Literature Review : Informal/Formal Articulation

Recherches en didactique des langues et des cultures - Les cahiers de l'Acedle 2022
Apprentissage formel et informel des langues : quelles articulations ?
Partie 4: Exploitation didactique de ressources informelles

L’articulation des situations d’apprentissage formel et informel des langues étrangères au niveau universitaire dans une écologie hétéroglotte. Exemple des étudiants de philologie française en Pologne

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Published: Sep 30, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/rdlc.11600
Written by : Monika Grabowska - Uniwersytet Wrocławski

Abstract : The paper presents the results of an ethnographic study of informal learning of French by students of French philology at the University of Wrocław, taking into account one language activity (writing), one component of competence (lexical) and one informal learning activity (watching films and series).
The French language in Poland is part of a heteroglot learning ecology, since Poland is a monolingual country and French is one of the languages that is not widely used and is little taught. Unlike English, the possibilities to incidental learning of French are therefore limited. The study will show that students of French philology are capable of benefitting from several different opportunities in order to improve their communicative competence but that informal learning modalities are mostly monologic and focused on lexical enrichment. Under these conditions, university teaching not only should take this learning into account, but also direct it towards resources which are less salient in individual learning ecologies and which allow the development of linguistic and pragmatic competence (particularly in the context of oral interaction).

Recherches en didactique des langues et des cultures - Les cahiers de l'Acedle 2022 
Apprentissage formel et informel des langues : quelles articulations ?
Partie 2: Articulation apprentissage formel et informel en contexte de mobilité

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Published: Sep 30, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/rdlc.11447
Written by : Eva Donohoe

Abstract :
The purpose of this article will be to present the tools we tested to assess English skills developed through informal learning, in particular abroad. The evaluation of language gains due to informal learning is a particularly complex operation but, as Kusyk (2020 : 347) states, it is incumbent upon informal L2 researchers to identify “robust and reliable methods of measuring informal L2 change” that can be replicated in future studies. We are currently conducting a study on the impact of informal learning on the language skills of French-speaking engineering students while abroad. As part of this study, we have had to examine the evaluation methods available to us to find the one that is best suited to our students' learning contexts and to the needs of our study. This article will first present a discussion of "the difficult work of shedding light on informal learning" and the ensuing difficulty in evaluating it (Schugurensky, 2007 : 17). This will be followed by a presentation of the work that has already been conducted in France on informal learning. Afterwards, a brief review of Study Abroad research will be presented. In the final section, we will present the evaluation tools, the Versant English Placement Test (VEPT) and an analysis of oral production conducted using a framework based on complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF), followed by the presentation of the results of our tests. The VEPT showed an overall decrease of 7.59% in oral production, in contrast to the CAF analysis, which revealed significant gains in fluency and accuracy for students who went abroad. After examination of the test results, the analysis of oral production using the CAF framework has shown to be the preferred evaluation method as it enables us to build a more complete and more accurate picture (Kusyk 2017: 108) of the L2 development process.

"The role of metacognitive self-consciousness in teaching writing skills at the neophilological faculty. Example of the Italian Studies at University of Wrocław", Neofilolog, 57/1

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Published: Sep 28, 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14746/n.2021.57.1.8
Written by : Monika Grabowska and Agata Zapłotna, Uniwersytet Wrocławski

Abstract :
The paper presents the results of a survey conducted in the academic year 2018/2019 among students of Italian Studies at the University of Wroclaw on metacognitive self-consciousness concerning Italian writing proficiency. The questions concerned the students' practice of written forms of expression in their private lives; the contribution (actual or anticipated) of writing proficiency in their current and future professional career; and the evaluation of the teaching of writing proficiency within the university curriculum of Italian Studies. The study was qualitative and conducted from an emic perspective, involving students in metacognitive reflection. The results of the study indicate limited metacognitive self-consciousness on the part of the students of Italian Studies, who are not, however, devoid of any criticism of the practical Italian language course curriculum. 

Pragmatic and strategic aspects of the development of written expression skills in Spanish Philology in the third decade of the XXI century

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Published: January 20th, 2021
DOI: 10.14746/strop.2021.482.006 
Written by : Monika GRABOWSKA and Magdalena KRZYZOSTANIAK Krzyżostaniak, Uniwersytet Wrocławski (Polonia)

Abstract:

Written expression is one of the most important skills in philological studies. Subjected to a constant formative and summative evaluation, it plays a distinctive role and shows both the achievements and the shortcomings of the student’s linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic skills. In this analysis, we would like to focus on this last component of communicative competence, but also on the strategies of the learners connected with their practice of various forms of writing in the academic and private sphere. The paper summarizes the results of a survey completed by Spanish philology students from the Department of Romance Philology at the University of Wroclaw during the summer term of 2018/2019 academic year. One of the objectives of the survey was to find out to what extent the PNJH Pisanie program corresponds to the needs and expectations of current students in Poland.

Collection : Langue et parole - Recherches en Sciences du Langage

Language : French

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Published: 12 January 2023
ISBN : 978-2-14-031199-4
Written by : Monika Grabowska - Uniwersytet Wrocławski

Objet de recherches en didactique des langues étrangères depuis plus de dix ans, l'apprentissage informel demeure entouré d'un flou conceptuel, alors même qu'il est omniprésent, polymorphe et constitue une première modalité d'apprentissage dans la vie humaine. L'ouvrage examine l'émergence du concept d'apprentissage informel des langues étrangères, en présente un modèle basé sur la théorie de la complexité, et propose quelques modalités de son articulation à l'apprentissage formel – tout cela dans le souci de lui donner de la visibilité et de promouvoir sa reconnaissance institutionnelle et sociale.

Informal learning has been the subject of research in foreign language didactics for more than ten years, but it remains shrouded in conceptual vagueness, even though it is omnipresent, polymorphous and constitutes a primary learning modality in human life. This book examines the emergence of the concept of informal foreign language learning, presents a model of it based on complexity theory, and proposes some ways in which it can be linked to formal learning - all with a view to giving it visibility and promoting its institutional and social recognition.

Distances apprivoisées. L'enseignement  confiné des langues étrangères., Editions des archives  contemporaines, Coll. «Plidam»

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Published: June 9th, 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17184/eac.4902
Written by : Monika GRABOWSKA and Witold UCHEREK

Abstract:

Within the didactic process and until the confinement of spring 2020, however, at the University of Wrocław, interpersonal, group and institutional electronic communication (cf. McQuail's pyramid of communication levels 2010: 25) was mainly reduced to the exchange of e-mails and the transmission of information or documents, with some occasional attempts to implement computer-assisted teaching . This peaceful landscape was completely disrupted by the introduction of distance learning from 18 March 2020 (Regulation No. 29/2020 of the President of the University of Wrocław on the prevention of the spread of COVID-19 among members of the University of Wrocław community). Face-to-face classes were interrupted one week earlier, at the end of the second week of the semester (which normally consists of fifteen weeks). The teachers then had only eight days to completely reprofile their methodological portfolio for distance learning.

Au croisement des cultures, des discours et des langues. Cent ans d’études romanes a l’Université de Varsovie (1919–2019). Tome II: Linguistique et Didactique du FLE, 172-180

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Published: 2021
Written by : Małgorzata IZERT, Monika KOSTRO, Jolanta SUJECKA-ZAJAC and Krystyna SZYMANKIEWICZ, Uniwersytet Warszawski

Recherches en didactique des langues et des cultures - Les cahiers de l'Acedle 2022 
Apprentissage formel et informel des langues : quelles articulations ?

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Published: Sep 30, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/rdlc.11780
Written by : Monika Grabowska - Uniwersytet Wrocławski, Sophie Babault, Annick Rivens Mompean - University of Lille

Recherches en didactique des langues et des cultures - Les cahiers de l'Acedle 2022
Apprentissage formel et informel des langues : quelles articulations ?
Partie 1: Questionnements conceptuels

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Published: Sep 30, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/rdlc.11389
Written by : Annick Rivens Mompean et Martine Eisenbeis, University of Lille 

Abstract : In the learning environments offered in higher education for the teaching/learning of languages, we observe the emergence of practices that are challenging teaching habits and leading to new models of learning. The learning process that takes place in formal institutional contexts covers only a limited period of life. Given that, to a very large extent, language practice takes place in informal situations, the institution should now take account of these practices, even if it is sometimes difficult to access these 'already there' uses. In our research, we sought to identify the intentions behind the integration of these forms of informal and non-formal learning into a self-directed language learning environment (English and French as a Foreign Language). In other words, do learners make explicit and intentional use of resources from their personal sphere? What place does informal learning take within this system? How do learners choose digital resources and how do they structure the resulting informal activities for their learning? What metacognitive strategies are at work in the appropriation of such forms of learning? This analysis, based on the answers given by the students to a questionnaire, has led to the emergence of a common learning dynamic in which the boundaries between formal and informal learning become blurred and which leads to individual intentional trajectories.