Expanding and contextualizing digital language learning

Divergence of Everyday Practices and School Policy on Mobile Use: Challenges to Developing EFL Learners’ Digital Literacies

“…Today, emerging digital technologies allow learners to gain learning opportunities through digital literacies. The internet-based communities allow language learners to experience knowledge typically in multilingual and multicultural contexts, thus providing them with opportunities to develop linguistic and cultural competence through engaging in online activities (Godwin-Jones, 2015). Literature has claimed that the advent of digital technologies (e.g.…”

Understanding the Interaction between Technology and the Learner: The Case of DLL

“…Although our understanding in this regard remains rather limited, new exciting work is emerging rapidly. Chen (2021) also articulates the need, along with Godwin-Jones (2021) and MacWhinney (2021), to make DLL more complete by not only considering MALL, VR, and GBLL, but also RALL (robot-assisted language learning), social media tools, captioned videos, Google maps and so on (MacWhinney, 2017; Presson, Davy & MacWhinney, 2013; Sykes, 2017). As mentioned by Chen, multiple language teaching approaches have been implemented by RALL, and it is attracting attention from language educators and researchers particularly because of its ability to integrate advanced AI technologies, including speech recognition, NLP, and machine learning (Cheng, Wang, Yang, Yang & Chen, 2021).…”

“…A number of scholars comment that 1) total self-exploratory or discovery learning may not be effective, at least not to some students (Lantolf, 2021; Mayer, 2021), and 2) exploratory and contextualized activities for learning are not uncommon in today's classrooms for learning L2 or other subjects. For example, Godwin-Jones (2021), Han (2021), and Lantolf (2021) all point out that today's language classrooms value interactive, sociocultural learning and are not necessarily based on teacher-centered, translation-focused learning pedagogies. We concur with these points and wish to note that DLL does not in any principled way deny the important role of directed instructions or the existence of interactive activities in L2 classrooms.…”

“…Although the technological advances in AI and big data are important as discussed in our KA (section 5), whether and how DLL tools can lead to effective personalized learning will depend largely on the degree to which we understand learners and their individual differences. As Godwin-Jones (2021) correctly points out, without considering individual learner trajectories (e.g., proficiency, learning style), generalizations about learning effectiveness can be dangerous.…”

Digital tools for learning new languages: Benefits and limitations

“…Similar concerns with immersion-based language learning are raised by other commentators (Chien, Hung, Ku, Wu & Chan, 2022; Lantolf, 2022; Mayer, 2022; Spector, 2022). A second criticism concerns the opposition set out in the Keynote article between modern DLL and ‘traditional’ language teaching, which portrays language teaching as decontextualized, classroom-based, translation-based, and teacher-centred, which is an outdated of view of current language teaching according to some (Godwin-Jones, 2022; Han, 2022; Lantolf, 2022). A third set of comments extends the Keynote article in a number of ways.…”