Abstract
In this chapter on conditions for second and foreign language (L2) learning, the introduction provides key definitions. Key early developments include learning theories offered by Gagné, Vygotsky, and the Lave and Wenger team. These scholars’ works, although created outside of the L2 learning field, have influenced the thinking of many who are concerned about L2 learning. Major contributions within the L2 learning field include varied and often contradictory theories related to conditions for L2 learning: Norton’s sociocultural theory, Spolsky’s umbrella theory of 74 conditions, Brown’s theory of the whole L2 learner and his or her needs, Ellis’ theory of instructed L2 acquisition, and Zhao and Lai’s theory of technology-enhanced L2 learning. The section on works in progress hones in on promising, positive psychological efforts tied to L2 learning conditions. The author then mentions several problems hindering an effective understanding of L2 learning conditions: the fact that all learning condition theories have cultural, academic, philosophical, historical, and personal roots and that many individuals accept or reject a given theory without thinking about those roots; the frequent lack of awareness of the complexity of both L2 learners and L2 learning conditions; and the excessive number of L2 learning theories and the lack of expressed connectivity among those theories. The final section focuses on complexity theory as a potential path for understanding conditions for L2 learning.
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Notes
- 1.
The second/foreign language distinction is now weakening for because of (1) today’s exponentially expanded, Internet-based, border-spanning linguistic and cultural sharing and (2) the complexity of multicountry movements of individual immigrants and refugees. However, the terms are still in popular use and will be employed here.
- 2.
Dewaele (2011) employed LX, defined as any languages(s) that a multilingual person has learned after the age of three, i.e., after the period when the L1 has typically been well established. The L1, or first language/mother tongue, can be technically defined as any native language developed before the age of three (Dewaele and Pernelle 2015).
- 3.
Larsen-Freeman (2015) called this SLD, or second language development.
- 4.
In this chapter I avoid any sharp distinction between learning and acquisition, although Ellis’s theory focuses on instructed second language acquisition.
- 5.
Previously, Lave and Wenger (1991) discussed “legitimate peripheral participation” in which novices or “newcomers” (apprentices) participated at the periphery of a community of practice while learning from the “old-timer” (expert) in the community’s center. Wenger abandoned that concept in his 1998 book.
- 6.
- 7.
In contrast to Frederickson, Ricard (2003) viewed happiness as involving the acceptance of both pleasant and painful emotions.
- 8.
- 9.
This study has not yet been analyzed via complexity theory, but it will be in the future.
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Oxford, R.L. (2017). Conditions for Second Language (L2) Learning. In: Van Deusen-Scholl, N., May, S. (eds) Second and Foreign Language Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02246-8_4
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