy by incorporating dependence, interdependence and engagement in a social world’.

5. Conclusion To conclude, this study was an attempt to show the dynamic nature of agency in L2 learning and to highlight the intricate ways it interacts with notions of contexts and opportunities for learning. Raised in the same country and similar institutions, speaking the same L1, and given access to a number of semiotic and cultural resources (such as the media), these students of English and Swedish engaged with the two languages in very different ways. Students chose to seek out learning opportunities in one language – English – whereas they failed to expand the contexts for language learning and use in the other language – Swedish – beyond what was placed in front of them, whether it was textbooks or cartons of milk. In our opinion, teachers have a crucial role in helping students to seek out new ways of learning languages that go beyond the classroom.

Acknowledgement This study was undertaken in cooperation with a research project Dialogues of Appropriation, funded by the Academy of Finland (see www. jyu.fi/hum/laitokset/kielet/dialogues), and Hannele Dufva, as its Head.

5 Affordances for Language Learning Beyond the Classroom Vera Menezes

Perhaps, after all, we ‘learn’ language in the same way that an animal ‘learns’ the forest, or a plant ‘learns’ the soil. (van Lier 2000: 259)

1. Introduction Learners’ experiences have recently been attracting increased attention in Applied Linguistics. Breen (2001) brought the learner to the front of the stage by gathering a team of scholars to discuss Learner Contributions to Language Learning. On the same track, researchers such as Benson and Voller (1997), Benson (2011), Menezes (2005), Menezes and Braga (2008), among others, have been investigating learners’ ability to manage their own learning, while Kramsch (2002), Norton (2000) and others have been examining the interconnections between the learner and the social world, with special emphasis on the construction of learner identity. New perspectives were inaugurated by Larsen-Freeman (1997) and van Lier (2000) when they started studying second language acquisition first as a complex system and second as an ecological phenomenon. In both perspectives, sensory, cognitive and affective processes are not seen in isolation, but studied as interrelated factors underlying second language acquisition processes. The ecological perspective, as explained by Tudor (2003: 10), ‘involves exploring the deep script of human interaction with the learning process, not in isolation, but within the broader context of students’ concerns, attitudes and perceptions’. The ecological approach favours studies conducted in a natural environment and not in isolation and, as a consequence, there is a shift from a focus on the acquisition of linguistic structures to language as a semiotic 59

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social practice, and from the classroom to other social contexts beyond school. The ecological perspective offers new metaphors for understanding language learning beyond the classroom, two of which will be discussed in this chapter: affordance and niche. The concept of ‘affordance’, introduced into our field by van Lier (2000, 2004, 2008), represents a turn in the way we understand how languages are learned. With van Lier’s ideas as support, and complemented by other studies in ecology such as Gibson (1986) and Polechová and Storch (2008), this chapter discusses language learning beyond the classroom by showing how learners perceive affordances in contexts outside school and act on their niches to acquire the language. It is my contention that a dialogue between theory and students’ own voices can enrich our understanding of how languages are learned. In order to do that, I will quote from language learning histories (LLHs) written by students from Brazil, Japan and Finland. LLH research has proved to be a rich methodology to collect data and to make students’ voices heard. I believe that anyone interested in knowing how languages are learned should pay attention to what learners have to tell us. The dialogue between new metaphors and students’ voices will lead us to the understanding that perception and agency are crucial to language learning.

2. The concept of affordance Ecology is an area which investigates the interrelation between an organism and other elements in an ecosystem and has been used as a metaphor to understand human phenomena, including psychology. In an ecological perspective, concepts from biology, such as ‘affordance’, are useful to describe the reciprocity between persons and their environments, and contribute to our understanding of how languages are learned. The concept of affordance was coined by Gibson (1986), an American psychologist, in his seminal book about visual perception. For Gibson (1986: 127), ‘affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill’ and ‘refers to both the environment and the animal’. He explains that ‘it implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment’. As an example of affordance, he discussed terrestrial surfaces and their different affordances for humans: a track in a forest affords walking, a knee-high surface above the ground affords sitting, a surface of water affords swimming, and so on. Human beings can also modify the surfaces by cutting, cleaning, paving, etc., so as to change their affordances.

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Affordances are directly linked to the idea of perception and action. Perception is seen not as a mental capacity, but as an ecological phenomenon, the result of the animal’s interaction with the environment. Animals, including humans, perceive what the niche offers them (substances, medium, objects, etc.), interpret the affordances and act upon them. Some actions are done automatically (e.g. drinking water) and others require complex cognitive processes (e.g. finding the solution for a problem). As far as language is concerned, we can say it affords uses restricted by the user’s perceptions. Van Lier (2000: 253) presents two definitions of affordance. The first comes from Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991: 203): ‘affordances consist in the opportunities for interaction that things in the environment possess relative to sensoriomotor capacities of the animal’. The second is reproduced from Shotter and Newson (1982: 34), who understand affordance as ‘demands and requirements, opportunities and limitations, rejections and invitations, enablements and constraints’. Van Lier (2004: 91) adds two more definitions, one by Neisser (1987: 21): ‘Affordances are relations of possibility between animals and their environments’, and another by Forrester (1999: 88) who provides a definition for affordance, in the context of language use, as ‘immediately recognizable projections, predictions and perceived consequences of making this (and not that) utterance at any given time’. Van Lier (2004: 91) highlights the key notions in those definitions – relations, possibility, opportunity, immediacy and interaction. He adds that ‘affordance refers to what is available to the person to do something with’ and says that ‘more accurately, it is action in potential and it emerges as we interact with the physical and social world’ (p. 92). Stoffregen (2003: 115), in Sahin et al. (2007: 455), also sees affordances as emergent properties. For Stoffregen, ‘affordances are properties of the animal– environment system, that is, that they are emergent properties that do not inhere in either the environment or the animal’. In Stoffregen’s definition, affordance is portrayed neither as a property of the environment nor as a property of the individual, but as something which emerges from the interaction between both. In Chemero’s words (2003: 181), also quoted in Sahin et al. (2007: 456), ‘affordances are relations between the abilities of organisms and features of the environment’. A proof that affordances are not properties of the environment is the fact that different individuals have different perceptions of the world and that the complementarity and interaction between individuals and the environment emerge from different social practices. See, for instance, how artists are able to perceive the possibilities offered by

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trash and transform them into art; how a good gardener can transform a piece of land into a beautiful garden; or how language learners living in similar ‘niches’ (see next section) can have different perceptions, which afford them different experiences, and, consequently, differences in language development. The emergent nature of affordances suggests that they are best understood in social practices. The idea that the perception and interpretation of the environment afford certain linguistic social practices has been influencing the way we look at the language learning phenomenon. Van Lier (2000: 246) argues that ‘from an ecological perspective, the learner is immersed in an environment full of potential meanings’. These meanings ‘are available gradually as the learner acts within and with the environment’. For van Lier, action, perception and interpretation, in a continuous cycle of mutual reinforcement, are preconditions for the emergence of meaning (van Lier 2004: 92). We can say that emergence happens when one responds to opportunities for interaction, to demands and constraints, or to offerings and obstacles, reorganizing and adapting themselves to the changing conditions in a niche. In the next section, I will discuss the concept of ‘niche’ and its implications for language development.

3. The concept of niche Each species occupies a ‘niche’, defined by Gibson as a set of affordances: ‘The niche implies a kind of animal, and the animal implies a kind of niche’ (Gibson 1986: 129). Gibson explains: There are all kinds of nutrients in the world and all sorts of ways of getting food; all sorts of shelters or hiding places, such as holes, crevices, and caves; all sorts of materials for making shelters, nests, mounds, huts; all kinds of locomotion that the environment makes possible, such as swimming, crawling, walking, climbing, flying. These offerings have been taken advantage of; the niches have been occupied. But, for all we know, there may be many offerings of the environment that have not been taken advantage of, that is, niches not yet occupied. A niche has to do with the relational position of an individual in its biome, or ecosystem. As Polechová and Storch (2008: 1) put it, ‘ecological niche characterizes the position of a species within an ecosystem, comprising species habitat requirements as well as its functional role’.

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Actions performed by an individual influence the niche and the niche influences the individual by offering opportunities for his/her actions or by constraining them. Polechová and Storch (2008) distinguish three approaches to niche: (1) niche as the description of a species’ habitat requirement; (2) niche as an ecological function of the species; and (3) niche as a species position in a community. In an attempt to understand these approaches in relation to language learning, I would translate these approaches as (1) niche as an environment mediated by language; (2) niche as a place to act in by using the language; and (3) niche as a language user position in a discourse community. In order to be successful, a learner must ‘make a life’ in his or her niche. The student has to coexist with other learners and sometimes compete for his/her position in the niche, mainly when in a classroom environment. In addition, the resources available in a classroom are usually insufficient for successful language acquisition. Learners must look for affordances beyond the classroom and not all of them will be able to perceive the affordances or take advantage of all the ones offered by the environment. Gibson (1986: 141) says that ‘to perceive the world is to copercieve oneself’ and explains that ‘the awareness of the world and of one’s complementary relations to the world are not separable’. In fact, we perceive things in accordance with the way they relate to us, in accord with our identity. While one sees a tea pot as a container to hold tea, another can see it as an ornament to hold flowers. The same happens with language. A musician can listen to a song without paying attention to the lyrics, but to the sounds from a specific instrument, while a language learner may pay attention to the meaning or to the way words are pronounced. An ecological perspective sees the learner as situated in his/her specific niche. As pointed out by Berglund (2009: 187), ‘this is in line with socio-cultural theories of learning, where the learner is seen as situated in a specific culture and where learning takes place through interaction with the environment, including artefacts and other human beings’. She adds that ‘from a socio-cultural perspective on learning, communicative affordances are, in fact, also affordances for language learning’. We use language to think, to perceive and interpret the linguistic social actions around us and to act in our niches. In the case of foreign language learning, a kind of affordance, which has a great impact on the learners, is how they relate to that language, that is, how they perceive

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the language they learn. A second or other language can be seen as a dominating instrument, as a tool for communication, as a cultural production mediator, as an instrument which opens windows for business, as something of high or low prestige, and so on. As an example, I would like to mention the case of an internationally known Brazilian heavy metal band, Sepultura. In the 1980s, their ex-leader, Max Cavalera, said during a TV interview in Brazil that he had tried to make up songs in Portuguese but that had not worked. He then decided to compose in English and the results were very good. In Cavalera’s perception, Portuguese did not afford adequate sonority for Sepultura’s music style. In the next section, I will describe how some English language learners from three different continents perceive affordances and act in their niches. To do that, I will draw on LLHs from the AMFALE1 databank. The excerpts I use as examples have not been edited.

4. Affordances in EFL/ESL niches Taking into account the idea of niche as an environment mediated by language, English language learners must belong to a habitat where they can find language affordances. Van Lier (2004: 95) says that ‘language affordances, whether natural or cultural, direct or indirect are relations of possibility among language users’. In a context such as the Brazilian one, where the official language is Portuguese, finding natural affordances in the niche is not common for Brazilians. Even so, we can find reports of this in early childhood experiences. See, for instance, what a Brazilian young woman (Excerpt 1) and a Brazilian young man (Excerpt 2) tell us: (1) I remember well my very first contact with a foreign language (see that I am ‘literally’ talking about contact, it means, I had no idea about what I was dealing with): I was about eight years old, was walking with my father in the center of Belo Horizonte city when just in front of the ‘Oton Palace Hotel’ I heard a tall man talking to some people in a strange manner. Well, at that time I had no idea that it could be English (neither my poor father) but I knew that I wished (from that moment and as a curious child) learn to talk just the way that man was talking. (2) My first contact with English was when I was a kid. I and my brother were in a movie watching ‘Tom and Jerry’ we were enjoying and of course the result was a lot of noise. Suddenly two foreign kids sitting in front of us turned and screamed

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‘quiet please’. I could not understand but we shut up because of surprise, and after this day my interest in English arose in my mind. I remember by this day I was trying to guess the names of the objects in English, just by myself in secret. The experiences reported in Excerpts (1) and (2) seem to fit the kind of affordance van Lier (2004: 100) labels as level 1, which he associates with ‘Peirce’s Firstness, the realm of direct feeling, quality, emotion’. I would complement this by saying that this kind of experience could be understood as a mere sensation, as a rheme, defined by Peirce (1940/1955: 103) as ‘a Sign, which, for its Interpretant, is a Sign of qualitative Possibility, that is, understood as representing such and such a kind of possible Object. Any Rheme, perhaps, will afford some information; but it is not interpreted as doing so’. The narrators had the feeling that they were listening to another language, but they could not understand it. The narrator of Excerpt (1) was not even able to name the language he heard in front of the hotel. Nevertheless, the rhematic experience afforded them the desire to learn that language. In EFL niches, language affordances are not the same for every learner. There are contexts which offer more opportunities for language learning and fewer constraints than others, and vice versa. To learn English where it is spoken is supposed to imply more language affordances than to learn it in countries where there are fewer chances to use the language, as in Japan or Brazil. Nevertheless, learners in those countries may have many opportunities to be in contact with English by means of cultural products such as songs, movies and TV shows. They may also travel to an English-speaking country. The following language learning histories (LLHs) are examples of similar travelling experiences told by learners from Brazil (3), Finland (4), and Japan (5). In Excerpt (3), one can realize that the narrator found not only language learning affordances, but also a niche for a better life. (3) (…) my marriage union to the English language was finally sealed when I pulled up stakes to the States, the land of the green currency, a land of hopes of better days to come in contrast with those years lived at my birthplace, full of green, but short of hopes. In Excerpts (4) and (5), students talk about their experiences as exchange students in the USA. Living in an environment where English is spoken represents an increase in language affordances. It is interesting

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to see that although they were enrolled in schools, they do not talk about classroom experiences, but about ‘using everyday language’ and ‘experiencing a different culture’. (4) When I’m thinking of myself as a language learner the first thing that comes to my mind is my year in the U.S. as an exchange student. That was the year I learned a lot obviously. (…) During that year I learned to use everyday language pretty well because I had no option but to express myself. (5) My most memorable experience was going to the United States to study English for one year. Needless to say, I improved my English skill, especially in listening. But I could also experience a different culture. I learned how to spend a day at an American high school, activities in bands, and ceremonies like a graduation commencement. All the people who I got to know there were so nice that they did not mind at all to explain the meanings of words I did not understand. It really helped me to learn English and I still remember the words they taught me, including slang. I think I was so lucky to go there. I could learn a lot and have American friends who I still keep in touch with. These three English learners live in three different continents – South America, Europe and Asia – and all of them belong to niches which offer similarly poor English language affordances, but they had the chance to enlarge their niches by travelling to the United States where more affordances were available in the form of meaningful activities and participation in the American culture. The narrators occupied a position in the discourse community and that contributed to their SLA because English was required in order to act in this new niche. Nevertheless, travelling is not always a guarantee of affordances for language learning, as we can see in Excerpt (6), in the words of a Brazilian narrator: (6) I got married when I was about 20 years old and when I was 24, my husband went to do a Ph.D course in the USA and we stayed there for about 4 years and that’s how I learned. I met so many Brazilian ‘wives’ that even after a few years there didn’t learn anything because in some universities there were so many other Brazilian wives and they were always together talking in Portuguese. Quite a lot of them came back to Brazil with an English that is not enough to teach the very beginners.

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I was lucky again because we went to Missouri and there were no more than 2 or 3 Brazilian couples besides us. So I looked for courses I could do to fill my time and I ended up in a college doing a Photography course, another one was about cooking and in a few months I was working as a baby sitter on the weekends and had a job during the week in the photo lab developing films, etc. In Excerpt (6), we can see that language affordances are not properties of the niche, but emerge from language use, from the participation of the learners in a niche, from those with whom they interact in social practices. Although the ‘Brazilian wives’ were in the United States, living in an environment full of possibilities to use the English language, they did not perceive the same affordances as the narrator in Excerpt (6) did. As Gibson and Pick (2000: 16) tell us, ‘fundamentally, the realization of an affordance requires that animal and environment be adapted for one another’. It seems that, in the case of these Brazilian women, the co-adaptation did not happen as it did with our narrator. They did not perceive speaking English as relevant to them and thus their activities favoured the inner niche and, as a consequence, Portuguese language use. A good number of LLHs in the AMFALE databank, like those from which Excerpts (3), (4) and (5) are taken, reveal that students perceive the classroom as a place which does not afford enough language experiences for them to learn English. They complain that their schools had offered them fragmented samples of the language which did not afford them communicative agency, but only meaningless and mechanical manipulation of linguistic structures. That is the case of the Brazilian narrator in Excerpt (7): (7) My first experience in learning English was pretty much the same as my colleagues who studied in public schools. The exercises were based on copy, memorize and research about the grammar. The teachers used to plan all classes according to the book adopted for all the school which contained only structural exercises. Sometimes the teacher made some listening exercises with songs (always fill the gap) but in most cases were songs that that students didn’t know or a style we didn’t like. Most students perceive language affordance as ‘speak it’, but many teachers see it as ‘describe it/talk about it’. The students’ concept of what a language is does not match their teachers’ own concept. In spite of their niches, which apparently offer poor English language

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affordances, many learners bridge the gaps by looking for affordances beyond the classroom that meet the second concept of niche: niche as a place to act in by using the language. They are aware of their roles as language learners and try to find opportunities to interact with English speakers, as we can see in Excerpt (8): (8) I’ve working in a hotel and receive all the moment foreign guests. I talk to them so much and I think it’s because this I didn’t forget my English yet. We must be even practicing to learn more and more. It’s the most important thing I consider to learn a good language. The Brazilian narrator in Excerpt (8) sees his job as an opportunity to keep up with the language. He is aware that he must use the language to learn it. Learners also look for cultural products (songs, movies, literature, games, etc.). They act by reading books and magazines, by listening to songs, watching movies – see Excerpt (9) from Finland, by writing e-mails, by reading the news, by playing games, and so on. Affordances are all around learners, as the Japanese narrator in Excerpt (10) acknowledges. It is up to the learners to perceive what their niches offer them and act. (9) There were not many language learning options in the grade school. Teachers’ methods were very conservative. At the time, that didn’t bother me because I couldn’t imagine any other ways to learn. I began reading magazines and books in English when I was about ten years old. That helped me a lot. I wasn’t always very eager to do my homework – but I was interested in reading English football magazines, listening to American rock music and watching Anglo-American movies. Therefore, it wasn’t difficult for me to succeed in the grade school. (10) Everything around us like books, TV, friends could be a teacher for us. I think that how much we can learn depends on how much we make efforts. Excerpts (8), (9) and (10) demonstrate how the three narrators learned to take advantage of affordances, by achieving a fit between the environmental properties and the possibilities for learning. The third type of niche is niche as a language user’s position in a discourse community. A learner who assumes the position of a language user is expected to be successful in his attempt to learn the language.

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The following excerpts show examples of students who took the role of language users in different relations with the environment. (11) I remember reading many things in English: from shampoos labels to whole books. I have over twenty relatives living in the US nowadays, and they’d send me many things: books, magazines, candies etc. It sure has motivated me, being curious the way I am, to understand whatever was written on these things. A great jump in my English as second language came in ’97, when I went to the US for the first time. I remember that in four months I was fluent. That was my goal when I went there, I was not ashamed that I never had the chance of speaking English in Brazil, but the place I was, and the context were different: I had to talk to communicate, whether at home or at work, English was the only way out. In Excerpt (11), we can see how the Brazilian narrator assumed the role of an English reader, perceiving all the reading affordances which were available to her. She used to read everything, including shampoo labels, which are usually ignored by most shampoo users. She learned to realize affordances unavailable to most students. Later on, she assumed the role of a speaker in order to belong to her extended niche. A similar example can be found in the words of a Finnish student in Excerpt (12): (12) I feel that I have started to become braver to use English. I read a lot books in English for fun and that has certainly helped me to widen my vocabulary. I also have started to pick up things and words from television and search information from internet in English. Luckily I have an English friend whom I see quite a lot and I try to speak with her many different kinds of things. Sometimes I’m a bit worried about my grammar but now I understand it’s not the most important part of English learning. The learner in Excerpt (12) freed herself from grammar dictatorship, as her school ‘mostly concentrated on grammar and vocabulary’, and became a ‘braver’ speaker. She reads for fun and speaks English with an English friend. She found affordances beyond the classroom, although she acknowledges the importance of formal language studies when she says ’part of me is very grateful of that, because it has given me a quite solid base of them’.

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Our last example shows a learner who assumes a position as a ‘letter writer’: (13) I have been exchanging letters with American, Canadian and Korean friends since I was 12 years old. At first, I couldn’t express what I wanted to write, and I copied expressions from books. But now I can write what I want to write to some extent. Writing letters in English was very very useful for me. I could learn a lot of things about America, Canada and Korea. I enjoyed exchanging letters very much, and I want to continue it forever. Now, I am happy because I can exchange E-mail with foreign friends. E-mail is easier to send than letters. Language affords a variety of uses (singing, chatting, reading, writing, listening and so forth), but some teachers insist on focusing only on the formal aspects of the language. In the case of the Japanese learner in Excerpt (13), English affords her interaction with friends by writing letters and then emails.

5. Conclusion To tell a language learning history is necessarily an act of talking about affordances. Many of these affordances belong to the world beyond school, to which researchers usually do not have access. Narrative research has proved to be an effective methodology to examine those experiences and thus contribute to our understanding of SLA, because when we listen to the learners’ voices we free ourselves from the limits of the classroom and realize that learning experiences happen in different contexts rather than just in traditional classrooms. By examining the LLHs in the AMFALE databank, we realize that affordances beyond the classrooms are essential elements in the processes of language learning. These affordances manifest themselves in written and oral interactions with other individuals in the inner, or in the extended, niches and in experiences with cultural products (books, magazines, songs, movies, games, etc.). Those narrators perceive the language as something which affords use, agency, and not merely structural manipulation. A group of narrators also register their perceptions that the classroom does not afford enough opportunities for language agency. They strive to find more affordances beyond the classroom in order to develop the language and by doing so they demonstrate that they can change their environment and reconstruct their niches.

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By drawing on LLHs written in Brazil, Finland and Japan, we could see that students in different niches are likely to perceive more affordances in out-of-class experiences than in their educational contexts. Our LLH corpora provide evidence for us to understand that learning a language is a matter of acting in the world, a matter of autonomy and agency. The lesson we can learn from what the narrators say is that learners must be empowered to perceive affordances in their niches. We must acknowledge that schools alone cannot gather all the necessary affordances for language development and we must open our students’ eyes to the world around them. As Ziglari (2008: 378) emphasizes in her own study, ‘it is better for the teacher to expose the learners to the real and natural settings so that they could perceive their world much better and increase their world knowledge’. As in the epigram to this chapter, Van Lier (2000: 259) tells us that ‘perhaps, after all, we “learn” language in the same way that an animal “learns” the forest, or a plant “learns” the soil’. Having this in mind, I would like to suggest that our role as teachers is to help learners occupy their niches by using the languages they are learning.

Note 1. AMFALE is an acronym in Portuguese for the research project ‘Learning with the memories of speakers and learners of foreign languages’. The project has a digital databank which hosts corpora of language learning histories written by Brazilian, Japanese, Chinese and Finnish students and can be found at http://www.veramenezes.com/amfale.htm.

6 Becoming Multilingual: An Ethnographic Approach to SLA Beyond the Classroom David Divita

1. Introduction In a landmark article in The Modern Language Journal, Firth and Wagner (1997: 800) put forth a ‘rallying cry’ for alternative approaches to research in the field of second language acquisition (SLA), which had until then focused almost exclusively on the universal, internal aspects of language acquisition. The authors proposed specific modifications to the epistemological and methodological parameters of SLA scholarship: an enhanced awareness of the contextual dimensions of language use; an increased sensitivity toward learners’ perspectives and experiences; and an expanded database for investigating theory (p. 804). Since then, an increasing number of scholars have turned to qualitative and ethnographic methods of data collection that investigate the relationship between language learning and language use in non-institutional settings, eschewing a facile distinction between the two (Kinginger 2004; Kramsch 2002; Norton 2000; Pavlenko 2005; Pavlenko and Lantolf 2000; Rampton 2006). Research that draws on such methods throws into relief aspects of SLA that have not traditionally been addressed, highlighting, for example, the language learner as an individual – that is, as a socially and historically situated subject who navigates and negotiates the experience of language learning in idiosyncratic ways. As Larsen-Freeman (2001: 24) observes: ‘Ironically, those calling for a more social perspective on SLA may actually contribute to foregrounding the uniqueness of individual learners engaged in SLA in different contexts.’ In the beginning stages of language learning, such ‘uniqueness’ is often reflected in the differences between individuals’ learning styles; at advanced stages, it is often manifested in the differences between individuals’ speaking styles. 72

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Within poststructuralist sociolinguistics, this notion of speaking style entails configurations of linguistic features and semiotic practices that index social meanings such as identities, personae or stances (Coupland 2007; Eckert 2004; Podesva 2008). Language learners not only acquire linguistic forms, but also develop linguistic styles through the reiterated, contingent use of those forms; over time, they learn to construct and interpret the social meanings that those forms index. An account of style within SLA should thus include ‘issues of identity, attitudes and self-perception’ (Dewaele 2007: 233), as well as the possibility that an L2 speaker might choose to create social meanings not only in her second language, but in her languages, oftentimes through recourse to multilingual practices such as codeswitching (Kramsch, Lévy and Zarate 2008). In non-institutional settings where such practices tend to occur freely, language acquisition might be better conceived as a process of becoming multilingual – a process that unfolds in idiosyncratic ways and that is shaped in part by an individual’s experience of the sociohistorical conditions in which it occurs – rather than the assimilation of an autonomous linguistic system resembling that of a native speaker. To study acquisition as becoming, researchers must expand their analytic focus to include the social meanings described above, foregrounding the role of the individual, whose experience, memories and affect inform and are informed by her language learning trajectory. One must take what Johnstone and Kiesling (2008: 25) have called a ‘phenomenological’ approach, accounting for the dynamic, experiential perspectives of individuals as language learners through ethnographic and archival research that juxtaposes relevant ‘sociolinguistic landscapes of the past’ with language use in context. As I illustrate below through a comparative analysis of two case studies, such a configuration of data enables a reconstruction of the process of language acquisition from both a social and historical perspective that highlights its non-universal, individualistic dimensions.

2. The data To investigate the subjective dimension of language learning, I present data that I collected during seven months of ethnographic fieldwork with a group of multilingual women at a social centre for Spanish seniors (i.e. people over the age of 62), in Saint-Denis, France. The Centro, as I will call it, was built in 2003 and sits on a small plot of land that has been owned by the Spanish government since the 1920s, when the

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neighbourhood was known as la Petite Espagne and scores of Spanish immigrants first settled there to work in a thriving glass and steel industry. Funded almost entirely today by Spain’s Ministerio de Trabajos y Asuntos Sociales, the Centro organizes social activities and events for Spaniards living in the Paris region, admitting members who meet three criteria: they are over the age of 62; they are citizens of Spain; and they are official residents of France. My research sample comprised 22 women, aged 64 to 75, who participated in a wave of female migration from Spain to Paris in the 1960s. Born during or just after the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), most of them grew up in conditions of extreme poverty, and none of them had any formal education after the age of 12 or 13. With virtually no access to possibilities of social or economic mobility in Spain, the women in my study saw emigration as a potentially profitable, if emotionally painful, option. They decided to migrate to Paris, where they were certain to find work in a burgeoning domestic service industry. Once they arrived in the capital, most of them entered established social and labour networks in its most affluent neighbourhoods, earning four to five times their salaries in Spain. Although they often experienced a ‘double discrimination’ as both immigrants and women (Asperilla 2007: 43), many of them saw their move to Paris as the pursuit of an adventure (Tur 2007). As Asperilla (2007: 43) writes, Spanish women in Paris ‘experienced a certain personal liberation by escaping the moral control exerted by the Church and the Phalange in their villages’. Their migration thus constituted a ‘project of personal independence’ (Oso Casas 2004: 39), facilitated in large part by the gradual social changes in France that culminated in the events of 1968. This project also entailed the acquisition of a second language through everyday experiences shaped by complex relations of power. As my research subjects arrived in Paris, they had to contend with negative representations of Spanish women that circulated in bilingual dictionaries, comic strips and films – artefacts that formed part of a discursive field in relation to which they forged biographical trajectories that affirmed, exploited or contested those representations. Because Spanish women were often portrayed as deficient speakers of French (and Spanish), whose lack of competence for language learning placed a burden of communication on their native-speaker interlocutors, the women in my study were forced to acquire French under conditions in which their access to it was constrained and their failure was presumed unavoidable. Women responded to these conditions differently. They determined their degree of ‘investment’ (Norton 2000) in the language by assessing

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a multitude of variables that changed over time: the projected length of their stay in Paris, their affective ties to French people and other Spaniards abroad, and their often peripatetic professional histories.

3. The individuals Lina and Amalia, two of the women I encountered during my fieldwork, took part in the wave of migration that I describe above, leaving Santiago de Compostela and Córdoba respectively to pursue possibilities of social and economic mobility in Paris. They arrived in France as monolingual Spanish-speakers eager to learn French for different reasons. Lina, for example, moved to Paris alone in search of work, and her Spanish fiancé joined her a year later. Tiring quickly of the domestic service industry, she sought employment in sewing workshops, where she spoke Spanish with many of her co-workers but learned enough French to interact with her employers and ensure that they would not exploit her. Amalia, on the other hand, dedicated herself to refining her French only after a failed attempt to move back to Spain in 1970, nine years after she had come to France as an immigrant. Within months of returning to Paris, she became romantically involved with an older Frenchman; they were married a year later and stayed together until his death in 2003. For the 32 years that they were married, they communicated solely in French. Over time, Lina and Amalia both developed multilingual styles that are linked to their phenomenological experiences of the social and historical conditions in which this development occurred. Forging distinct biographical trajectories out of shared circumstances, they now practise multilingualism in ways that both reflect and constitute those trajectories. Like the other women in my research sample, they arrived in Paris without knowing any French, but they now speak it with comparable levels of advanced proficiency, making use of their linguistic repertoires in individually meaningful ways.

4. Multilingual practices To date, most research on sociolinguistic variation has focused on the use of phonological and, to a lesser extent, morphosyntactic variables among monolingual speakers. In my consideration of a multilingual setting, I shift my analytic focus from a segmental level to a discursive one, investigating individuals’ engagement in the practices of codeswitching and bilingual discourse-marking. While codeswitching entails acts of

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language choice that index meanings through broad, but commonly held, associations of language with social categories or stances, bilingual discourse-marking operates on a more immediate level, conjuring social meanings more likely to be linked to the moment-to-moment navigation of interaction. To be sure, traditional studies of SLA, which have focused on the acquisition of monolithic linguistic systems, have not considered such practices as a means to, and a reflection of, language learning. As I conceive of SLA in this project, however, an individual does not merely acquire a separate linguistic system when she learns a language; rather, she becomes a multilingual subject in ways tied to her particular experience of a situation of language contact (Kramsch 2009). In non-institutional settings, this subjective dimension of language learning is particularly salient. In order to understand how it informs language use, I conducted discourse analysis of my subjects’ recorded conversations in light of their biographical trajectories. Such an approach within the context of an ethnographic project foregrounds the recursive relationship between the micro-level of interaction and the macro-level of sociohistorical processes (Bucholtz and Hall 2008).

5. Lina Lina is soft-spoken and reserved, and she readily describes herself as shy. Nevertheless, she stands out at the Centro as a kind of resident artist, recognized for her talent by students in the theatre class and by participants in the weekly arts and crafts workshop that she oversees. Lina’s aesthetic sensibilities might be described as sentimental and otherworldly; the collages that she designs in the workshop contain haunting images of female figures in landscapes composed of flora, fauna, stars and planets, reflecting her preoccupation with women and the paranormal. In addition to selling her collages and greeting cards at the Centro as a means of generating income, Lina also works as a professional clairvoyant, giving Tarot readings to clients out of her apartment in nearby La Courneuve. The legitimacy of Lina’s work is tied in part to the authority that she creates and indexes through particular linguistic practices associated with her personae as instructor and medium. Lina makes use of her second language in strategic ways that are ultimately tied to her pecuniary ambitions; her approach to French is thus more utilitarian than it is affective. Not only does she ensure that the poems she inscribes on collages and greeting cards are written in both Spanish and French, for example, but, as I will discuss below, she also engages in multilingual

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practices that establish her authority vis-à-vis her interlocutors and lend her professional services a more legitimate air. Lina’s use of French thus reflects the motivations for which she first began to acquire it after migrating to France. Her arrival in Paris in the 1960s was marked by a profound sense of loneliness and isolation that she attributed to her inability to speak French. She quickly realized that the economic prospects she had envisioned before leaving Spain were inextricably tied to her acquisition of the language. Over time, she began to use French in discussions with employers and co-workers about the exploitative conditions of her work environments. Eventually, Lina decided to take advantage of the skills that she had developed to go into business for herself, managing to communicate with a largely French-speaking clientèle. In the predominantly Spanish speech of the women I observed at the Centro, it was not uncommon to hear occasional codeswitches into French, or to hear French discourse markers such as tu vois, bon and c’est ça. Lina stood out among her counterparts as one of the most unabashed borrowers of such particles when she was speaking Spanish, utilizing one in particular more than any other – voilà. For Lina, this particular variable indexes an authoritative stance in large part through its relationship to the multilingual context in which she embeds it and the sociohistorical position from which she utters it. To illustrate the links among Lina’s stylistic practices, her personal history and the question of authority, I turn now to an audio-recording that I made on my initial visit to the arts and crafts workshop that Lina oversees. In the excerpt below, Lina helps Pierre, the 4-year-old grandson of Pura, another member of the Centro, make a collage for his mother. Pierre does not speak Spanish, but Pura claims that he has a passive, if grudging, understanding of it. His activity is the focus of the exchange below, and although he does not participate in it verbally, he is nevertheless hard at work clipping images to be used in his artwork. As the excerpt begins, Lina remarks on the flower he has just finished cutting: 1

Lina:

oh qué bonito bon, pues trae un papelito blanco de allí que —que vamos a hacer un—

5

un ramo para tu mamá voilà

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oh qué bonito que vea que fuiste tú que lo has colorado 10

que lo has recortado… y después aquí le pones ‘maman je t’aime’ allí de este lado, eh? Pura:

15

Pierre ¿no quieres más agua?

Lina:

voilà eh? alors dime où est-ce que je colle— cela je la colle où?

20

Pura:

allí

Lina:

voilà parce qu’il faut que ta maman elle sache que c’est toi, ((pause))

25

voilà ((pause)) voilà

1

Lina:

5

10

Pura:

oh how pretty fine then take a little piece of white paper from over there Because —because we’re going to make a— a bouquet for your mother voilà oh how pretty so she can see that you’re the one who colored it who cut it out… and then here write to her ‘mom, I love you’ over there, on this side, eh? Pierre

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15 Lina:

20

Pura: Lina:

25

you don’t want any more water? voilà eh? so tell me where do I glue— where should I glue this? over there voilà because it’s important that your mother that your mother knows it’s you ((pause)) voilà ((pause)) voilà

When the women in the arts and crafts workshop encourage Pierre to show Lina his handiwork, they refer to her as ‘la profesora’ and ‘la maestra’, explicitly naming the role they see her playing. Indeed, Lina readily plays the part, instructing Pierre throughout the exchange. First, she asks him in Spanish to take a blank piece of paper (‘trae un papelito blanco’, line 3) and write a French inscription in the margin of the collage (‘aquí le pones ‘maman, je t’aime’, lines 11–12). Then, on the heels of his grandmother’s question in Spanish (‘¿no quieres más agua?’ in lines 14–15), Lina switches to French to ask him for input on where to paste some of the images he has clipped, thereby distinguishing her query from Pura’s (‘cela je la colle où?’ in line 19). Over the course of this brief excerpt, Lina uses ‘voilà’ five times. Through a configuration of variables that includes these discourse markers along with particular codeswitches, she establishes an authoritative stance within this local context both vis-à-vis Pierre and the collage-making process more generally. In the next excerpt, which took place at the beginning of a psychic reading that Lina gave to Anna, one of the participants in the arts and crafts workshop, she explained that people with health problems are increasingly relying on mediums instead of more conventional practices of diagnosis:

1

Lina:

5

David:

ahora ya empiezan ¿a creer un poquito, ves? a trabajar un poco avec les médiums m

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Lina:

porque si por ejemplo una persona hace todos los exámenes necesarios y los médicos no ven nada pues alors, es euh, em— es que en español lo olvido c’est dans un autre domaine

1

Lina:

5

David: Lina:

now they’re beginning to believe a bit more, you know? to work a bit more with mediums m because if for example a person does all the necessary medical exams and the doctors don’t see anything then well its euh, em— it’s that in Spanish I forgot it’s in another domain

10

10

Lina’s remarks on mediums and their social utility frequently revolve around the issue of credibility, as they do at the beginning of the above excerpt. Lina assures Anna and me that many people who have been let down by inconclusive or unsuccessful medical practices have turned to mediums to determine health problems and devise unconventional strategies of treatment. Her first codeswitch in line 4 – ‘avec les médiums’ – foregrounds this perhaps surprising turn to the paranormal; Lina thus assures Anna that her faith in alternative approaches to diagnosis is not necessarily uncommon, perhaps suggesting through her use of French that it is shared by people outside the relatively small community of Spanish-speakers of which they form part. Lina’s second codeswitch in line 10, the French discourse marker ‘alors’, functions as a hedge, reiterating the Spanish counterpart ‘pues’ that it follows, and preceding her audible hesitations (‘euh, em’) in line 11. Instead of immediately following her string of disfluencies with the utterance ‘c’est dans un autre domaine’, she precedes her culminating remark with a metalinguistic reference to her verbal stumbling that pins its cause to

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her linguistic amnesia (indeed, on many other occasions I heard Lina lament that she seemed to be forgetting more and more Spanish), and anticipates the forthcoming switch into French. Lina frequently uses this term (‘domaine’) to refer to a field of knowledge that can only be accessed through psychic intuition, marking the lexical item in such a way that mirrors its referent’s remote relationship to the familiar. Again, her codeswitch magnifies the iconoclastic force of her statement, foregrounding it from the Spanish in which it is embedded. She mediates verbally the switch from one language to another, explicitly staging the frequent pitfalls encountered, as well as the strategies deployed, by a multilingual individual. In her moment of forgetting Spanish, she turns to French, but she also exploits this turn to index her authority as a clairvoyant, thereby establishing the legitimacy of her psychic work, which is reflected in the content of her remark. Thus, it is through her use of both languages in this single interaction that she is able to create such social meanings. The trajectory along which Lina acquired French, shaped to a large extent by her pursuit of professional security and economic mobility, now informs the ways in which she makes use of her linguistic repertoire.

6. Amalia As outgoing and forthright as Lina is diffident, Amalia assured me several times during my fieldwork that she was different from the other women at the Centro: ‘I’m not like other people’, she liked to say with a smile. Such frequent claims to singularity revealed Amalia’s desire for distinction – a distinction that she cultivates through the self-conscious performance of character traits, such as free-spiritedness and irreverence, that aim to differentiate her from the people with whom she interacts. Amalia is indeed different from many of the women I encountered at the Centro; she had been married to a Frenchman and did not have any children. Furthermore, she openly professes a preference for speaking French, explaining in part that she associates the language with her deceased husband Henri, with whom she had lived for over thirty years and through whom she developed deeply affective ties to her second language – the only one in which they communicated. Although Amalia experiences her uniqueness as both a mark of distinction and a social stigma, she nevertheless seems to embrace it, constructing her individuality through a concatenation of narratives, stances and multilingual practices. Much like Lina, Amalia often employs a French discourse marker – ‘attends’ in her case – when she is speaking Spanish. Her use of it across

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languages suggests the extent to which it functions for her socially, creating an oppositional stance through which she lays claim to her status as an independent woman who does not hesitate to voice her defiance of expectations or conventions. In the excerpt below, taken from our first recorded conversation, before we had expressed our mutual preference for French, Amalia recounts an experience she had over thirty years earlier at the Spanish Embassy in Paris, shortly after she married Henri. A young Spanish functionary mistakenly told her that she would have to forfeit her Spanish nationality, insulting her in the process by commenting on how privileged she was to have lived in Paris for so many years. As the excerpt begins, Amalia recounts her reaction to the functionary’s comment: 1

Amalia:

yo lloraba mi marido estaba conmigo digo ‘¿dónde está el privilegio? yo no veo privilegio ninguno es para usted que le han dado una carrera un papá detrás que le han dado de comer que ha venido con un trabajo’ no(n) mais eh attends que tienes que tener una voluntad para no caer en el—la— cómo se dice? dans les pièges en francés lo digo mejor las trampas de los patrones de los hombres sobre todo los patrones cuando te ven bonita joven graciosa y quieren—quieren llevarte a la cama y tienes que luchar con ellos porque no quieres— vamos hombre— ¿eso es un privilegio?

Amalia:

I was crying my husband was with me

5

10

15

20

1

Becoming Multilingual: An Ethnographic Approach 83

5

10

15

20

I say ‘where is the privilege? I don’t see one single privilege it’s yours who were given an education with daddy behind him who were given food to eat who came with a job’ no but wait and you have to have the will not to fall in the—the— how do you say it? in the traps in French I can say it better the traps of the bosses of the men but especially the bosses when they see you young, funny and they want—they want to take you to bed and you have to struggle with them because you don’t want— come on— that is a privilege?

In the above excerpt, Amalia recounts her emotional response to the insensitive comment of a younger, male Spaniard working at the embassy in Paris. Her reported speech, which begins in line 3 (‘digo…’), ends when she interrupts her narrative by codeswitching into French (line 10); at this point, it is no longer clear to whom her speech is directed – her interlocutor in the narrative, or to me, to whom she is recounting it. Here, in primarily monolingual Spanish discourse, Amalia’s use of the French pragmatic particle (‘no(n) mais eh attends’, line 10) highlights the oppositional tension between her and the embassy employee. Her codeswitch into French interrupts the narrative flow that she has established in Spanish, enabling her to display an oppositional stance towards the situation and its protagonists. Although Amalia and I had not yet established French as our code of preference, she nevertheless uses it to invite my alignment with her vis-à-vis the insensitive functionary. Her second codeswitch in line 14 (‘dans les pièges’) is framed by a metalingual question (‘cómo se dice?’) and an explanation (‘en francés lo digo mejor’); again, it interrupts the flow of monolingual discourse to index,

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but also create, our alignment as French-speakers – or as Spanish-speakers who share a common resource: French. Amalia’s translation of her codeswitch into Spanish (‘las trampas’, line 16) suggests that this use of French is not so much a means of expressing a lexical item that she has forgotten in Spanish, but rather of foregrounding French in this context as the code of distinction that enables our complicity. And yet, as Amalia recounts this narrative, she explicitly associates this lexical item (‘les pièges’) with the male employers who attempted to exploit her as a young, attractive woman in France, men who wanted to ‘take her to bed’ and against whom she ‘had to struggle’ (lines 21–23). Amalia thus uses French not only as a discursive resource – to index her oppositional stance – but also as a symbolic resource whose associations are tied to the larger social and historical context in which she acquired the language. In the next excerpt, recorded a few months later in Lina’s apartment, Amalia responds to an accusation by Lina that she is unreasonably stubborn, invoking her mother by way of explanation. Here, Amalia presents herself as an assertive, independent woman in relation to the figure of a helpless Spanish immigrant, drawing on her multilingual resources through strategic codeswitches: 1

5

10

15

20

Amalia:

mi madre era humana al punto de ser tonta y yo refuso parecerme a mi madre yo refuso porque no quiero que un tío porque le he dado cincuenta centimos que me diga que soy une pouffiasse que je suis une merde yo no acepto eso de la gente tu ves lo que te quiero decir ? y no acepto que me ataquen porque mi madre era demasiado— ahora cuando digo ‘perdón—‘ digo ‘bueno euh’ cuando quiero pasar adelante digo ‘excusez-moi—euh bon—‘ yo no quiero— yo quiero— me toca a mi pasar paso yo yo no quiero parecerme a mi madre era demasiado ha sido una víctima

Becoming Multilingual: An Ethnographic Approach 85

25

Lina: 30

1

Amalia:

5

10

15

20

25

Lina: 30

ayer estuvimos hablando de eso con Corina mi madre era una víctima una víctima una víctima de la mano de su madre (.) y de la gente (.) yo he visto a mi madre— se lo [han comido] [voilà porque—porque] voilà porque era demasiado buena my mother was kind to the point of being crazy and I refuse to be like my mother and I refuse because I don’t want some guy because I’ve given him fifty cents to tell me that I’m a slut that I’m a piece of shit I don’t accept that from people do you see what I mean? I don’t accept that they attack me because I’m like my mother because my mother was too— now when I say ‘excuse me—‘ I say ‘fine um’ when I want to pass in front of someone I say ‘excuse me—um fine—’ I don’t want I want if it’s my turn to pass then I pass I don’t want to seem like my mother she was too she was a victim yesterday we were talking about this with Colette my mother was a victim a victim a victim at the hands of her mother (.) and of people (.) saw my mother they [ate her up ] [right because—because] right because she was too good

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Amalia’s use of French – twice to report her own speech – is entirely embedded in Spanish. In lines 5 and 6, Amalia animates the epithet of a generic ‘tió’ (‘que soy une pouffiasse, que je suis une merde’) both setting this bit of text apart from its discursive context, but also, symbolically, calling on her ideological associations of French in this gendered exchange that is structured around an imbalance of power. To voice the derogatory comments that position her as a sexualized, devalued object – comments that she has told me she heard after arriving in France – Amalia uses French. But a few utterances later, she counters the image of a vulnerable Spanish female, animating an exchange between herself and a hypothetical stranger she wants to pass on the street. In line 15 she says ‘digo “excusez-moi—euh bon”’, revealing through this second codeswitch the complex set of associations tying her selfperception as an assertive woman to her use of French – the language in which she was subjugated after arriving in France, but also the language that enabled her access to forms of power that ensured she would not end up a ‘victim’ (lines 22 and 24). Amalia’s codeswitching creates social meaning through dynamic ideological associations tied to the languages in her repertoire. Here, then, Amalia uses French not only as a discursive resource that foregrounds fragments of reported speech, but also as a symbolic resource whose meaning cannot be completely ascertained without understanding the context in which she learned French. The affective associations that she accrued over the course of her acquisition of this second language now inform the ways in which she uses it in conjunction with her first language.

7. Conclusion The four excerpts from Lina and Amalia that I cite above constitute an admittedly small amount of data. Nevertheless, the discourse-analytic approach to them that I take, juxtaposed with brief reconstructions of the women’s biographies and the sociolinguistic landscape in which they learned their second language, creates a holistic, retrospective portrait of their processes of language acquisition. Both of these women acquired French under similar conditions of language contact, but they now make use of their linguistic repertoires in different ways. In other words, they have become multilingual individuals – that is, they have accrued distinct memories, feelings and ideological associations in and about the languages that they speak. These vital ‘non-linguistic outcome[s] of language learning’ (Benson 2005: 19) are reflected in the multilingual styles that they now construct – a particularly conspicuous

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phenomenon outside of classrooms, where the use of languages in an individual’s or a community’s repertoire is informed by different ideologies than those that tend to structure their use in institutional settings. I have attempted to uncover such ‘outcomes’ through a configuration of data that foregrounds the language learner – and user –as an individual. As socially and historically situated subjects, individuals accrue memories, perceptions and emotions through their experiences of learning – subjective phenomena that ultimately inform the linguistic choices that they make. Future research in SLA would do well to explore these idiosyncratic aspects of language learning in other contexts, including classrooms, by pursuing the forms of qualitative and ethnographic data I have highlighted here. Such considerations will complement the field’s traditionally cognitive concerns, enabling a deeper understanding of language acquisition and its non-universal, individualistic dimensions.

7 Talk about Language Use: ‘I know a little about your language’ Erica Zimmerman

1. Introduction Intercultural conversations create opportunities for people to discover more about languages and cultures. One way this is accomplished is through discussions about how language works. Typically, research focuses on how these discussions happen in language classrooms. However, this study moves beyond classroom learner–learner interactions to examine conversational activities of Korean learners of Japanese, where the participants are engaging in informal social talk to teach and learn about language use. The methodology for this study utilizes Conversation Analysis (CA) which was first used to analyse talk among native speakers of a language. More recently, this methodology has been used in SLA research to investigate second language classroom talk (He 2004; Markee 2000; Mori 2004) or conversations for language learning (Kasper 2004). These previous studies focus on interactions where one or both of the speakers are learners of the language being spoken. This study differs in that it looks at how participants carry out moments for teaching and learning in a non-classroom setting. One study that uses CA to examine talk outside of the classroom is Wilkinson (2002), who found that American students on study abroad in France were ‘inappropriately’ using classroom talk in their conversations with native speakers. This chapter looks at another population, Korean learners of Japanese who were matriculated at a Japanese university. The analysis focuses on their conversations with Japanese counterparts and how the participants adopt expert and novice roles in metalinguistic talk to make comparisons about the differences between the Japanese and Korean languages. While the overall purpose of the talk is not for formal language learning, the participants move into that conversational space 88

Talk about Language Use 89

spontaneously and teach about Korean, while using their second language, Japanese. This study will show that these highly advanced learners move into a learning and teaching conversational space as a natural part of their interactions. The findings will show that the expert–novice roles are an important part of teaching and learning outside of the language classroom. Talk about language use was a fairly common subject among the participants and their interlocutors. This occurred when participants engaged in talk, indicating that they were teaching or learning about a specific form and/or telling about how language is used. While there were occurrences of talk about language focusing purely on the use of Japanese by the participants, the analysis focuses on occurrences where the use of the Korean language was the main topic and a construction of expert–novice roles occurred. This focus was selected because of a cultural shift noticed during the collection of the data. In the early 2000s, there was an influx of popular culture from South Korea to Japan called the Kankoku Buumu (Korean Boom), or the Korean Wave (Cho 2005), involving the exportation of television dramas, music, and food to Japan, China, Taiwan and the United States via TV, radio, and internet broadcasting. Given the historical tensions and the change in public interest and attitudes toward the Korean culture and language in Japan, there was reason to believe that interactions among these learners of Japanese and their Japanese counterparts would allow for teaching about the Korean language. Thus, while these Korean participants were ‘second’ language learners in Japan learning Japanese, the segments examined in this study show that the teaching and learning can go both ways and are linked to the social phenomena of interaction. The participants engaged in talk to explore more about the similarities and differences between Korean and Japanese. These comparisons about the languages typically index the participants’ stance of ‘I know a little about your language.’

2. Language expertise in interaction One way participants indicate engagement in conversational actions for teaching and learning is through an orientation to expert–novice roles in conversation. In second and foreign language studies, the terms ‘expert– novice roles’ respond to the widely used native speaker and non-native speaker distinction (Cook 1999; Firth and Wagner 1997; Kasper 2004; Rampton 1990; Schegloff et al. 2002). Many researchers have accepted the native and non-native speaker categories as unproblematic. However,

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Cook (1999) argues that researchers have essentialized these categories with their assumption that the native speaker norm is the goal for second language competence. In addition, researchers do not account for variables in a learner’s competence. For example, one variable is that a native speaker of one language might have the ability to use another. This ability may or may not be important for data being examined. To avoid essentializing and assuming a speaker’s identity as a native or non-native speaker, Rampton (1990) suggests the use of the term ‘expertise’. Expertise implies that the expert’s knowledge is not innate; rather, participants can acquire or demonstrate their expertise through interactions with others. In response to the essentialization of the native speaker/non-native speaker dichotomy, CA practitioners criticize researchers who assign these categories to the participants prior to examining the talk, rather than analysing what the participants accomplish in conversation. That is, researchers assume that speakers will behave in interactions in a certain way, such as making grammatical and pragmatic errors, because they are non-native speakers. Recent CA studies have addressed the issue of the categorization of participants as native/non-native identities versus expert–novice in the analysis of discourse (Carroll 2000; Hosoda 2006; Kasper 2004, 2006). These CA studies show that on occasion, participants orient to their differential linguistic and cultural expertise. These researchers avoid the terms native and non-native speaker, because the participants are not orienting to these social identities. Rather, they demonstrate differential language expertise (Kasper 2004). Up to this point, expert–novice studies (Carroll 2000; Hosoda 2000) have typically focused only on repair sequences as a demonstration of the roles of language expert and novice in one language. This study explores how the participants do ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’ through an orientation to expert–novice roles in ‘talk about language’ when two or more languages are involved. In this case, the languages are Japanese and Korean and in one example, English is also compared. Throughout the analysis, the following questions will be addressed: 1. What do the participants do in talk outside of the classroom that mimics teaching in the classroom? 2. How do they indicate that teaching and learning are occurring? 3. What are the implications of the talk on socialcultural understanding? Three segments of talk are examined. The first two segments will demonstrate the participants engaging in teaching–learning. These two examples show there is an orientation to the expert–novice roles, the

Talk about Language Use 91

participants work to show ‘I know a little about your language.’ The last segment, however, will show the participants beginning to engage in talk about the Korean language, but then changing the direction away from talk about language.

3. Methodology and data A CA-informed perspective is used for analysing the data for the construction of expert–novice roles following the seminal works of Sacks (1979, 1992) and the collection of works in Antaki and Widdicombe (1998). Expert and novice roles in conversation from a CA perspective are linked to how the participants display their orientations toward others in the talk to indicate their conversational relationships and identities. The roles of the participants in talk are not assumed before an examination of the data. For example, just because someone is a native speaker of a language does not mean that they will always be the expert in the conversation. This is discoverable only through a careful and close examination of the conversational turn-by-turn sequential actions in the talk. Therefore, the researcher examines how one person reacts to the other interlocutor in the conversation. This reaction indicates their interpretation of the previous line of talk. For this study, if the participants are orienting to the expert–novice roles for teaching and learning about the Korean language, then expert–novice roles will be developed in the sequential organization of the talk. This study examines three segments from 17 hours of data collected as part of a larger study that focused on identity construction of Korean speakers of Japanese. The participants were all foreign students studying at a university in the Chubu region of Japan and were asked to participate because they were Korean learners of Japanese. They were fully matriculated and received a Bachelor of Arts degree when they graduated. The participants made one to two recordings each month for one year. The participants used mini disk recorders to capture interactions with their Japanese friends, host families, and co-workers in Japanese. The participants were not given any specific topics or guidance for the recordings, other than to get permission to record. The researcher was not present during these sessions. The conversations chosen for this study were taken from recordings by three participants, Ji Eun Han, Min Joo Kang, and Mi Ran Na. All names have been changed to protect the participants’ identities. These segments are only a sample of many similar segments where the participants engaged in talk about language. (Transcription conventions are given in a note at the end of the chapter.)

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4. Engaging in ‘talk about language’ The first two segments show the participants working together to explore a Korean language form and engage the roles of expert–novice. The participants create a space for negotiating language similarities and differences, indicating they want to know a little about each other’s language. 4.1 Pronunciation comparisons: ‘It sounds like…’ Segment 1 involves a phonological comparison of what a language form sounds like to one of the participants. Ji Eun Han is talking with her friend. They are at a Korean restaurant and have just received their order. In the 25 seconds before the beginning of the talk in line 499, a song containing the phrase emma ya begins. Emma means ‘mother’ while ya is a marker used typically with names to indicate familiarity. We can hear clicking of silverware on the plate and chewing throughout the segment. Segment 1. Ji Eun Han MD 7 Track 2 (JH=Ji Eun Han, A=a female friend) 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510

JH:

511 512 513 514 515

JH: A:

A:

A: JH: A: JH: A:

JH:

(25.6) ((song starts in this pause and can hear sounds of them eating and serving up food)) emma ya tte wakaru? ((said while mouth full)) (1.7) hontoo da tte kikoeru, ha ha ha: honma ya tte kankokugo no hontoo da tte imi. a:, kankokugo ja nai ya. (1.3) o:sakaben↑ (1.2) emma ya tte iu no? (0.5) un, e[mma ya. [emma ya, honma ya. [un un un. [sonna fuu ni kikoeru emma ya okaa no? soo soo. [okaasan? [soo yatte itton chau? (0.3) un. (0.3)

Talk about Language Use 93

516 517 518 519

A:

520 521 522

JH: A:

honma: ya tte kikoeru no? hehehe (0.6) honto da to iu. un. (2.2) ((during this pause, the singer of the song says emma ya again.)) emma ya. un un. (9.4)

JH:

Translation: 498 499

JH:

500 501

A:

502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509

A: JH: A: JH:

510

A:

511 512 513 514 515 516

JH: A:

517 518 519

JH: A:

JH:

(25.6) ((song starts in this pause and can hear sounds of them eating and serving up food)) do ((you)) know the ((phrase)) mother ((in Korean))? ((said while mouth full)) (1.7) ((I)) hear it as ‘really,’ ((hontoo da, Standard Japanese)) ha ha ha: it is ‘really’ ((honma ya, Osaka dialect)) in Korean it means ‘really’. ((hontoo da)) a:, not in Korean. (1.3) O:saka dialect↑ (1.2) ((you)) say ‘emma ya’ (0.5) uh-huh, ‘e[mma ya’. [‘emma ya, honma ya’. [uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh. [((I)) hear it that way ‘emma ya’ ((means)) mother? yes yes. [mother? [((you)) say it that way right? (0.3) uh-huh. (0.3) I hear it as really ((honma ya, Osaka dialect)) hehehe (0.6) to say really ((honto da, Standard Japanese)) uh-huh. (2.2) ((during this pause, the singer of the song says emma ya again.))

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JH: A:

emma ya ((Korean)) uh-huh uh-huh. (9.4)

In this segment, the teaching and learning is triggered by the music in the background at the restaurant where Ji Eun and her friend are eating. In line 499, Ji Eun asks if her friend knows about the phrase, emma ya (mom) in the song in the background. In response to this question in line 501–502, participant A makes the comparison between emma ya (mom) and honma ya (really, Osaka dialect). She provides the standard Japanese pronunciation for ‘really’ (hontoo da) and then the Osaka dialect version. She then claims hontoo da is Korean, followed by an immediate retraction. After a 1.3 second pause, she self-repairs stating (line 504) that the real origin is the Osaka dialect. In response, Ji Eun indicates her confusion in line 506 as to whether in Osaka dialect they say emma ya. In line 510, participant A reiterates that she hears emma ya as honma ya. This is followed by an indication that participants finally arrive at a shared understanding of the meaning in lines 511 and 512. This occurs when participant A in the role of novice, suggests emma means okaa (mother) in Japanese. According to a native informant of Japanese, this form is an old form of okaasan, typically used by peasants and children. Thus, a comparison of emma and okaa is confirmed by Ji Eun in the role of expert. Participant A constructs the expert role for Ji Eun by asking for confirmation about the meaning of emma ya in line 510. Participant A is also constructed as an expert for two dialects with the use of honma ya in the conversation. Through this exchange, the two participants take the opportunity to teach and learn about their respective languages while indicating their expert–novice roles. The purpose of the talk is constructed as one participant wanting to know more about the Korean language and the other wanting to teach about it. 4.2. Pragmatic comparisons: ‘ I am now doing (the) English way?’ In segment 2, Min Joo Kang and her host parents also engage in talk about language where the participants do the expert–novice roles. The three participants are having breakfast during the segment. Before retiring, the host mother was an English teacher in Japan. Min Joo’s host father during his retirement became involved with their local Christian church and travelled to Korea with the church. The participants all have some elementary knowledge of Korean, English and Japanese. This segment shows the participants engaging in a discussion about how to respond to a question formed in the negative for all three languages.

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Segment 2. Min Joo Kang MD 2 Track 3 (MK= Min Joo Kang, HM= host mother, HF= host father, X= one of the host parents) 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410

(2.2) otoosan tabemasen? (0.4) HF: anio. ((Korean)) MK: un. HF: ani[o. ((Korean)) HM : [sonna mon iran (to tte) (1.2) (otoosan sonna mon iran). (4.1) HM: hun. (4.0) MK: anio? ((Korean)) (0.4) HF: anio? ((Korean)) HM: otoosan. MK: tabemasen tta toki ni anio ((Korean)) tte iu, taberu tte koto nan da yo. HF: a soo? MK: un. (0.5) HM: no: ((English)) (de) nai anio, ((Korean)) tte no wa? (0.8) yesu na no? MK: da kara, tabemasu: tta ra, (0.3) .h an:io ((Korean)) tte iu n da kara, tabemasen to itta kara. (1.5) HM: aa eego to issho da ne soo sutto. Sono henji no shikata. (1.1) nihongo de honto ni [yes ((English)) MK: [tabemasen ka tta ra, anio ((Korean)) tabemasu yo:. (0.4) MK: e? atashi ima eego yatten no kana, ha ha yoku wakaran. .hh (0.3) HM: eego datta ra chigau n da yo ne, a nihongo to ha-, (0.6) henji ga chigau. (2.3) HM: nihongo wa docchi mo yes ((English)) na (no). (0.4) MK:

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HF: HM:

414

[yes ((English)) nan. [tabetakunai ttara, un. (1.1) tabe-, tabenai koto ni naru, taberu? un ttsu ttara, taberu koto ni naru. (2.0) nihongo ga aimai nan da yo, docchika iu to ne.

Translation 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402

MK: HF: MK: HF: HM:

HM: MK: HF: HM: MK:

HF: MK: HM:

MK:

HM:

MK:

(2.2) father won’t you eat this? (0.4) no. ((Korean)) yes. n[o. ((Korean)) [((he)) said ((he)) does not need that thing (1.2) (father does not need that thing.) (4.1) hun. (4.0) no? ((Korean)) (0.4) no? ((Korean)) father. when (I) say ‘don’t you eat it’ saying no means I will eat it. really? yes. (0.5) it is not no ((English))?, as for saying no ((Korean))? (0.8) it means yes? so, if you say ‘will you eat this?’ (0.3) .h (you) say no so because (I) said ‘don’t you eat this?’ (1.5) aa it is the same as English if that is the case. that way of responding. (1.1) in Japanese it is really [yes ((English)) [if (you) say don’t you eat this, no, (I) eat it:.

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403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414

MK:

HM:

HM: HF: HM:

(0.4) e? I am now doing (the) English way, ha ha (I) don’t really know. .hh (0.3) if it is English it is different, a Japanese and ha- (0.6) the response is different. (2.3) as for Japanese both are yes ((English)). (0.4) [yes ((English)) it is. [if (you) say ‘don’t (you) want to eat (it)’ ‘yes’. (1.1) ea- it is not eating, if (you) say ‘eat?’ yes, then is to eat. (2.0) Japanese is vague. if you say either.

Before this segment begins, the participants talk about making coffee for after breakfast. The participants use both English ‘yes’ and the Korean ‘ney’ to answer a question in Japanese about whether they will drink coffee. They play with these two languages as part of the talk. This segment begins on line 376 with Min Joo posing a question to her host father as to whether he will eat something. The host father continues the language play in lines 378–380 with his response of ‘anio’ in Korean. In line 385, Min Joo moves the segment towards teachinglearning when she says ‘anio’ again to confirm the host father’s answer. He responds by repeating ‘anio’ to confirm that this was his answer. From line 389, there is a shift from asking and answering questions to Min Joo explaining how to use the form anio. At first, Min Joo displays her knowledge of the use of this form in line 389, enacting her roles as a expert of Korean and Japanese. However, in line 394, the host mother both confirms and challenges Min Joo’s understanding of the use of this form. Her challenge includes a comparison to the use of no in English, constructing the host mother’s expert status for Japanese and English. In response, Min Joo provides another explanation of the use of anio for questions asked in the affirmative. After a 1.5 second pause, her host mother provides another challenge that Korean and English are the same for their response patterns. In lines 401–402, Min Joo tries one last time to explain the use of anio and finally indicates her confusion about pragmatic inferences for questions like the one she asked her host father in line 376. At this point, she is questioning her own expertise in Korean and does not make further suggestions. It opens the floor for the

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host mother’s response that Japanese and English are different (in lines 406–407) and that for Japanese ‘no’ can mean either yes or no. The host mother closes the discussion stating that Japanese is vague. To summarize, Min Joo begins by taking on the role of expert. In response to a challenge by the host mother, she tries to expand her explanation of how Korean works. In the end, the host mother engages in the roles of expert for Japanese and English. The participants never resolve the question of how Korean is used, because the previously constructed expert, Min Joo, gets confused. The host mother and Min Joo both demonstrate their expertise, indicating ‘let’s talk about the languages in our competence’. This engagement allows for a brief teaching-learning moment showing their understanding of how language works. In both of the segments discussed in this section, these conversations moved to interactional spaces where the participants made comparisons between Korean and Japanese language forms in roles as expertsnovices. Participants explored language and cultural similarities and differences for pronunciation and pragmatic use. In Segment 1, the participants came to an understanding about the Korean language form under discussion. In Segment 2, the participants were unable to resolve all of the issues discussed. These conversational actions worked toward bridging cultural and linguistic understanding.

5. Talk to move away from talk about language In the previous section, the participants made comparisons of two or three languages in the roles of expert and novice to discover more about Korean. In Segment 3, the participants start out to engage in an exchange of information about Korea and Korean language practices, but one participant shifts the direction of the talk away from teaching and learning. Participant A, a male friend, is driving and Mi Ran Na is the passenger. The two participants start to talk about snow, after seeing the freshly fallen snow on the ground outside the car window.

Segment 3. Mi Ran Na MD 11 Track 2 (MN=Mi Ran Na, A=male friend) 55 56 57 58

MN: A: MN:

sooka: (0.9) sonna ni tookunaka- [tta [(soo- ) yuki ga oo sugoi: (1.0)

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59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

A: MN: A: MN: A: MN: A: MN: A: MN: A: MN: MN: A: MN: A: A: MN: A: MN: A: MN: A: A:

yukidaruma tsukureru na: hehehe hehe (1.0) ((sound of the engine)) yukidaruma da kke? un. un. yukigassen mo dekiru. (0.7) ((sound of plastic bag rustling)) yukigassen (ko) soo soo (0.8) hehehe (0.4) nande yuk- yuki genka to iwanai no? (1.6) ((sound of engine)) (yukigenka?) ((sound of engine)) un. (4.0) ((sound of plastic bag rustling)) nande yukigassen desu ka. (0.5) yukigenka janakute, yukigenka ( ) (0.3) datte kankoku:go: de suru [to yuki genka da mon. [u:n↑ (0.4) a soo na no? hai. (2.2) ((sound of plastic bag rustling)) kassen de, (1.1) chigatte yukigenka dat(h)te(h). un. docchi demo ii janai? hehe [he .hhh sonna docchi mo ii tte sonna koto. [hehe un. anmari kodawari wa nai yo.

Translation: 55 56 57 58 59

MN: A: MN: A:

I see: (0.9) it wasn’t that fa[r [(yeah-) snow oo wow: (1.0) ((you/we)) could make snowmen:.

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MN: A: MN: A: MN: A: MN: A: MN: A: MN: MN: A: MN: A: A: MN: A: MN: A: MN: A: A:

heheh hehe (1.0) ((sound of the engine)) it is snowmen? uh-huh. uh-huh. ((we)) could have a snow battle ((snowball fight)) (0.7) ((sound of plastic bag rustling)) snow battle (ko) yes yes (0.8) hehehe (0.4) why don’t you say sno- snow fight? (1.6) ((sound of engine)) (snow fight?)((sound of engine)) un. (4.0) ((sound of plastic bag rustling)) why is it snow battle. (0.5) ((and)) not snow fight, snow fight ( ) (0.3) well if say ((it)) in Korean [it is snow fight. [uh-hu:h↑ (0.4) a is that so? yes. (2.2) ((sound of plastic bag rustling)) battle, (1.1) not ((that)) ((it is)) snow fi(h)gh(h)t. yes. either is ok right? hehe[he .hhh what ((you)) say both are okay what’s that. [hehe yes. ((I)) won’t dwell on ((it)).

(The passage continues with the participants discussing what participant A will dwell on.) To preface this analysis, it is crucial to understand the difference Mi Ran brings to the floor. Both Japan and Korea borrowed Chinese characters (Kanji for Japanese and Hanja for Korean) and a Chinese-like pronunciation for some words. These pronunciations were adjusted to the pronunciation systems of Japanese and Korean. While the South

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Koreans have for the most part stopped using the Chinese characters except for print media and names, the pronunciations remain a part of the language. In Japanese, the word for snowball fight is yukigassen ( ) (snow battle). Mi Ran proposes in the talk the non-existent word of yukigenka, (‘snow fight’). This is the Japanese pronunciation of what would be the Korean way of constructing the word with Chinese characters. Figure 1 shows a representation of these words. The talk about language here stems from what was going on outside the window of the car (fallen snow). Participant A suggests they could make snowmen (yukidaruma) in line 59. In response, Mi Ran seeks confirmation of what she had heard in line 63. Then, participant A proposes (line 68) another possible snow activity, yukigassen (‘a snowball fight’). At first, participant A interprets Mi Ran’s actions as seeking confirmation for yukigassen with his response of soo soo (‘yes yes’) in line 69. However, in lines 71–79, Min Ran asks a question seeking out why the word is what it is. She tries to create an opening for an expert–novice exchange about language in line 79 with her reference to the Korean word for snow fight. Her actions construct her expertise for Korean. This also suggests she wants to engage in talk as a novice for Japanese. While participant A at first shows interest with his response of a soo na no? (‘is that so?’) in line 82, participant A makes clear his indifference in line 88 with docchi demo ii janai? (‘either is okay right?’). At first, Mi Ran rejects his indifference by questioning him in line 89. He responds however in line 91 with anmari kodawari wa nai yo. (‘I won’t dwell on it.’). From this point, they avoid returning to the word debate and continue with this topic shift of debating what things he will dwell on.

Snowball fight 㔐วᚢ yukigassen snow battle (Japanese word)

㔐༗ན *yukigenka snow fight (Non-existent word in Japanese)

눈싸 움 nwun ssa wum snow fight (Korean word) Figure 1 Snowball fight

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Thus, the two participants engage for a brief moment in metalinguistic talk when Mi Ran brings up the differences between the conceptualization for the kanji compound for snowball fight in Japanese and Korean. Her conversational actions attempt to engage participant A in a discussion about how to say ‘snowball fight’ in Japanese and Korean. However, while Mi Ran is searching for an answer, participant A shifts the topic to talking about dwelling on something. This segment is different from preceding segments in that the participants in Segment 3 do not indicate an arrival at a greater understanding of Korea or the Korean language. While Mi Ran indicates her desire to learn more about the lexical differences between Korean and Japanese, her interlocutor thwarted the potential teaching-learning process by redirecting the talk.

6. Discussion All three segments discussed in this chapter illustrate opportunities for the activity of teaching and learning to occur in conversations beyond the classroom. The participants oriented to the roles of expert and novice as a means for engaging in those practices. Each segment develops spontaneously from something outside of the teaching episode. Segment 1 stems from the music being played in the background. In Segment 2, the teaching and learning develops from talk to play with the languages in the participants’ competence while preparing coffee after breakfast. Segment 3 occurs after one participant comments on the snow outside the window. This development is unlike classroom talk, where participants are typically guided toward teaching and learning as a priority of the conversation. From these settings, how did these segments develop into practices mimicking teaching? In Segment 1, the participants compared pronunciations between languages and sought definitional information. In Segment 2, the participants entered into a discussion about pragmatic differences among English, Japanese and Korean. Although never resolved, they tackled how ‘no’ is used differently in those three languages. As the analysis indicated, the roles of expert and novice were prominent in these two interactions and the participants could change from novice to expert within the same segment of talk. While their roles mimic those of a teacher or learner, the conversational roles are more fluid than would be the case in a teacher-fronted classroom. One person may be the expert at one point and then be the novice later on. As shown in Ohta (1995), this is similar to pair work in classroom interactions for Japanese, where both the weaker and stronger participants benefit in the interaction.

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In contrast, Segment 3 shows how one participant’s desire to learn more about the differences between Korean and Japanese is thwarted when the other participant is not willing to pursue this kind of talk. Instead of developing into a space for teaching and learning, the topic of the talk is shifted and the possible moment for teaching or engaging as experts and novices is lost. The use of the CA methodology for this study was a productive way to discover more about how participants teach about their culture and language in their own words. The participants’ emic view was revealed in two ways. First, the analysis also showed that the participants’ conversational activities involved an exchange of intercultural information. The Japanese friend and host family showed interest in the Korean language, while Mi Ran’s male friend in Segment 3 did not. In all three interactions, the participants were teaching-learning about a language form to arrive at mutual understanding about language and most participants displayed the desire to learn more about the other person’s language. Second, these data illustrate the importance of not having preconceived notions of what the analyst will find, which is a main tenet of CA. For these participants, teaching and learning becomes the most relevant part of the talk in that particular moment. The analysis here shows how the participants can move between the expert and novice roles within a teaching-learning segment. The participants focus the talk to be more on content and cultural knowledge rather than just vocabulary and grammatical structure acquisition, as is typically found in the language classroom.

7. Conclusions and suggestions for future research This study has provided some insight into how participants accomplish ‘doing learning’ and ‘doing teaching’ as part of their conversational activities beyond the walls of the classroom. The participants revealed their emic orientations to learning through expert–novice roles in those particular moments. Teaching and learning in natural conversation is more than just error correction or repair. The findings indicate that the teaching and learning of a language form developed from a topic surrounding a stretch of conversation in which the participants’ expert and novice roles appeared. Further research could examine how that particular topic developed and why this particular topic was triggered. The current study only looked at what happened in the teaching-learning episode. Another avenue for future research would be to collect more data with speakers

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of other languages and make comparisons about the process of teaching and learning in talk. In addition, examining speakers with different proficiency levels of Japanese may provide clues as to when learners move away from the routines of the language classroom, as Wilkinson (2002) found. Using the CA methodology, these comparisons may uncover sequential conversational similarities and differences for accomplishing teaching-learning in other languages and among less proficient speakers. This may show that the conversations can be less about rote practice and more of a discussion, as found in Segment 2, or can be triggered from something in the participants’ environment rather than from an exercise or a teacher-fronted activity. The CA methodology is a productive way for uncovering the interactional skills the participants had in their competence for engaging in teachinglearning in a conversation. In conclusion, the participants’ conversational activities displayed how an exchange of intercultural information about language through expert–novice roles can occur in social interaction. The participants engaged in metalinguistic talk to discover something about Korean, or the Korean participant’s linguistic habits, to broaden their understandings of language, culture, and each other. This study’s findings show that learning beyond the classroom can be another avenue for the development of language skills and knowledge about language. In this case, the second language learners also took on the role of expert when talking about their native language. These data demonstrate that language learning outside of the classroom is an important part of conversations among intercultural members.

Acknowledgement This project was first reviewed by the IRB at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa for use of human subjects. (IRB #12278). It has also been reviewed by HRPP office at the United States Naval Academy (IRB# USNA.2009.0002-CR01-EM4-A). All names have been changed.

Transcription conventions . , ? :

Falling intonation, declarative intonation Falling-rising, continuing intonation Rising intonation, question intonation False start Elongated vowel

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= [ (0.5) (difficulty) (*) (( )) e::tto° ha, he (h) h .h

Latched turn with no gap or overlap, or continuation by same speaker from non-adjacent line Overlap Length of pause Unsure hearings Unclear speech Comments Quieter than rest of speech Laughter token Laughter token within a word Audible outbreath, more letters indicate longer outbreath Audible inbreath, more letters indicate longer inbreath

8 A Possible Path to Progress: Out-of-school English Language Learners in Sweden Pia Sundqvist

1. Introduction In many countries around the globe, English is the first foreign language children learn in school. In Sweden, the teaching of English generally starts in third grade, that is, when the pupils are around 9 years old. By then, they usually already know some English as many of them have encountered the language in their spare time, for example through music, television, the internet, or other forms of media. In fact, there is a widespread belief that young people, teenagers in particular, learn much or even most of their English outside of school rather than in the language classroom. It is reasonable to assume that similar beliefs about teenagers’ out-of-school learning of English exist also in other countries where English dominates the media landscape. Due to the lack of research in the field, however, there is a need for evidence-based studies that examine the correctness of such assumptions (Higgins 2009; Sylvén 2004: 234). This chapter presents findings from my PhD study (Sundqvist 2009), which mainly used quantitative methods, and aims to contribute to our understanding of language learning beyond the classroom. As will be argued below, young people’s skills in English are clearly affected by the activities they engage in – in English – outside the classroom, in their spare time. I will refer to such activities as extramural English and, furthermore, provide evidence of extramural English as, indeed, an important variable in language learning. In addition, the present chapter contributes to research on language learning beyond the classroom by showing that it is important to investigate not only how young people learn outside of class, but also in what way extramural English contributes to their proficiency. Finally, the chapter also pinpoints the 106

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importance of considering factors such as socioeconomic background and gender in the current field of research.

2. Theoretical background 2.1

Extramural English

I use the term ‘extramural English’ to refer to any type of contact that young people (learners) have with English outside the walls of the classroom. The first part of the term, extramural, is an adjectival compound of Latin origin where the prefix, extra, means ‘outside’ and the stem, mural, means ‘wall’. Extramural English is broadly defined and may, therefore, function as an umbrella term for other concepts used in this field of research, such as ‘out-of-class’ or ‘out-of-school’ English (Lamb 2004; Yi 2005), ‘unintentional’ learning of English (Forsman 2004), and ‘naturalistic’ or ‘self-directed naturalistic’ learning of English (Benson 2011). It should be pointed out that when I speak of extramural English, no degree of deliberate intention to acquire English is necessary on the part of the learner, even though deliberate intention is by no means excluded from the concept. This is in contrast to, for instance, selfdirected naturalistic learning, where learners invariably have an intention to learn the target language, and they do so by creating naturalistic learning situations for themselves (Benson 2001: 77). In extramural English, learners’ contact with English may be due to their deliberate (thus conscious) intent to create situations for learning English, but it may equally well be due to other reasons. Theoretically, it builds on the principle of learner autonomy, originally defined by Holec (1981: 3) as ‘the ability to take charge of one’s own learning’. Learners do take charge of their own learning when they choose to engage in linguistic activities outside of school. Finally, I would like to add that learners generally engage voluntarily in extramural English activities, but they may also feel pressured to do so, for example by their peers or parents. 2.2

Second language acquisition

For some time, researchers in Applied Linguistics have recognized that access to and participation in second language communities is an essential aspect of language learning. However, as Higgins (2009: 401–2) argues, little research has focused on the links between instructed contexts of second language (L2) learning and L2 use in other contexts. Furthermore, she states that the relationship between instructed language learning and use of the target language outside of school is ‘radically under-theorized’ (Higgins 2009: 402). Lack of empirical studies

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may be one reason why this is the case. There are very few empirical studies which combine data on out-of-school linguistic activities with data on the level of the target language produced in school. The present study attempts to partially fill that void in L2 acquisition research. There is an abundance of theories available today on how learners acquire a language other than their mother tongue. Even though it appears to be difficult for the research community to reach consensus on any one theory of L2 acquisition, few scholars would deny the importance of interaction. In my study, the so-called ‘interaction hypothesis’ serves as the theoretical framework: the interaction approach considers exposure to language (input), production of language (output), and feedback on production (through interaction) as constructs that are important for understanding how second language learning takes place. (Gass and Mackey 2006: 3–4) The interaction hypothesis is related to extramural English in several ways. For instance, learners are exposed to English input (aural and/ or written) when they listen to music, watch subtitled films/TV programmes, play video games, use sites on the internet, and read books or magazines. In several extramural activities, learners also need to produce output (oral and/or written) in English, for example when they play online video games or use the internet, when they comment on blogs, or when they sing along when listening to music, sometimes with the lyrics at hand. With regard to online video game playing it should be pointed out that there is constant feedback on both oral and written production thanks to players’ interaction with one another (Piirainen-Marsh and Tainio 2009).

3. Research questions and design of study The study is based on data from Swedish learners of English (N=80). The informants, 36 boys and 44 girls, were all in ninth grade (aged 15–16). They were in four classes at three schools, all situated in different Swedish towns. Data were collected during one school year (2006–7). The internal attrition rate was low (only 8 per cent) for a longitudinal study, where the number of informants who drop out can often become a problem and affect validity. The main research question was as follows: Does extramural English have an impact on students’ oral proficiency and vocabulary? In order to

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answer the question, it was first necessary to identify what extramural English activities the informants engaged in, and the extent to which they engaged in such activities. Provided that a correlation between extramural English and oral proficiency/vocabulary was found, other research questions would follow: for instance, whether the amount of time spent on extramural English was important, or if it is rather the type of extramural activity that matters, or perhaps a combination of both. Finally, the study aimed to determine whether extramural English was linked to learners’ backgrounds (e.g. the educational level of the parents, experience of travelling abroad) and learners’ motivation. The students’ participation in extramural English was measured with the help of a questionnaire and two week-long language diaries, developed in collaboration with Liss Kerstin Sylvén, at the University of Gothenburg. The language diary included seven predetermined extramural English activities (reading books, reading newspapers/magazines, watching TV, watching films, surfing the internet, playing video games, listening to music) and a final open category, where the informants were invited to add other language activities. For each type of activity, the informants were encouraged to note how much time they had spent on it and also to provide additional information (book titles, names of video games, and so forth). They filled out the diaries at home. I also conducted a small number of student interviews (eight in total; two students per class) in order to supplement my findings about extramural English. I would like to stress that the results on extramural English presented in this chapter are mainly based on language diary data. For each informant, the total amount of time spent on extramural English per week as well as the time spent on each activity (also per week) was calculated and used in subsequent analyses. The possibility of concurrent extramural activities should be pointed out, such as listening to music while surfing the internet. By use of method triangulation – including a questionnaire and interviews in addition to the language diary – it was possible for me to verify the results based on diary data. The study also aimed to investigate learners’ development and level of oral proficiency, and the size of their vocabulary. With regard to oral proficiency, a total of 46 hours of speech data were collected with the help of five speaking tests spaced throughout the school year. All tests included interactive tasks and were so-called proficiency tests, that is, they aimed to test global competence in English (Brown 2004: 44). The students were assigned to random dyads on each test occasion. The five tests were recorded (video and back-up audio) and examined by four

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experienced raters. Each student was assessed by three of the four raters on each of the five tests. A total of 1140 forms of assessment (based on Hasselgren 1996) were collected. Based on assessment data, it was possible to arrive at a value for the level of oral proficiency for each student (henceforth the OP grade, 1–6).1 In my investigation of learners’ development of oral proficiency, data collected from Tests 1, 3, and 5 were used. These three tests had the same format and were thus comparable. The informants’ vocabulary skills were measured with the help of shortened versions of widely used vocabulary tests, namely the Productive Levels Test (Laufer and Nation 1999) and the Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation 2001). In these tests, scores reflect the size of vocabulary. Based on the students’ scores on the tests, it was possible to calculate a reliable Vocabulary Index Variable (Cronbach’s alpha = .832) for each student. Finally, questionnaire data were used to examine learners’ backgrounds and motivation. Four socioeconomic background variables were included in the analyses: (1) the informants’ experience of travel abroad, (2) their parents’ educational background, (3) the number of books in the informants’ homes, and (4) whether the students were from rural or urban areas. The number of books in the informants’ homes was an attempt to capture and measure their cultural capital, as was done in Öquist and Wikström (2006). Cultural capital, a term coined by the French sociologist Bourdieu (1973: 71–112), is a sociological concept that refers to the education, knowledge, skills, and advantages of a person and which partly determines that person’s status in society. With regard to motivation, two factors were included in the analyses, namely self-efficacy, defined as people’s judgment of their own ability to carry out specific tasks (Dörnyei 2001: 22–3), and anxiety related to speaking English.

4. Results 4.1

Extramural English

Language diary data revealed that a majority of the students regularly spent time on extramural English, with a sample mean of 18.4 hours per week in total. However, the students varied a great deal in how much time they spent on extramural English and their values ranged from 0 to almost 60 hours per week. As expected, listening to music was the most popular extramural activity, averaging more than six hours per week. It was followed by playing video games, watching TV, watching films, surfing the internet, other activities, reading books, and finally, reading

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newspapers/magazines (see Table 1). Overall, the boys reported spending close to 21 hours per week on extramural English activities on average, which can be compared with 16.4 hours for the girls (non-significant difference; for exact p-values of findings presented in this chapter, see Sundqvist 2009). However, significant gender-related differences were found for two of the activities, namely for playing video games and surfing the internet, where the results revealed that the boys spent more time on both. In fact, for the boys, video games and the internet accounted for as much as 43 per cent of their total amount of time spent on extramural English, whereas those activities made up only 6 per cent of the girls’ total time. One of the research questions concerned whether some activities are more important than others for learners’ level of oral proficiency and size of vocabulary. To find an answer to that question, it was possible to use backward linear regression analysis, a function provided by the statistical software (SPSS). When using that type of regression analysis, one examines the relative importance of various variables (here the extramural English activities) in relation to a dependent variable (such as the OP grade or the Vocabulary Index Variable). In the present study, backward linear regression analyses revealed that playing video games, surfing the internet, reading books, and reading newspapers/magazines were relatively more important than listening to music, watching TV and watching films. 4.2

Oral proficiency and vocabulary

The mean OP grade for the whole sample was 3.4. The girls had a higher mean (3.5) than the boys (3.2), but the difference was non-significant.

Table 1 Amount of time spent on the extramural English activities, in order of popularity Activity Listening to music Playing video games Watching TV Watching films Surfing the internet Other activities Reading books Reading newspapers/magazines

Hours/week (sample mean) 6.58 3.95 3.71 2.85 .70 .33 .20 .02

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With regard to learners’ development of oral proficiency, paired samples t tests revealed that there was a significant improvement over time from Test 1 (3.0) to Test 5 (3.9). The mean score on the Productive Levels Test was 16.1 points (out of 45) and on the Vocabulary Levels Test 60.1 (out of 90). The boys scored higher than the girls on both vocabulary tests, although only significantly higher on the test of receptive vocabulary (that is, the Vocabulary Levels Test). 4.3 Correlations between extramural English and oral proficiency/vocabulary Spearman’s rank order correlation (rs) was used to analyse the relationship between extramural English and oral proficiency/vocabulary. Analyses showed that the total amount of time spent on extramural English correlated positively and significantly with both their level of oral proficiency (that is, the OP grade; rs = .307) and the size of their vocabulary (that is, the Vocabulary Index Variable; rs = .357). For the boys, the correlation between extramural English and the OP grade was strongly positive and statistically significant (rs = .515). The correlation between extramural English and vocabulary was even stronger (rs = .590). This means that as much as 27 per cent of the variation in the boys’ OP grades and 35 per cent of the variation in their vocabulary scores could be accounted for by extramural English rather than by chance or by some other variable. That is, the boys’ proficiency in English (as measured by the OP grade and the Vocabulary Index Variable) had a clear connection with their engagement in extramural English activities. In stark contrast, the correlations between extramural English and oral proficiency/vocabulary were negligible and non-significant for the girls (rs = .118 for oral proficiency; rs = .011 for vocabulary). In other words, basically nothing of the variation in the girls’ OP grades or vocabulary scores was accounted for by extramural English. Thus, the results of the present study clearly reveal a genderrelated difference. 4.4

Learners’ backgrounds and motivation

The amount and type of extramural English had no relationship with learners’ socioeconomic backgrounds. Oral proficiency, however, clearly had. There was, for instance, a relationship between learners’ OP grades and their experience of travelling abroad, especially if they had travelled outside Europe. The sample was divided into four groups, based on student responses in the questionnaire about experiences of travelling abroad. I found that the farther they had travelled,

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the higher their OP grade. No similar pattern regarding travel and extramural English could be identified. Similarly, the informants who had university-educated parents received higher OP grades than those who did not have university-educated parents but, in contrast, no such connection was found between extramural English and the educational level of the parents. Learners’ level of oral proficiency and the cultural capital of their homes, as measured by the number of books, also correlated. Those who came from homes with a strong cultural capital were awarded higher OP grades (3.6) than those who came from homes with a smaller cultural capital (3.2; sig. difference), which is in line with findings from previous studies (see Öquist and Wikström 2006). In fact, the more books the learners reported having at home, the higher their OP grades were. In contrast, there was no relationship between the students’ cultural capital and their amount of extramural English. This pattern – socioeconomic background variables correlating with oral proficiency but not with extramural English – was partly repeated when the fourth variable was investigated, namely ‘rural versus urban residency’. As it turned out, those who lived in rural areas received lower OP grades (3.1) than those who lived in urban areas (3.7; sig.). Breaking the pattern, this time extramural English also had a connection with the investigated background variable; the students from urban settings reported a greater amount of extramural English per week in comparison with the rural residents (22.4 hours vs. 15.9; sig.). With regard to learners’ motivation, two factors were analysed in the study, self-efficacy and anxiety related to speaking. Both correlated with extramural English and oral proficiency. For self-efficacy, the results revealed a positive and significant correlation with extramural English. Again, there was a gender difference; self-efficacy and extramural English correlated much more positively and strongly for boys than it did for girls. There was no major gender difference, on the other hand, with respect to the correlations between self-efficacy and oral proficiency. Both for the boys and the girls there were statistically significant positive correlations between the two variables. The second motivational factor investigated was anxiety related to speaking, which had a non-significant negligible correlation with extramural English. However, there was a significant negative correlation with the activity playing video games, which means that those who reported playing video games in English also reported feeling less anxious if they played more games. Finally, the students who received the lowest OP grades reported the highest values for anxiety.

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5. Discussion The study yielded several important results relating to language learning beyond the language classroom. The key findings of my study are, first of all, the identified positive and significant correlations between learners’ extramural English and their level of oral proficiency as well as size of vocabulary. Previous results from learner self-assessment and retrospection studies suggest a positive influence of out-of-school language activities on learner English (see, for example, Forsman 2004; Lamb 2004). It is possible that my study empirically corroborates that suggestion, but it has to be emphasized that it is very difficult to really know what the direction of causality is between any two variables. Nevertheless, my interpretation is that extramural English has an effect on learners’ oral proficiency and vocabulary. I would like to point out, however, that stronger students are generally more able to engage in extramural English activities. The relationship between learners’ extramural English and their proficiency could, therefore, be bidirectional or mutually reinforcing. It is also worth mentioning that some students did not spend much time at all on English in their spare time, something which at least partly contradicts the widespread belief that all teenagers learn a great deal of English outside of school. Moreover, the possibility of engaging concurrently in various extramural English activities clearly was one reason why some students had very high values for extramural English. Another key finding relates to the type of extramural activities that learners engage in: some activities are more important than others for learners’ oral proficiency and vocabulary. Playing video games, surfing the internet, reading books and reading newspapers/magazines were relatively more important than listening to music, watching TV and watching films. The former group of activities requires learners to be active/ productive and to rely heavily on their language skills, whereas, in comparison, the latter group of activities generally allows for learners to remain fairly passive/receptive. The type of activity favoured revealed a gender pattern, which is yet another key finding. The boys spent significantly more time on productive activities than the girls. Consequently, the results for boys and girls were radically different in the correlation analyses between extramural English and oral proficiency on the one hand, and extramural English and vocabulary on the other. The correlations were strongly positive and significant for the boys but negligible and non-significant for the girls (a pattern that also appeared for self-efficacy and extramural

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English). This means that whether the girls engaged in a large or a small amount of extramural English did not seem to matter. The lack of statistical significance in the correlation analyses for the girls makes their results slightly more difficult to interpret than the results for boys. Nevertheless, the conclusion is that the boys and the girls engaged in different types of extramural English activities, which explains why the correlations were so strong for the boys, but negligible for the girls. The boys spent significantly more time on those extramural English activities which were most important for oral proficiency and vocabulary, at least as measured in this study. As it turned out, the boys benefited from doing so. Data from the questionnaire and the interviews supported these gender-related findings. Another comment on gender relates to vocabulary. Since statistics from the Swedish National Agency for Education show that girls do better than boys in learning languages (see www.skolverket.se), it was unexpected that the boys in my study indeed scored higher on both vocabulary tests. The explanation as to why the boys did particularly well on vocabulary is found beyond the language classroom in the boys’ extramural English activities, more specifically in their habits related to playing video games and using the internet in English. (As the regression analysis showed, those were two important activities.) Finally, it should be emphasized that there are, of course, other variables than extramural English that affect students’ results in school, such as motivation and aptitude. The importance of this study, however, is that it shows that extramural English, which represents learning beyond the language classroom, plays an important role in second language acquisition that should not be overlooked. This evidence-based argument for the value of language learning outside school was corroborated by qualitative data from learner interviews. One of the interviewees, a boy who did exceptionally well on the vocabulary tests and who was also awarded high grades for oral proficiency, was able to give a detailed description of how his English skills had developed over the years. For instance, he had gone from playing simple video games and watching English-speaking TV shows with Swedish subtitles to interacting almost daily both in speech and writing with native speakers while playing video games. Several of his online friends were British. In addition, he enjoyed watching English-language films and now, at the age of 15, even preferred using English to Swedish subtitles. Furthermore, it was not unusual for him to think in English, and occasionally he had in fact started speaking English to Swedish friends before realizing his mistake and switching back to Swedish, his

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first language. This student’s level of proficiency was high considering his age, and based on what he said, it was obvious that he had been extensively involved in extramural English over the years. Excerpt 1 (from Test 5) is provided to illustrate his use of what must be considered advanced vocabulary in speech (note tinnitus, supply and earplugs). In the excerpt, he (Boy) is discussing the sound level at concerts together with a classmate (Girl). Excerpt 1. Sample speech from a student (Boy) who reported a great amount of extramural English and who excelled in English both with regard to his level of oral proficiency and his size of vocabulary. Boy Girl Boy Girl Boy

yeah (3.3) uh (.) the sound level at concerts and discos are dangerous (.) uh (.) if you’re close to the yeah speakers then (.) I suppose you can get some (1.7) tinnitus and such (.) but they (.) do supply you with earplugs so yeah it’s your own risk if you don’t use them

Comment: Pause length in brackets (seconds). Pause length < 1 second = (.). With regard to the investigation of learner backgrounds, it is possible to claim that whereas oral proficiency was clearly connected with all four socioeconomic variables, this was not the case for extramural English. Instead, extramural English functioned as an independent variable, something which makes it a potential means for any learner in Sweden. As for learner motivation, the explanation why the correlation between self-efficacy and extramural English was strongly positive and not random for the boys (but the opposite for the girls) is most likely also linked to the identified gender-related difference regarding types of extramural English. For example, the boys were heavily involved in playing video games and using the internet and could, thus, see for themselves that they actually managed to carry out specific tasks in English, such as writing and talking to other players. Video game playing in particular involves a great deal of such L2 output, both spoken and written. In addition, video game playing entails negotiation of meaning between players; the benefits for second language acquisition have been shown (Sylvén 2004; Piirainen-Marsh and Tainio 2009). Since the boys played video games more frequently than the girls, it

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seems very likely that it positively affected their self-efficacy and also lessened their anxiety about speaking English (Pappamihiel 2002). Finally, the very positive and strong correlation between the learners’ level of oral proficiency and their self-efficacy was expected and in line with previous findings in the field of motivation and L2 acquisition (Dörnyei 2001).

6. Conclusion It is difficult to establish cause and effect of the various findings of this study. For example, do learners become more proficient as a result of their extramural English, or do they become engaged in more extramural English because of their higher proficiency? In addition, the results reveal rather complex relationships at play in language learning beyond the walls of the classroom. Nevertheless, it was clear that the total amount of time that the Swedish learners spent on extramural English correlated positively and significantly with both (a) their level of oral proficiency and (b) the size of their vocabulary. Moreover, it was shown that the type of extramural English also mattered. Furthermore, it turned out that the activities favoured by the learners revealed a gender pattern. The boys spent significantly more time on productive extramural English activities than the girls and, therefore, extramural English had a greater impact on the boys’ than on the girls’ oral proficiency and vocabulary. With the help of quantitative methods, the present study could identify important relationships between what learners do outside of school and what they achieve in school. In fact, quantitative methods enable researchers to use large samples in their analyses of language learning beyond the language classroom. With large samples, researchers can make reliable comparisons between different learner populations, types of extramural activities, background variables, and so on. Findings from such quantitative studies provide a solid base for further research about language learning beyond the classroom and facilitate formulating new and relevant research questions. Some such questions could relate to type of extramural English activity, age, and gender. For instance, is learners’ use of advanced vocabulary in speech and writing related to their type of extramural English? Is the profile for specific learners regarding their extramural English activities more or less constant, or does it change with age? It would thus be interesting to map out extramural English for young learners and study how it develops over time for them. In particular, it would be interesting to see whether the gender

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pattern that has been discussed in this chapter can be discerned already at an early age. To conclude, extramural English was not connected with any of the socioeconomic background variables investigated in this study. The explanation for this might be that the present study was carried out in Sweden, where there is a certain baseline of social wealth and where English (and computers) are easily accessible, as in many other developed countries. Nevertheless, with this caveat in mind, a final and to my mind very important conclusion is that extramural English is an independent variable, valuable in its own right. It means that extramural English is, in fact, a possible path to progress in English for any learner, regardless of his or her socioeconomic background.

Note 1. The Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was used to measure interrater reliability, which ranged from .451 to .730 ( p < .01). Hasselgren (1997: 243–4) considers a minimum value of r at .4 as ‘reasonable’ for OP grades.

9 Teenagers Learning Languages Out of School: What, Why and How Do They Learn? How Can School Help Them? Sophie Bailly 1. Introduction Due to the shortage of language teachers in France, some schools are no longer able to promote the development of multilingual and multicultural competences that society and individuals value. Meanwhile, the traditional extensive1 group language teaching model favoured in French schools is being challenged by increasing access to means of learning foreign languages beyond the school, due for instance to the development of international exchanges and new communication media. The globalized world provides a variety of resources for satisfying language learning needs when school is not enough. Thanks to the internet, resources for learning are easily accessible to almost anyone, including to school students, who can nowadays learn school subjects, including foreign languages, almost without going to class or being taught. This chapter explores the relationships between in-school and outof-school learning of foreign languages that are not taught at school. It draws on a research project that was designed to explore the conditions under which high school students can succeed in independent language learning (Bailly et al. 2008). First of all, I will present the project on which this research is based. Then I will present findings about the students’ out-of-school language learning under the following headings: the languages the students study outside school and why; the way they learn out of class; and the difficulties they meet.

2. The context of the research The research was carried out over a period of four years in an urban high school in the east of France. This school is a lycée des métiers, meaning 119

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that all the students have chosen to specialize in a field related to the building industry, either in a vocational curriculum leading to a trade or professional qualification (such as plumbing, carpentry or masonry) or in a technical curriculum preparing for a higher education diploma (technical degree). The students are from 15 to 21 years old. Most of them are currently perceived by the education system as lacking the literacy and learning skills required for the study of general academic subjects such as French, English, History or Mathematics, and have thus been directed towards technical or vocational studies. The school promotes international exchanges and relationships (with institutions in Finland, Great Britain and the United States) but the study of foreign languages is not a key objective for the students. At this school, the study of only one foreign language (German or English) is made compulsory, whereas the norm in French secondary education at high school level is to study two foreign languages. This means that students have to give up one of the two languages they were studying during the first four years of secondary education. The English teachers had felt concerned about the contradiction between the international ambitions of the school and the rather restrictive foreign language education policy. A survey at the beginning of the year 2006 had shown that around 10 per cent of the students in the first and second year of high school (20 students) would be interested in studying an optional second foreign language and had asked for languages that were not taught at school. These were either a language that they had studied at school before and had had to give up when arriving at the lycée (Spanish for example), a family language (Wolof, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish or Portuguese), or a language they had started to learn outside of school or family contexts (for example, Japanese). For these students, the only way to study this second language was by learning by themselves at home. During the research we found that some of them were already doing this with more or less success before the programme was launched. So it was that the English teachers decided to promote and support the study of a second foreign language by offering a flexible learning scheme based on free choice and independent learning. Being experimental, the programme is restricted to volunteer students. It provides various facilities that students can choose to use or not: • advisory sessions (Gremmo 1995; Reinders 2008) with a professional advisor to support and prepare independent learning; • learning material on a website (http://www.languesenligne.blogspot. com/) specially designed for the project and accessible from anywhere;

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• individual or group conversations with native speakers of the target language, organized at school. The advisory session is a key feature of this system. Only the first meeting is compulsory and during this the advisor explains the programme and its principles and negotiates short-term objectives and methodology with the student. Then the student, still in negotiation with advisor, will decide whether or not to attend another advisory session. The subsequent sessions are devoted to helping the learners identify their strengths and weaknesses in learning, and to help them to learn more efficiently. The students, whether they elect to continue advisory sessions or not, are supposed to learn outside school, or at school, if they want to (but outside of curricular class time). They study at their own pace and choose their own methods and resources, including advisors and native speakers working for the school. They are neither corrected, nor assessed, nor graded by teachers if they do not want to be. If they decide to leave the programme, their overall school results will not be affected. The system is thus totally designed to enhance the process of becoming a self-directed learner. It is based on the will or the capacity of the students to take control of their learning. It enables students to see themselves in a different learning role, one where they are more active, responsible and autonomous, since they work only for their own benefit. A small group of ten very motivated learners joined the programme in 2007, the first year it was officially launched as an experimental project under the control of the local academic administration. In 2008, 30 students (out of 200) expressed interest in the scheme and 15 actually joined the programme. In 2009 there were 50 interested students (a quarter of the target public) but only 30 could actually join the programme, due to organizational difficulties caused by this unexpected increase in demand (number and availability of advisors, lack of space at the school for advisory sessions and tutoring). So far, the languages chosen by the students have been Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Dutch, French Sign Language, Turkish, Arabic, German, Portuguese, Wolof and Dari. After three years of experimentation, the programme is no longer an innovation at this school. It is well established in the English Department and the teachers would like to extend it to some of their groups of English students. The head of the high school is supportive of the project and she has agreed to build a physical self-access language centre that will enable more students to join the programme under

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better conditions. In December 2009 the programme received an award from the European Union (European Languages Label).

3. The research The original overall aim of our project was less to explore out-of-class learning than to find school-based solutions for supporting students’ independent learning and autonomy development. But as the programme was designed to support the learning of languages that are not taught in class, and as the school has at the moment no in-house selfaccess centre (SAC), it is in essence centred on out-of-class learning. It is quite natural, then, for students to inform advisors and researchers about what and how they learned outside class and on the difficulties and support they found outside school and at school. The study presented here attempts to answer the following questions: (1) What languages do students learn outside school and why? (2) How do they learn out-of-class and with what results? (3) What difficulties do they meet in the process? We used an ethnographic method: questionnaires, observations, and recordings of advisory sessions and of research interviews. Observations were centred on the learning materials that students brought to the advisory sessions, their spoken and written use of the target language observed during the interviews, and the way they used the project website. The learners’ discourse on their learning process outside school gave us access to their strategies (through their verbalization of working practices), and their perceptions of in-class and out-of-class learning (through their verbalization of beliefs and attitudes). Our study dealt with a relatively small number of students and was qualitative rather than quantitative. Thus, I will not be providing figures and tables of statistics but will present examples of various students’ working practices and attitudes that the data revealed. Taking into account the Goffmanian theory of face, our data might be biased in certain ways. Asked what they do to learn, without having been observed while learning, students may well have declared what they thought was expected from them in this situation. They might have wanted to make a good impression on the interviewer. But at the same time there is little reason to think that they deliberately lied to the researchers. They might have tried to idealize their involvement in their learning process, but the overall impression was that they seemed fairly honest, expressing both positive and negative aspects of

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their experience, and critical too, providing arguments to back their position. Even if they do not do all the things they claim to do, they certainly demonstrate the ability to describe, at least, what they would or could do if they were learning a foreign language out of school. 3.1

The languages students study outside school

The diversity in the languages that students have chosen to study can be explained by differences in the students’ personal ‘life trajectory’ (Giddens 2003). The choice of language can relate to family history and context (Bronfenbrenner 1979) as well as to student’s expectations, aspirations, plans and projects for the future. Our study highlights some ingredients of the ‘motivational dynamics’ (Lantolf and Genung 2000) that are strongly linked to the learner’s identity. We identified three main reasons to study these languages. Firstly, some students chose to study a language with the clearly formulated academic goal of gaining additional points for the secondary education final exam that also allows entry to university (Baccalauréat) and to a technical degree. So they chose either a foreign language they had studied before, such as Italian, German or Spanish, or a country of origin language officially recognized by the French education system, such as Arabic or Turkish. Their interest is mainly utilitarian or pragmatic. They have a clear idea of what they need to learn and of what they will gain in the process. Secondly, other students chose a language for reasons that have more to do with identity and family history. Most are descendants of immigrants who want to communicate with grandparents or to keep in touch with a distant relative abroad. This is the case for languages such as Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, as many immigrants from southern Europe came to work in the east of France up until the second part of the twentieth century. Here, motivation is related to the learner’s history and social identity. The third category includes students with motivations of a different type. The case of Japanese is rather interesting. Students’ reasons for studying Japanese can be described as ‘emotional’ and are of two kinds. Most of them are fond of, if not crazy about, the Japanese culture in general (food, architecture) and manga in particular, and envisage themselves travelling to or settling down in Japan in the future. The other Japanese learners are these manga fans’ friends or admirers. They chose to study this language because a person they want to be close to loves Japan. For this type of motivation the language-learning project has something to do with socializing and with feelings.

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Within this category are found students for whom language is an expression of their love for something: love for a culture or language, and love for people close to this language and culture. For example, although this can only be an assumption, as we have no data to confirm it, one of the students at school put so much enthusiasm and imagination into learning Turkish that it occurred to us that the friend she had been chatting with on the internet was maybe more than just a friend. There was also one student who said he wanted to learn Dutch to make friends at rock festivals in the Netherlands. For these students, studying a foreign language is a means of connecting with others or of discovering the world. For others, process seems to be more important than linguistic product. For instance, one student chose Dari, a Persian language spoken in Afghanistan, explaining to his advisor that he wanted to write subtitles and credits for James Bond movies to put online. He did not learn much Dari during the year but established a positive relationship with his advisor. Thus motivations for the language seem to be oriented towards the past (family history), the present (socializing, flirting), or the near or distant future (end of studies diploma, working abroad) of each student. The mastering of a second foreign language represents one element students identify as necessary for reaching certain goals: getting a degree, travelling or working abroad, strengthening family bonds, making friends and building self-confidence. 3.2

How students learn out-of-class

During advisory sessions and research interviews we systematically asked students to describe how they learned. We identified two sets of activities that students select and combine in order to learn. Firstly, students apply a conventional set of learning techniques that have clearly been learned at school, such as the following ‘serious’ activities: • doing grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, comprehension and expression exercises • learning the alphabet • learning by heart • writing down grammar rules • using dictionaries • taking notes in a notebook • assessing language progress by reference to a grade or a mark • using school material from previous FL classes

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• translating unknown words • translating sentences. Secondly, we discovered a set of ‘lighter’ (Darasawang and Reinders 2010), or less conventional, activities strongly connected to students’ lives and environment, such as conversation, gaming, or watching television, identified in other studies (Hyland 2004; Murray 2004; Palfreyman 2006; Benson and Chik 2010). These activities favour receptive skills and are strongly connected with personal interests and hobbies from outside school. They include using popular culture and entertainment material: • • • • • • • • • •

watching Japanese anime or reading manga listening to, almost exclusively, songs by their favourite singer having conversations with a native speaker chatting with a friend in the target language watching an Anglo-American blockbuster movie or serial in another language playing games on the internet watching football results on an Italian TV channel going to the kebab restaurant to listen to conversations in Turkish reading a book written in French about the target country using a traveller’s phrase-book

If we try to correlate students' choice of activities with their motivation, we find that serious activities seem to be more frequently found in seriously motivated learners (the manga fans for instance, or the diploma seekers) whereas the lighter activities seem to cluster around less seriously motivated learners (the socializers, the identity-seekers). But this is still only a hypothesis at this stage of the research. Thus, the students’ learning repertoires are composed of items taken from the two sets of activities above. Of course, not all students do all of them. Some have very little idea of how to set about learning, but most of them can use several techniques. It happens that a student uses one technique or method for several weeks or months. For instance, one student discovered that she could learn by using only songs and applying a few techniques and tools. She listened to songs, translated the lyrics, transcribed them, imitated the singer and learned the songs by heart. She used video-clips, a dictionary, lyrics transcriptions and, when available, translations in French. She kept on using this method as long as she remained satisfied with it. More research has to be done to

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understand what makes students choose a specific activity rather than another and to assess the efficiency of their strategic choices in terms of language acquisition, but we can make some guesses. The ‘serious activities’ are clearly the result of conventional class learning skills that students transfer to out-of-class study of another language. For instance, students use their old school books or teachers’ websites providing pre-structured activities. These serious activities (learning an alphabet, doing drills, learning by heart, translating, answering questions) are very similar to homework activities assigned by a teacher, except that here students have control. They play the teacher’s role by selecting for themselves what to learn and how to practise. Although they are less conventional, the lighter activities may also be considered as an extension of class activities, as more and more language teachers in France base teaching activities on the products of the media and entertainment industries. Such is the case with the English teachers at this school. Thus, students are not unaware that they can use fun materials for serious purposes. But they do not necessarily know how to use them out of the class, without a teacher’s guidance. As a matter of fact, we found that students doing light activities did not all seem to consider them to be ‘work’, and very few seemed to use them as part of a conscious learning strategy. When asked about the way they learn, the majority of the students spontaneously cite only serious activities. To find out about their lighter activities we had to ask questions such as: ‘Do you sometimes watch television or listen to songs in the target language?’ or ‘Do you sometimes talk to some members of your family or friends in the target language?’ It is as if for them lighter activities are simply not ‘learning activities’. They are perceived rather as fun, games and leisure. What seems to count for the students is to connect themselves in some way to the target language and culture and to its native speakers. Light activities are a way of simulating immersion in a distant language. As regards the material and techniques the students use, out-of-class learning is not so unlike class learning or homework. They do more or less the same things. When compared to homework, which is an explicit extension of school into the private domain, the time management in independent learning is similar. Learning takes place at home, or on public transport and sometimes at school, during a boring class for instance. It also favours an extensive learning rhythm (one or two hours a week), thus copying the school model. Both homework and independent learning may involve other persons, found at school amongst friends or teachers, or outside school amongst the family and

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friends and social networks. The only difference between homework and independent learning is that students who choose independent learning are not told what to do or not to do by a teacher. A teacher does not structure and assess their work. And grading does not come from the teacher but from oneself. The impact on language acquisition of out-of-class learning cannot be discussed here, as we have little data on the linguistic progress students made. But learning a language on one’s own is not an easy task, even for motivated and skilled learners. Progress can be impeded by various factors that interfere with the learning process.

3.3 The difficulties students meet Since it was launched, our project has involved more than fifty students and the data collected gives a rather clear overview of the factors that impact negatively on students’ learning. We identified two areas of difficulties: those concerned with improving language skills and difficulties in monitoring the learning process. Firstly, several motivated students faced difficulties in gathering the necessary resources. Learning materials may be scarce (little money at home) or unreliable (internet problems). Some students cannot rely on out-of-school human help (experts, parents or peer support). Some encounter personal or material difficulties at home that interfere with their learning. Or, again, they may not always have a free hand with time and space there. When asked about their difficulties in independent learning they gave all sorts of explanations related to their life conditions and organization: ‘My dog was ill’, ‘I could not find my Spanish book from last year’, ‘I could not connect to internet at home this week-end’, ‘My family needs me’, ‘I could not find someone who would work with me’, ‘I didn’t have the time’, etc. It is possible that these explanations are simply face work that some students used as implicit apologies or excuses to respect the social contract (Goffman 1959). But they do inform us about differences and inequalities amongst students who, out of class, do not all live in a language-learning-friendly environment. Secondly, some students used learning strategies that seemed to be inefficient. They set unrealistic and unreachable objectives, lacked criteria for finding and selecting resources matching their needs or their learning style. They did not know how to assess their skills and measure their progress without external help. Putting learning skills acquired in class into practice outside the classroom is not an easy task

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and progress in the language is usually very slow. The more successful learners were those who were more skilled at learning independently and better informed about how to do it. They had more ideas about learning. Drawing on these findings, the programme will have to be adapted so as to give students better conditions for their independent learning. Students’ organizational difficulties may be partly solved by providing a SAC at the school, where students can find a quiet place for their independent learning. Moreover, the SAC will facilitate access to material and human resources such as other learners, advisors and native speakers. To help the students develop more efficient learning skills, time dedicated to advising could be extended and self-teaching techniques could be taught in class. Finally, the reasons for learning also had an impact on the students’ assiduity in learning and attending advisory sessions. Less-motivated students left the programme more rapidly than others. But it appears that difficulties in joining or staying involved in the programme are also related to causes such as a lack of information about the programme combined with a lack of obligation to join it. For instance, one student had thought that she was joining an individual language course programme. When she discovered that her advisor did not speak the language she wanted to learn, she judged her advisor would be no help to her and withdrew from the programme, disappointed. The students did not all feel at ease with the idea of becoming autonomous learners even though most of them were attracted by the idea of being in charge of their learning. One student, when realizing that self-directed learning meant having to take her own decisions and being responsible for her own success, decided to end her participation in the programme after two months and five advisory sessions. As the programme is not compulsory, leaving it has no negative consequences on the students’ school results, whereas deciding to abandon going to class would inevitably lead to sanctions. Some parents even approved of or influenced their child’s decision to stop this optional activity, to concentrate more on compulsory subjects. To prevent these difficulties, better information on the programme should be made available to students, parents and the whole school. As for the lack of obligation, it is clear that some features such as teacher supervision, external assessment, grades and sanctions may in some cases encourage the involvement in studies or, on the contrary, impede it. Some students clearly chose the programme for its optional features, entailing freedom of choice and lack of sanctions, whereas

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others appeared unable to accept taking all the responsibilities that accompany self-directed learning (as described also by Lamb 2006). That was another difference among the students – they showed various degrees of control over their learning. Differences in the degree of learning autonomy and monitoring have to be taken into account in the design of the programme by providing various external motivation support schemes. For students who have difficulties in monitoring, advisors could help them discover what type of learner they are and how they could make the most of their skills. They could also help students build self-confidence and find value in their learning. The students who need more guidance could be oriented towards pre-structured activities and tutoring. Those whose motivation needs to be stimulated by an institutional recognition of their effort could be given a certificate attesting to their individual learning achievement.

4. Conclusion Two main conclusions can be drawn from this research. First, what students do to learn outside school is correlated with what they do at school and with their personal and social life. There is continuity between school and home even though these two worlds do not seem to communicate easily, in particular in class. However, during advisory sessions students can bring parts of their personal world to school (whereas in class this is more difficult) and advisors can help them to see the continuity and to establish links between school and out-of-school learning. Second, successful out-of-class learning depends on learners fulfilling at least three necessary conditions, or success factors: motivation, learning resources and learning skills. Some students can easily find or develop these ingredients in their environment but others cannot. If one element is lacking then the learning process is likely to be interrupted. Our programme is a means for school to provide good independent learning conditions to all students who need them, through giving support to the affective (motivation), cognitive (learning skills) and material (learning resources, time and space) dimensions of learning. In our future research we would like to establish whether or not there are connections (i) between successful out-of-class, or independent, language learning and overall results at school, and (ii) between the learning strategies that students deploy and the development of their proficiency in language use.

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Acknowledgement I address my warmest thanks to my colleagues at the university, the teachers and the students at the Lycée Emmanuel Héré who participated and agreed to take part in this research. I am indebted to Harvey Moulden who helped me a lot with my academic written English. I am thankful to the editors for their valuable remarks on the first and final version of this chapter and for their patience.

Note 1. Extensive learning, as opposed to intensive learning, refers to the way a given amount of time dedicated to learning is distributed in a long or short period of time. For instance, 25 hours could be done in one week (intensive learning) or in 25 weeks (extensive).

Website Langues en ligne: http://www.languesenligne.blogspot.com/

Appendix – Research Interview Guideline (translated from French to English) Different sets of questions were submitted to students depending on the type of involvement in the programme. Type A (are still involved in the programme at the moment of the interview) Why and for what language did you take part in the programme? Why did you choose this language? What do you like in the programme? What do you like less or do not like in the programme? Do you think you will continue next year? Why? How many times a week or a month do you study? For how long at a time? What do you do when you study? Is what you do in the programme useful for your English class? Type B (joined the programme for a while then stopped it) Why and for what language did you take part in the programme? Why did you choose this language? Why did you leave the programme? Do you feel that you have learned things? What could have helped you to continue? Do you think you will try it again next year? Why? Is what you did in the programme useful for your English class?

Teenagers Learning Languages Out of School 131 Type C (would have liked to join the programme but did not) Why would you have liked to learn a second language? What language and why? Why haven’t you started learning it? What could have helped you to start studying?

10 Older Language Learners, Social Learning Spaces and Community Garold Murray

1. Introduction While much of the literature in the area of language education focuses on young people learning primarily in classroom settings, this chapter explores the topic of designing learning opportunities for older learners outside of the classroom context. Over the next two decades, the number of retired people will increase dramatically in nations around the world. Media reports constantly remind us that people are not only enjoying a longer life span than previous generations but are also staying healthier and more active. For any number of reasons, many will commence or renew foreign language study. Language educators and researchers will need to turn their attention to the matter of learning languages later in life and the challenges older learners face. In this chapter, I address this issue by reporting on a self-access project that provided non-conventional English language learning opportunities for the general public in a city in northern Japan. Self-access language learning centres have normally been established within universities in conjunction with foreign language teaching programmes, with the aim of providing learning opportunities in addition to those available in the classroom, in other words, out-of-class language learning opportunities in an institutional setting. The Centre described in this chapter deviates from this general pattern in that it was designed to meet the English language learning needs of business people and other salaried workers whose hectic schedules and workload, often including many hours of overtime each week, prevented them from attending regularly scheduled language classes. Located in the city’s business district, this Centre aimed to offer learners a convenient, personalized alternative to classroom instruction. As it turned out, the concept appealed to a broad spectrum of the population. 132

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While the ages of the people who participated in the programmes on offer in the Centre ranged from 17 to 77, the discussion here focuses on the older learners in their 50s to early 70s. A salient feature of their experience was participation in the ‘community of practice’ (Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998) which emerged quite unexpectedly at the Centre. This development led me to reconceptualize self-access language learning centres as social learning spaces with the potential to serve as a venue for the development of a community of learners. I use the term ‘social learning spaces’ to refer to places where people of all ages can come together in order to learn with and from each other as they work towards achieving their learning goals. The central argument of this chapter is that older language learners can benefit from the creation of social learning spaces which offer them the possibility of participation in a community of learners and which at the same time provide them with pedagogical support enabling them to exercise self-direction and develop their metacognitive knowledge and skills. In order to illustrate these points, I begin by describing the learning environment which characterized this particular self-access centre. Then, relying on data from two studies – an ethnography examining the participation of the learners at the Centre and a life history project enabling 17 of the older learners to document their language learning stories – I identify aspects of the learning context which were prominent features of the older learners’ experiences. I then turn to the challenges older learners face and explore how participation in a community of practice can help meet their language learning needs. I conclude the discussion by outlining steps educators might take in order to facilitate the growth of a community within a social space dedicated to language learning.

2. Background Although a significant body of second language acquisition research has concentrated on age, most of these studies have explored the differences between child and adult learners in an attempt to identify a critical period for language acquisition. The general consensus of overviews of these studies (e.g. Larsen-Freeman 2001; Marinova-Todd, Marshall and Snow 2000; Singleton and Ryan 2004) is that research results indicating an optimal age for language acquisition are inconclusive and that the influence of age on language learning is largely due to contextual factors. In fact, Singleton and Ryan’s (2004: 227) extensive review of the literature led them to conclude that middle-aged and elderly learners

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‘given suitable learning conditions…can in many respects be as successful in acquiring an L2 as their juniors’. Although there are examples of case studies which have taken the learning context into consideration (Bellingham 2004; Schulz and Elliott 2000; Swain and Miccoli 1994), as Bellingham (2000: 27) points out, researchers have yet ‘to identify optimally conducive circumstances for older learners’. This chapter responds to this gap in the literature by examining the experiences of older learners in a self-access learning context from the dual perspectives of social learning space and community of practice. Social learning spaces have their conceptual roots in the social constructivist view (Vygotsky 1962, 1978; Bruner 1986, 1990) that we construct our learning through interaction with others in social settings. These environments, which are currently being created in universities around the world, aim to promote active, social, and experiential learning (Oblinger 2006). In the area of language education, self-access centres, which have been operational for a much longer period of time, espouse similar objectives (Gardner and Miller 1999) as well as social constructivist views of learning. The point of conceptual divergence between these two pedagogical innovations may lie in the extent to which the emphasis in self-access centres is on fostering learners’ self-direction and metacognitive growth, while in social learning spaces the focus is on the social aspects of learning which could offer greater potential for the emergence of a community of learners (Bickford and Wright 2006). To better understand the social learning dynamic in the setting discussed in this chapter, I also draw on the concept of ‘communities of practice’ (Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998). Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002: 4) explain that ‘communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis’. In contrast to communities of practice, social learning spaces are premised on ‘the idea of a space in which people interact, rather than on membership in a community’ [author’s italics] (Gee 2005: 214). While social learning spaces can provide a venue or a focal point for the formation of a community of practice, the creation of these learning environments does not automatically guarantee the development of a community of learners. Combining the concepts of social learning spaces and communities of practice into a joint perspective through which I might examine my data has enabled me to identify features of this particular environment that enhanced the learning experience for this older group of learners and to identify steps educators might take to encourage the emergence of a community of learners within a social learning space.

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3. The learning context The older learners whose experiences are discussed in this chapter were working to improve their English language skills at a self-access centre located in the heart of a small Japanese city. The Centre was developed as part of a local university’s commitment to community service and funded by a ‘Good Practices’ grant from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT). As the first self-access language learning centre in Japan to be open to the general public, the media attention it garnered at the outset, followed by periodic advertisements in a local newspaper, drew interested people from various walks of life. Prospective learners were invited to attend regularly scheduled introductory seminars and subsequently ‘joined’ the Centre by purchasing a four-month, renewable membership. While the demographic tended to vary at different points in time, on average the Centre had a hundred members of whom approximately 30 per cent were working people in business or the civil service, 30 per cent were housewives, 30 per cent were retired or self-employed, and 10 per cent were students. The most striking characteristic of the programme on offer at the Centre was the lack of formal instruction. There were no language lessons. Rather, in keeping with Holec’s (1981) model of learner autonomy, we guided members through the process of developing their own personal language learning plans. The learners identified their goals (what they wanted or needed to learn), chose materials, decided on activities and strategies, and assessed the outcomes. Instead of receiving classroombased instruction, the members learned through direct contact with language materials, including computer software, DVDs of movies and television programmes, books and magazines accompanied by audio recordings, and so on. As the learners carried out their learning plans, they had the opportunity to request meetings with language advisors who offered them guidance and support. Staff members were also available to help learners with questions they might have pertaining to equipment, materials and aspects of the programme. Other features of the programme included conversation groups, workshops and social events. Each week there were conversation group meetings ranging from a basic level conversation group for beginners to theme-based discussion groups (e.g. a movie club, a book club, and a news discussion group) for intermediate to advanced speakers. The Centre also organized social events to mark cultural occasions, such as Christmas and cherry blossom viewing. From time to time, the Centre offered workshops on learning-to-learn, language-learning strategies,

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vocabulary development and writing. These gatherings provided members with opportunities for social interaction as well as language learning.

4. The studies The discussion in this chapter is based on the results of a thematic analysis of the data from two studies. One was a three-year ethnography exploring the members’ experiences learning English at the Centre. Data from this study included the transcripts of 14 interviews with learners aged 43 to 72, their language learning portfolios containing their long-term learning plans and regular learning log entries, as well as my observations from the perspective of researcher, director of the Centre, language advisor, and facilitator of a discussion group. The second study was a life history project. One winter, over a four-month period I gave a series of life history writing workshops at the Centre. In these workshops the 24 participants wrote and analysed their language learning history. For the following discussion I draw primarily, but not exclusively, on the interview data and life histories of four learners: Hayashi-san, a 72-year-old retired male banker, Hazuki-san, a 68-year-old retired female high school chemistry teacher, Murakami-san, a 60-year-old housewife, and Fujita-san, a 53-year-old housewife. All of the participants have been assigned pseudonyms accompanied by the most common Japanese honorific, ‘san’, which has been retained out of politeness and respect.

5. Data analysis Analysis of these data highlighted elements of the learning environment which enhanced the members’ learning experiences, some of the challenges they faced, and the role of community in their learning. 5.1 The learning experience When the learners were asked to characterize their experience in the Centre, most of them responded by commenting on how enjoyable it was. Explaining how his time at the Centre changed his ideas about how to learn English, Hayashi-san, speaking through an interpreter, reveals what made the experience enjoyable for him. The biggest thrill I got from learning English here is that English learning is really fun, and this is actually the first time that

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I realized that it was fun. When I was a student, study was more like a competition… but now…I don’t really have to compare with the others, and I don’t have to feel uncomfortable about not being able to do as well as the others. So this is the biggest discovery that I have found. And I feel thinking in that way reduces a lot of pressure of study. For Hayashi-san, the lack of pressure derived from learning in an environment which promoted self-direction significantly enhanced the enjoyment he experienced in learning at the Centre. A number of learners attached great importance to being autonomous – for example, being able to work at their own pace without the need to worry about what other people were doing. For example, when Murakami-san is asked what advice she would have for newcomers to the Centre, she says, ‘I think it’s good to be familiar with classmates [sic], but they don’t need to worry about other people’s learning. This Centre is for individuals….We don’t need to compare. We don’t need to care about what others are doing. I have some confidence it will be OK.’ While Murakama-san’s comments lend support to the ‘lack of pressure’ theme, they also draw attention to two other important aspects of the learning environment. The learners were self-directed. Their comments indicate they appreciated having the autonomy to do what they wanted without being concerned about other people and their learning programmes. This will come as no surprise to theorists in the field of adult education who have long recognized self-direction as a key component of adult learning (Merriam 2001). The second point Murakami-san makes pertains to self-confidence, suggesting that autonomy and selfdirection require a degree of confidence in what one is doing. This is an important point related to metacognition. A key aspect of emerging metacognition is becoming aware of one’s learner identity, i.e., getting to know oneself as a learner. Continuing with her advice to newcomers, Murakami-san hints at how the autonomy the learners enjoyed in the Centre provided an opening for this process. She says, ‘I think they should find out their favourite something. For example, an author, or movie or any story…. Favourite thing is very good.’ Not only were the learners free to choose their own materials, but access to the Centre’s varied collection enabled them to experiment and personalize the learning experience, for example, to find ‘their favourite something’, as Murakami-san put it. Experimenting with the wide selection of materials gave learners the possibility of discovering learning opportunities which were new

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to them. Speaking through an interpreter, Fujita-san says, ‘By coming here I try out all the materials I can think of…I try out all the ways of learning English... [Before] I didn’t do anything at all. Before I came here I was taking an English class…’ Coming to the Centre has brought about a significant change in this learner. Her comments suggest that where she once relied on the teacher to do the work, she now actively seeks out ways to improve her English on her own. As Fujita-san indicates, experimentation is not limited to discovering new materials. Once the learners decide upon their materials, they need to find ways of working with them, i.e., activities or strategies which best suit them. In the following quote, Hazuki-san talks about her choice of materials and how she uses them: I like to see movie, and to use DVD, and about 30 movies I watch at this Centre. It’s very simple method how to watch and listen to DVD. You teach me: at first, listen to English with English subtitles, and next listen to English soundtrack with Japanese subtitles, and again listen to the English sound track, only. I return again, and again, to see movie….3 times I would like to watch DVD movies, and after that I change to another movie. Hazuki-san has a clearly defined strategy for using the DVDs. However, it is not exactly the one I recommended to her as a beginner, which suggests that she has been experimenting with the strategies she was given, adapting and adjusting them over time as her listening improved. In other words, Hazuki-san’s comments are indicative of her metacognitive growth. Experimentation with materials and strategies has been demonstrated to play a key role in helping learners develop their metacognition (Cotterall and Murray 2009). Learners who engage in language learning beyond the classroom will need to expand their metacognitive knowledge and skills in the areas of planning, monitoring and assessing their learning (Wenden 1987, 1998). Older learners who have been away from language learning for many years will no doubt require assistance in this area. Hayashi-san, mindful of having been educated in ‘an older Japanese education system’, is a case in point. A year after he joined the Centre, he admitted to still not knowing how to match materials to his language level. His difficulty raises the complex issue of how best to provide learners with the assistance they need. Despite the fact that the Centre offered introductory orientation sessions, language advising, and regular screening of learning

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log entries, Hayashi-san clearly could have benefited from additional guidance and support. The answer to the perplexing question of why he did not seek help is insightful. In the interview he says: Because I chose to study here, I think I should solve this problem. I have to decide the framework of how to use the tools, and materials, by myself. This is not a difficulty, but this is, I think, an issue I have to solve by myself. Rather than defining the situation as a difficulty, Hayashi-san views it as an opportunity to expand his metacognitive knowledge by working through the problem on his own. His dilemma points to a salient issue in providing learning opportunities for older learners – and younger learners, for that matter: educators have to put tools and structures in place to support learners without depriving them of experiential learning opportunities which could serve to enhance their metacognitive development (Murray 2009). While being free to experiment is one important aspect of the work involved in expanding metacognitive knowledge, another is reflection. Learners need to reflect on their learning and will require guidance in this area as well. For most of the learners at the Centre, consciously focusing on their thoughts about learning was a novel experience. To assist them with this process, they were encouraged to monitor and assess their learning on a regular basis. The principal tool for monitoring was the learning log which they completed during each visit to the Centre. The log was a template with spaces for them to note what they did, comment briefly on the experience, outline their plans for the next visit, and pose a question if they had one. In addition to this, the members were told to constantly ask themselves a number of questions: Is what I am doing to learn working for me? Is it helping me meet my goals? What might I do differently? What am I learning? How do I know? The last question proved to be especially troublesome for many of the learners. Most of the learners had never assessed their learning before, or even thought about looking for evidence of progress. Hayashi-san’s comments typify their experience. He says: I never had a concept to measure progress before and I never thought about it…Because I am being very pessimistic about improvement, I thought there should be no progress at all.

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However, you [the interviewer] made a presentation about measuring improvement. It made me realize the importance of measuring the progress, and looking at the improvement will give a lot of motivation. And it will make it more enjoyable for me to learn English, and so I think it’s important to measure progress. Following the workshop Hayashi-san refers to, he started to measure his reading speed and record the results on a graph. Commenting on the experience, he says, ‘I can read faster, and I can understand better as I read more, so it made me realize how wonderful it was to take this kind of record.’ Hayashi-san’s experience suggests that seeing signs of improvement can create a circular effect which leads to increased motivation and still further progress. Clearly, efforts aimed at helping learners monitor and assess their learning can have a positive impact on their proficiency and emotional wellbeing. The members’ comments indicate that their emotional wellbeing and the affective climate of the Centre was germane to their learning. They often referred to how the disposition of the staff, who operated the Centre on a daily basis, supported their sense of wellbeing and enhanced the social environment. Murakami-san says, ‘The staff are so kind, and so accepting, so it’s really easy for me to relax here, and they are so helpful.’ A number of the learners, highlighting the importance of feeling comfortable in a relaxed and friendly setting, mentioned the role the staff played in creating this atmosphere. Perhaps these features of the learning environment take on added significance for older learners, who may be conscious of their age and the particular learning challenges they face. 5.2 Challenges for older learners A decline in physical and cognitive abilities as one ages is generally accepted as inevitable around the world and has been widely researched by the academic community (de Bot and Makoni 2005; Singleton and Ryan 2004). The learners at the Centre noted three age-related problems which interfered with their language learning: diminished eyesight, hearing, and memory. Hazuki-san, for example, wrote in her language learning history, ‘Now my eyes are presbyopia, and I can’t read books without using spectacles. My hearing is bad too. In fact I can’t hear small voices and delicate pronunciations anymore.’ Her difficulties most likely shaped her learning experience in the Centre. For example, she may have chosen to work with DVDs because she could adjust the volume to her liking. Her problems with her eyesight would have limited her

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selection of materials. In fact, Hazuki-san rarely used printed materials in the Centre and, when she did, she employed a magnifying glass. In an interview she also noted difficulty remembering vocabulary. The implication for educators working with an older clientèle is that consideration should be given to materials, activities and equipment, with features which can compensate for diminished sight, hearing and memory. Despite the physical and cognitive challenges older learners face, Singleton and Ryan (2004: 214) conclude their review of the literature by stating: ‘there is no particular point in the aging of healthy adults where L2 learning becomes impossible’. While this is encouraging news for older learners, they still face at least one more significant obstacle: a lack of occasion to use their speaking skills. For many people around the world, second and foreign language use takes place in education or workrelated settings. Once people reach retirement age these opportunities are often no longer available. As Murakami-san puts it, ‘I think I would like to be a fluent English speaker, but it’s really difficult because I don’t find a big chance to speak with foreigners.’ The older learners whose experiences I have been discussing met this challenge by being regular visitors to the Centre where they had access to a community of learners. 5.3

Community

The learners’ comments point to the benefits of being part of a community. Speaking about the advice she would offer newcomers, Murakamisan says: I think they should come often…they can see classmates [sic] learning English…and they get used to being in the English world….There are a few good English speakers. Or, aged men, they are learning so earnestly, they really inspire me. While mutual participation in the practices of the community is important for Murakami-san, she also points out another vital aspect – members often support and motivate each other. However, for members to feel motivated by others, they must share a sense of purpose. Nearly all of the members interviewed made some reference to this aspect of community. For example, Hazuki-san says: I think it’s very important to come to this Centre as often as you can, and to make nice friend. Because members who come to this Centre likes English very much, so you have chance to speak English with them…. Often we speak to use English, and we forget Japanese.

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Hazuki-san’s comments hint at the role a shared sense of purpose and congenial relationships can play in creating an environment in which the learners feel safe to use their emerging oral skills. A comfortable environment in which members share a common purpose can also foster situations in which they learn from each other. One of the ‘younger’ learners, Tanaka-san, a 43-year-old housewife, sums up the advantages of being a member of a community of learners when she says: The learners who are coming here, our purpose is the same, so we can understand each other. And some members are older than me and they are very kind to me. I like them. That’s one reason I like to come here, and I can ask them how they study English and that helps me. The learners at the Centre shared a sense of purpose, they helped and supported each other, and they developed friendships. These elements reflect the hallmarks of a community of practice: a common purpose, a shared practice, and a network of mutually supporting relationships (Wenger 1998).

6. Discussion The purpose of this chapter has been to respond to a lacuna in the literature by identifying circumstances conducive for older language learners. Analysis of the data documenting the experiences of the older learners in this particular context has revealed three salient elements: self-direction, metacognition and community. In the first place, the learners valued their autonomy and the opportunity to be self-directed. In a society noted for its pressure to conform, these older learners, able to pursue their studies independently without being compared to others, felt a sense of relief and enhanced enjoyment. Secondly, there is evidence that the pedagogical model promoting selfdirection facilitated their metacognitive development by encouraging active engagement, experimentation and ongoing reflection. Thirdly, although they appreciated their autonomy, access to a community of learners figured prominently in their experience. A common purpose, a shared practice, and a network of supportive relationships lent to the creation of a milieu in which they could learn with and from each other. Furthermore, this environment fulfilled a pressing need for the older learners in this foreign language context – it provided a

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place where they could use and, in so doing, develop their oral target language skills. While it has been argued that social learning spaces can provide people with opportunities to interact and learn from each other without community membership being necessary or even desirable (Gee 2005), the evidence here indicates that community participation enhanced the learning experience of this group of older learners. While communities, and more specifically communities of practice, cannot be created per se, they can be cultivated (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder 2002). The experiences of the learners in this social learning space suggest that in order to facilitate the development of a community of learners, educators might take the following steps: • Provide a space, either physical or virtual, for people with a similar purpose to gather. • Design opportunities for interaction within this space. In the Centre I have described, regular conversation group meetings and occasional social events enabled people to become acquainted and develop relationships. • Communicate information about the community to the community’s members. At the Centre we published a monthly newsletter which comprised a calendar of events and short items about past and upcoming activities. The newsletter played a significant role in defining the community and promoting a sense of belonging. As Wenger (1998) reminds us, a community produces artefacts upon which it comes to depend. In addition to the newsletter, we had other artefacts such as membership cards, learner strategy guides, posters and photo albums. • Establish a rhythm for the community (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder 2002). Scheduling events which bring people together on a regular basis helped create a rhythm for the Centre. • Combine familiarity with excitement for the new (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder 2002). The members appreciated the sense of comfort and security they got from knowing what to expect when they came to the Centre, but they were also eager to see new materials arriving, delighted to have newcomers join, and enthusiastic about new ideas for a discussion group or a social gathering. • Organize events for special occasions. Communities create traditions by marking special occasions. At the Centre we started by celebrating cultural events like Christmas and cherry blossom viewing, and gradually members planned gatherings to mark occasions in other members’ lives, e.g. a birthday, a move, etc.

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• Employ congenial staff members. A community is about people. Staff members who greet people with a warm smile, and who are kind, patient and eager to help people, have an important role to play in creating and maintaining a congenial affective climate. In retrospect, these are some of the key elements whose synergy led to the emergence of the community of learners in the social learning space described in this chapter.

7. Conclusion The principal argument of this chapter has been that older language learners can benefit from the creation of social learning spaces which offer them the possibility of participation in a community of learners, opportunities for metacognitive development, and the freedom to exercise their autonomy and self-direction. This claim has been supported by data from a life history research project and an ethnography investigating the experiences of older learners in an environment designed as an alternative to classroom-based instruction. Taken together, they represent but one study of one context. As populations in societies around the world age, more and more older people will be learning foreign languages, for any number of reasons. Several of the participants in this study were learning English either as a leisure activity, as a support for other recreational pursuits such as travel, or as a means of keeping their minds active – an ‘anti-ageing activity’, as one lady said. However, other participants had reasons which reflected their increasingly globalized world. They were learning English because it enabled them to engage in volunteer activities in their local community or to maintain contact with loved ones – especially grandchildren – who were living in other cultures and linguistic milieux. For these families, English has become a lingua franca. Given the variety of reasons encouraging greater numbers of older people to turn to language learning, and the dearth of studies exploring language learning later in life, there is a clear need for future research to investigate this theme in various settings and from diverse research and theoretical perspectives. The current investigation points to a number of questions these studies might pursue. For example, is it necessary for a community of practice or a community of learners to develop in order for social learning spaces to be effective? Under which circumstances might the application of the notion of community of practice prove problematic (Gee 2005)? To what extent and by which means can educators successfully cultivate

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learning communities in and beyond classrooms? Which materials and technologies can be employed in order to help older learners meet the physical and cognitive challenges they face? And, perhaps most importantly, which beliefs, sociocultural elements, and power relations have contributed to a context in which older learners have been largely ignored by second language acquisition research? In addition to this, there is the question of which research methodologies might be best suited to the exploration of these and other questions pertaining to language learning later in life, especially in situations where this learning takes place beyond the classroom. As for this study, employing research methods which enabled me to get close to the learners and explore their relationship to the context and each other has led to insights pointing to the potential of social learning spaces which foster self-direction, metacognition, and a sense of community as one alternative to classroom-based instruction for older language learners.

Acknowledgements This research project was funded by a grant from Akita International University’s President’s Research Fund. I am grateful for their financial support. I would also like to express my gratitude to my co-researcher, Sara Cotterall, for her collaboration during the development, data collection, and initial data analysis phases of the ethnographic study.

11 Tandem Learning in Virtual Spaces: Supporting Non-formal and Informal Learning in Adults Ursula Stickler and Martina Emke 1. Introduction This chapter deals with the under-researched distinction between different levels of formality in language learning within and outside of institutions, and helps to clarify the realities of how adult learners select, design and construct their own experiences and environments for language learning beyond classroom boundaries. One of these informal environments is created through tandem learning. ‘Tandem learning’ is one of the forms of language learning relying least on the organizational structure and support of an institution. This chapter is based on the investigation of a multilingual, multilateral project, pairing learners of different languages and cultures with tandem partners. The authors will show benefits that adult learners derive from a tutor-supported online learning environment; they will also present the challenges for participants, concluding that regardless of teacher intentions, adult learners in a flexible, online environment will design, create and use their own learning opportunities. Although the tandem learning was initially planned and organized by the participating institutions, learners used the provided spaces (virtual and physical) and contacts (organized and spontaneous) for their own learning purposes. The investigation describes three different forms of learning that occurred (formal, non-formal and informal) and the development from both formal and informal learning towards non-formal learning, concluding that non-formal learning plays a crucial role in adult learning.

2. Background The project LITERALIA (Learning in Tandem to Encourage Reciprocal Autonomous Learning in Adults) was funded by the European Union 146

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under the Grundtvig scheme (Socrates and Lifelong Learning) from 2006 to 2008. It connected adult language learners from five institutions1 in four European countries by using online tools and by supporting exchange visits by the participants. LITERALIA learners exchanged regular emails with individual tandem partners supporting each other in learning the partner’s language. They could meet online in an integrated, structured workspace, where they used forums, ‘wikis’, and live textchat. The virtual learning environment (VLE) Moodle was chosen for this purpose because of its foundation in constructivist learning principles (Dougiamas 1998). If the behaviour I am modelling at moodle.org (with it’s [sic] theoretical background of social constructionism, connected knowing and transformative learning) is effective, it can potentially transform participants and so affect the teaching behaviour within their own Moodle installations. (Dougiamas and Taylor 2003) The project’s aim was to support learners in the acquisition of six of the eight key competences for lifelong learning, as defined by the European Union (European Commission 2005): communication in the mother tongue, communication in foreign languages, digital competence, learning to learn, social and civic competences, cultural awareness and expression.2 The LITERALIA project ran from 1 September 2006 to 31 July 2008. Four transnational and six bilateral face-to-face meetings took place during the two years of the project; these meetings were organized through the project and involved selected participants from either all five or just two participating organizations. In addition, virtual synchronous meetings took place in video-conferencing and textchat sessions. A total of 229 learners were matched with a partner in six language combinations, according to information participants gave in an initial questionnaire. Some learners conducted multiple tandem partnerships. The five project partners chose different levels of formality for integrating LITERALIA activities into their schedule. The two German organizations offered newly designed courses that combined classroom and out-of-class learning, focusing the independent learning element around tandem and the LITERALIA workspace. The Italian and Polish project partners offered LITERALIA as an informal add-on to existing formal language classes; and the UK’s Open University, a distance learning institution, offered LITERALIA to students of German and Italian as a supplement to their language courses, and to other learners as an independent study element.

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The following sections of this chapter will give a brief overview of the theoretical framework of our investigation, describe the research methodology used, and give examples from the data. Finally, the relevance of findings will be discussed, as will limitations of the project, challenges for the learners and future developments.

3. Framework of research The LITERALIA project was based on socio-constructivist theories of learning (Glasersfeld 2007; Prawat and Floden 1994; Vygotsky 1978; Wertsch and Tulviste 1992), with communication between peers, more advanced peers, and experts (native speakers) as the central focus of language learning. The European Union’s Agenda for Lifelong Learning emphasizes that learning can take place anywhere and at any time and that it ‘should encompass the whole spectrum of formal, non-formal and informal learning.’ (European Commission 2001: 3). Language learning can also happen wherever the opportunities for learning are offered and taken up (see e.g. Lamb 2004); in a connected world this will often be facilitated by computer-mediated communication (CMC). 3.1

Adult learning

Adults learn differently from children as they build upon pre-existing knowledge and experience. In his theory of adult learning, Mezirow sees learning as a social process in which a new or revised interpretation of one’s experience is achieved (Mezirow 1997). Based on Habermas, Mezirow distinguishes three ‘areas of cognitive interest’: ‘work’, ‘practical’ and ‘emancipatory’ learning. The final outcome of these categories is seen as synonymous with his concept of ‘perspective transformation’ (Kitchenham 2008). Perspective transformation is ‘the emancipatory process of becoming critically aware of how and why the structure of psycho-cultural assumptions has come to constrain the way we see ourselves and our relationships, reconstituting this structure to permit a more inclusive and discriminating integration of experience and acting upon these new understandings’ (Mezirow 1981: 6). ‘Work’ and ‘practical’ learning can help the individual to adapt to an environment, while ‘emancipatory learning’ can lead to self-determination. 3.2 Formal, non-formal and informal learning processes Learning can take place in different contexts and forms, even if the learners are not always fully aware of this. Over the past decades,

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the rising importance of lifelong learning has brought into focus the importance of distinguishing between different types of learning. The traditional predominance of formal education and neglect of less formal learning contexts was explicitly criticized by Illich in the early 1970s when he stated that when people are ‘pressed to specify how they acquired what they know and value, [they] will readily admit that they learned it more often outside than inside school’ (Illich 1971: 72). Alternatives to formal schooling and learning were presented among others by Rogers in his 1969 book Freedom to Learn. He argued convincingly that learning needs to come from the students’ demands rather than from a curriculum and content presented by the teacher (Rogers 1983). This personal curriculum also plays an important role in the context of ‘situated learning’.3 Stimulated by this debate, the need to separate learning from teaching and formal attempts to ‘educate’ was put on the research agenda of educationalists. Whereas ‘formal education’ and ‘formal learning’ have remained terms that – though not uncontested – are easily defined and delineated, the definition of terms for informal learning remains complex and confusing (Colley, Hodkinson and Malcolm 2002). ‘Non-formal learning’ is a term used by Eraut (2000) to avoid the term ‘informal’, as this has connotations of ‘dress, behaviour, etc.’4 Livingstone (2001) distinguishes learning from education and tries to identify gaps in our information about different forms of adult learning, formal and informal. He proposes additional data-collection efforts, harmonized across different countries to supply researchers with reliable statistical data. For the purpose of this research project, the distinction between formal, non-formal learning (later in the line) and informal learning as proposed by the European Union was chosen. The tripartite terminology of the European Union’s description of different types of lifelong learning fits our context, not only because it is linked to EU projects and follows the same general educational aims as our own LITERALIA project, but also because it presents lifelong learning as not necessarily concerned with extrinsic motivation or validation and places the learner in the centre. Formal learning: learning typically provided by an education or training institution, structured (in terms of learning objectives, learning time or learning support) and leading to certification. Formal learning is intentional from the learner’s perspective. Non-formal learning: learning that is not provided by an education or training institution and typically does not lead to certification. It is, however, structured (in terms of learning objectives,

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learning time or learning support). Non-formal learning is intentional from the learner’s perspective. Informal learning: learning resulting from daily life activities related to work, family or leisure. It is not structured (in terms of learning objectives, learning time or learning support) and typically does not lead to certification. Informal learning may be intentional but in most cases it is non-intentional (or ‘incidental’/ random). (European Commission 2001: 32–3) Learning can take place outside of institutions and also outside of the workplace (an area on which a number of educationalists focus their research). The EU definition also allows a finer distinction between three different learning forms.5 Non-formal learning is situated between the oppositional terms of formal and informal learning; and the third option (informal learning) also encompasses the possibility of learning without the conscious intention to do so. In the context of LITERALIA, a formal learning situation was supplemented with non-formal learning opportunities through tandem exchanges. During these planned and intentional learning processes, additional learning developed ‘spontaneously’, leading to informal learning of, for example, computer skills and intercultural communication skills. An important factor in the creation of this learning community was the use of a virtual online environment. As Livingstone (2001: 20) states: The proliferation of information technologies and exponential increases in the production of information have created greater opportunities for informal learning beyond their own direct experience for people in all walks of life in recent years. 3.3 The role of information and communication technology (ICT) in language learning The advent of the internet and the world-wide-web have changed language learning and teaching and resulted in a great deal of research. In the 1990s, a number of researchers (Chun 1994; Felix 1998, 1999; Warschauer 1997, 1999) gave accounts of the use of CMC to support language learning. Computer-mediated activities fit well with constructivist learning theories (Levy 1998) and with non-formal and informal learning for adults, as they allow for a shift in control from the teacher or course writer to participants or learners. This encourages active

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participation where learners can have more choice and control and, consequently, a feeling of ownership. The role of the teacher changes from that of an expert in face-to-face teaching to that of a ‘learning facilitator’ (Harasim 1990). In online language learning the interactions are mediated in two ways: by the foreign or second language (Hall 1997; Lantolf and Thorne 2007), and by ICT (Levy 1998; Warschauer 1997). Scaffolding for the learning processes can be provided through task design, structuring of the online environment and tutor or peer support. In the LITERALIA project, the design of the workspace – for example, the selection of available tools, division into topic areas, calendar notices for upcoming events – provided a structured learning environment. Technical advice from organizers and peers helped with ICT problems, and – as with all tandem learning situations (Brammerts 2001; Lewis 2003) – language help from native speaker participants was available.

4. Methodology We set out to investigate how the formal, non-formal and informal learning processes within the LITERALIA project supported the acquisition of key competences identified by the EU. Our desire to research this project stems in part from our own prior experiences as learners and teachers in adult education contexts. We have both encountered learners frightened to risk new learning adventures because of their negative experiences in the past; and we have seen tandem learning pairs that developed friendships and went on a learning journey well beyond anything that we could have planned for. In part our curiosity was also aroused by observing the learners during the project and being confronted with an amazing array of learning styles, inventive learning methods and self-chosen topics. This research tries to draw out more systematically what has presented itself as a ‘thick’ tacit version of personal knowledge (Eraut 2000 in Livingstone 2001: 5), a tapestry of adult learners’ non-formal and informal learning within a structured framework. 4.1

Data collection

Learners were asked to fill in a questionnaire before they started their tandem work, to allow organizers to find the most suitable tandem partners for them. At the end of the project, evaluation questionnaires were distributed to learners. Additional quantitative data were available

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from Moodle workspace logs. Qualitative data, including scripts (written records) of users’ contributions on the workspace and feedback messages to organizers, were collected during the project. Additional qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with selected participants that took place after the end of the project, focusing particularly on two thematic areas: learning and intercultural communication.6 4.2

Research approach

An ethnographic approach (Hammersley and Atkinson 1995) was used to investigate the data and to aid a description of the learning encountered by participants. The researchers were not bound by a narrow definition of qualitative methods and employed a mixed-method approach (Atkinson 2005). As participant observers, both authors of this chapter actively contributed to the shaping of the virtual environment and introduced novice users to it. We also reflected on our experience and participation with each other and other organizers and tutors. Through our participation in the online virtual environment (Thomsen, Straubhaar and Bolyard 1998), for example, participating in forum discussions and initiating new threads, central themes (Boyatzis 1998; Silverman 2001) became obvious over time. In our investigation of the themes, we used a thematic analysis approach (Aronson 1994; Boyatzis 1998). Reading through learners’ contributions on the workspace led us to a number of open questions; these questions were ordered systematically and formed the basis of our semi-structured interviews with selected, volunteer participants; conducting and transcribing the interviews led to further insights on relevant issues. We then discussed emerging themes and agreed on coding categories for forum entries and interview transcripts. Coding was done individually, Word documents with codes were exchanged and counterchecked by the other researcher who added comments and additional coding as appropriate. The coded documents were then discussed in live online sessions, and final categories decided upon. This process of data analysis provided an insight into three forms of learning that took place in the project: (1) the formal learning planned and instigated by the participating institutions; (2) the non-formal learning that developed out of autonomous participants’ decisions on learning objectives and supported by their tandem partners, teachers and workspace activities; and (3) the informal or ‘incidental’ learning, that developed through the combination of peer support, scaffolding provided by the workspace itself and by the project structure with

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‘mentors’ available when needed. Examples of learning in these forms and their limitations will be given in the next section.

5. Findings 5.1

Formal learning

From the beginning of the project, formal learning elements were seen by the organizers as ‘resources’ that the learners could choose to employ according to their own ‘learning curriculum’ and not as a necessity for successful learning. The formal learning elements offered to the participants included introductory sessions on the use of the online tools and on the principles of tandem learning, training events and self-training documents. In addition, ICT support was offered by the institutions to a varying degree. One formal element was the introduction of structured and moderated forum topics, e.g. this attempt to start a discussion by an Italian tutor: Learners’ forum (25 May 2007) ‘Topic of the week: ‘FOOD’ by Luigi – Here’s the topic of the week: ‘FOOD’. Ecco l’argomento della settimana: ‘CIBO’ Please discuss these questions in English and/or in your native language. Per favore rispondi a queste domande in inglese o nella tua lingua. Not all pre-structured formal elements were successful. Some forum topics generated little response: for example, the tandem worksheets provided were hardly used. Ten of the most popular forum topics were instigated by tutors and five by learners; however the number of learner-led topics increased notably towards the official project end, as did the number of postings to each of the learner-led topics, showing a development from formal (tutor-structured) to more non-formal (learner-led) activities. Chat was introduced formally in one organization during a face-toface session in a computer room. Here is a brief excerpt from this session; Nelly (L1 English) is the teacher of the group. Learners’ chat (Wednesday, 23 May 2007) 18:44 (L) Ulla: hallo alle zusammen dieses ist meine erste Chaterfahrung! wie geht es Euch?7

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18:44 Nelly: I have the same feeling8 18:45: (L) Erika has just entered this chat 18:45 Nelly: Welcome Erika Mario, an Italian learner of German and English picked this chat up in the forum: Learners’ forum (25 May 2007) Hallo on alle, ciao a tutti, hello all. I joined the chat while VHS student were chatting, it was very nice and I enjoyed the chance of being in their company. Personally I think it cold be a very powerful mean to improve our knowledge in foreing languages, even better than writing and exchanging emails. I would suggest to organise some chat meetings during which we could put into practice (at least from writing point of view) what we have learned. Tchüs, ciao, bye Mario This example shows that the learner, Mario, started to integrate an issue that was raised in a formal learning context into his own learning curriculum, which effectively constitutes a movement from formal to non-formal learning. Furthermore, this learner consciously thought about how the chat facility could be beneficial for all LITERALIA learners, beyond its obvious social dimension. Mario’s suggestion was taken up and the live chats ran successfully for over a year. 5.2

Non-formal learning

Non-formal learning presupposes a high level of autonomy and reflection on the part of the learner. However, autonomy is not an innate trait of the language learner but needs support or training to develop (see e.g. Darasawang and Reinders 2010). In the post-project interviews one language learner explained that she deliberately chose non-formal learning and contrasted her expectations of LITERALIA with ‘more formal’ language learning she had experienced before: Interview with Pam (L1 English) and Carola (L1 German) Pam: I think traditional classroom learning generates lots of stress because you are sat there and the worry is: are you doing it right or not? And you are not doing anything practical and it’s too much concentration really on just is it right/is it wrong? […]

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Pam: I was particularly attracted to the idea of speaking with native speakers of the language because I think you learn more than you do when you are speaking to English people who are speaking German. An example of a very conscious comparison between formal and nonformal learning can be seen in the following interview quotation: Carola: With a school book you do one unit after the other one and within LITERALIA, well it was you to decide what to learn and for example it was nice to speak about ahm different customs regarding Christmas, Easter and it was also like a little unit you also could have done in a book talking about sayings in different languages. Another learner, Ulla, commented on the more personalized learning in tandem (e.g. through her choice of topics) and reflected in her interview on her increased awareness of learning goals and curriculum. The above examples show how learners make intentional choices and create their own learning opportunities. 5.3

Informal learning

Informal learning, learning that takes place without conscious planning on the part of teachers, learners or their tandem partners, was a common occurrence during the LITERALIA project activities. One example was the joint cooking experience during one of the transnational meetings, involving about 25 participants from four countries. The idea of organizing ‘intercultural cooking’ was first developed by participants in the forum: Learners’ forum (25 April 2008) Transnational Meeting in Lehrte – Suggestions for ‘joint cooking’ / Vorschläge für das gemeinsame Kochen (en/de) by (L) Paul – Hi all! / Hallo zusammen! Here the first suggestion for our common cooking during the transnational meeting in Lehrte. Hier der erste Vorschlag für unser gemeinsames Kochen während unseres Treffens in Lehrte. White asparagus is a typical German dish which is very popular during the season between April and June, when it is available from the particular region.

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Weißer Spargel ist ein typisch deutsches Gericht, welches besonders zwischen April und Juni sehr beliebt ist, wenn er in der jeweiligen Region frisch erhältlich ist. Further suggestions? Weitere Vorschläge? Greetings Paul The meal preparation engaged learners on various levels, both virtually and in real life and had a great impact on existing and new social contacts. Learners were involved in all phases: in the organization and preparation (e.g. discussing recipes in forum messages), in the event itself (by shopping, cooking and eating together), and after the event there was a flurry of messages to the organizers expressing enthusiastic feedback and a lengthy discussion on the workspace about cooking as a hobby, favourite recipes and international cuisine. The learners used emails, the forum, wiki and chat sessions on the workspace to communicate about this topic they had chosen themselves. The increase in social competence displayed by one learner who had left the UK for the very first time, travelling by himself to our transnational meeting in Germany surprised even the organizers. Here are his reactions: Duncan (in an email to the organizer via the workspace) Email from 09 June 2008 to U. Stickler Thank you for the wonderful time, it was so hard to get there, but worth every single step. I will come back to German soon. Thank you for giving me something special.

6. Limitations of the project Despite these success stories, there are obvious limitations to the project. Because all telecollaborative tandem teaching/learning relies on the fundamental compatability of the learning partners (O’Dowd and Ritter 2006), with our limited pool of participants, successful matches could not always be guaranteed. Some tandem partnerships were terminated soon after the initial contact. While compatibility on a personal level could easily be gauged by the participants themselves, a mismatch of learning goals and objectives posed a more subtle hindrance. The pairing of Valerie (L1 English) and Dora (L1 German), for example, was outwardly a very successful one. In

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the interview, however, Valerie indicated regret about a lack of opportunities for language practice.9 Although over a hundred email partnerships were successfully established, only 70 learners took part in the online chat and only 34 learners actively contributed to the forum. The comparatively low numbers of active workspace users could have been due to a lack of digital literacy on the part of learners or to a mismatch between personal learning curricula and the demands of multilateral online language exchanges. Finally, not every participant reached the level of reflection and awareness necessary for the perspective transformation described by Mezirow (1981). However, whether this ‘emancipatory learning’ was really ever compatible with our learners’ own ‘learning curricula’ (Lave and Wenger 1991), or rather expresses our own ambitions as language teachers, is as yet an unresolved dilemma.

7. Conclusion In our research as participant observers we were privileged not only to observe the three forms of learning our students experienced but also to reflect upon our own role as tutors. Reflecting on our observations using thematic analysis changed the way in which we look upon the role of the teacher in learning beyond the classroom. Ideally, we would see our role as being similar to that which Illich described in 1971: The educational guide or master is concerned with helping matching partners to meet so that learning can take place. He matches individuals starting from their own, unresolved questions. At the most he helps the pupil to formulate his puzzlement ... (Illich 1971: 17–18) In our contribution, we have described three different forms of learning that we could observe in the LITERALIA project. Firstly, our research shows that a development from tutor-led to more learner-led activities took place over time: moving the choice of topic or the selection of learning activity (live chat, cooking event) from organizers to learners. In the forum, for example, the most intensive discussions developed towards the end of the project and centred around learner-chosen topics, some inspired by joint experiences during transnational meetings. Secondly, the benefits participants derived from the project sometimes exceeded what organizers had planned: learners reported, for example, on an

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increase in social competence (Duncan), in the competence of learning to learn (Carola and Ulla) or in digital competence (Lara and Ulla), Interview with Lara (L1 Polish) Lara: And then because I didn’t really use computers too much, so it was my first like being on the chat, and I learnt to use, uhm, I don’t know how you call it, mess something, messenger to chat with N., and then I quite enjoyed, enjoyed being on touch with other people, many people at the same time. Thirdly, through retrospective interviews we could also discover individual learner development: an appreciation of non-formal learning (for example, Pam seeing tandem as effective and authentic and a learning environment devoid of anxiety); an increased awareness of individual learning goals and learning curriculum (e.g. Ulla who chose her own goals and topics and will try to influence future classroom learning); and a reflection on how informal learning contributed to one’s own language development (e.g. Carola): Carola: If you do something like a joint cooking it’s more or less the everyday language, and that’s the difference. […] You keep in mind those words because they belong together to a situation. You have the situation, you remember the joint cooking and together with the words you will not forget it. As a fourth point, non-formal learning seems to be the key element in successful learning outside the classroom for adults. Our project shows that students could move from formal learning to non-formal learning by taking control and by developing more confidence in their own decisions (e.g. Mario’s idea to regularly use the chat for language learning purposes). They could also move from informal (‘incidental’) learning to non-formal learning by developing an increased consciousness of what and how much learning did occur incidentally and how this could be used for their own progress (e.g. the lengthy discussions involved in organizing the cooking event and the post-event forum discussions on recipes). The pedagogic aim of encouraging non-formal learning can be furthered by bringing the processes of informal learning into the conscious foreground of the learners, effectively moving them from informal to non-formal learning and supporting the exploitation of learning

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opportunities wherever, whenever. This presupposes a different understanding of the role the tutor can play: as a mentor or guide in learning to learn rather than a ‘source of wisdom’ or an organizer of structured activities. Online learning environments, in particular, lend themselves to a shift in tutor–learner relations (see Harasim 1990; Levy 1998).

8. Outlook and further research Informal learning can take place without learners noticing it consciously, therefore it is notoriously difficult to trace. Survey (or interview) questions are not always an adequate tool for assessing informal learning processes (Livingstone 2001: 9). Consequently, we see the need for further research in this area: investigations of non-formal and informal language learning processes should take place to establish a better understanding of these processes in general; and online research needs to be conducted in tutor-supported online environments to arrive at a better understanding of the best design principles and mechanisms for supporting non-formal language learning. As a further point, future research should focus on an investigation of the role of the tutor in non-formal learning processes, to ensure that future tutors are better equipped to support their learners. The pedagogy of online language teaching needs to take into account not only the affordances of tools and new media but also the dual mediation of technology and language for the second language learner. Finally, the methodological challenges of researching non-formal learning are multiple: access to the learning process outside the classroom is notoriously difficult: seeing the learner as ‘person-in-context relational self’ (Ushioda 2009, 2010) rather than the dualism of ‘inner mental world’ and ‘surrounding social environment’ requires an imaginative use of qualitative methods, and the dual role of the researcher as insider/outsider necessitates continuous engagement with the learning context. In our project, for example, we could only observe incidents of informal learning through our ongoing involvement and participation. Although we attempted to employ the most promising research methods in this investigation (participant observation, ethnography, reflective interviews), we feel that further research and a development of sensitive research instruments is needed to weave a tapestry depicting adult learners’ non-formal and informal learning. We will continue our own investigations into online language learning, hoping that we can contribute to a better theoretical understanding of non-formal learning processes.

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Notes 1. The five institutions were the Volkshochschule Ostkreis Hannover, Germany, the Department of Languages at the Open University, UK, the Bildungszentrum Wolfsburg, Germany, the Centro Territoriale Permanente per l’Educazione degli Adulti di Pontedera (CTP), Italy, and the Wyz˙sza Szkoła Bankowos´ ci i Finansów w Bielsku-Bialej (School of Banking and Finance) in Bielsko-Biala, Poland. 2. The two other competences, mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology, and sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, were not considered in this project. 3. ‘A learning curriculum is essentially situated. It is not something that can be considered in isolation, manipulated in arbitrary didactic terms, or analyzed apart from the social relations that shape legitimate peripheral participation.’ (Lave and Wenger 1991: 97) 4. However, Eraut (2004) later uses the term ‘informal learning’ to describe the same learning processes. 5. The definition of non-formal and informal learning changed between the original Memorandum (European Commission, 2000) and the glossary definition used in 2001 and the subsequent publication. We will adhere to the final definition (European Commission 2001: glossary). 6. This chapter will only focus on the first of these topics. Intercultural communicative competence is discussed in Stickler and Emke (2011). 7. (L = Learner) Ulla: Hello all, this is my first chat experience! How are you? 8. Written entries have been left uncorrected. 9. Valerie: Well I think ahm, quite often I wrote in English, didn’t I? In fact I nearly always write in English. The emails. I have thought to myself it would have been good, or could be good if occasionally we corrected each other, you know and then obviously we would learn a little bit more from the mistakes that we are making, but ….

12 Home Tutor Cognitions and the Nature of Tutor–Learner Relationships Gary Barkhuizen

1. Introduction The focus of this chapter is on the relationships that language learners engage in with people beyond formal classroom contexts. In this case, the relationships are those that emerge and evolve in informal one-on-one tutoring situations. Although this is a teaching arrangement, it is certainly not as formal as one would find in classroom contexts, and it is not as informal as would be the case if learners received no support at all. The learners are adult migrants and refugees participating in a home tutoring programme which involves volunteer tutors meeting with their learners for one hour per week in the learners’ homes. The tutoring is different from classroom teaching in a number of respects, the most obvious being that the tutor works with only one learner. Although English learning is the main focus of tutorial sessions and the tutors are resourceful in designing appropriate materials, the lessons are usually quite unstructured and sometimes even unplanned, and no common syllabus or curriculum is followed. There is no assessment. What is of central importance, and what often dictates the content and focus of lessons, are the immediate needs and desires of learners (e.g. deciphering a letter from the city council), their emotional state (e.g. needing a friend to talk to), and their longer-term goals (e.g. successfully participating in a citizenship interview). This low-structure context (Johnson 1989) means minimal constraints on what tutors and learners do when they meet, and it allows space for the development of learner–tutor relationships not possible in classrooms. Nearly 4000 migrants and refugees in New Zealand participate in the home tutoring programme. It is run by English Language Partners 161

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New Zealand, which has 23 independent centres across the country. Its mission is to provide ‘an accessible, nationwide, community-based service that supports settlement through English for adult refugees and migrants’. It offers ESOL social classes, as well as literacy and workplace English classes. It also offers one-on-one tutoring for one hour per week in the homes of learners, an arrangement which is the focus of this chapter. I report on a study which explored the learner–tutor relationship from the perspective of tutor roles, and I examine how the tutors’ cognitions (Borg 2006) contribute to the ways in which relationships are negotiated and developed. The participants in the study included 42 learner–tutor pairs. The learners wrote structured narrative accounts of their English learning experiences in New Zealand and the tutors each participated in a narrative interview. Drawing on data from the interviews, I present collective findings from all the pairs, and then focus on one case in more detail.

2. Tutor roles and relationships Teacher–learner role relationships in language teaching have often been studied from a metaphor perspective (de Guerrero and Villamil 2000; Oxford et al. 1998); for example, teachers are described as gatekeepers, entertainers and learning partners (Oxford et al. 1998). Metaphor analyses are useful because they provide insight into the interactions and activities that occur in language classrooms. Metaphors, particularly when elicited as others’ perceptions of the teacher role, are, of course, not the real thing. In contrast, a study by Weigle and Nelson (2004) focused specifically on the role of tutors, this time through observation of actual tutoring sessions in action. The participants were three students on an MA (TESOL) writing course. As a course requirement, they provided ten hours of tutoring to ESL students. Two tutoring sessions per pair were video-recorded and then stimulus recall interviews were conducted to reflect on and discuss the sessions. These were taperecorded. Through a Grounded Theory approach to data analysis, the researchers were able to categorize and interpret their data according to their research questions: specifically, the factors that influenced the negotiation of the tutor–ESL student relationship. Their findings point to the importance of contextual factors in the development of tutor roles and their relationships with their learners. One of these factors is an affective component in relationships; an interpersonal, emotional dimension. O’Hara (2005: 331) makes

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references to a transcendent teacher–learner relationship, a relationship in which affect is paramount: In a transcendent relationship, teacher and learner go beyond their traditional interactive roles and both may undergo a ‘turning point’ in which their life goals are altered. Caring, trust, mutual respect and love are characteristics of transcendent relationships…Transcendent relationships are mutually beneficial for both relators. O’Hara (2005: 336) provides a set of guidelines for achieving transcendent relationships with learners in classrooms. Included are ‘creating a welcoming, supportive, warm, social and nurturing environment’, respect for diversity, and encouraging and expecting success. Teachers are encouraged to use humour, to demonstrate a passion for learning and to look for unique interests and characteristics in their learners. I would imagine that negotiating transcendent relationships in a classroom full of students is quite a difficult undertaking, but in a one-on-one tutor–learner context, such as the home tutoring arrangement which is the focus of this chapter, reaching or at least approaching transcendence is probably more achievable. In this chapter, I aim to show that this is the case. Borg (2003) refers to teacher cognitions as what teachers know, believe and think. Cognitions have also been described in the research literature as personal theories, principles and assumptions. For the purposes of this study I use tutor concerns (Breen et al. 2001). I find the concept of concerns appropriate for tutors (as opposed to teachers in classrooms), and I have adapted the authors’ explication of what they mean by ‘concerns’ to suit the home tutor situation: 1. a concern with how the learner undertakes the learning process, e.g. their engagement with materials and lesson content; 2. a concern with particular attributes of the learner, e.g. needs, refugee/ migrant status, employment issues, age, family responsibilities, and their level of commitment and motivation; 3. a concern with how to use the (at least) one hour per week effectively, efficiently and to full advantage, including being cognizant of learners’ needs, desires and goals; 4. a concern with the subject matter of learning, i.e. with what is taught and learned, which is selected to meet the needs of the learner; 5. a concern with the specific contributions they can make in their role as tutor, including being aware of the nature and appropriateness of the developing relationship with the learner.

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Throughout the discussion of the findings I make reference to these concerns.

3. The study The aim of the study was to investigate the learners’ real and imagined successes in English learning. I was also interested in learning about their tutors’ successes; particularly how they go about planning for and conducting their one-hour sessions. In collaboration with their tutors, learners completed a short written narrative frame (Barkhuizen and Wette 2008) of their English learning experiences since living in New Zealand, including the problems and successes they had experienced and their imagined successes in the future. The tutors participated in narrative interviews (Chase 2003) in which they were invited to ‘Tell me about …’ their learner and their experiences of tutoring. I found this narrative approach to be relevant for this study because, as Polkinghorne (1995: 7, citing Ricoeur) says, ‘stories are particularly suited as the linguistic form in which human experience as lived can be expressed’ . The narrative interviews construct a ‘mediational space’ (Golombek and Johnson 2004) in which tutors can identify and explore their cognitions and practices. I began the content analysis of the interviews inductively, searching broadly for themes relating to teacher and learner successes. Almost immediately I discovered stories about the relationships that the tutor narrators and their learners shared. These stories told how the relationship started, how it developed and what sort of relationship it was. I also noticed that often the stories included references to the tutors’ cognitions, i.e. their concerns about their learners, the learning process, the subject matter and their role as a tutor. After further detailed analysis of the narratives it became very clear to me that these cognitions, the tutors’ practices and the nature of the tutor–learner relationship were very much interconnected. Later in this chapter, I illustrate how these connections are articulated in the tutors’ narrative interviews. 3.1

The participants

The learner participants were 41 migrants and refugees from 20 different countries: China (8), Burma (5), Sri Lanka (4), Somalia (3), Taiwan (3), Japan (2), Thailand (2), Iraq (2), and one each from Hong Kong, Cambodia, Germany, South Korea, Congo, Poland, Bulgaria, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Lithuania and Russia. These included 30 females and 11 males, and they live in 13 different regions in New Zealand,

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representing a wide geographical spread. Learners starting the home tutoring programme vary in their levels of English proficiency, from complete beginner to quite advanced, the latter engaging in the programme because, for example, they desire to become more familiar with the Kiwi accent or to gain confidence engaging with New Zealand society outside the home environment. All participants were adults, ranging in age from the mid-20s to over 70 years old. Forty-two tutors participated in the narrative interviews (31 females, 11 males). Typical characteristics of the tutors involved in home tutoring are as follows: they are middle-aged or older, female and retired or unemployed, have no formal teaching experience and have worked or lived overseas. There are also those who are male, younger and who have had some teaching experience. All tutors undergo training (the Certificate in ESOL Home Tutoring) in the form of 60 hours of part-time study, which includes classes, independent study, practical tutoring sessions and followup classes. Ongoing workshops and seminars are also offered to tutors in the various centres.

4. Home tutor roles Tutors and learners are paired for at least six months. Usually, the partnership lasts longer than that (if the tutor is available), and sometimes the relationship continues even after the formal tutoring-learning partnership has formally ended. In this section, I provide brief excerpts from the narratives, merely to give a glimpse into the nature of the relationships, expressed as tutor roles. While reading these extracts, five points should be kept in mind. First, the short excerpts are obviously part of a larger narrative. Lack of space means that I cannot present the entire narrative. Unfortunately, this means that the context of the excerpt, which would give it much more meaning, cannot be fully appreciated. Nevertheless, the excerpts are indicative of the tutor roles. Second, I use each excerpt to illustrate one type of tutor role; the excerpts, however, may reveal other types of roles at the same time. Also, there are other tutors who articulate similar role relationships in their narratives. The roles discussed here are those that are most salient in the collective narrative data of all tutors. Third, when discussing the excerpts, I comment on tutors’ cognitions (expressed as concerns) and transcendence in their relationships with their learners, where relevant. Fourth, these roles are not articulated as metaphors; instead, they describe literally the work of the tutors. Last, the tutors’ names are pseudonyms.

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4.1 Language and culture informant This is the ‘official’ role of the tutor. Debbie explains quite clearly how many of the tutors go about planning their work. They take into account where their learners are at: what their needs are and what their cultural and lifestyle backgrounds are. Debbie’s concerns about her learner and the consequences these have for her decision-making about her practice are evident in this excerpt: You develop a sensitivity to the needs of other people and their culture and their lifestyle and it’s a give and take all the time and so you know you’re sort of understanding where they’re coming from and where they want to go, so you’re setting challenges but then at the same time you’ve got to work according to where their needs are, so you have to plan a programme that’s going to suit what they want. That’s very important, and so you have to sort of move at the pace that they want to, not to jump ahead too quickly, and it’s like so different from classroom teaching, where you gotta follow a curriculum, ’cause at the start you’ve got to establish what goals they want to work on and then gradually work towards achieving them. (Debbie) 4.2

Rapport builder

In order for the tutoring–learning relationship to work well, tutors need to establish a good rapport with their learner early on in their working relationship. This is true for all teaching situations, but perhaps especially so for one-on-one home tutors, where tutors and learners work very closely together; their focus is almost entirely on each other during tutoring sessions. Frances displays her belief about the importance of rapport building in the following comment: You’ve got to build up a rapport with them. If you build up a rapport then they feel comfortable with you. Then they feel happy about making mistakes and doing things wrong. A transcendent relationship cannot be achieved without good rapport. 4.3

Co-learner

Almost every tutor who was interviewed said that they had learned from their learner; especially about their language and cultural practices. This happened informally during their conversations, but differences between the learner’s cultural background and the ‘Kiwi culture’ were often incorporated into lesson content. Sarah describes her learning

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as equivalent to that of her learner: ‘I like to have conversations with Neela, talk about her country. I’ve learned heaps in that area. I actually feel like I learn as much as I offer. It’s very much a win-win situation.’ And Rachel succinctly states her belief concerning successful tutoring as follows: ‘You can’t help your learner unless you’re learning too.’ 4.4

Visitor

‘We get on famously’, says Barry. ‘He’s very welcoming. He always makes a cup of coffee, and we sit down and comment on how our week has been, and so on. And then get stuck in.’ Barry’s start to his tutoring sessions is very much like the welcome visitors receive in the homes of their hosts. Tutors frequently spoke about how welcome they felt during their visits to their learners’ homes. Meals were often cooked in preparation for the tutor’s visit and then shared with family members after (or even during) the session. 4.5

Friend

Many tutors spoke of their learners as friends rather than learners. Commenting on his learner, Sean says ‘Jim, over these 70 odd lessons, he’s long since ceased to be a student. We’re a friend combination.’ Kathy describes typical friend-like behaviour as she talks about her tutorial sessions: So I try to extend it into something else because the lesson doesn’t take the whole hour, you know. So I took her for a cup of coffee one time. We discuss recipes sometimes because she’s quite keen on that. Kathy mentions that she held part of her session outside of her learner’s home. In fact, this is a common occurrence. Many ‘sessions’ are held in supermarkets, in banks, during picnics, and while walking on the beach. Often the focus of such outings relates to particular settlement issues (e.g. registering with the local general practitioner), to overcome particular difficulties communicating with others (e.g. when opening a bank account), or are instructional (e.g. learning names of vegetables in the supermarket). But it is especially during these times that transcendence enters the relationship. Harriet, for example, describes her time with her learner as follows: It’s a very, very comfortable and friendly and warm relationship, yes. Which you do eventually, you establish a warm relationship with people when you have contributed to their lives for quite a while.

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4.6

Family friends

Sometimes the friendships extend beyond the learners only and into their family life. And the tutors’ families also become involved. Candice tells of her experience: And socially we [Candice’s family] have been out with them for meals, and they’ve had meals with us. We had all their family over for probably two or three years for Christmas and we’d have a barbecue, and you know the son and the son-in law and the children were all there, that was very nice.

4.7

Community member

Perhaps one could consider this role a reversal of what is normally expected. Here, the learner’s community becomes a surrogate community for the tutor. Theresa describes her experience as follows: The one I’ve been seeing for two and a half years I’ve become quite fond of. … She includes me in invitations and she’s invited me for Christmas dinner. I’m a single woman with no family, so she invited me for Christmas dinner last year with the Myanmar community and they’ve actually been doing more for me communitywise I think than I’ve been doing for her because I don’t have the community myself in [name of city] to bring to her. Such ‘role-reversal’ was not very common amongst the tutors, and one may wonder how this community member role relates to English tutoring. What I feel is pertinent is that contact with the learner is maintained. It may be within the learner’s community, outside of the tutorial session, and without any obvious instructional value, but it does signal a certain level of intimacy in the relationship. Theresa is no doubt aware of this; she has ‘become quite fond’ of her learner, and this transcendent spirit no doubt overflows into her actual tutoring. 4.8

Social worker

As I have pointed out above, the content of what the tutors and learners do is always relevant to the learners’ lives as English-learning refugees or migrants in New Zealand. This inevitably means going beyond an English curriculum consisting of work on grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. Settling in a new country requires much more than that,

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as Frances explains: ‘And it was having somebody to go to a place like a hospital with her and feel that if she didn’t understand, someone would help her to understand. That’s the sort of thing. So it’s a bit of social work as well really. All rolled in together.’ 4.9

Career advisor

Related to the role of social worker is that of the career advisor. Many of the learners are unemployed, or are dissatisfied with their current jobs, usually because they do not suit their qualifications or interests. Tutors become involved in two ways: advising their learners of employment practices in New Zealand (e.g. the nature of different jobs and workplace customs) and helping them with application procedures (e.g. making sense of the job advertisement, filling in application forms, and preparing for interviews). Sean’s comment illustrates how he has taken on this role: After, I don’t know, 20 or so lessons I think I went there one day and he had a newspaper folded open. It was in the Situations Vacant section and he said, ‘Oh, there’s a job here. Would you help me with this, please?’ So I put my lesson plan aside … Some tutors have accompanied their learners to job interviews, and for those that are employed they spend a lot of time talking about their work. 4.10

Admirer/empathizer

Contributing to the development of a transcendent relationship is the consistent admiration the tutors have for their learners. As Harvey says: They are good, they are really decent people. And they’ve made big choices to come to New Zealand. And they’re really determined to make a success of their lives. And you’ve got to admire them. It’s amazing. Tutors are aware of their learners’ backgrounds, which often involved huge struggles to get to New Zealand, and then on arrival, they face further difficulties settling into a new way of life: linguistically, economically, educationally, emotionally and professionally. These concerns with learner attributes (i.e. empathizing with their struggles) are taken

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into account when tutors reflect on and plan their work with their learners, as Harvey goes on to explain: They come from being somebody to being nobody, really. And they accept it. They accommodate it. And so often that’s one of the biggest issues I think I’ve found. Just reinforcing the confidence so that they get on with a life that’s rewarding and satisfying without pining for the past.

4.11

Post-tutor

Eventually the official role as tutor comes to an end. Learners may move on to another tutor, take up more formal English classes or feel that they now have learned enough English to stop tuition of any kind. They may have achieved the goal they had when starting with their tutor, such as obtaining a driver’s license or citizenship, finding a job or being able to communicate with their children’s teacher or doctor. Even though the tutor–learner partnership may have ended, their friendship often endures and the pair stays in contact. However, as Rose cautions, the ‘ultimate goal’ is for learners to become independent members of New Zealand society: They’ve finished and they’ve started to work and they’ve found a niche in [name of town] society, and really you can’t, it’s not really a healthy thing if you’re going to cling to them if it’s out of your need and not theirs. So the idea, the ultimate goal is for them to move into society.

5. Masako’s case In this section I present one case of a quite extraordinary tutor–learner relationship. Masako came from Japan and at the time of telling her story had been living in New Zealand for seven years, first in Auckland and then in a smaller city. When in Auckland she had, according to her tutor, Ann, been ‘totally isolated … she had no money and her husband wouldn’t give her any’. When she moved to a smaller city, however, Ann says ‘her whole world opened up’. Her husband was required to pay for English lessons as part of the immigration process, otherwise, says Ann, ‘there is no way her husband would have paid for her to learn English’. Masako enrolled in the local institute of technology and also

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with English Language Partners New Zealand, where she was partnered with Ann. In Masako’s written narrative she says: When I arrived I was afraid to communicate with people. If people smiled, I thought I had done something wrong. I completely lost my confidence. … My English was terrible. I didn’t talk to people. After a while in her new location, however, she realized things were getting better when I was able to meet my home tutor and speak with her outside of the classroom. Before I was always afraid to make a mistake and I was very defensive, but with my home tutor I could relax and my barriers fell away. She adds: Now, my English is getting better. I am enjoying using English. My experience of English has become wider. I really understand what people say. I find I can more easily join in with new people. I can more easily express myself. The following is an excerpt from Ann’s interview. Ann is a younger tutor, originally from the United States, and has been living in New Zealand for a number of years. In her narrative she tells of her very close relationship with Masako, one easily approaching a transcendent state. Note when reading the narrative how this relationship and Ann’s concerns for Masako’s wellbeing and needs determine quite strongly her decision-making regarding the practices associated with her role as English tutor. And I adore her. She’s become one of my dearest friends. In fact in New Zealand I think she is my closest friend. I really really love her. So it’s impossible for me to talk about her at this point without talking about, I mean it’s a friendship. And it’s more a friendship than anything else. … [The coordinator] introduced us. And she was really frightened, like really timid, really scared and I guess you know, I’m so much the opposite. So you know, we just laughed. We immediately connected and even with her, like she was listed as a beginner, and even with her very very limited English, we could communicate all sorts of stuff. It didn’t really seem to matter. But

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she was so desperate to communicate. That was really her motivation, you know to stop the isolation. And she did have some Japanese friends here but I think because the Japanese culture is so restrictive, even with other women I didn’t really feel she had that kind of support. And we used to just go for long walks together and talk and occasionally I would try to have like a formal lesson with her but she was really in need of a friendship and that’s fine by me. So I let her define that. I sort of didn’t want to move the relationship either way. I wanted her to be the one to decide initially. And her husband’s mother died in Japan and he went back and she came to my door crying and we were hugging. And, you know, this is within months of knowing each other. And then her husband left her after a year that I knew her. And when he left her she was so devastated, she had really like pretty much collapsed and I was really scared. I organised everything. I did the WINZ stuff for her. I found her husband. I was afraid that she was just going to be undermined to such an extent. He was still in the house for a couple of weeks. And I organised a flatmate situation for him with some friends of mine. So he shifted out. And I was leaving the country for two months. And when I got back I wasn’t sure if she was going to be here. So when I came back she was here. This is a great story and I really love this story. But like I was possessed. There was this friend of mine that I wanted to introduce her to. And I actually had him in my head as soon as I knew that her husband was leaving. And I knew it was too soon, I knew it wasn’t really cool. But now it’s like four months later, right? And I just couldn’t help myself. And I had to introduce them. And she started singing this song, ‘I’ll never fall in love again’. We used to sing a lot of songs to each other in English. And so she was singing, ‘I’ll never fall in love again’ and I was thinking, you know, ‘You’ve got to meet this guy’. And he was like, you know, he didn’t want to meet her. She didn’t want to meet him. And I just harangued them to the point where they couldn’t, they just wanted me to shut up. And they did meet. And then it took another four months of looking at each other across the table at quiz night before they actually got together. And they have fallen in love. And they are together as a couple. And they have been living together. So. That’s Masako. The underlined lexical set in the excerpt illustrates the transcendent relationship between Ann and Masako. It contrasts markedly with another lexical set which includes ‘really frightened’, ‘really timid’,

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‘really scared’, ‘restrictive’, ‘afraid’, and ‘undermined’. Ann’s mission has been to overturn Masako’s negative experiences associated with this latter set. In doing so, she has taken on so much more than what would normally be expected of a language tutor. Her roles include friend, empathizer, social worker, and perhaps one not mentioned above, match-maker! From Masako’s narrative it appears as though this working relationship has been very successful. Masako has not only learned enough English to enable her to express herself effectively, to understand others and to actually enjoy using English, but her personal life (i.e. meeting a new partner and settling into New Zealand life) has also turned out for the better. Looking to the future, Masako says, ‘I imagine that I will be able to work as a caregiver with confidence.’ However, she adds, ‘I will never feel that I have learned enough English. I would need to go back and be born a Kiwi!!’ In terms of the teacher concerns identified by Breen et al. (2001), Ann’s narrative reveals most obviously a concern with the particular attributes of her learner (e.g. Masako’s needs, desires and emotions). She is also concerned about the learning process and about how she and Masako make use of the time they spend together. On occasions she recognizes Masako’s need for friendship and to talk, and so abandons her planned lesson for the day. As she says, ‘So I let her define that. … I wanted her to be the one to decide initially.’ Ann is aware of subject matter: what English Masako knows and needs, and what aspects of the language to work on when they meet (e.g. a focus on conversation). In sum, Ann is a thinking tutor, who plans and practises strategically, always taking into account Masako’s needs and the particular circumstances of any meeting. In short, their relationship is a central factor in her decision-making.

6. Conclusion Wright (1990) states that ‘the teacher–learner role relationship lies at the very heart of the classroom process’. I would argue that this is even more the case for the tutor–learner relationship in the home tutoring situation. I have shown in this chapter that tutors play multiple roles in their relationships with their learners. The description of their experiences, as expressed in their narratives, are not metaphorical but involve real work by actual tutors working one-on-one with migrants and refugees learning English while continuing to settle into a new country. Weigle and Nelson (2004) conclude their study of tutor roles in writing tutorial sessions by discussing a number of salient factors in the negotiation of tutor–learner relationships. One of these is especially pertinent

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for the home tutor situation, where the out-of-classroom curriculum constraints are far less imposing than those typically found in formal classroom settings: the setting in which the tutoring takes place. It is certainly beyond the classroom – in learners’ homes and in coffee shops, banks, schools, on the beach and at Christmas dinners. Such settings are conducive to interactions that are relaxed, genuine and focused. And, as Weigle and Nelson (2004: 220) comment, these informal settings symbolize ‘a relationship of peers rather than instructor/student’. Tutor cognitions, expressed as concerns in this chapter (Breen et al. 2001), are undoubtedly important in negotiating and maintaining these relationships. Tutor–learner relationships are inextricably connected to tutor cognitions. Borg’s (2006) framework for language teacher cognition research points to significant connections between the elements and processes that make up teacher cognitions, including the teachers’ personal history, their training, and contextual factors (including classroom practice). In the case of the tutors in this study, I hope that it is evident from what I have presented in this chapter that their relationship is an integral aspect of the contextual factors component of the framework. In other words, for tutors working one-on-one with learners in situations beyond the classroom, I would argue that the nature of their relationship is a major factor in the decision-making processes and practices of tutors and ultimately in the success of their learners. In conclusion, further research on learner relationships outside of the formal language classroom, even beyond the less formal tutor–learner situation described in this chapter, could focus on the nature and impact of relationships with significant others who may play a role in supporting learning. Such people could be members of the learner’s family who are more proficient in the target language (e.g. children of adult migrants) or other members of their community such as friends, religious leaders or counsellors. Questions that could be asked include: What is the nature of the relationship? What is it that others actually do in the relationship to support learning? Do networks of similar relationships exist, and if so, what do they look like and how do they together contribute to learning? Learners engage in multiple relationships, many of which have the potential to lead to learning. Discovering how will further enhance our understanding of language learning beyond the classroom.

13 Materials Development for Learning Beyond the Classroom Hayo Reinders

1. Introduction This practical chapter deals with the selection, creation, and implementation of materials designed to support learners in their learning beyond the classroom, and to develop learner autonomy. First, it reviews some of the issues with many of the materials currently available to teachers and their learners. Next, it proposes a model for materials development based on offering support at eight iterative stages in the autonomous learning process. In the final section, the chapter discusses ways of integrating the use of materials into a course to ensure students are wellprepared and supported.

2. The role of materials in the development of learner autonomy The idea that learners need to be able to take control over their own learning to be successful not just in class, but also to learn independently beyond the classroom, has become widely accepted in mainstream language teaching. Many course books now include some deliberate focus on the learning process and may encourage students to reflect on their progress. Recent learner-centred approaches to learning and teaching such as task-based language teaching include elements that can support the development of autonomous learning skills (Errey and Schollaert 2005). However, the ways in which the development of autonomy is put into practice differ greatly from one classroom to the next and from one course book to the next. In some cases, materials only pay lip service to learner independence and lack the necessary support features. 175

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Reinders and Lewis (2006), for example, found in a survey of self-access materials that many did not provide sufficient information and help for independent use by students. A related study (Reinders and Lewis 2005) showed that this was also true, and even to a slightly greater extent, for computer-assisted language learning materials (in the case of the study, CDROMs selected from the university’s self-access centre). The same has been found by Jones (1993) for teach-yourself materials. Another problem lies with the implementation of materials. Learners will need certain skills in order to meaningfully use those materials. In fact, lacking these skills, there is a danger that learners will take the instructional voice of the book as a replacement for the teacher’s voice: ...there is very little evidence that self-instructional modes of learning are in themselves sufficient to lead to greater autonomy or independence. On the contrary, it appears that learners who are forced into self-instructional modes of learning without adequate support will tend to rely all the more on the directive elements in the materials they use. (Benson and Voller 1997: 9) Clearly, materials for autonomy need to be integrated into the teaching context through learner training and ongoing support and it is not sufficient simply to provide learners with access to resources, no matter how good those resources are in themselves, if learners are to have any chance of success in their out-of-class learning. For teachers interested in fostering learner autonomy, the creation, selection and implementation of materials may not be an easy task. In the rest of this chapter I will propose a number of characteristics that successful materials for autonomy need to have and will discuss options for implementing those materials into a given teaching context.

3. Developing materials for out-of-class learning Although the concept of learner autonomy has been around for many years, there still is a great deal of misunderstanding about what it entails in practice. Autonomy can be difficult to distinguish from other concepts such as motivation, self-direction and freedom, as it shares elements of all of these. Although it may not be possible to establish definitive consensus about what autonomy is, most teachers recognize elements of autonomous learning in their students when they see them. For that reason, in this chapter I propose an operationalization

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of autonomy that focuses on the recognizable features of autonomous learning: ‘Autonomous language learning is an act of learning whereby motivated learners consciously make informed decisions about that learning’ (Reinders 2000: 25). How does this translate into learning practice? I suggest below that autonomous learning consists of eight stages that together cover the entire learning process. A learner can still be deemed autonomous even though (s)he may not actively complete each stage, but fully autonomous learning includes these elements. Since it is possible to operationalize these elements in terms of specific learning behaviours, they will be helpful in determining the necessary characteristics of materials designed to develop autonomous learning skills. These stages are iterative: they form a cycle that repeats and builds on itself. They are an expansion and adaptation for language learning of the generic five-step model developed by Knowles (1975). Table 1 (p. 178) shows the stages in summary form. The middle column shows how, in general, each stage is covered in a completely teacherdirected environment (such as some classrooms) and the right-hand column shows each stage in a completely learner-directed situation. Many teaching and learning situations would probably fall somewhere between these two extremes. I will now discuss each of these stages in turn, with specific attention to materials development. 3.1

Identifying needs

It is surprising to note how often learners have no clear idea of their language needs, and the discrepancies that exist between what learners think they need and where their actual weaknesses lie. Equally worryingly, many learners have little idea of their learning needs (Barcelos 2008). In other words: they have little knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses as language learners. They may know, for example, that they need to improve their writing skills but may not know that they are poor at learning with and from others, which is a learning skill, and one that will affect their overall success. Needs analyses are sometimes offered at the start of a course book, although usually these take the form of general placement tests to determine which level of the course the student should take. In addition, learners can benefit from more regular needs analyses. Few needs analyses help students determine their learning needs in addition to their language needs. Materials for autonomy benefit from the inclusion of these elements. This could be in the form of checklists or in the form of statements that students rate their agreement with. A common tool

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Table 1 The self-directed learning process Learning stages

Teacher-directed D

Learner-directed

Identifying learning needs

Placement tests, teacher feedback

Learner experiences/difficulties in using the language

Setting goals

Determined by the course, relatively fixed

Contextually determined, relatively flexible

Planning learning

Determined by the teacher, somewhat flexible

Contextually determined, very flexible

Selecting materials

Provided by teacher

Self-selection by learners

Selecting learning strategies

Teacher models and instructions

Self-selection by learners

Practice

Exercises and activities provided by teacher

Implementation (language use) and experimentation

Monitoring progress

Regular classroom feedback and comments on assignments and tasks

Self-monitoring, peer-feedback

Assessment and revision

Tests, curriculum changes

Self-assessment, reflection

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used in self-access centres is a questionnaire that helps students discover what ‘type of learner’ they are by asking them to agree or disagree with statements like ‘learning grammar is the most important step in learning a new language’, ‘it is important to learn with other students’, and so on (an example is available from http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/questionnaire.html). 3.2

Setting goals

Just as the needs analysis helps students take the first steps in understanding their weaknesses and strengths, goal-setting helps them to be specific about the outcomes they are aiming for. As Nunan says: ‘learners who have reached a point where they are able to define their own goals and create their own learning opportunities have, by definition, become autonomous.’ (1999: 145). However, most traditional course materials (and even self-study materials) are very prescriptive in what learners are expected to learn. Materials for autonomy leave a degree of choice with the learners and are, in this sense, much more individualized. A book or CDROM may give learners the opportunity to improve their speaking skills, but may also allow learners the chance to improve their social skills (for example, by learning techniques to find ways of talking to native speakers). Allowing this degree of flexibility in the materials is important if the development of autonomy is one of the aims. 3.3

Planning learning

Setting goals and planning one’s learning are different sides to the same coin. Whereas one’s goals help to specify the desired destination, planning is like finding the best road to get there. Planning involves drawing up practical plans and allocating time to them. This step is often overlooked in materials (and by teachers) that are generally fixed in the following respects: 1. the content 2. the sequence 3. the ways in which learners are expected to use the content. In other words, most materials prescribe the what, when and how of the learner’s actions. Materials for autonomy will aim to (gradually) encourage learners to make these decisions for themselves. This could mean giving learners a choice over, for example, whether to use a model argument essay to do cohesion-building exercises, or to write a rebuttal

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essay. This may mean offering different types of exercises and different answer keys. It may also mean that materials do not have to be offered in a fixed order but rather, that there need to be tools to find materials easily by different characteristics. 3.4

Selecting resources

The first three phases above can be conducted by learners (with or without their teacher) before choosing a particular resource to work with. They can also be part (although at more specific language and content level) of the materials themselves. In this case, learners will still need help in deciding which part of the material is suitable for them. Part of the development towards autonomy involves learners having the awareness and ability to locate the right resources for their learning needs (which do not have to be limited to materials but could, of course, also include activities, native speakers, and teachers; here we focus on the materials, however). This does require the materials themselves to be coded at multiple levels and to give clear information to learners to allow them to make the right decision. Examples of such coding include: • • • • • • • • • •

language skills (e.g. writing) language subskills (e.g. writing conclusions) learning skills (e.g. proofreading) domain (e.g. science) level of difficulty activity type (e.g. productive or receptive) whether the activity is done alone or with others keywords relating to the content accent (e.g. American or British English) practical information (e.g. how long it takes to complete).

The aim is to help students to identify the right part of a resource. In many cases, only one chapter or topic of a book or CDROM may be of interest to the learner. Signposts are necessary to help learners find that part. These can include: • • • • •

an index a table of contents a ‘map’ of the resource a glossary chapter previews

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• chapter summaries • and any other type of information about the content of the resource. 3.5

Selecting learning strategies

Many learners think that once they have settled on a particular book or website, that the materials will guide them through their learning and give them all the information they need. Unfortunately, few materials consistently help learners to optimize their learning by focusing on how the learner uses the resource. Generally speaking, strategies are divided into cognitive strategies (e.g. ways of memorizing vocabulary), metacognitive strategies (e.g. being able to self-assess), and social-affective strategies (e.g. being able to find opportunities to speak the language, or to motivate oneself), and it is important that teachers consider how they will include all three into their materials. Learners will need to be encouraged to reflect on the way in which they will learn with the materials at hand, and the materials should teach learners additional strategies (for a practical overview of strategies in language teaching, see Cotterall and Reinders 2004). Students may need help to identify the learning strategies they need to develop. An example of an instrument that does this is the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (Oxford 1990), an adapted version of which is available online (http://homework.wtuc.edu.tw/sill.php). 3.6

Practice

In classroom situations, teachers provide opportunities for practice and give frequent feedback. Many teachers also give homework consisting of exercises for drilling. Many of these materials do not offer students any choice as to which aspect of the new knowledge that they have learned they will practise. Nor do they give them any choice in how they will use or implement their new knowledge. An important aspect of autonomy is the ability to experiment with the language, and to take risks (Schwienhorst 2007). It is important, then, for materials to encourage students to find ways to move beyond the confines of the pedagogic environment (the classroom, the self-access centre, the school) and to incorporate new knowledge into their lives. The challenge here is to find a balance between giving students freedom while still giving them support. This support can be in the form of carefully structured tasks that require students to practise the language on their own terms, but then to input their experiences back into the task itself (for example through a webquest, or by accessing a corpus, where students need to find examples of particular language use). In this way, the materials

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can ensure that language is recycled and that regular presentation and revision takes place, while still leaving a degree of choice with the student. 3.7

Monitoring progress

In a teacher-directed environment, such as in a course with a set curriculum, progress is generally measured by others: the teacher will give feedback and perhaps there are regular mini-tests and assignments. For the development of autonomy, learners will need to develop the ability to monitor their own progress and revise their learning plans accordingly. This includes reflection on their motivation levels and other social-affective aspects of the learning. When learners are working with materials individually and are working on their individual needs, it is impossible to offer standardized forms of monitoring or feedback. In other words, the materials will have to encourage learners to find other ways to check they are still on track – for example by referring them back to their needs analysis, by keeping a diary or portfolio, or by asking them to rate their satisfaction with their learning – based on their own goals. At a practical level, materials also need to include necessary models and answer keys. Surprisingly, the survey carried out by Reinders and Lewis (2006) found several materials that, although they were published for self-access learning, did not include these elements. 3.8

Assessment and revision

Whereas monitoring one’s progress is an ongoing task that takes place as part of every learning episode, assessment is usually less frequent. Many students, understandably, want to have a sense of achievement and test scores can provide a kind of external validation that is important to them. Denying this entirely may not be desirable. However, at the same time, learners need to be given opportunities for alternative assessment, so as to enable them to feel confident in their own learning when they no longer have the support of the institution. Many teachers use portfolios for this purpose. The Council of Europe has developed the European Language Portfolio, which is available from its website (www.coe.int/portfolio). Other options include selfassessment worksheets and activities that encourage students to put into practice what they have learned (e.g. to have a conversation with a native speaker or to read an academic article without a dictionary). It is important that the assessment is linked to the learners’ previous work. In some cases materials (and teachers) make the mistake of

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individualizing the learning and then use a blanket test to assess that learning. 3.9 Underpinning autonomous learning: reflection and motivation A crucial aspect of the autonomous learning process is the reflection that underpins all of the stages discussed above. Especially, the final reflection that takes place after monitoring one’s progress and assessing one’s learning is a key phase, as it links one’s accomplishments with future work through a revision of one’s goals and plans. Therefore, learners should be encouraged to think about what went well in their learning, what did not go well, why this was so, what alternatives there are, and how this affects their objectives. Materials for autonomy intersperse opportunities for reflection throughout the entire learning process, as the ‘glue’ that holds all of the activities together. The final reflection changes the learning process from a one-shot sequence, to a cycle of learning where previous experiences are the building blocks for future learning. Of course, learning is not only a cognitive but also a distinctly social process. Interaction and collaboration are part of several of the phases of the autonomous learning process, and in fact, these are now seen as crucial to the development of autonomy (van Lier 1996; Schwienhorst 2007). These take place at various points in the learning process: for example, learners could be asked to help each other identify learning needs, to practise together, or to assess each other. The social element thus underpins the independent learning process. The affective aspect of learning is also crucial to success, especially in independent learning, where the traditional classroom environment with its regular feedback and contact with other learners is replaced with, for many learners, a less familiar context where learners are themselves responsible for maintaining their interest and motivation. Independent learning is likely to challenge learners’ beliefs about what language learning entails, and may lead to frustration. Therefore ‘(self-)motivation’, as a blanket term covering the affective aspect of learning, is a key pillar of the model presented below. Materials writers need to be aware that learners will need affective support, for example by encouraging them to maintain lists of new things learned (to boost morale), and to exchange ideas with other learners. This cyclical nature of the autonomous learning process is shown in Figure 1, with reflection and motivation providing the cognitive and affective backbone.

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Planning learning

Setting goals

Identifying learning needs

Selecting resources Reflection Motivation Interaction

Assessment and revision

Selecting strategies

Monitoring progress

Practice

Figure 1 The iterative self-directed learning cycle

4. A framework for evaluating self-access materials The evaluative framework represented in Table 2 incorporates the eight stages discussed above. It is designed to help teachers to write or quickly highlight any particular issues with a resource, which can then be used to decide to implement, reject, or adapt it. The framework can also help teachers, when developing their own materials, later in the line to ensure all necessary elements for autonomy have been included.

5. Implementing materials Of course, availability of materials that support the different stages of the autonomous learning process is necessary to give students learning opportunities outside the classroom, but in itself this is not enough to ensure success. There are numerous examples of cases where teachers or self-access staff have made good quality materials available to students, only to see the students not using them or using them in unanticipated ways. On a personal note, when I worked in the self-access centre at the University of Auckland, there used to be a Russian student who diligently came in every day and sat down with Swan’s Practical English Usage (a huge grammar tome) for two hours, for five days of the week. When

Table 2 Materials evaluation framework Features

Yes/No/Unsure

Adapt

Identifying needs The material helps learners assess language needs Setting goals The material includes tools and tips for goal-setting Planning learning The material includes tools and tips for planning Selecting materials The material is properly coded There is information to help learners access the right part of the material Selecting strategies The material encourages and provides tips/models for strategy use Practice The material offers learner-oriented practice and opportunities for experimentation Monitoring progress The material encourages regular reflection Assessment and revision The material includes tips and tools for assessment and encourages reflection on the learning process with the aim of revising learning needs, goals, and learning practices

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I looked more closely I found that he was hand-copying every single page. When I asked him why he was doing this he said he wanted to improve his speaking skills! Clearly one of the key requirements is for learners to be trained in using materials independently: ‘…if learners are not trained for autonomy, no amount of surrounding them with resources will foster in them that capacity for active involvement and conscious choice, although it might appear to do so’ (Hurd 1998: 72–3). Research has confirmed the importance of learner training in various self-directed learning environments. For example, Reinders and Cotterall (2000) found from a factor analysis that the most important determinant of success in a self-access centre was the degree of preparation the students had received. This applies also more specifically to knowing how to select and use individual materials. As Laurillard (1993: 213) says: Access to information databases gives students a wealth of material to work from, but this is of no value to them if they are not able to make selective judgments about what to use, and critical judgments about the content of what they find. The teaching that surrounds students’ use of such systems will need to address this kind of issue. How then should materials for autonomy be introduced and made available? It is useful to think of the implementation as taking place in three phases, firstly before students use the materials (the preparation phase), next while they use them (the support phase), and finally after they finish (the reflective phase). I will now briefly look at each of these. It is important here to remember that although the comments below talk about materials that, at some point, will be used by students outside the classroom, the same could be said about many classroom activities as well. 5.1

Preparation phase

Preparing learners to use materials outside the classroom should be part of a broader focus on autonomy. It is not realistic to spoonfeed students every day and then expect them to learn autonomously only because they have access to self-study materials. In situations where teachers have reported being successful in extending the learning opportunities for students through materials, there was already a clear focus in class on developing learner strategies, encouraging reflection, and practising the skills necessary to self-direct one’s learning. So for teachers interested in using materials for autonomy outside the class, they should

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first make an inventory of all the activities they employ towards this goal in the class. A second question relates to the extent to which teachers encourage out-of-class learning, both during the course and between courses. For example, is there any attempt to connect learning during the semester with the free time students have during the holidays? Finally, several authors have talked about the benefits of having students contribute to the materials creation. For example, Aston (1996) experimented with students creating materials for use in the self-access centre and the same could be done for materials to be used outside the school. By giving students a stake in their learning, they are likely to be more motivated and feel a sense of control, which is a key component in becoming autonomous. As Littlejohn says, talking about the selfaccess centre, we need to ‘transform learners from the role of consumers to the role of producers, exercising some level of control and influence over the centre facilities’ (1997: 190). 5.2

Support phase

The encouragement and preparation that take place in the classroom help the students on their way to learning by themselves. But they are still likely to need help once they learn with the materials provided by the teacher. What support is there available outside the classroom? For example, is there a self-access centre with staff on hand? If so, it will be useful to meet with the staff there and show the materials that have been provided to the students. Staff may be willing to include the materials in the centre to make them available to other students as well. By knowing about a particular course, the subjects that are covered, and the particular learning needs of the students, staff will be better able to help. Some universities offer a language advisory service (often in the self-access centre). Language advising, or language counselling, usually involves a student meeting with an advisor one-to-one to discuss learning needs, to get advice on materials and strategies to use, and, in subsequent meetings, to get feedback on progress made. Some teachers offer this type of service to their students, or to several departments in the school. The individualized nature of this type of support makes it very suitable to help students in their out-of-class learning. It is important, however, to make it clear to students that an advisory session is not the same as a private language lesson (Reinders 2008). The support phase also involves making explicit links between what students do in the classroom with what they do outside the classroom.

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One idea is to set aside some ‘self-study’ time and roam the classroom and offer help with any problems students might encounter. If similar problems keep cropping up, teachers could decide to make this the focus of some of the regular class time. Extension activities build on what students have done by themselves by providing further practice or by giving students new strategies to work with. It is important in the support phase to ensure that the work students do builds up over time to cover a range of skills. It is common for students to find one preferred way of working or one particular type of activity or material, and to use only that. It is important that the teacher monitors their work and encourages them to use a wider range of materials and strategies (and makes them aware of the importance of doing this). Related to this, it is important to encourage students to move on to using their new language outside the institution and to move away from relying only on pedagogic materials. 5.3

Reflective phase

It is important to connect the work students do by themselves with what happens in class. This connection can be made by asking students to talk about their experiences, either in public or by sharing their learning diary with their teacher. Encouraging students to report what worked for them and what did not, and helping them to identify reasons for this, are also useful techniques, as is the sharing of success stories with the other students. Students need to be reminded that they are not alone outside the classroom and to be encouraged to learn from each other. It is useful to ask students to rate the materials used in class, as this will help improve those materials for future students. Did all of its support features ‘work’? Were the instructions clear? Were the answer keys and models useful?

6. Making resources available A practical challenge is how to make the materials available to students. They could be handed out in class, or students could access them directly from a ‘self-study’ shelf in the classroom. Teachers who teach in different classrooms could build a ‘mobile self-access’ facility. This could be a trolley with space for books, tapes, CDROMs, worksheets, etc that the students can self-select and borrow. As with all materials development, the end result benefits from collaboration between colleagues. Many schools build up a sizeable materials

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bank over the years with resources suitable for self-study. Of course these could be shared with the staff in the self-access centre so they are more widely available across the institution. By uploading the materials to an intranet, it becomes even easier for the students to access them.

7. Concluding comments Creating and implementing materials for autonomy is challenging and, initially, time-consuming. Commercially available materials may not be suitable models to work from and for many teachers, this type of materials creation is a new experience. However, teachers can derive great satisfaction from knowing that the end result will help their students not only to improve their language, but also to improve their lifelong learning skills. In this way, the effect of one’s efforts stretches well beyond the brief teaching moment and well beyond the language classroom. The skills they acquire in the process will stay with your students for the rest of their lives.

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Index adult learners 4, 12, 132–45, 146–60, 161–74 advising 124, 128–9, 138, 169, 187 affordances 3, 13–15, 19, 33, 35–46, 49, 56, 59–71 agency 3, 47–58, 60, 67, 70–1 apprenticeship 37–8 Arabic learners 17–34 assessment 110, 128, 178, 182, 184–5 attitudes 50, 56, 59, 73, 89, 122 autonomy 8, 12, 45, 47, 58, 71, 107, 122, 129, 135, 137, 142–5, 154, 175–89 beliefs 49, 56–7, 106, 114, 145, 166–7, 183 Brazilian learners 59–71 classroom language learning 7–11, 16, 53, 154, 158 codeswitching 72–87 communication networks 19 community 4–5, 14, 27, 33, 56, 80, 150, 168, 174 communities of practice 38, 46, 132–45 genre-based communities 24–7 learning community 18–21, 27, 33, 38 comprehensible input 7, 18 context of adult education 10 of learning 17–20, 24, 47–58, 107, 133–6, 149, 154, 159 school 37, 161 social context 21, 24, 33–4, 39, 60–1, 73, 77, 79, 84, 86 Conversation Analysis 8, 88 conversation groups 135, 143 cultural capital 110, 113

Dari 124 discourse 35, 49–50, 56–7, 76, 83, 86, 90, 122 bilingual discourse-marking 75–6 discourse community 35, 63, 66–8 discourse marker 77, 79–81 discourses in place 39 discursive context 86 discursive field 74 discursive resource 84, 86 Dutch 121, 124 English language learning 4, 17–34, 35–46, 47–58, 59–71, 88–105, 106–18, 119–31, 132–45, 161–74 English Language Partners 161, 171 environment family environment 28–9, 161–74 learning environment 3, 15, 38, 59–70, 127 132–45 social environment 35, 57, 60, 125 virtual environment 3, 35–8, 41–4, 146–59 ethnography 39, 72–87, 133, 136, 144, 152, 159 European Language Portfolio 182 European Union 122, 146–9 evaluation 58, 151, 185 experiences early childhood 64 of learning 52, 55, 59, 70, 72, 87, 136–40 162, 164, 178 negative 51, 151, 173 of older learners 133–6 142, 144 out-of-class language 3, 21, 48, 71 phenomenological 75 of travel abroad 29, 53, 55, 65–6, 94–8, 110, 112–13 expert–novice roles 89–91, 94, 103–4 extracurricular language learning 9 extramural language learning 9, 106–18

205

206

Index

family 17–34, 40–3, 120, 123–4, 126–7, 150, 163, 167–8, 174 Finland 35–46, 47–58, 60, 65, 68, 71, 120 Finnish learners 35–46, 47–58, 69 flexible learning 120 formality 8–10, 12–15, 146–8 France 72–87, 119–31 French learners 119–31 French language learning 72–87 friends 2, 17–34, 41–3, 66, 68, 70, 91, 115, 123–4, 126–7, 142, 151, 168, 170–4 gender 4, 21, 28, 86, 107, 111–17 goals 17, 47, 57, 90, 123–4, 133, 135, 155–8, 161, 163, 166, 179, 184 Grounded Theory 162 historical body 39 home tutoring 4, 161–74 identity 19, 25, 38, 47–8, 57, 59, 63, 73, 91, 123, 137 independent language learning 8–10, 12, 119–31, 142, 147, 175, 183 informal language learning 9–10, 15, 146–60 instructed language learning 8, 11, 15, 107 interaction hypothesis 108 interaction order 39 intercultural communication 88, 103–4, 150, 152 inverse socialization 21 investment 34, 74 Italian language learning 123, 147, 153 Italian learners 154 Japanese learners 132–45 Japanese language learning 88–105, 123 Korean learners 88–105 language learning diary 109–10, 182, 188

learner attributes 18, 163, 169, 173 learning community: see community learning skills 120, 126–9, 175, 177, 180, 189 learning resources 4, 38, 129 materials 11–14, 122–9, 136–41, 175–89 semiotic 55–8 social 1–34, 52–4 learning strategies 18–19, 127–8, 135, 138, 181, 186–8 Strategy Inventory for Language Learning 181 learning spaces 4, 38–9, 42, 46, 132–45 legitimate peripheral participation 20–1 life history 133, 136, 144 LITERALIA 146–8 locus of control 2, 8–9, 12 Lycée des metiers 119 manga 26, 123, 125 materials development 175–89 media 25–6, 35–7, 49–50, 53–8 Mediated Discourse Analysis 35, 39, 46 metacognition 132–45 mode of practice 8, 14–15 monitoring 127, 129, 138–9, 178, 182–5 Moodle 147, 152 motivation 4, 29, 77, 109–10, 112–13, 115–17, 123–5, 129, 140, 149, 163, 172, 176, 182–4 motivational dynamics 123 multilingualism 3, 72–87 multimodal discourse analysis 39 narrative approach 161–74 naturalistic language learning 7, 9, 11–12, 107 needs analysis 177, 179, 182 negotiation of meaning 44, 116, new literacies 35 New Zealand 161–74 niche 60–70, 170

Index 207 non-formal language learning 9, 10, 22, 146, 148–54, 158–9 non-instructed language learning 11 older language learners 132–45 online learning environment 146–60 oral proficiency 108–17 out-of-class language learning 9, 122, 124–7, 129, 132, 147, 176, 187 definition and alternative terms 1–2, 7–16 difficulties in 19, 32, 119, 121–2, 127–9, 138–41, 159, 163, 167, 169, 176, 178, 180 effectiveness of 7, 11 locations for 8–10, 12–13, 15, 22, 35–46 teaching in 11, 88–105, 161–74 pedagogy 7–16, 159 personal curriculum 149, 153–8 phenomenological approach 72–87 planning 138, 155, 164, 166, 179, 184–5 Portuguese 64, 66–7, 123 poststructuralist sociolinguistics 73 power 55–6, 58, 74, 86, 145 problem-solving 35, 38, 40, 42–3, 45–6 public pedagogy 10 quantitative methods 106, 117, 151 reflection 45, 139, 142, 154, 157–9, 178, 182–6, 188 self-access 14, 121, 132–5, 179, 181–2, 184, 186–7, 189 evaluating self-access materials 184 materials 176 mobile self-access 188 self-assessment 114, 178, 181–2, self-confidence 124, 129, 137 self-directed language learning 9, 12, 14, 121, 128–9, 137, 142, 178, 184, 186 self-directed naturalistic language learning 11, 107

self-instruction 7, 11, 176 self-perception 73 semiotic practices 41, 48, 59, 73 semiotic aggregate 41 semiotic artefacts 56 semiotic resources 55–8 setting 9–10, 12–15, 43, 47–8, 71–3, 75–6, 86–7, 133–4, 173–4 significant others 17, 22, 174 social capital 17–34 social events 135, 143 social learning space 132–45 social learning strategies 18 Social Network Theory 19–20, 33–4 social networks 17–34 socio-constructivist theories of learning 148 socioeconomic background 107, 110, 112–13, 116, 118 Spanish language learning 123 Spanish learners 72–87 Sweden 20, 54, 106–18 Swedish learners 106–18 Swedish language learning 47–58 symbolic resource 84, 86 Tagalog 21 talk about language 88–105 tandem learning 146–60 teachers assuming roles as teachers 24–5, 28–9, 31–3, 161–74, 175–89 beliefs on out-of-class learning 7–8 discussion of teachers 67–8 teacher education 44–6, 70–1, 120–1, 126–8 teacher-fronted classrooms 102, 104 teacher roles 27–8, 126, 151, 157, 162 technology-mediated language learning 35–46, 146–60 theory 15–16, 60, 72, 108, 122, 148 transcendent teacher–learner relationship 163 trust networks 19 Turkish learning 124–5 tutor 14–15, 146–60, 161–74 tutor cognitions 161–74 tutor concerns 163

208

Index

tutorials 10, 36, 161, 167–8, 173 tutor–learner relationships 161 United Arab Emirates (UAE) 17–34 Urdu/Hindi 21

United States 65–7 vocabulary 37, 44, 46, 51–5, 69–70, 103, 109–12, 114–17, 124, 136, 141, 168 Vocabulary Levels Test 110