L2 Journal: An Open Access Refereed Journal for World Language Educators

The new editors of the L2 Journal, Emily Hellmich and Kimberly Vinall, introduce themselves and re-introduce the journal.

The editors of L2 Journal are grateful to the following individuals who reviewed manuscripts in 2023. Peer review is a cornerstone of scholarship and relies on the contributions of reviewers who are willing to give of their time to support other scholars in the shaping of their work.  

This article explores one second language Spanish learner’s development of sociolinguistic perception in Peru involving target language variation and social indexicality in a study abroad context. Specifically, it investigates the perceptual mechanism that evolves in this context and enables L2 learners to interpret dialectal target language forms by linking them with elements of character, group traits, and other social attributes. An analysis of ethnographic data revealed two phases in this development. While the initial phase was characterized by the learner’s formation of contrastive social and linguistic categories and first-order sociolinguistic indices linking ways of speaking to kinds of people, the latter phase involved a rationalization and justification of these links. I claim that this produced an ideological field in which the learner located specific morphosyntactic variants as indexing social qualities like ‘licentiousness’ and ‘ineptitude’ via their association with brichero and cholo social types from the host society. These findings implicate language ideologies as the fundamental perceptual mechanism that enables L2 learners to interpret the social meaning of TL practices. This case study recommends critical pedagogies and innovative curricula to bolster L2 learners’ development of sociolinguistic competence during study abroad.

This case study reports a pedagogical approach informed by Concept-Based Language Instruction, which aimed to orient English as a second language learners to a systematic conceptual understanding of rhetorical skills in five-paragraph essay writing. The 12-week pedagogical intervention focused on teaching the organizational structure of the five-paragraph essay and modes of persuasion through SCOBAs (Schemas for a Complete Orienting Basis of Actions) in a test preparation course for the writing tasks in the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Six participants completed three writing assignments and one analytic essay of a writing sample across the 12 weeks and received one-on-one individual tutoring sessions in the last week. The results demonstrate a holistic quality improvement in students’ five-paragraph essays and an observable improvement in the use of rhetorical appeals of Ethos and Logos strategies. In addition, the student-generated SCOBAs showed learners’ abilities to intentionally manipulate the SCOBAs to serve their internalization processes of the target concepts.

In the field of second language pedagogy, it has become increasingly common to consider the real-world usage for language when strategizing goals and curriculum development for language instruction. Emerging from a reverse design perspective, which prioritizes desired outcomes as a starting place for curricular design, language instructors identify and define the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) they aim for their students to acquire. In cases in which existing proficiency guidelines are not well aligned with the real-world language use that a particular course is targeting, it is becoming increasingly common for instructors to design Languages for Special Purposes (LSP) courses that reflect the unique uses certain bodies of students may have for the language. This paper considers one such case, that of Yiddish for Academic Purposes. Using domain analysis, a multidimensional research framework that supports and undergirds the development of new LSP courses in an assessment-driven proficiency-oriented reverse design framework and evidence-centered design (ECD), this study presents a series of target KSAs for Yiddish for Academic Purposes, on the basis of which curriculum developers could build assessments and subsequently curricula aligned with one another and with the specific language usage unique to the real-world language use domain of graduate academic Yiddish. This process of domain analysis could be replicated for other languages when academic usage is considered as a specific purpose for which an LSP course could be developed. This study is particularly relevant to the development of LSP courses for less commonly taught languages (LCTLs), which tend to be under-resourced and under-researched. Examining academic applications of LCTLs is particularly essential for those languages for which there are fewer, or more constrained, other “real world” applications for the language outside of academic use than there are for more commonly spoken languages.

As we strive to improve speaking skills in the L2 classroom, we often aim at “correct,” standardized language over the actual meaning of the spoken words. With less investment in the content, it is difficult for L2 students to appreciate the interactions and enjoy, for example, humor using the target language as they tend to remain continuously passive in the learning process under the pressure to speak accurately. In order to motivate students to communicate with their own voices in a relaxed learning environment, this report introduces a new way of expression and communication using a target language, that is, the use of linked poetry, in which students follow the rules of a mora/syllable pattern and exchange written poetic expressions with one another. This exercise of student-driven word choice in a stress-free setting triggers laughter and enjoyment that increase students’ incentive to appreciate the meaning of each word and the possibility of word combinations in the target language.

The spread of generative AI has been praised and criticized for engendering new possibilities and limitations for language education. While educators have praised AI’s ability to serve as a conversation partner, generate novel ideas for lesson plans, and offer tailored feedback, many instructors and scholars have voiced concerns related to AI’s biases and its impact on student learning and academic integrity. Responding to a need for further training and dialogue about AI, members of the Davis Language Center organized a professional development event in which instructors, students, and instructional technologists shared their perspectives and strategies for AI-mediated language education. The event also included guided practice on using these tools for pedagogical purposes, including writing effective prompts, interacting with AI tools, and engaging in an iterative, reflective process. Through our planning process, we discovered that balancing scheduled asynchronous tasks with focused synchronous check-ins was crucial for ensuring accountability, clear communication, and timely progress, ultimately helping us coordinate and achieve our event planning goals effectively. We report on insights from organizing and participating in the event, highlighting several advantages of using AI in language education, critical issues, and questions for further inquiry. Leveraging lessons learned at this event, we offer suggestions for coordinating trainings about AI-enhanced language education.

The authors, a language instructor and a museum educator, collaborated to enhance a textbook’s cultural content in a Spanish L2-third semester class. We integrated the university museum’s artifacts and one exhibition within regular classroom instruction and co-designed two activities. The activities were connected to the textbook’s cultural content. Each activity included a visit to the museum, a worksheet to work in the museum, and a written and oral task after the visit. Thirty-five students completed a questionnaire at the end of the semester to rate the integration of these museum visits with the rest of the Spanish curriculum. Most students were positive about the effects of the experience on their learning and did not see the activities as something extraneous to the language curriculum. This article offers food for thought to other language practitioners and museum educators regarding textbooks’ cultural content and university museums.

Is paper or computer better for assessing L2 students’ writing? The ineluctable transition to technology might suggest this question has already been answered. However, the technology divide in L2 assessments may have indeed widened since the pandemic: whereas some teachers have fully embraced technology in assessments as in instruction, others are reluctant to eliminate paper, owing to concerns about the reliability, integrity and authenticity of L2 production on computer. This article shares observations from several French classes at an American high school in which assessments that were otherwise identical were offered to students on both paper and computer.  These observations revealed several overlapping areas of L2 research that merit further consideration, including instructor bias between media, academic integrity of student work, and the need to align the technological literacies between instructors and students. The reflection that follows points to specific directions for further empirical research on the effects of input medium on L2 learners in K-12 and higher education.

Antecedents of foreign language enjoyment (FLE) are important for practitioners and researchers to understand as FLE has been linked to important concepts like motivation and language achievement. The literature on antecedents is, however, rather scarce and overly dependent on top-down qualitative coding to fully understand this phenomenon. This report seeks to add to the knowledge of sources of FLE by investigating the antecedents of FLE in U.S. learners of French. The present study uses data collected from an open-ended survey and analyzed via an interpretive approach. The survey was sent out to students enrolled in undergraduate French courses at a large Southeastern university and a total of 50 participants responded to the questionnaire out of 183 directly solicited, for a response rate of 27%. The results revealed that content, teacher personality, and a sense of community were sources of FLE, with the sense of community taking the lion’s share of responses. This report argues that this sense of community, which was previously unattested in the literature, can be explained adequately within the second language and positive psychology (L2EPP) theory of emotions. Theoretical implications and future directions are discussed.