SEMINAIRE REPORTE A UNE DATE ULTERIEURE
Mardi 17 mars 2020, salle 126 (St-Charles 1) à partir de 17h
17h Geoffrey Sockett (Professeur, Université Paris Descartes)
Individual differences in informal learning
The online informal learning of English is a field which has received some attention in second language acquisition in recent years. A clear picture has now emerged of how most young people interact with English language media such as television series and YouTube channels as part of their everyday life. Research has also indicated that, as in countries where television shows were historically available in English, exposure to these media is having an impact on the language development of young people in countries as diverse as France, Germany, Brazil and South Korea. Current research into this field suggests that while some frequent viewers of English language media experience highly significant language development, others believe such exposure has only a small impact on their language skills. Since, from a complexity theory perspective, individual learner pathways are of more interest than averaging out the impact of particular practices on groups of learners, this talk will look into some of the different factors at play in the learner profiles which emerge from data on non-specialist learners of English in France and Germany. This will lead to the consideration of whether better informal practices can be promoted in the classroom.
18h Aarnes Gudmestad (Associate Professor, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)
Diversifying the contributions of variationist SLA
In this talk, I briefly highlight the kind of new knowledge that traditionally results from variationist (second language acquisition) SLA research. I then discuss other ways in which I believe that variationist SLA can be important for furthering knowledge about language and moving the language sciences forward. Specifically, I explore how variationist SLA can contribute to other areas of additional-language research, how variationist SLA can help to reform SLA more generally, and what sociolinguistics can gain from variationist SLA. In addressing these issues, I offer concrete examples of my research on grammatical gender in Spanish, subject expression in Spanish, and subject expression in Louisiana French.