The Affective Dimension In Second Language Acquisition

This volume presents a series of empirical studies which focus on affectivity in relation to both individual learner differences, and language learning experiences, motivation and attitudes. The volume also elaborates on affectivity in various contexts of FL use and in different educational settings such as CLIL or e-learning.

Affectivity is at the core of everything we do in life. Thus, its development is also central to learning/acquisition and is important for educational contexts. The studies presented in this volume consider the different contexts of language learning and examine different types of participants in this process. Most of them look at a formal instruction context, while others look beyond the classroom and even report on the author's own affectivity and its involvement in learning experiences. Affectivity is discussed here in relation to learners but also to teachers in their own professional contexts of teaching foreign languages. In the majority of cases, affectivity is explored in the case of bilinguals, but there are also articles which focus on multilingual language users and their affectivity as an evolving factor.

The volume consists of articles on issues relating to the morphosyntactic development of foreign language learners from different L1 backgrounds, in many cases involving languages which are typologically distant from English, such has Polish, Greek and Turkish. It highlights areas which may be expected to be especially transfer-prone at both the interlingual and intralingual levels. The articles in the first part report empirical studies on word morphology and sentence patterns and also look at the interface of lexis and grammar in the discourse and syntactic processing of foreign language learners. The second part elaborates on pedagogical issues concerning the acquisition of difficult grammatical features such as the English article system or the ‘s’ ending in the third person singular. It also comments more generally on the way pedagogic grammar functions in the learning of the L2.

This book uses a narrative-oriented approach to shed light on the processes of identity construction among Japanese university students of English. It offers a unique perspective on the role of experience, emotions, social and environmental affordances in shaping their personal orientations to English and self-perceptions as English learner-users.

This book introduces readers to the principles of a fairly new branch of psychology – positive psychology – and demonstrates how they can be applied in the context of second language acquisition in a natural environment and in instructed foreign language (FL) learning. It focuses both on the well-being and success of the learner and the professional and personal well-being of the teacher. Further, the book stresses the importance of the positive emotions and character strengths of those involved in the process of language learning and teaching, as well as the significant role played by enabling institutions such as school and, at the micro-level, individual FL classes.

Now in a fifth edition, this bestselling introductory textbook remains the cornerstone volume for the study of second language acquisition (SLA). Its chapters have been fully updated, and reorganized where appropriate, to provide a comprehensive yet accessible overview of the field and its related disciplines. In order to reflect current developments, new sections and expanded discussions have been added. The fifth edition of Second Language Acquisition retains the features that students found useful in previous editions. This edition provides pedagogical tools that encourage students to reflect upon the experiences of second language learners. As with previous editions, discussion questions and problems at the end of each chapter help students apply their knowledge, and a glossary defines and reinforces must-know terminology. This clearly written, comprehensive, and current textbook, by Susan Gass, Jennifer Behney, and Luke Plonsky, is the ideal textbook for an introductory SLA course in second language studies, applied linguistics, linguistics, TESOL, and/or language education programs. This textbook is supported with a Companion Website containing instructor and student resources including PowerPoint slides, exercises, stroop tests, flashcards, audio and video links: https://routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/9781138743427/

This book brings together 18 theoretical and empirical chapters that analyze the role of emotion (expression, perception, processing) and identity (notions and representations, construction, conflict) in the process of learning a second language. Studies on the differences in emotionality in L1 and L2 agree that in L2 there is an alteration that, in many cases, manifests itself as a decrease in the affective load, which can lead to a certain indifference to the emotional content transmitted and to a lesser involvement in communication. It is also known that emotion plays a fundamental role in the construction of identity in a second language, in the shaping of the self that feels and communicates, and in the ability to cope with the learning process. Most of the studies have focused on the understanding of these two dimensions in balanced bilingual speakers, but there is little evidence on their functioning in speakers with otherdegrees of proficiency (the case of second language learners) and on their role in the learning process. Advancing in this knowledge is fundamental for the improvement of everything related to second language acquisition. We need new and innovate approaches approaches that lead to more effective programs, increased interest in language learning and the consolidation of multilingual societies.

This edited volume brings together perspectives that find mutual kinship in a view of language as an embodied, semiotic, symbolic tool used for communicative and interactional purposes and an understanding of language use as the preeminent condition for language learning – perspectives that we conjoin under the umbrella term of usage based perspectives.