Who Decides When to Move On? Learner and System Control in Digital Second-Language Learning: A Structured Review and Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Digital language-learning systems increasingly decide what should be practised next, when material should be reviewed, and when a learner is ready to move on. Many platforms also let learners make those decisions themselves. This paper reviews ten study families that directly or nearly directly compare learner control, program or adaptive control, and shared forms of control in second- and foreign-language learning. The evidence does not support a universal advantage for either learner or system control. Several relatively direct comparisons suggest benefits of performance-sensitive system guidance for delayed retention or learning efficiency, while unrestricted learner control is not uniformly worse and simple advisement is not consistently useful. Building on this literature, the paper proposes Dynamic Instructional Control Allocation (DICA), a framework in which the degree of learner and system authority can change across learners, tasks, and time. DICA is presented as a set of testable propositions rather than a validated causal model.