L2 Development in Contemporary Learning Ecologies: Engagement, Digital Mediation, and Data-Informed Pedagogies

Second and foreign language education is currently shaped by major educational challenges, including unequal access to learning opportunities, diverse learner trajectories, motivational barriers, increasing digital mediation, the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence, and the need for more robust evidence on how language development actually occurs. In this context, language learning can no longer be understood only as the result of exposure to input or participation in classroom tasks. It increasingly takes place within complex learning ecologies where learners, teachers, digital resources, language data, assessment practices, institutional conditions, and pedagogical designs interact. These developments call for a broader understanding of L2 learning that connects language development with engagement, digital mediation, corpus-informed evidence, language processing, and pedagogical innovation.The goal of this Research Topic is to examine L2 development in contemporary learning ecologies, with particular attention to learner engagement, digital mediation, and data-informed pedagogies. Rather than focusing on technology as a tool in itself, the collection seeks to explore how digitally enriched, corpus-informed, and data-supported environments create, expand, or constrain opportunities for meaningful language development. It is especially interested in how learners engage cognitively, affectively, behaviorally, and socially with language, tasks, feedback, peers, teachers, digital resources, and language data, and how such engagement relates to observable development in areas such as vocabulary, oral production, writing, reading, listening, pronunciation, grammar, interaction, feedback uptake, and skills integration.This Research Topic also aims to move beyond novelty-driven accounts of digital innovation. It seeks contributions that examine how language learning can be supported in context-sensitive, inclusive, and evidence-informed ways, especially in response to contemporary challenges such as learner diversity, equity of access, motivation, self-regulation, teacher mediation, ethical use of data, and the pedagogical integration of artificial intelligence, natural language processing, corpus tools, and learning analytics.We welcome empirical, theoretical, methodological, and review-based contributions addressing L2 development across diverse educational settings. Possible themes include:- Learner engagement and motivation in digitally mediated L2 environments- Vocabulary and skills development in digital, blended, mobile, or classroom-based contexts- Corpus-informed and data-driven language learning- Learner corpora- Natural language processing and automated feedback- AI-mediated language practice and assessment- Learning analytics for language development- Gamified and immersive L2 learning- Self-regulated learning and learner agency- Multimodal input and interaction- Teacher roles in contemporary L2 pedagogies- Young learners and school-based language education- Equity-oriented perspectives from underrepresented or resource-constrained contextsContributions may include quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, design-based, classroom-based, corpus-informed, computational, or systematic review studies. Topic editors: Cristian Sanhueza-Campos, Jorge Ignacio Maluenda-Albornoz, ELENA DOMINGUEZ ROMERO, Charles Lam Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/82767/l2-development-in-contemporary-learning-ecologies-engagement-digital-mediation-and-data-informed-pedagogies