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Beginners and programming: insights from second language learning and teaching

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Abstract

This paper will consider issues that are important in the teaching and learning of programming to students in their first year of an undergraduate course in a computer science discipline. We will suggest that the current educational climate offers the opportunity to move the focus onto the learner and their experience, and that second language learning and teaching in the field of English as a Second, or Foreign, Language may be a fruitful area on which to draw. We will review a particular aspect of second language pedagogy-learner strategies-and discuss their applicability to students who are starting to learn how to program. We will consider ways in which these strategies might be useful to support learning programming at this level.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Systems and Computing, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH, UK

    Robert D Macredie

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  1. Lynne P Baldwin
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  2. Robert D Macredie
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Baldwin, L.P., Macredie, R.D. Beginners and programming: insights from second language learning and teaching. Education and Information Technologies 4, 167–179 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009652001566

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