Playful Interactions and the Intake of Incidental Language Knowledge in the Classroom: A Critical Review of an Instructed Second Language Acquisition Study

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1.3, LMU Munich, language: English, abstract: My paper will illustrate the researcher´s (Nick Ellis) attempt to uncover the interplay of classroom humor, learners' interaction, and incidental learning and explore how reliable and valid her study is in answering her research question. The second part of this paper discusses the theoretical basis of the study. The third part introduces the research design along with my reflections upon its upside and downside. Lastly, I will conclude with a discussion on the implication of the study and provide areas of further consideration for future studies on this topic. Based on theories of psycholinguistics on how L2 learners could better internalize their target linguistic knowledge, this paper is a critical review of a resent instructed second language acquisition study on the different effect of playful and nonplayful incidental vocabulary learning during classroom instruction. This paper lays out a solid theoretical basis for the issue in focus, including a summary of studies on playful instructions and the role of incidental focus on form. The strengths and weaknesses of the target research are then discussed, from the perspective of its data collection and coding methods, and resluts analysis.