This chapter explores the history of second, foreign, or additional language (L2) learning and teaching beyond the classroom (LLTBC) by exploring how literacy and communication technologies¹ (LCTs), educational institutions and practices, and L2 learning activity both in and outside of schools have mutually shaped one another in ecologies of use over time. Although LCTs have existed for thousands of years (e.g. writing, manuscripts, ink, etc.), and L2 learning presumably since the mythical age of Babel, the rise of the Internet and digital technologies in the last several decades has led to a veritable explosion of LLTBC practices so noteworthy it has given impetus for a new subfield of scholarly inquiry, and the need for handbooks like this one.

Since a truly comprehensive treatment of the phenomenon would require much more than a single handbook chapter permits, I focus on selected key points to make the argument that LLTBC and LCTs have had a dialectical but complex relationship throughout history. Moreover, although I present the phenomenon from Western European and specifically Anglophone perspectives, since the concept of LLTBC itself is decidedly grounded in that world-view and that history is readily available, in no way do I mean to imply that understandings of language, multilingualism, learning, and schooling situated in non-white, non-Western ontologies are not equally as important to consider. It is hoped that this chapter sparks and informs further inquiry and discussion of these ideas in the fields of CALL (computer-assisted language learning), educational technology, applied linguistics, digital media studies, and language education, with the goal of providing a technology-focused perspective on the growing field of HoLLT (the history of language learning and teaching, McLelland & Smith, 2018), including from historically unheard voices. Because they have been overlooked, they are arguably even more important to consider than the perspective presented here, if a truly comprehensive and informed argument is to be made.

The history of LCTs is itself extensive and could arguably go back as far as the invention of writing (Ong, 1982). The history of language teaching and learning (e.g. Howatt & Widdowson, 2004; McLelland & Smith, 2018) might go back to classical antiquity, and the practice of learning other languages naturalistically even earlier. The current, curious state of affairs is that we now consciously use the phrase ‘L2 learning beyond the classroom’ to refer to something we feel is happening beyond the control of teachers. Recently the phrase ‘digital wilds’ (Sauro & Zourou, 2019) is used to refer to something similar, focused on the online, vernacular, user-controlled activities that may involve L2 use and learning incidentally. The word ‘wilds’ is interesting as it implies that formal education tames, domesticates, or enculturates what is otherwise ‘natural’, and the history of LLTBC seems to be typified by the periodic unleashing of wild LCT-mediated behavior that must then somehow be tamed, or at least accommodated in classrooms. It makes intuitive sense that formal learning is somehow less natural, and that informal learning is more so, but it is nearly impossible to disentangle the two historically, because literacy itself is not natural and usually must be explicitly learned. An historical perspective that considers the relationship between LLTBC (or learning in the wilds) and LCTs can enlighten our understanding of how this state came to be and provide insight into the future of it.

LCTs mediate and extend our human capacities to inform, interact, and relate by means of language and other symbolic semiotic systems. Analog LCTs like writing and the printing press have been in use for so long and are so widely integrated into human existence they have given rise to phenomena no less monumental than alphabetic literacy itself, even as new digital LCTs continue to engender new forms of literacies and socially semiotic, mediated expression. LCTs have given rise to vernacular media forms like newspapers, film, and digital social media, and some have been adapted for educational uses as textbooks, language labs, teaching methods, and language learning apps. The relationship among these many educational and vernacular technologies, media, literacies, and socio-educational practices is ecologically complex, dynamic, and mutually co-constitutive.

Technologies are products of the practical human need to solve problems and enhance their existence, but solutions and enhancements always lead to new affordances, both negative, which lead to new problems to solve, and positive, which lead to new opportunities for enhancement. However, both the technological deterministic argument that technology impacts societal and cultural development, and the social deterministic notion that society develops separately and influences technology, so that social needs give rise to new technologies, are overly essentialist and teleological. A better metaphor to comprehend how LLTBC, L2 teaching and learning practices, and LCTs have co-evolved throughout human history is the idea of mutual shaping (Boczkowski, 1999), the notion that users, institutional structures, and technologies influence one another in non-linear, complex, and ecological fashion over time.

To frame discussion of the history of LLTBC, this chapter uses Benson’s (2011) definition of LLTBC as involving four dimensions: location, formality, pedagogy, and locus of control. First, LLTBC is defined as located beyond classrooms. An historical perspective recognizes that what we understand and recognize as classrooms today are themselves an historical phenomenon that developed over time, interrelated with the development and establishment of educational institutions, from Latin schools associated with monasteries in the Early Middle Ages of Europe to online schools today. Indeed, as more learning happens online and learning resources become accessible and pervasive (e.g. with augmented reality), the definition of ‘beyond classrooms’ continues to evolve.

Second, LLTBC is normally informal, meaning it is not done for educational credit or certification purposes, for example, in order to fulfill the requirements of a course or an assignment. An informal practice involving L2 use may have formal qualities like generally recognized levels of skill or expertise, but these are judged by folk measures (e.g. ‘working knowledge’, ‘can get by’, ‘pretty good’, ‘fluent’, ‘can order a beer’, etc.). Historically speaking, L2 learning, especially in comparison with something like learning algebra, has always occurred outside of formal schooling frameworks, and multilingualism should be considered the norm rather than the exception. The term ‘informal’ implies that ‘formal’ learning is the norm, although it is not when considered historically and globally. It should also be recognized that formality in this sense has served as a means of linguistic imperialism, especially in colonial contexts.

Third, the resources or practices of LLTBC may or may not be intentionally designed as pedagogical. Media and texts of all sorts may be didactic to greater or lesser extents (e.g. a newsstory or a museum tour are more didactic than a novel), regardless of intended audience; at the same time, pedagogically mediated materials may be meant for both informal and formal uses, as attested by the proliferation of apps like Duolingo, the popularity of educational YouTube channels, and the activities of online L2 learner communities. The earliest print resources used for LLTBC like grammars and dictionaries emerged in the Early Modern Era (1500–1800 CE), and were not necessarily meant to be exclusively pedagogical, as instructional genres had not yet distinguished themselves from reference genres. The notions of pedagogical methods and textbook genres coalesced in the industrial era alongside mass education.

Finally, locus of control refers to the agency and autonomy of learners, that is, the extent to which decisions about learning are controlled by teachers, administrators, parents, or learners themselves. LLTBC normally requires considerable autonomy on the part of learners insofar as it is engaged in voluntarily, and it is usually directed and managed without authoritative supervision (since it is informal). Centuries ago, when education was not universal and usually only those who wanted or had to engage in L2 learning did, success in LLTBC was measured by meeting needs that might have been a matter of socio-economic survival. A user’s sense of agency, competence, and self-efficacy inherent to autonomy were immediately realized and reinforced with pragmatic success. Today, participation in online spaces around affinities like digital gaming (Vasquez-Calvo, 2021) or popular culture fandom (Sauro & Thorne, 2021), while needs may be social or identity-related, may afford LLTBC for the same reasons.

In an overview of the field of LLTBC (2017), Reinders and Benson note that Benson’s 2011 framework was meant to be preliminary and might also include dimensions such as trajectory (Chik, 2014), variety (Lai et al., 2015), intentionality, explicitness, and induction, among others. The definitions inherent to the term itself – language, learning, teaching, beyond, and classroom – should also be understood historically. For example, the concept of language has evolved over time in relationship to other societal and cultural developments. Movements to define and standardize the modern European languages of English, French, and German were partially driven by the goal to teach them more efficiently and evolved in reaction and relation to histories and discourses surrounding the education of classical languages, especially Latin. Formal L2 teaching practices developed in conjunction with, and often as intentional application of, developments in fields like phonetics, lexicography, philology, linguistics, and psychology, as well as in response to the concept of ‘naturalistic’ learning. The pendulum of teaching practice has been swinging between ‘application of science’ and ‘reflection of nature’ for quite some time. Today, ongoing and emerging debates over definitions of ‘English’ vs. ‘Englishes’, ‘variety’ vs. ‘dialect’, ‘additional’ vs. ‘second’ vs. ‘foreign’, and ‘native’ vs. ‘learner’ hinge on conceptual paradigms and dichotomies that naturally evolve and shift over time in response to larger scientific and socio-historical developments. Again, non-Western perspectives may be vital to better, more universal understandings of these concepts as they have developed over time.

The historical roots of LLTBC go back to as far as there were classrooms to be beyond, that is, outside of which to learn. Most human civilizations have always had some version of schools – buildings devoted to learning – often originally integrated with places of worship. In Europe starting in the Medieval Period, Latin or grammar schools emerged that were devoted to teaching Latin to new clergy by means of reciting verses, copying manuscripts, and studying grammar. University education as well was conducted in medieval Latin, which would have been an additional language for all students, who would have used vernacular languages at home. Although conversational Latin was sometimes taught, not much was used by students outside of classrooms; Rait (1912) writes that university students were allowed only to converse in Latin, a rule that

Latin grew into a diglossic relationship with vernacular Romance (e.g. Italian or French) and Germanic languages (e.g. English or German) among clergy and learned classes, but because it had no true native speakers, it was not particularly feasible to learn it informally outside the classroom.

Clergy aside, only a minority of Europeans had the means to go to grammar school or to university, and only if one were wealthy and privileged enough could on...