Review Language learning environments: Spatial perspectives on second language acquisition (a review)

We think we know about who learns languages, why they learn and how they learn but how much do we know about where they learn? What is the influence of space on language learning? How does the learning environment influence the learning of languages? That is the theoretical question asked by Phil Benson. Benson, who is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Macquarie University in Australia and Director of Macquarie’s Multilingual Research Centre, has undertaken a theoretical study of space and environment and its role in languages and second language learning. The book has six chapters on the where of second language acquisition (SLA), theories of space, linguistics and the spatiality of language, language bearing assemblages, language learning environments and space and SLA environments. It is a book for language and intercultural researchers and as Diane Larsen-Freeman, Professor Emerita at the University of Michigan, writes, ‘where second language learning takes place makes a difference – an important lesson for SLA researchers to heed’.