Reflections on the article „The Craft so long to lerne: Aspects of time in language learning” by Rebecca Oxford.

REFLECTIONS ON THE ARTICLE „‘THE CRAFT SO LONG TO LERNE’: ASPECTS OF TIME IN LANGUAGE LEARNING” BY REBECCA OXFORD.

Rebecca L. Oxford (2017): ‘The craft so long to lerne’: aspects of time in language learning, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, DOI:10.1080/17501229.2017.1317262

Language learning perceived globally as a process and specifically as a set of tasks can not be separated from such a basic aspect like time. In her article ‘The craft so long to lerne: aspects of time in language learning’ Rebecca L. Oxford presents time as a multidimensional factor of language learning. She also points to the ‘space time’ as the components of space like environment, ecology, context, breadth, and depth which are inseparably connected with temporal facets. The author distinguishes several facets of time-prism: hope, agency, autonomy and mindset; time and socioculturally mediated learning; time in self-regulated learning, complexity theory and learning strategies; understandings of time perspectives; time imagination and motivation; time and emotion.

As the first facet the author selects hope, agency, autonomy and mindset as the most important personal factors in language learning. They all combine past with the future and are set in the present. Oxford highlights that the goal is not always achieved linearly. The author describes hope as a desire which is followed by reasonable expectation, so it obviously relates to the future. There are distinguished two thoughts modes of hope: pathway thinking (strategy) and agency thinking (positive statements). High hope guaranties satisfaction while long-term hope greater academic success. Lack of hope, on the other side, causes despair and hopelessness. Identifying learners’ hopeful or unhopeful attitude, mostly based on past experience, helps to change this attitude for the right (hopeful) one. Agency, the power to influence outcome, as presented by the author, also includes purpose set in time. There are distinguished three elements for agency: belief that improvement is possible, willingness to take part in the learning process and strategy knowledge to make it happen. Autonomy is based on the concept of being responsible for one’s own progress which is obviously a time relating process. Mindset is divided by the author into ‘growth mindset’ and ‘fixed mindset’. Learners with growth mindset perceive intelligence and learning ability as something that can be developed with time as opposed to learners with fixed mindset. However, fixed mindsets can become more growth-oriented mindsets over time. Concerning time and socioculturally mediated ...