The Ecosystem of the Foreign Language Learner: Selected Issues

✍ Scribed by Ewa Piechurska-Kuciel, Magdalena Szyszka (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer International Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 208
• Series: Second Language Learning and Teaching
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This volume examines selected aspects of the foreign language learning process from an ecological perspective, adopting a holistic view on complex interrelations among and within organisms (L2 language learners) and their milieus (family, school and society). First of all, the personal ecosystem of the learner is taken into consideration, whereby two powerful influences are intertwined: cognitive and affective aspects. The learning space formed by the individual is largely shaped by their affective states coexisting in conjunction with their cognitive processes. Moreover, this specific space is also modified by a wider array of other personal ecosystems or those of cultures. Hence, the ecosystem of the foreign language learner is also subject to influences coming from sociocultural leverage that can be represented by people they know, like parents and language teachers, who can both directly and indirectly manipulate their ecosystem. At the same time other important forces, such as culture as a ubiquitous element in the foreign language learning process, also have the power to shape that ecosystem. Accordingly, the book is divided into three parts covering a range of topics related to these basic dimensions of foreign language acquisition (the cognitive, affective and socio-cultural). Part I, Affective Interconnections, focuses on the body of original empirical research into the affective domain of not only L2 language learners but also non-native language teachers. Part II, Cognitive Interconnections, reports on contributions on language learners’ linguistic processing and cognitive representations of concepts. The closing part, Socio-cultural Interconnections, provides new insights into language learning processes as they are affected by social and cultural factors.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xv
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
What the Languages of Our Dreams Tell Us About Our Multilinguality....Pages 3-17
The Cecily Effect : A Pilot Study....Pages 19-36
Foreign Language Self-assessment and Willingness to Communicate in and Outside the Classroom....Pages 37-57
A Qualitative Study on Subjective Attitudes and Objective Achievement of Autotelic and Non-autotelic Students of English as a Foreign Language....Pages 59-70
Simultaneous Reading and Listening Is Less Effective Than Reading Alone: A Study Based on Cognitive Load Theory....Pages 71-80
Associative Links in the Bilingual Mind....Pages 81-94
Front Matter....Pages 95-95
EFL Teachers’ Affective Competencies and Their Relationships with the Students....Pages 97-115
An Investigation into Classroom-Related Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Among in-Service Teachers of English....Pages 117-134
Development of EFL Teacher Training Materials: Lessons from Co-ordinating a Multilateral Project....Pages 135-151
Is Foreign Language Knowledge a Form of Capital Passed from One Generation to the Next?....Pages 153-167
Rhetorical Criticism as an Advanced Literacy Practice: A Report on a Pilot Training....Pages 169-184
Cultural Problems in Literary Translation from English into Arabic....Pages 185-200

✦ Subjects

Applied Linguistics; Language Education