What seams do we remove in learning a language?-Towards a seamless language learning framework

Abstract

This chapter reviews the current notion of seamless learning and language learning theories to guide the development of theory for seamless language learning (SLL). Building on the sociocultural perspective of language learning, which also undergirds the notion of seamless learning, we created a synthetic SLL framework. The framework may leverage the affordances of mobile technology to foster language learning that weaves through different learning spaces, thereby helping language learners to connect the inputs and outputs through meaningful contexts. By doing so, we hope to shed light on what would be the intersection between the language learning theories and the general characteristics of seamless learning, thereby facilitating a dialogue between the two fields. We then analyse prior studies on SLL through the lens of the SLL framework and identify the research gaps. Subsequently, we put forward an instantiation of the framework-an SLL environment known as MyCLOUD (My Chinese Language ubiquitOUs learning Days)-and elucidate how the learning design is informed by the framework.