- Email: [email protected]
Teaching Languages Online (2nd Edition)
Book reviews / System 56 (2016) 140e152
149
faded away during the last ten years' “shift toward a more dynamic and nonlinear perspective” on IDs (p. 192). Finally, in € rnyei and Ryan say that additional innovation will continue now that Chapter 8, “Conclusion: Looking Back and Forward,” Do €rnyei and Ryan point toward an integrated the field has seen “the classic ID paradigm in shatters” (p. 197). Specifically, Do framework that does not individuate IDs, making particular reference to the future potential of narrative identity: “Narrative identity is essentially concerned with the ways in which people organize and understand their experiences and memories in the form of various narratives, such as stories, excuses, myths, or explanations, and in this way, their autobiographical stories become the foundation of their self-concept.” (pp. 199e200) For the authors, a narrative-based framework of the psychology of the language learner has the language-learning narrative at the center, inside a broader sphere of one's life narrative. Life narratives are impacted, the authors say, by human nature and cultural parameters, and as such these life narratives experience interplay with relatively stable dispo€ rnyei and Ryan, sitional traits, with the learning situation, and with characteristic adaptations to that learning situation. For Do this proposed theoretical framework presents a way to embrace “identity conceived of as a dynamically interacting personality facet” (p. 204) but not without conceptual, methodological, and pedagogical questions. Such questions concern how to incorporate emotions in addition to other factors into the concept, how to maintain quality in research that adopts narrative methodology, and how to nurture narrative competence in language-learning tasks. The main strengths of this book include its readability, its historical view of the study of IDs in relation to language learners, and its specification of future research areas. The book's readability comes about not just through language that does its best to keep from being overly obscure, although some basic understanding of linguistics and psychology can help. Readability also emerges from an extremely clear organization at the chapter and overall manuscript levels. Chapters follow a purposefully predictable pattern consisting of a reflection on a given ID in light of recent research, a systematic review of that ID, and a summary of recent developments and trends moving study of that ID into the future, if a future exists for it. The organization of chapters and the book as a whole also reveals the aim of informing readers of the empirical and theoretical roots of ID study. Readers can see precedents and where those precedents faced challenges that led to people in the field € rnyei and Ryan illustrate this point, for instance, as it pertains to the study of motivation, which dominated breaking away. Do the 70s and 80s under a Gardnerian model but now, in our most recent decade, has evolved into a model most frequently €rnyei's future-self L2 motivation theory. Finally, the book offers readers valuable direction for future research. drawing on Do Almost anyone researching or drawing on SLA can locate some discussion of a construct of interest in this book - whether that be motivation, emotions, or creativity in relation to language learners. Overall, the worth of such a book comes from its systematic illustration that new empirical, theoretical, and pedagogical ways of considering the dynamic, irreducible interplay among human dimensions related to learning another language await consideration, and contestation. This book is especially relevant for anyone doing research into or making a living working with learners of additional languages, though nearly anyone with experience with additional languages can follow along. Justin Nicholes 931 Lilac St., Apt. 1, Indiana, PA 15701, USA E-mail address: [email protected]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2015.12.007
Teaching Languages Online (2nd Edition), Carla Meskill, Natasha Anthony. Multilingual Matters, Bristol (2015). 237 pp.
On the very first page, Meskill and Anthony explain that this second edition of Teaching Languages Online ‘… is less about what icon to click and more about finessing the conversation.’ And there you have the book in a nutshell: it is not about the latest technological craze in education but rather best practice moves for teachers when working in online environments. In the authors' words, ‘Language educators are the crux’ (p. xi) and they need to upgrade their skillset to include knowledge on how to put new technologies to good pedagogical use. The result is a succession of real-life online TeachereStudent dialogues together with accompanying analysis, with page after page of helpful illustrations provided by computer screenshots. As you work your way through them, you encounter a wide assortment of languages being taught and this adds a degree of both breadth and weight to the authors' claims, in addition to being a rather nice exotic touch. We are, in fact, informed that there are indeed seventy more examples of instructional conversations than in the first edition and this is a statistic worth pausing over, because it gives a sense of just how replete the book is with concrete cases. Chapter 1, ‘Teaching languages online: the essentials’, begins by dispatching some popular myths about online learning. Some students may indeed miss the quick-fire, flesh and blood interaction of the face-to-face classroom, but they tend to be the few confident ones who rule the roost rather than the less outgoing students, who like to collect their thoughts before voicing them, and who will come into their own when communicating in this new realm. Yes, it may involve more
150
Book reviews / System 56 (2016) 140e152
teacherestudent contact time, with teachers having to make their presence felt in online forums daily in order to keep students' attentions from flagging but what about the time savings involved in not having to travel to a school and being able to fit one's work around life's other commitments? We then move on to task design in online instruction and the task toolkit e a permanently boxed part of one corner of the screen that contains the linguistic focus for students and teacher alike to refer to. It is difficult to dispute this recommendation of the authors as anything other than perfect good sense. We are then introduced to the organisational principles lying behind most of the rest of the book with the four following modes of online learning allocated a chapter each: oral synchronous, that is, real time spoken interaction such as in Second Life with a microphone; oral asynchronous, that is, voice posts where contributors have time to marshal their thoughts and practise; written synchronous, that is, text chats; and finally, written asynchronous, for example, VLE forum postings. Each of these chapters is then further subdivided into eight ‘instructional conversation moves’, indicating what the teacher is really up to. Is s/he drawing attention to grammatical form or lexis? Is s/he ‘saturating’ the conversation with target language? Or ‘trapping’ the student into using it? Or ‘corralling’ or ‘modelling’ etc.? Chapter 2 offers a lengthy examination of the affordances of oral synchronous environments and illustrations of how teachers can best exploit them. I thought it rather telling that the adjective ‘promising’ was used to describe this mode e it is one I have heard repeatedly used over the years in reference to Second Life, which, by the way, is a very prominent setting for the instructional dialogues within this chapter. I can understand the pedagogical rationale e students are able to immerse themselves through their avatars within a virtual world and share the experience with others. However, there is a flaw somewhere which just seems to put students off. My own brief forays were so associated with technical hitches and students asking ‘Why are we doing this?’ that I have not been back for several years and I find now that the world seems just as sparsely populated as ever, and several educational landmarks having disappeared. However, I have also met Second Life devotees who talk about its educational promise with the fervour of the converted. Might the recent tie-up with Oculus Rift, the virtual reality company, give Second Life … [ahem] … a second life? For the present, Google Hangouts and Skype seem to have achieved more verifiable traction in oral synchronous (and asynchronous) learning and so it would have been interesting to have learnt about the practical realities of handling one-to-one and group classes within such environments, but in this book neither gets more than a passing mention. Instead, the point is made again and again how learning can be enhanced during a synchronous conversation in a way that does not distract the learner if the teacher annotates the virtual whiteboard by drawing symbols and underlining pertinent text. The teacher is also advised to search the net for images and use their intonation to draw attention to problematic use of language. The trouble is, though, that these are not special affordances peculiar to online teaching; nowadays, many classrooms have digital projectors and any experienced teacher worth their salt in face-to-face environments is likely to be pretty used to doing these sorts of things as second nature. Nevertheless, the typology of instructional moves is good for awareness-raising and there is an impressive range of tasks for teaching grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, most of which struck me as ones with a fair bit of mileage in them to sustain a class. In Chapter 3, we enter oral asynchronous online environments and I have to confess to being absolutely gripped by the powers of both voicethread.com and voxopop.com. Internet addresses are provided and it was fascinating being able to follow up the reading of dialogue transcripts and the corresponding analysis by visiting the websites and listening to the users' original posts, though I do think that somewhere along the line to publication somebody should have furnished shortened URLs for this purpose. To my mind, the most thought-stirring extracts were the Voicethread follow-up discussions to BBC sixminute English broadcasts, which struck me as an excellent way of both involving the audience productively and at the same time engendering a sense of community. However, most contributions were delivered with such flat intonation that fatigue set in after just a few seconds and this made me dwell on the importance of instruction on how to make contributions engage the listener. Of course, the great affordance of this mode of communication, well highlighted by the authors, is the extra time available to prepare and practise one's voice postings. This is extremely useful for pronunciation practice because students can keep recording their own voice to match a native speaker model until they judge that they have got it right. A further advantage is the ideal opportunity students have to practise speaking at length so that their extended spoken utterances have some overall coherence and are more than simply streams of consciousness. This was not a point that received much attention, with most sample utterances in this chapter being rather short and, in my view, there was too much focus on accuracy. I am also somewhat dubious about the pedagogical wisdom of the teacher, for example, repeating ‘bus schedule’ seven times in as many sentences. The chapter ends with an intriguing look at how a ‘mixer’ (the terminology I am familiar with is ‘mash-up’) can be created in a blog that integrates links to oral asynchronous discussion boards. Chapter 4 offers six factors that influence text and visual ‘amplifications’ for instructional conversations in oral environments and I found the content here both informative and rewarding. There is a certain symmetry in the following three chapters, which cover the same ground as the last three, but this time for written environments. Chapters 5 and 6 look at instructional conversation moves within synchronous and asynchronous environments respectively, and then Chapter 7 investigates how written instructions can be ‘amplified’ through the use of sound and visual aids. The authors deserve credit for the lack of duplication and I found some of the tasks highly original and absorbing. I liked the development and recycling inherent in the task on page 153 where Russian language students learn to make stuffed cabbage: first, by watching a video; then, dragging what appear to be Flash images of the ingredients into the appropriate parts of a written recipe; and, finally, by text chat. I found myself nodding my head in agreement when I read the authors' assertion at the beginning of Chapter 8, ‘Continuing the Conversation’, that the decision to divide the online environments into the four quadrants was an arbitrary one, and that oral, written, synchronous and asynchronous modes could be effectively combined in pedagogically sound
Book reviews / System 56 (2016) 140e152
151
ways. For me, the book would have been all the better if the core element had consisted of complete online lessons rather than discrete tasks. As it is, the reader struggles a little to recontextualise again and again as s/he proceeds from one task to the next. It would have been interesting to have that overall sense of coherent development that a complete lesson would provide. I also think that it would have been instructive to read what the teachers involved in all the tasks had to say about how working online compared to face-to-face. All in all, I think this is a good buy for teachers who are relatively new to the profession and who, of course, have an interest in online learning. They will appreciate the unadulterated transcripts of experienced teachers conversing with their students and the accompanying explanation of the skills being displayed. Peter Saunders Language Centre, University of Oxford, 12 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HT, United Kingdom E-mail address: [email protected]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2015.12.012
Language Learning Beyond the Classroom, David Nunan, Jack C. Richards (Eds.). Routledge, New York and Abingdon, Oxon, UK (2015). xvi þ 302 pp.
Learner autonomy has come to be viewed as a critical element in language learning success. In addition to (motivated) learners' own self-directed activities, the role of teachers in facilitating learning chances for all students is viewed as highly valuable; for example, Benson (2001). This book presents 28 chapters about approaches for innovative language learning activities, where the learners are engaged actively in their own progress. These chapters are not presented in a research report format with a method and results section. Rather, these are narrative accounts of successful learning approaches, and are structured in the following format: Introduction and Overview, Vignette, Principles, Applications, Payoffs and Pitfalls and Discussion Questions. The chapters are approximately equal length (about nine pages), and hence can be briefly and enjoyably read as sources of insight and inspiration. Through these, interested readers can consider creating, or suggesting, chances for learners to practice their target language. There are five sections: Involving the Learner in Out-of-Class Learning, Using Technology and the Internet, Learning through Television, Out-of-Class Projects and Interacting with Native Speakers. A total of 28 approaches are presented. Beyond the worthy goal of learner autonomy, there is no central thesis as such, so in this review, I will describe two of the most memorable chapters for me. mon: “Just Watchin' TV, 1) From the section Learning Through Television: “Learning English through the language of Poke Ma” by Andy Curtis. Incidental learning in second languages has been the object of much research, commonly in the area of extensive reading in recent times. However, the use of extensive, narrow viewing of television has also come to the fore. This is supported by statistics showing the sheer amount of time many people spend watching programming daily and the obvious mon, a very popular animated implications for meaning-focused input in second language learning. Here the focus is on Poke cartoon programme. The case of the 10-year old son of a Chinese family recently arrived in Canada is presented. The son reportedly watched the cartoon intently on TV, benefitting from the idiosyncratic language of the characters. Although not very richly elaborated, the language is reported as being highly accessible and engaging, especially due to its repetitive nature, and thereby ideal as a substrate for more English to develop. Additionally, language spoken by human characters also appears in every episode. In the Principles section of the account, the authors expand on this, noting that using songs and rhymes for intensive repetition is engaging, contextualized and productive. They further note that even older learners might be attracted to such TV shows in that such content induces little anxiety. Such exposure also provides a sense of belonging to a social group, identity being another essential ingredient in language learning success. Overall, while television viewing still may not be a prestigious, or even widely acceptable, way to learn languages, it is clearly effective, especially if hundreds of episodes of a show are available. My own experience with a parallel form of out-of-class learning comes from supervising a master degree investigation mon). This research investigated the effect of intensive exposure to English into the use of hand-held video games (again Poke through a gamification mode. Students spent dozens of hours over a number of weeks following the progress of the animated video game. The characters' words appear as subtitles at the bottom of the console screen, resulting in a very rich interaction between language and cues in the visual input. In his research, Thanyawatapokin (2015) provided very convincing evidence for the benefits of such rich input for Japanese learners, especially in terms of gains in lexical ability in English. Further, € rnyei's theory of through written feedback from his participants, he describes the learners' experience in terms of Do Directional Motivation Currents (for example, 2014). This refers to learners' highly focused engagement in task, surely a kind of holy grail in language education. 2) From the section Interacting with Native Speakers: “Increasing the Linguistic and Cultural Benefits of Study Abroad”. The author of this chapter, Marc Cadd, starts by citing research showing that only a minority of learners see learning the target
149
faded away during the last ten years' “shift toward a more dynamic and nonlinear perspective” on IDs (p. 192). Finally, in € rnyei and Ryan say that additional innovation will continue now that Chapter 8, “Conclusion: Looking Back and Forward,” Do €rnyei and Ryan point toward an integrated the field has seen “the classic ID paradigm in shatters” (p. 197). Specifically, Do framework that does not individuate IDs, making particular reference to the future potential of narrative identity: “Narrative identity is essentially concerned with the ways in which people organize and understand their experiences and memories in the form of various narratives, such as stories, excuses, myths, or explanations, and in this way, their autobiographical stories become the foundation of their self-concept.” (pp. 199e200) For the authors, a narrative-based framework of the psychology of the language learner has the language-learning narrative at the center, inside a broader sphere of one's life narrative. Life narratives are impacted, the authors say, by human nature and cultural parameters, and as such these life narratives experience interplay with relatively stable dispo€ rnyei and Ryan, sitional traits, with the learning situation, and with characteristic adaptations to that learning situation. For Do this proposed theoretical framework presents a way to embrace “identity conceived of as a dynamically interacting personality facet” (p. 204) but not without conceptual, methodological, and pedagogical questions. Such questions concern how to incorporate emotions in addition to other factors into the concept, how to maintain quality in research that adopts narrative methodology, and how to nurture narrative competence in language-learning tasks. The main strengths of this book include its readability, its historical view of the study of IDs in relation to language learners, and its specification of future research areas. The book's readability comes about not just through language that does its best to keep from being overly obscure, although some basic understanding of linguistics and psychology can help. Readability also emerges from an extremely clear organization at the chapter and overall manuscript levels. Chapters follow a purposefully predictable pattern consisting of a reflection on a given ID in light of recent research, a systematic review of that ID, and a summary of recent developments and trends moving study of that ID into the future, if a future exists for it. The organization of chapters and the book as a whole also reveals the aim of informing readers of the empirical and theoretical roots of ID study. Readers can see precedents and where those precedents faced challenges that led to people in the field € rnyei and Ryan illustrate this point, for instance, as it pertains to the study of motivation, which dominated breaking away. Do the 70s and 80s under a Gardnerian model but now, in our most recent decade, has evolved into a model most frequently €rnyei's future-self L2 motivation theory. Finally, the book offers readers valuable direction for future research. drawing on Do Almost anyone researching or drawing on SLA can locate some discussion of a construct of interest in this book - whether that be motivation, emotions, or creativity in relation to language learners. Overall, the worth of such a book comes from its systematic illustration that new empirical, theoretical, and pedagogical ways of considering the dynamic, irreducible interplay among human dimensions related to learning another language await consideration, and contestation. This book is especially relevant for anyone doing research into or making a living working with learners of additional languages, though nearly anyone with experience with additional languages can follow along. Justin Nicholes 931 Lilac St., Apt. 1, Indiana, PA 15701, USA E-mail address: [email protected]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2015.12.007
Teaching Languages Online (2nd Edition), Carla Meskill, Natasha Anthony. Multilingual Matters, Bristol (2015). 237 pp.
On the very first page, Meskill and Anthony explain that this second edition of Teaching Languages Online ‘… is less about what icon to click and more about finessing the conversation.’ And there you have the book in a nutshell: it is not about the latest technological craze in education but rather best practice moves for teachers when working in online environments. In the authors' words, ‘Language educators are the crux’ (p. xi) and they need to upgrade their skillset to include knowledge on how to put new technologies to good pedagogical use. The result is a succession of real-life online TeachereStudent dialogues together with accompanying analysis, with page after page of helpful illustrations provided by computer screenshots. As you work your way through them, you encounter a wide assortment of languages being taught and this adds a degree of both breadth and weight to the authors' claims, in addition to being a rather nice exotic touch. We are, in fact, informed that there are indeed seventy more examples of instructional conversations than in the first edition and this is a statistic worth pausing over, because it gives a sense of just how replete the book is with concrete cases. Chapter 1, ‘Teaching languages online: the essentials’, begins by dispatching some popular myths about online learning. Some students may indeed miss the quick-fire, flesh and blood interaction of the face-to-face classroom, but they tend to be the few confident ones who rule the roost rather than the less outgoing students, who like to collect their thoughts before voicing them, and who will come into their own when communicating in this new realm. Yes, it may involve more
150
Book reviews / System 56 (2016) 140e152
teacherestudent contact time, with teachers having to make their presence felt in online forums daily in order to keep students' attentions from flagging but what about the time savings involved in not having to travel to a school and being able to fit one's work around life's other commitments? We then move on to task design in online instruction and the task toolkit e a permanently boxed part of one corner of the screen that contains the linguistic focus for students and teacher alike to refer to. It is difficult to dispute this recommendation of the authors as anything other than perfect good sense. We are then introduced to the organisational principles lying behind most of the rest of the book with the four following modes of online learning allocated a chapter each: oral synchronous, that is, real time spoken interaction such as in Second Life with a microphone; oral asynchronous, that is, voice posts where contributors have time to marshal their thoughts and practise; written synchronous, that is, text chats; and finally, written asynchronous, for example, VLE forum postings. Each of these chapters is then further subdivided into eight ‘instructional conversation moves’, indicating what the teacher is really up to. Is s/he drawing attention to grammatical form or lexis? Is s/he ‘saturating’ the conversation with target language? Or ‘trapping’ the student into using it? Or ‘corralling’ or ‘modelling’ etc.? Chapter 2 offers a lengthy examination of the affordances of oral synchronous environments and illustrations of how teachers can best exploit them. I thought it rather telling that the adjective ‘promising’ was used to describe this mode e it is one I have heard repeatedly used over the years in reference to Second Life, which, by the way, is a very prominent setting for the instructional dialogues within this chapter. I can understand the pedagogical rationale e students are able to immerse themselves through their avatars within a virtual world and share the experience with others. However, there is a flaw somewhere which just seems to put students off. My own brief forays were so associated with technical hitches and students asking ‘Why are we doing this?’ that I have not been back for several years and I find now that the world seems just as sparsely populated as ever, and several educational landmarks having disappeared. However, I have also met Second Life devotees who talk about its educational promise with the fervour of the converted. Might the recent tie-up with Oculus Rift, the virtual reality company, give Second Life … [ahem] … a second life? For the present, Google Hangouts and Skype seem to have achieved more verifiable traction in oral synchronous (and asynchronous) learning and so it would have been interesting to have learnt about the practical realities of handling one-to-one and group classes within such environments, but in this book neither gets more than a passing mention. Instead, the point is made again and again how learning can be enhanced during a synchronous conversation in a way that does not distract the learner if the teacher annotates the virtual whiteboard by drawing symbols and underlining pertinent text. The teacher is also advised to search the net for images and use their intonation to draw attention to problematic use of language. The trouble is, though, that these are not special affordances peculiar to online teaching; nowadays, many classrooms have digital projectors and any experienced teacher worth their salt in face-to-face environments is likely to be pretty used to doing these sorts of things as second nature. Nevertheless, the typology of instructional moves is good for awareness-raising and there is an impressive range of tasks for teaching grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, most of which struck me as ones with a fair bit of mileage in them to sustain a class. In Chapter 3, we enter oral asynchronous online environments and I have to confess to being absolutely gripped by the powers of both voicethread.com and voxopop.com. Internet addresses are provided and it was fascinating being able to follow up the reading of dialogue transcripts and the corresponding analysis by visiting the websites and listening to the users' original posts, though I do think that somewhere along the line to publication somebody should have furnished shortened URLs for this purpose. To my mind, the most thought-stirring extracts were the Voicethread follow-up discussions to BBC sixminute English broadcasts, which struck me as an excellent way of both involving the audience productively and at the same time engendering a sense of community. However, most contributions were delivered with such flat intonation that fatigue set in after just a few seconds and this made me dwell on the importance of instruction on how to make contributions engage the listener. Of course, the great affordance of this mode of communication, well highlighted by the authors, is the extra time available to prepare and practise one's voice postings. This is extremely useful for pronunciation practice because students can keep recording their own voice to match a native speaker model until they judge that they have got it right. A further advantage is the ideal opportunity students have to practise speaking at length so that their extended spoken utterances have some overall coherence and are more than simply streams of consciousness. This was not a point that received much attention, with most sample utterances in this chapter being rather short and, in my view, there was too much focus on accuracy. I am also somewhat dubious about the pedagogical wisdom of the teacher, for example, repeating ‘bus schedule’ seven times in as many sentences. The chapter ends with an intriguing look at how a ‘mixer’ (the terminology I am familiar with is ‘mash-up’) can be created in a blog that integrates links to oral asynchronous discussion boards. Chapter 4 offers six factors that influence text and visual ‘amplifications’ for instructional conversations in oral environments and I found the content here both informative and rewarding. There is a certain symmetry in the following three chapters, which cover the same ground as the last three, but this time for written environments. Chapters 5 and 6 look at instructional conversation moves within synchronous and asynchronous environments respectively, and then Chapter 7 investigates how written instructions can be ‘amplified’ through the use of sound and visual aids. The authors deserve credit for the lack of duplication and I found some of the tasks highly original and absorbing. I liked the development and recycling inherent in the task on page 153 where Russian language students learn to make stuffed cabbage: first, by watching a video; then, dragging what appear to be Flash images of the ingredients into the appropriate parts of a written recipe; and, finally, by text chat. I found myself nodding my head in agreement when I read the authors' assertion at the beginning of Chapter 8, ‘Continuing the Conversation’, that the decision to divide the online environments into the four quadrants was an arbitrary one, and that oral, written, synchronous and asynchronous modes could be effectively combined in pedagogically sound
Book reviews / System 56 (2016) 140e152
151
ways. For me, the book would have been all the better if the core element had consisted of complete online lessons rather than discrete tasks. As it is, the reader struggles a little to recontextualise again and again as s/he proceeds from one task to the next. It would have been interesting to have that overall sense of coherent development that a complete lesson would provide. I also think that it would have been instructive to read what the teachers involved in all the tasks had to say about how working online compared to face-to-face. All in all, I think this is a good buy for teachers who are relatively new to the profession and who, of course, have an interest in online learning. They will appreciate the unadulterated transcripts of experienced teachers conversing with their students and the accompanying explanation of the skills being displayed. Peter Saunders Language Centre, University of Oxford, 12 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HT, United Kingdom E-mail address: [email protected]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2015.12.012
Language Learning Beyond the Classroom, David Nunan, Jack C. Richards (Eds.). Routledge, New York and Abingdon, Oxon, UK (2015). xvi þ 302 pp.
Learner autonomy has come to be viewed as a critical element in language learning success. In addition to (motivated) learners' own self-directed activities, the role of teachers in facilitating learning chances for all students is viewed as highly valuable; for example, Benson (2001). This book presents 28 chapters about approaches for innovative language learning activities, where the learners are engaged actively in their own progress. These chapters are not presented in a research report format with a method and results section. Rather, these are narrative accounts of successful learning approaches, and are structured in the following format: Introduction and Overview, Vignette, Principles, Applications, Payoffs and Pitfalls and Discussion Questions. The chapters are approximately equal length (about nine pages), and hence can be briefly and enjoyably read as sources of insight and inspiration. Through these, interested readers can consider creating, or suggesting, chances for learners to practice their target language. There are five sections: Involving the Learner in Out-of-Class Learning, Using Technology and the Internet, Learning through Television, Out-of-Class Projects and Interacting with Native Speakers. A total of 28 approaches are presented. Beyond the worthy goal of learner autonomy, there is no central thesis as such, so in this review, I will describe two of the most memorable chapters for me. mon: “Just Watchin' TV, 1) From the section Learning Through Television: “Learning English through the language of Poke Ma” by Andy Curtis. Incidental learning in second languages has been the object of much research, commonly in the area of extensive reading in recent times. However, the use of extensive, narrow viewing of television has also come to the fore. This is supported by statistics showing the sheer amount of time many people spend watching programming daily and the obvious mon, a very popular animated implications for meaning-focused input in second language learning. Here the focus is on Poke cartoon programme. The case of the 10-year old son of a Chinese family recently arrived in Canada is presented. The son reportedly watched the cartoon intently on TV, benefitting from the idiosyncratic language of the characters. Although not very richly elaborated, the language is reported as being highly accessible and engaging, especially due to its repetitive nature, and thereby ideal as a substrate for more English to develop. Additionally, language spoken by human characters also appears in every episode. In the Principles section of the account, the authors expand on this, noting that using songs and rhymes for intensive repetition is engaging, contextualized and productive. They further note that even older learners might be attracted to such TV shows in that such content induces little anxiety. Such exposure also provides a sense of belonging to a social group, identity being another essential ingredient in language learning success. Overall, while television viewing still may not be a prestigious, or even widely acceptable, way to learn languages, it is clearly effective, especially if hundreds of episodes of a show are available. My own experience with a parallel form of out-of-class learning comes from supervising a master degree investigation mon). This research investigated the effect of intensive exposure to English into the use of hand-held video games (again Poke through a gamification mode. Students spent dozens of hours over a number of weeks following the progress of the animated video game. The characters' words appear as subtitles at the bottom of the console screen, resulting in a very rich interaction between language and cues in the visual input. In his research, Thanyawatapokin (2015) provided very convincing evidence for the benefits of such rich input for Japanese learners, especially in terms of gains in lexical ability in English. Further, € rnyei's theory of through written feedback from his participants, he describes the learners' experience in terms of Do Directional Motivation Currents (for example, 2014). This refers to learners' highly focused engagement in task, surely a kind of holy grail in language education. 2) From the section Interacting with Native Speakers: “Increasing the Linguistic and Cultural Benefits of Study Abroad”. The author of this chapter, Marc Cadd, starts by citing research showing that only a minority of learners see learning the target