Language Learning and Leisure: Informal Language Learning in the Digital Age

✍ Scribed by Denyze Toffoli (editor); Geoffrey Sockett (editor); Meryl Kusyk (editor)

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 436
• Series: Studies on Language Acquisition [SOLA]; 66
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The study of informal involvement with additional languages has recently emerged as a dynamic research field in SLA. With the rapid development and spread of internet-based technologies, contact with foreign languages outside the classroom has become commonplace. While this can take multiple forms, online contents are a major driving force because they present learners with unprecedented opportunities for exposure to and use of target languages regardless of their physical location. Research from diverse geographical, educational and socio-economic contexts bring a rich variety of perspectives to this book. It explores these phenomena via a range of theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches, focusing particularly on individual differences and language development. The volume proposes that teachers in formal learning settings should seek to support and facilitate the development of these identities and practices, and it indicates means they can adopt to best do so.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Author biographies
1 Introduction to Language Learning and Leisure
Section 1: The nature of informal second language learning
2 Toward an anthropology of Informal Digital Learning of English (IDLE)
3 Does informal mean implicit?
4 Smart devices and informal language learning
Section 2: Language outcomes
5 Informal second language learning and EFL learners’ spoken use of discourse markers
6 Influence of television series on pronunciation
Section 3: Learner activities
7 Mapping space, leisure and informal language learning in the lives of international students in Australia
8 Learner perspectives on informal L2 vocabulary learning
9 Mediation in informal language learning activities outside of the classroom
10 Linguistic risk-taking and informal language learning in Canada and Austria
Section 4: Psychological dimensions
11 Why does IDLE make EFL learners gritty?
12 Preservice English language teachers and informal digital learning of English (IDLE) in Kazakhstan
13 Learner profiles and ISLL trajectories
Section 5: Engagement
14 Behaviour, thoughts, and feelings
15 Learner engagement and learner change under lockdown
16 Engaging with L2 Netflix
17 Conclusion
Index