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Engineering Education Commons

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Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Series

2016

Engineering

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Full-Text Articles in Engineering Education

A Second Language Acquisition Approach To Learning Programming Languages, Rachel Cunningham, Paula Sanjuan Espejo, Christina Frederick, Lulu Sun, Li Ding Mar 2016

A Second Language Acquisition Approach To Learning Programming Languages, Rachel Cunningham, Paula Sanjuan Espejo, Christina Frederick, Lulu Sun, Li Ding

Publications

The instructional design for modules in the study was based on the evidence that learning a programming language is analogous to students acquiring a second language, and utilized tools from Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory. A programming language has vocabulary, syntax, grammar and communicative outcomes that must be sufficiently developed for the learner to function successfully in the environment that utilizes the language. This proposed study utilized an SLA approach to programming language in a blended learning environment. Modifications to the course pedagogy included breaking the course topics into video lessons focusing on basic programming vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. These …