Second Language Acquisition Semester 1, 2004

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Second Language Acquisition Semester 1, 2004

• Week 10
• Input and interaction

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Input and intake

• Input what is available to the learner
• Intake what is actually internalised.

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Comprehensible Input

• Input must be comprehensible if it is to play a
  role in learning where does it come from?

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Linguistic adjustments to Non-Native Speakers
(NNS)

• foreigner talk ( Ferguson, 1975) NS switching
  to ungrammatical forms when speaking to NNS.
• Three types
• omission deletion of articles, copulas, etc.
• Why you go?
• expansion addition of unanalysed tag questions
• You like Coke, yes?
• replacement/rearrangement pre-verbal negation
  no like?, uninverted sentence forms
• Sister me no like man

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Why does foreigner talk occur?

• 1. zero or very low SL proficiency in NNS
• 2. perceived or actually higher status of NS
• 3. prior experience with low proficiency NNS
• 4. spontaneity of the conversation

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NS adjustments in delivery grammar

• gt slower, more careful pronunciation, stress or
  increased volume on key words
• gt shorter t-units
• gt grammatical relations made explicit
• He asked to go gtgt He asked if he could go
• gt less complex syntactically or propositionally
• more present tense markings
• more yes/no questions
• topic-comment structure John, I like
  him

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NS adjustments in vocabulary

• gt restricted vocabulary size, lower type/token
  ratio
• gt fewer pro forms

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Interactional adjustments to NNS

• gt content narrower range of topics, here and now
  orientation
• gt interactional structure acceptance of topic
  shifts, confirmation checks,
  clarification requests, questions and answers
• gt paraphrase approximation, circumlocution
• gt transfer literal translations
• avoidance topic avoidance

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Teacher talk

• gt Similar to foreigner talk
• gt Particularly evident in Initiate-Respond-Feedba
  ck (IRF) transmission mode of education

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Do input modifications actually help make input
more comprehensible? (1)

• 1.Comprehension is usually increased by
  linguistic simplification, although simple
  sentences alone do not always help and may even
  hinder.
• 2. Simplification and elaboration often co-occur,
  but when their effects can be distinguished,
  simplification is not consistently superior to
  elaboration, and some studies find elaboration
  more effective.
• 3. Comprehension is consistently improved by
  interactional modifications, and by a combination
  of simplification and elaboration.

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Do input modifications actually help make input
more comprehensible? (2)

• 4. Modifications are more useful to NNSs of lower
  L2 proficiency.
• 5.Apart from rate of delivery, isolated input or
  interactional adjustments, such as shorter
  sentence length or greater topic saliency, are
  insufficient to improve the comprehensibility of
  whole texts. (Long, 1996422-423)
• 6.NNSs perceived comprehension is greater when
  speech has been modified for them.

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Comprehensible input is necessary, but is it
sufficient?

• 1. Persistent errors by L2 learners despite rich
  input (Schmidt, 1986 Swain, 1991).
• 2. Inability of advanced L2 learners to
  incorporate L2 vocabulary and grammar. Inability
  to form relative clauses (Keenan Comrie, 1997
  Pavesi, 1983)

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Comprehensible input is necessary, but is it
sufficient? (2)

• 3. Learnability arguments the need for negative
  evidence. Example Adverb placement by French ESL
  learners (White, 1989)
• Je bois toujours du café ( I drink every day
  coffee)
• The English FSL learner will get positive
  evidence that the adverb can appear between the
  verb and direct object.
• If the French ESL learner transfers the L1
  verb-adverb-direct object order, negative
  evidence is needed to change. Comprehension is
  not enough.

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Conclusion

• Comprehensible input ( the environment) is not
  enough to explain learning.
• Learner internal variables must also be
  considered. These include attention, awareness
  and focus on form.

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The role of conversation (naturalistic NSNNS
interaction) in learning

• language learning evolves out of learning how to
  carry on conversations (Hatch, 1978 404)
• Can grammatical structure emerge from
  interactional adjustments?

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Dealing with communication breakdowns

• Communication involving L2 learners often leads
  to problems in understanding and breakdown.
  Frequently, one or more of the participants the
  learner or the interlocutor attempts to remedy
  this by engaging in interactional work to secure
  mutual understanding. This work is often called
  negotiation of meaning. (Ellis, 1994 716)

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Negotiation of meaning

• is characterized by interactional modifications
  such as comprehension checks and requests for
  clarification. The goal is to make the input more
  comprehensible.

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The Interactionist account

• ... negotiation of meaning, and especially
  negotiation work that triggers interactional
  adjustments by the NS or more competent
  interlocutor, facilitates acquisition because it
  connects input, internal learner capacities,
  particularly selective attention, and output in
  productive ways. (Long, 1996 451)

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Interactionist principles

• 1. The linguistic characteristics of target
  language input need to be made salient.
• 2. Learners should receive help in comprehending
  semantic and syntactic aspects of linguistic
  input.
• 3. Learners need to have opportunities to produce
  target language output.
• 4. Learners need to notice errors in their own
  output. Learners need to correct their linguistic
  output.

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Interactionist principles (2)

• 5. Learners need to correct their linguistic
  output.
• 6. Learners need to engage in target language
  interaction whose structure can be modified for
  negotiation of meaning.
• 7. Learners should engage in L2 tasks designed to
  maximise opportunities for good interaction.
  Chappelle, 1998, p. 23-25

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Negative evidence

• Negotiation Other types of correction
• Notice error
• Search input
• Input available Input not available
• Confirm/Disconfirm

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Comprehensible output Is production necessary?

• The role of output
• 1. Testing hypotheses about the structures and
  meanings of the target language.
• 2. Receiving crucial feedback for verification
  of these hypotheses.
• 3. Developing automaticity in IL production.
• 4. Forcing a shift from more lexical and
  semantic processing of the second language to a
  more syntactic mode. (Swain Lapkin 1995
  Krashen 1998)

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The Communicative Language Teaching dilemma

• Focus-on-form or Focus-on-function?
• The issue to what extent is form-focused
  instruction beneficial to L2 classroom learning?

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Who needs grammar?

• evidence that CLT does a better job of promoting
  but does not hinder linguistic development
  (Savignon, 1972)
• evidence that communicative instruction improves
  linguistic development more than grammar
  instruction only (Montgomery Eisenstein, 1985)
• evidence that CLT may be superior to form-based
  instruction for learning contextualised grammar
  (Beretta Davies, 1985)

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Should grammar be taught?

• However, there is also evidence that a mix of CLT
  and form-based instruction is best (Allens,
  Swain, Harely Cummins, 1990 Lightbown, Spada
  et al)

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Conclusions

• acknowledgement that students acquired a great
  deal of English via CLT without form-focused
  instruction
• instructional intervention may be necessary for
  some components of language
• CLT form-based instruction contributes to
  higher levels of linguistic knowledge and
  performance (Lightbown Spada, 1995, p. 323)
• CLT form-based instruction are best for
  developing accuracy, fluency, overall
  communicative skills

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Form-based instruction

• Focus on forms versus focus on form
• Focus on forms instruction that seeks to isolate
  linguistic forms in order to teach them and test
  them one at a time e.g., structural syllabus
• Focus on form "alternating in some principled
  way between a focus on meaning and a focus on
  form" (Long, 1991) e.g., task-based syllabus

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Focus on form approaches

• Activities that require the learner to
  communicate while focussing learner attention on
  specific forms.
• Provide corrective feedback on learner's errors
  during the course of communication.

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The input processing model

• The input processing model (IP) is an account of
  how L2 learners make initially makes sense of L2
  input. It was first proposed in VanPatten (1996)
  and has since been developed and refined.

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Definition of key terms in IP

• processing refers to making a connection between
  form and meaning (not the same as perception of a
  form or noticing )
• noticing refers to any conscious registration of
  a form, but not necessarily with any meaning
  attached to it (Schmidt, 1990) - similar to
  perception
• intake refers to that subset of the input that
  has been processed in working memory and made
  available for further processing (i.e., possible
  incorporation into the developing system)

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IP A definition

• Input processing is about making
  form-meaning/function connections during real
  time comprehension. It is an on-line phenomenon
  that takes place in working memory.

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IP Principles (1)

• Principle 1. The Primacy of Meaning Principle.
  Learners process input for meaning before they
  process it for form.
• Principle 1a. The Primacy of Content Words
  Principle. Learners process content words in the
  input before anything else.
• Principle 1b. The Lexical Preference Principle.
  Learners will tend to rely on lexical items as
  opposed to grammatical form to get meaning when
  both encode the same semantic information .

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IP Principles (2)

• P1c. The Preference for Non-redundancy Principle.
  Learners are more likely to process non-redundant
  meaningful grammatical form before they process
  redundant meaningful forms.
• P1d. The Meaning-before-nonmeaning Principle.
  Learners are more likely to process meaningful
  grammatical forms before nonmeaninful forms
  irrespective of redundancy.
• P1e. The Availability of Resources Principle. For
  learners to process either redundant meaningful
  grammatical forms or nonmeaningful forms, the
  processing of overall sentential meaning must not
  drain available processing resources.
• P1f. The Sentence Location Principle. Learners
  tend to process items in sentence initial
  position before those in final position and those
  in medial position.

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End of Week 10 lecture slides.