ABSTRACT
Before the birth of the SLA field several decades ago, non-SLA fields had been using the term “learning,” and still do, to describe stimuli such as colors, numbers, lights, dark spots on a computer, and so on. With the birth of SLA, researchers have placed a premium interest in the exploration of the construct of learning as in second or foreign language (L2), learning in the naturalistic (immersion or study abroad), classroom, and laboratory settings. If we were to take a quick survey of any representative number of published theoretical or empirical studies in both SLA and non-SLA fields, we would find an inevitable mention of the term “learning.” At the same time, it is quite revealing that a closer and more careful look at what comprises “learning” within and between the SLA and nonSLA fields may not be the same construct. For example, the concept of intake is not well acknowledged in many non-SLA fields, and whatever is taken in may be viewed as learning. In addition, there may be quite a lot of terminological confusion given that the construct of learning appears to be operationalized or measured by quite a wide range of assessment tasks.
