Definition
Gibson (1979, p.127) has noted the term affordance as “what (the environment) offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill.” However, Singleton and Aronin (2007) note that real affordances are those possibilities that are to be perceived and recognized. Affordances can be expressed as “verb-able.” For example, a rock near the river affords “sit-able” or apple on the branch affords “eat-able.” Kono (2009) refers to affordances as the potentials of the environment. He notes that it can be expressed as the circular functional process between an animal and surrounding environment. This idea can be expressed as follows (Fig. 1):
A surface affords support (Kono 2009, p. 359)
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Ziglari, L. (2012). Affordance and Second Language Learning. In: Seel, N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_901
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