• Semiotic: related to the study of signs and symbols and their use and interpretation
• Negotiation of meaning: the process by which a piece of language that was not comprehensible becomes comprehensible as a result of discussion
• Sustained acquisition: long-term language learning
• Ecological view of language:
• Affordance: “a reciprocal relationship between an organism and a particular feature of its environment… affords further action (but does not cause or trigger it)… In the forest a leaf can offer very different affordances to different organisms. It can offer crawling on for a tree frog, cutting for an ant, food for a caterpillar, shade for a spider, medicine for a shaman, and so on. In all cases, the leaf is the same… If the language learner is active and engaged, she will perceive linguistic affordances and use them for linguistic action… an affordance is a property of neither the action nor of an object; it is a relationship between the two.” —Leo van Lier

Homework: Van Lier’s Article on Ecological Approach

What is an ecological approach to language learning?

The author positions an ecological approach in contrast to a scientific one. Science, he says, takes a reductionist approach, to fit the scope and goals, starting out to prove a specific theory, distilling information and watching to see if the results conform to the hypothesis. As I understand it, an ecological approach works from the opposite direction, considering the panorama of learning: the environment and context, the people speaking, and the social interactions between them, and then develops theorem from there.

I might have that wrong, though. The article was difficult for me. Even after careful reading I can’t really picture how such an approach might be employed.

He talks about the importance in learning of the importance of negotiation: “interactional work aimed at resolving communication problems,” which he says are superior to general conversation when learning a language. He also talks about repair negotiation, which I think is a conversation in which meaning, initially vague, is clarified between speakers.

As he writes, “The learner is immersed in an environment full of potential meanings. These meanings become available gradually as the learner acts and interacts within and with this environment.”

It’s a study of language as relationships between symbol (including gestures, drawings, etc.), action and thought, rather than a system of communication made up of linguistic objects (words, sentences, rules).

Finally, he says that the challenge of the ecological approach is in executing it. Because they study “the interaction in its totality, the researcher must attempt to show the emergence of learning, the location of learning opportunities, the pedagogical value of various interactional contexts and processes, and the effectiveness of pedagogical strategies.” Whew!

How is the concept of “affordance” different from the notion of “language input”?

Language input relates to a cognitive processing of information, while affordance is more holistic, involving the environment and interaction with it.

Van Lier describes “affordance” as an alternative way than “input” to look at language acquisition. Input is a one-way street: a person receives information and does something with it in his/her brain. Affordance considers the interactions between the source of input and the receiver, and (I imagine factors) such as motivation, selectivity of hearing and what the user remembers and does with the information gained in the exchange.

He uses the analogy of a leaf in a forest, which is food for a caterpillar, medicine for a shaman and shade for a spider. “The knowledge of language for a human is like knowledge of the jungle for an animal. The animal does not ‘have’ the jungle; it knows how to use the jungle and how to live in it.”