Research center for Ubiquitous Web-based interactive Language Learning

Distributed Cognition, Computation, and Foundations for Ubiquitous Networked Language Learning

The overall purpose of the proposed collaborative joint projects is to develop a well-motivated and viable theoretical framework for investigating and implementing ubiquitous networked English learning. The purpose of the present main project is to coordinate the tight interdisciplinary collaboration required among the individual projects to achieve this purpose. It is universally acknowledged in the research field of second language acquisition (SLA) that the driving force of language acquisition is language input to the learner. There are, however, two basic issues concerning language acquisition and input that must be addressed in the development of ubiquitous networked language learning but which have been neglected in the SLA research literature. It is these two issues, then, that addressed in the proposed joint research. They are: (1) What effects arise when language input and the input environment are digital? (2) How can such effects be investigated and exploited in unrestricted noisy online environments, where ubiquitous learning has to take place? The proposed approach borrows from work on distributed cognition to frame questions about these effects of digital environments on cognitive aspects of language learning. The first individual project (Second Language Acquisition) investigates what linguistic features from a noisy language environment are salient to learners' English acquisition under a variety of conditions and what features of learners' English production potentially reveal their state of English knowledge or gaps in their knowledge. The role of second individual project (NLP) is to develop computational means for extracting these linguistic features from the noisy input on line and from the learners' noisy online English production. These results feed the personalization modules that are the responsibility of the third individual project (Personalization). The personalization project develops the inferencing mechanisms that can provide individualized input suitable for each learner based in the features developed in the first individual project and the computational tools of the second project. A further contribution of the proposed joint project to learning theory is to create an online research infrastructure for investigating in-situ the effects of various digital tools or features within the unconstrained freedom of the English online world.

Language Acquisition, Distributed Cognition, and Interfaces with Learning Technology

The motivating assumption of the overall proposed joint project is that an entire vast horizon of potential advantages for future online language learning remains unexplored by current learning theories and approaches to digital language learning. The purpose of the present individual project is to provide the theoretical framework that can extend current language learning theory in ways that can transcend the current digital content bottleneck and other severe limitations of platform-specific, lesson-oriented online language education. The alternative envisioned by the proposed individual project consists of ubiquitous personalized online English learning in unrestricted noisy English environments. In the field of second language acquisition (SLA) research, it is universally acknowledged that the driving force in language learning is language input to the learner. There is, however, no theoretical framework for addressing the crucial question of what effects arise when the language environment is a digital environment and when the target language input is digital. The purpose of this individual project, then, is to provide the framework for investigating these effects and their theoretical significance.

The task of the proposed individual project is twofold. One aspect concerns noisy linguistic input encountered by learners on line and the other aspect concerns noisy linguistic output produced by learners under these same digital environments. The proposed research will develop and motivated an inventory of learning events that naturally occur and can be exploited for language learning under such noisy conditions. Further, it will specify how such events can profitably be investigated in situ. A central contribution is to determine which linguistic features of English input learners need to attend to in such noisy conditions and which salient linguistic features of the English output that learners produce can support inferences concerning their grasp of the target language. The project creates novel adaptations of distributed cognition research in order to investigate how the design and implementation of digital environments and digital language input affect the language learning of users. In addition, the proposed project will provide the functional specifications for a research infrastructure that can support long-term research on these issues of English learning in the digital wild.