"You have to change your whole system every second of your life" : Contextual factors in adult foreign language learning

The purpose of this report is to contribute to an understanding of the technological, institutional, and social conditions that affect language learning and the different ways that adults can undertake the activity of language learning over two to four years within these conditions.Data for this report was collected between 2012 and 2016 from twelve learners enrolled in beginner-level courses in foreign languages taught by distance at a regional Swedish university. From asynchronous and synchronous computer-mediated interviews over this period, a narrative of each subject’s learning process was constructed to illustrate language learning contexts and trajectories. These contexts and trajectories are conceptualized through the personal learning environment (PLE) placed in an activity-theory (AT) framework. This report reveals some of the contradictory pressures that teachers, curricula, institutions, social welfare systems and ICT can exert on a PLE. Adult foreign language learners’ PLEs and trajectories within university distance education in Sweden in the 2010s can take many different configurations depending on an individual learner’s own goals and personal objectives, location, and even health