July 2021
Group: Tatiana Bohsali, Maria Shuttleworth
Group: Tatiana Bohsali, Maria Shuttleworth
Like in any other project, this one started with reviewing relevant literature and equipping ourselves with essential knowledge related to language learning and adjacent fields that we were interested in. Apart from the main topic of our FMP, I also found myself interested in studying motivation and attitude in the process of language learning. I wondered why do people stop? Or what makes them carry on? As it is a problem that I myself faced when continuing to learn Spanish on my own after graduating from school.
Unlike Maria, who has been studying languages for a while, I needed to start with the basics. There were three main areas of research that I focused on: Language learning, Visual context and Motivation.
Language Learning. Vygotsky (1978) believes that language is the greatest tool for communication with the world around us that we develop through social interactions. There were two interesting theories that we looked into. The Zone of Proximal development is a term that refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner, where two things are important: social interactions and the presence of the more knowledgeable other. He also explores the theory of Scaffolding that is referred to the practices and activities provided by and done collaboratively with the teacher, to support the student as they learn.
Visual Context. This was a completely new topic for me to look into from a theoretical perspective. I always considered myself a visual learner, but I never really thought deep into it. In fact, nearly 70% of the information we perceive is through our eyes. This means that learning is best when you can interact directly with a real object, or at least through representational means (pictures or drawings). Arthur M. Glenberg and Michael P. Kaschak (2002) define words as abstract, arbitrary and amodal symbols. A "chair", for example, is used for both little chairs, or wooden chairs, etc. Therefore, this gives us a foundation to challenge the process of language learning that is grounded in repetition and memorising words. Instead, we want to explore how language can be learnt with an emphasis on visuals.
“Words are the ultimate abstraction”
(McCloud, 1998)
Motivation. According to E. Ushida (2005), motivation can be considered as a key to success in the computer-assisted language learning process. What I found interesting is that this term actually has a looped definition. It is something that is a condition and at the same time a result of effective instruction. It is the extent of their efforts to achieve something and the extent of the satisfaction they experience during the process. This emphasises the importance of tools that are used to achieve one's goals in language learning. One starts learning a new language having an image of them achieving fluency and feeling comfortable travelling to the country where the language is spoken, which gives them the level of excitement that is not usually matched with the excitement they feel from reading lots of text and then trying to memorise it.
Although the above provides only a short summary of studied topics for this project, it was incredibly helpful and eye-opening to dive into the theory of such a complex process. It helped me develop a better understanding and inspired me to start thinking about the possible outcomes and turns this project could take. However, what I felt was missing is deeper research into the existing language learning channels, what they are, what part of language learning aspect they tackle and how they do it.
Bibliography
Glenberg, A.M. and Kaschak, M.P. (2002). Grounding language in action. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9(3), pp.558–565.
McCloud, S. and Manning, A.D., 1998. Understanding comics: The invisible art. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communications, 41(1), pp.66–69.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mcleod, S. (2008). The Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding. [online] Simplypsychology.org. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html [Accessed 11 Nov. 2021].