What are the rewards and punishments for FLL?
12.1 The measure of success in informal language learning is immediate social, or sometimes employment survival. The individual knows very clearly from moment to moment what he needs to learn. For example, I spent a part of my last vacation in at a conference in Cambodia where a surprising number of young people from peasant villages have learned to make contact with foreign tourists, and persuade those tourists to accept their services. Their motivation to learn was reinforced concretely on a daily basis. Their communicative success was measured in instant cash. That’s pretty powerful. 12.2 Language teachers don’t usually have cash bonuses to hand out to learners. However, they can dispense criticism very cheaply, which is a big disincentive, and they can waste students’ time with classroom and text book “busy work”, which is even more devastating to the will to learn. Many experienced teachers realize the importance of short daily goals and quick feedback (Ryan, 2001), but are still
