In this talk, I propose an approach to measuring out-of-class language use, where language usage is operationalized into fifteen different types of activities, covering all potential target language use. The purpose of this talk is to assist in the work of creating a best-practice for measuring language use, which would have a long-term beneficial effect on research quality in our field.
It is possible for language learners to spend a large amount of time on target language activities outside of the classroom (see Sundqvist & Sylvén, 2016), and a great deal of language learning may occur out-of-class. However, it is methodologically challenging to investigate what language learners do in a target language. It is possible to engage in a huge variety of activities, and it is also likely that the advent of technology will offer new possibilities for language usage in the future. Consequently, target language usage is difficult to operationalize. There is no agreed upon best practice for how to operationalize language use, and figuring out a best practice would help increase the quality of research done in this field.
In this talk, I propose an approach to measuring language use with sufficient precision. Language use is operationalized into fifteen different types of activities, using a top down approach, which should cover all potential target language use. I will present examples of data gathered using this approach, showing its scalability and how it can be used to investigate target language engagement at both group and individual level, opening for further investigations of how language usage relates to language acquisition and language proficiency.
