Linguistics for EFL teachers

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Linguistics for EFL teachers

• Dr. Alice Spitz

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Syllabus

• This course investigates areas in linguistics
  relevant to teachers of English as a foreign
  language. Students examine key linguistic
  concepts and definitions in phonetics, phonology,
  morphology, syntax, semantics, lexicology,
  pragmatics and discourse analysis and their
  applications to teaching and learning English.
  The course explores ways of using research and
  generalizations derived from linguistics to
  inform teaching practice. To obtain a graded
  certificate or 5 credit points respectively
  students are expected to attend regularly, to
  participate actively, to team-teach a practical
  session, and to hand in a collection of annotated
  classroom materials by the end of the semester.

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Syllabus
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Syllabus
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Presentations

• In pairs
• Supervisor provides list of materials, but you
  are most welcome to look for more!
• Always check current English textbooks in the
  library of the ZFL!

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Presentations

• Workshop format
• Handout (adhere to style sheet for all
  bibliographical references!!) and PPP
• Reading assignments All students read texts from
  Carter/Nunan and Freeman/Freeman
• Discussants The following presenters ask
  questions
• Invite feedback from group

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Scheine

• LA old
• Unbenotet regular attendence, participation, and
  presentation
• Benotet regular attendence, participation,
  presentation and collection of classroom
  materials
• LA new
• 5 credit points regular attendence,
  participation, presentation and collection of
  classroom materials

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Terminology

• Natural contexts / classroom settings
• Product / process
• SLA (second language acquisition research)
• LA2 (second language acquisition)
• TESOL (Teaching English to speakers of other
  languages)
• TEFL (Teaching English as a foreign language)
• ESL (English as a second language)
• First language (L1) / source language (SL)
• Second language (L2) / target language (TL)

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Your experiences as a language learner/teacher

• Find someone who.
• stems from the same village/town/area as you.
• has learnt English for the same amount of years
  as you.
• spent time (year abroad/holiday) in the same
  English-speaking country as you.
• speaks the same variety of English as you.
• has encountered the same problems in learning
  English as you.
• has encountered the same problems in teaching
  English as you.
• Speak to as many people as you can in 10 minutes!!

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SLA a brief overview

• Research on how languages are learned from the
  1940s onwards
• Recognised as a discipline in its own right in
  the 1970s
• Heavily influenced by research on first language
  acquisition

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SLA a brief overview

• Three major theoretical positions
• Behaviourist position Say what I say
• Innatist/mentalist position Its all in your
  mind
• Interactionist position What do you mean?

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The behaviourist position Say what I say

• Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1957) Verbal Behaviour
• Speech as observable behaviour
• LA1 acquisition of a set of behaviours in a
  process of imitation and habit formation
• Stimulus response reinforcement

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The behaviourist position Say what I say

• LA2 process of overcoming habits of the SL in
  order to acquire new habits of the TL.
• Pedagogical implications imitation, dialogue
  memorisation and pattern drill
• Errors first language habits interfering with
  the acquisition of second language habits
• ? Contrastive analysis (CA)

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Contrastive Analysis (CA)

• Robert Lado
• Hypothesis Where there are similarities between
  the two languages, the learner will acquire the
  target language structures with ease where there
  are differences, the learner will have
  difficulty.
• ? positive and negative transfer
• But over- / underprediction of errors!

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Challenging the behaviourist position

• Behaviourist view accounts for some of the
  regular and routine aspects of language learning
  however, it cannot explain more complex
  grammatical structures and creative
  word-formation processes.

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The innatist/mentalist position Its all in
your mind.

• 1959 Noam Chomskys review of Skinners Verbal
  Behaviour.
• Innate abilities biologically programmed for
  language
• Talking is like walking

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The innatist/mentalist position Its all in
your mind.

• Language Acquisition Device / Universal Grammar
• contains all and only the principles universal
  to all human languages.
• Samples of the language serve as a trigger to
  activate the LAD / UG
• Child then matches innate knowledge to the
  structures of the particular language in the
  environment ? acquisition

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The innatist/mentalist position Its all in
your mind.

• Eric Lenneberg Critical Period Hypothesis
• LAD works successfully only if stimulated at the
  right time.

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The innatist/mentalist position Its all in
your mind.

• Influence on SLA ? creative construction theory

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Creative Construction Theory

• Stephen Krashen
• Learners construct internal representations of
  the language being learned.
• 2 separate mental processes conscious learning
  and subconscious acquisition
• Input hypothesis (i1)

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Creative Construction Theory

• Pedagogical implications
• ...supply comprehensible input in low anxiety
  situations, containing messages that students
  really want to hear. ... do not force early
  production in the second language, but allow
  students to produce when they are 'ready',
  recognizing that improvement comes from supplying
  communicative and comprehensible input, and not
  from forcing and correcting production. (Krashen)
• Formal grammar instruction of limited utility as
  it fuels conscious learning rather than
  subconscious acquisition.

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Challenging mentalist and creative construction
theories

• They do not explain how children and LA2 learners
  figure out how to interact with other speakers
  and how to use language appropriately in certain
  situations.
• Chomsky and Krashen claim that all you need is
  input to start the LAD or creative construction,
  but not any input works.
• What is needed is interaction with speakers of
  the language which is being acquired.

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Interactionist position What do you mean?

• Michael Long
• Language develops as a result of the complex
  interplay between the uniquely human
  characteristics of the child and the environment
  in which the child develops.
• Crucial element is the conversational
  give-and-take between children and adults.
• Motherese / Caretaker talk

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Interactionist position What do you mean?

• In LA2 the crucial element is the modification
  of the native speakers utterances, which is
  negotiated in the interaction.
• Examples comprehension checks, clarification
  requests, self-repetition or paraphrase

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Interactionist position What do you mean?

• Collaborative discourse
• The formation of linguistic hypotheses springs
  from conversational interaction, insofar as
  learners build their utterances on those of
  native speakers.
• scaffolding

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Interactionist position What do you mean?

• Pedagogical implication
• Give learners opportunities to negotiate meaning.

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The study of learner language

• Error analysis
• Interlanguage
• Developmental sequences
• Communication strategies (CS)

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The study of learner language

• Error analysis
• Representative Stephen Corder
• Mistakes vs errors
• Errors as signs of learners hypothesis testing
• ? normal healthy part of learning process
• Error classification interlingual and
  intralingual errors

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The study of learner language

• Interlanguage
• Larry Selinker
• system which has some characteristics of TL,
  some characteristics of SL and some general
  characteristics independent of TL and SL.
• Continually evolves as learners receive more
  input and revise their hypotheses about the
  target language.
• Fossilisation

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The study of learner language

• Developmental sequences
• Manfred Pienemann
• Sequences or stages in the development of
  particular structures, e.g. grammatical morphemes
  or negation
• Sequences similar across learners from different
  backgrounds (and similar to sequences in LA1)

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The study of learner language

• Developmental sequence grammatical morphemes
• 1) present participle ing plural s
• 2) definite and indefinite articles
• 3) irregular past tense
• 4) regular past tense ed 3rd pers sg s
  possessive s
• Due to speech processing constraints acquisition
  depends
• on complexity complexity determined by demands
  on
• short term memory

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Research on classroom interaction

• Teacher learner
• teacher questions/instructions, learner
  responses, teacher feedback turn-allocation
  behaviour
• Learner learner
• communication strategies and the relation
  between task types, learner interaction and
  opportunities for negotiation of meaning

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Research on classroom interaction

• General development
• Shift from teacher fronted, traditional language
• instruction to communicative, task-based
• language teaching.

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Research on classroom interaction
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Research on classroom interaction
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Current trends in SLA and language teaching

• Awareness of complexity of LA2 social and
  interpersonal as well as psychological dimensions
  to acquisition
• Input and output both important.
• Acquisition is an organic rather than linear
  process learners do not learn one thing
  perfectly at a time but numerous things
  simultaneously rate and speed dependent on
  complex interplay of factors such as
  speech-processing constraints and pedagogical
  intervention.

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Current trends in SLA and language teaching

• Communicative language teaching plus guided,
  form-based instruction and correction in specific
  circumstances.

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Recomended reading

• Lightbown, Patsy M. and Nina Spada. 1999. How
  languages are learned, 2nd edition. Oxford
  Oxford University Press.
• ? Bibliography