didactic s

8/12/2019 Didactic s

1/36

Didactics -4 : Second language acquisition

A : Canadian experiments.

Immersion

Recently, Quebec has been much in the news - Many French-speaking Canadians -but not a

majority- would like to set up an independent nation, and almost half of the people living in the

province are now of this opinion. However, for many years, Quebec has survived within the

union as a French-speaking province. The growth of the liberation movement from the 60s onforced the Canadian government to recognise aspecial linguistic status for the province -the

French language was made official.

This put anglophones at a disadvantage. Many of them decided that it was in their interests toensure that their children should be able to speak French fluently. As they considered that the

language teaching in the national school system was insufficient, they put pressure on localschools to provide special facilities for their children. Thus it was that from 1965 on, a

considerable number of young anglophone children (something like 10% of all English-speaking

children) were enrolled in what were calledimmersion classes.These classes were based uponthe idea that the best way to learn a foreign language was the 'natural way' - that is, in the sameway that a child learns its mother tongue. This means that, instead of concentrating upon the

grammar of the language, in specialised language classes, the young learner should be exposed to

the foreign language in natural situations. Instead of learning French in French classes, they

learnt mathematics, science, history and so on in French.

The results of these experiments are encouraging1

- first of all, it is to be noted that the abilities of the child in the mother-tongue do notappear to suffer in any way - unless the written code for both languages is introducedsimultaneously.

As for the foreign language, the capacities of children who have followed this kind ofcourse are far superior to the capacities of those who have followed traditional Frenchclasses. Their comprehension is, indeed, on the same level as that of young French-

speaking children

- on the other hand, they do not speak or write as fluently as young Francophones, andthey tend to avoid initiating conversations in French.

It has also been claimed thatthese classes have deeper cognitive effectson the children,developing their mental flexibility.However, we need to be fairly careful about such

results - it is very difficult to know whom these children should be compared to.

Self-tuition
http://www.quebecoislibre.org/020511-10.htmhttp://www.quebecoislibre.org/020511-10.htmhttp://www.quebecoislibre.org/020511-10.htmhttp://www.quebecoislibre.org/020511-10.htmhttp://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/language/http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/language/http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/language/http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/r16650/backgrou.htmhttp://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/r16650/backgrou.htmhttp://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/r16650/backgrou.htmhttp://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L4_Experiments.htm#1http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L4_Experiments.htm#1http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L4_Experiments.htm#1http://www.mctlc.org/newvisions/legscores.htmlhttp://www.mctlc.org/newvisions/legscores.htmlhttp://www.mctlc.org/newvisions/legscores.htmlhttp://www.mctlc.org/newvisions/legscores.htmlhttp://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L4_Experiments.htm#1http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/r16650/backgrou.htmhttp://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/language/http://www.quebecoislibre.org/020511-10.htmhttp://www.quebecoislibre.org/020511-10.htm


2/36

Even more intriguing are the results ofan experiment in teaching English to young French

Canadiansin the bilingual province of New Brunswick, where about one third of the population

is French-speaking. Because of the considerable expense, it was considered impossible toprovide specialist teaching for all French Canadian children in the public schools. The provincial

government decided to try out a method based entirely on input2

Every day, in the schools chosen for this experiment, children in grades 3 - 6 ( from 8 -11 years old) spend 30 minutes studying English. The classroom in which this learning is

done is equipped with personal tape-recorders. There are also shelves upon which arekept a large collection of books. Each book is accompanied by a tape.

On entering the classroom, the child chooses a book, sits at a table with a tape-recorder,

and then reads the book while listening to the tape. The student chooses books from a

menu adapted to her age. She works entirely on her own - the teacher does not intervenein the learning in any way, other than to encourage a pupil to organise her time or

materials.

After three years, the performance of the experimental groups was compared with that of groupswho had been taught by well-qualified and conscientious language teachers. It appeared that on

most measures there was very little difference between the two groups. However, on a test wherethe children were asked to describe a picture, the experimental children were far superior to the

groups who had been taught by traditional methods - they used a larger vocabulary, and a more

flexible syntax than did the others.

Furthermore, the pupils said that they enjoyed their English classes, and looked forward to the

English period in their day. They also appeared to be more autonomous in their approach to

learning. When asked what they did if there was something which they did not understand, themajority of the traditionally taught students said that they would ask the teacher - those in the

experimental groups said that they would listen to the tape over again, or look at the glossary atthe back of the book.

Although the programme had not been fully evaluated at this stage, it does appear that children

can acquire a considerable degree of proficiency in a foreign language without benefiting fromformal teaching, from grammar lessons, and from being forced to usethe language. However,

the results of a follow-up study suggested that there was a limit to what could be acquired

without a teacher, and that best results were to be obtained when the initial program wasenriched by the presence of an instructor.

Stephen Krashen's Monitor Theory3

Now I wish to turn to a highly influential and controversial account of second language learning,

which is based on the idea that second language learning is very similar to the learning of a first

language. The account has been put forward in it fullest form by the American language teacher,Stephen Krashen.

Krashen seesfive fundamental points- which he calls hypotheses - as the basis for his languageteaching method. These are :
http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/Modules/Mod05/Lbown1.htmhttp://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/Modules/Mod05/Lbown1.htmhttp://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/Modules/Mod05/Lbown1.htmhttp://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/Modules/Mod05/Lbown1.htmhttp://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L4_Experiments.htm#2http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L4_Experiments.htm#2http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L4_Experiments.htm#2http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L4_Experiments.htm#3http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L4_Experiments.htm#3http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L4_Experiments.htm#3http://www.sdkrashen.com/main.php3http://www.sdkrashen.com/main.php3http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/Krashen.htmhttp://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/Krashen.htmhttp://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/Krashen.htmhttp://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/Krashen.htmhttp://www.sdkrashen.com/main.php3http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L4_Experiments.htm#3http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L4_Experiments.htm#2http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/Modules/Mod05/Lbown1.htmhttp://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/Modules/Mod05/Lbown1.htm


3/36

1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesiso Krashen makes a distinction between what he calls acquisition of a language -

which is much the same as the process by which a child learns his first language -and learning, which is the procedure employed in most traditional classrooms.

Acquisition is a relatively painless process. The child hears language all around

him, and unconsciously works out the grammar. This he can do because he isequipped with an LAD. He does not set out to deliberately learn the language.Learning, on the other hand, is a conscious process, requiring effort specifically

directed towards analysing the target language. This is what we do in grammar

lessons, and Krashen appears to be thinking mainly of grammar when he refers tothis. A standard case would be learning the inflections of the German verb, or the

French Subjunctive.

o Now, according to Krashen, one can only be said to master a language when ithas been acquired. Formal learning may give us the rules of grammar, but it doesnot mean that we will use them correctly. He points to the fact that students may

score well on formal grammar tests, but, when they are concentrating on content

rather than form, make mistakes that they do not make in the tests.2. The Natural Order Hypothesis The second point is that learners make mistakes, and that these mistakes are a necessary

part of language learning. These mistakes are not random, but are very similar to the

errors that children make when learning their first language. If we follow the

mistakes that students make through time, we will see that they lie in a rough sequence.

Moreover, the sequence of errors for acquired language is not the same as the sequence oflearned grammar points - some grammatical morphemes which appear simple from the

learning point of view, are in fact acquired late - the 's' of the TPS. This, according to

Krashen, indicates that there is a natural order in which learners pick up a language-and that this order is roughly the same for all learners, no matter what their linguistic

background.

Chinese people learning English will make the same mistakes, and will learn in more orless the same order as French people.(As we will see, there is much evidence to suggestthat Krashen is right on this point, although there are in fact differences between Chinese

learners of English and French learners of English).

The point of this observation is that these mistakes will be made in the same orderwhether the learners have been taught the grammar or not, and that teaching the

grammar will not help them change the order(Krashen appears to believe that it will

not make acquisition any quicker either, but recent research suggests that while grammar

teaching does not appear to change the order, it can get the student through the differentstages more rapidly).

The Monitor Hypothesis Krashen does not think that formal grammar teaching is entirely pointless. The formal

rule system feeds in to what he calls the Monitor- we may think of this as a minute

grammar teacher that sits inside our brains and listens to what we say, or reads what we

write and yells out whenever he hears a mistake.


4/36

The Monitor is a dangerous ally - some people over-use it, and their speech becomesslow, and hesitant - their interlocutors are likely to give up on them, and go and talk to

somebody else. This, as we shall see, is important, because a language learner needs to

hear a lot of language from native speakers. The Monitor is best used when we have to be very careful - when language is necessarily

formal. This is obviously the case when writing letters of application, for example, orwhen speaking to a hierarchical superior in a formal situation.

Most of the time, however, Krashen suggests that we should leave the monitorunemployed, and concentrate upon the meaning that we wish to convey, rather than on

the form of our utterances.

The Input Hypothesis Although his overall theory is often referred to as the Monitor Hypothesis, it is this fourth

point that is crucial to Krashen's whole argument. Starting from the observation that in

what he calls Natural language learning conditions, people often go through a silent

period, when they observe and listen - this appears to be true of the baby, for example,but is also true of adult learners in the Amazon basin - he believes that it is not language

usewhich is the key variable in acquisition, but language input - what the learner hearsand reads.

The most useful form of input has to be understandable- this does not mean that it hasto be one hundred per cent clear; in fact it should be just a little beyond the learner's

present capacity. If it is too far beyond, the learner will not pay attention to the input, andif it is not far enough, the learner will learn nothing.

Krashen considers that grammar translation methods, which often graded the material tothe learner's present level, made the mistake of oversimplification. This is because :

o a) they do not in fact know what the student needs next - acquisition orderresearch has not yet given us full information on the basic order in which

grammar is learnt.

o b) in any one class, there will be individuals at different levels, who are needingdifferent kinds of input.

He suggests that, instead of fine-tuning the input, as traditional methods have been wontto do, the modern teacher should give rough-tuned input - and a wide variety of

material, supported by visual cues and realia which give it a context within whichthe learner may guess at the content.Just as parents in Bruner's model of FLA makelanguage comprehensible for the baby by surrounding it by ritual and regularity, so the

language teacher must make input comprehensible by contextualizing it.

The Affective Filter Hypothesis One barrier to learning is to be found in any negative feelings that the learner may have

about the language, the method used, the institution or the teacher. These feelings may

constitute a kind of filter, which keeps the input out. It is therefore part of the teacher's

job to make language learning as free of stress and as enjoyable an experience aspossible.


5/36

Traditional language classrooms are often highly stressful places - pressure is put uponpupils to produce language even when they do not feel ready to do so, or when they feel

they have no particular reason to say anything. There is the feeling that all languageproduction will be graded and used as evidence of failure and so on. This is one of the

reasons why Krashen insists upon input, rather than output.

The kind of model that Krashen puts forward here is often referred to as an inputmodel. The

idea is that as with the young Canadian children, learners will advance in language acquisition if

they are exposed to large amounts of authentic language, language which is not specificallygraded in terms of a set grammatical progression, but which is adapted to the students interests

and reasons for learning the language. This input should be contextualized in such a way that the

learner can understand a large amount of what is being said or written without constant need to

consult dictionaries or ask to the teacher. It should be done in relaxing and friendly conditions

This is the basis of what Krashen refers to as the Natural Approach. Over the next few weeks, we

shall take the five basic hypotheses and subject them to critical observation. This will lead us to

assess Krashen's theory, and to cover a great deal of the material that researchers in the domainof Second Language Acquisition Theory have produced since the late 1960s.

1. This account is drawn from Charmian O'Neill, 'Les enfants et l'enseignement des langues

trangres', Crdif, Didier, 1993. Although Rod Ellis concludes his discussion of the

programmes with the judgement that 'there is now general agreement that immersionprogrammes are very effective in promoting L2 development in an educational setting, there are

some discordant voices - e.g., Hector Hammerly, 'French Immersion : Myths and Reality',

(Destelig, Alberta, 1989), who argues that the French acquired by immersion students is more

correctly characterised as a pidgin, and that the typical student fossilizes badly.

2. This experiment is described in Patsy Lightbown, 'Can they do it themselves? Acomprehension-based ESL course for young children', in Courchne et al. (eds),'Comprehension-based Second Language Teaching', University of Ottowa Press, 1992. When the

children were followed up in secondary school, it was found that at this later stage, they

benefited from tuition.

3. For the following account, I have mainly relied on Stephen D. Krashen, 'Principles andPractice in Second Language Acquisition', Prentice-Hall, 1987, and Stephen D. Krashen, 'The

Natural Approach : Language Acquisition in the Classroom', Prentice-Hall, 1988. Critical

reviews will be found in Rod Ellis, 'The Study of Second Language Acquisition', OUP, 1994, in

Vivian Cook, 'Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition', Macmillan, 1993, and in Gass andSelinker, 'Second Language Acquisition : An Introductory Course', Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates, 1994.


6/36

Didactics - 5 : Critique of Krashen I

The Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis

A : Recap

We have seen that

according to Krashen, learning an L2 is very much like learning an L1. No consciouseffort needs to be made to focus on the language as such, but if people pay attention to

the sense of what they are hearing or reading, the ability to speak and to write will come

more or less of their own accord .

We looked at an interesting experiment - Canadian primary school - French throughimmersion - producing children who had a native-level comprehensionboth in listening

and reading, who had an excellent accent and who were favourable to the community

whose language they had studied.But - it did not seem to give them the firm grasp of grammatical structuresthat were

necessary for the production of well-formed utterances and of texts at native-speakerlevel.

This seems to stem from the fact that :o - the children were not expected to speak in full sentenceso - the teachers and other pupils could always interpret what they meant by reference to

the context.

o - they did not have the formal French lessons that would have drawn their attention tothe need for correct syntactic form.

So - this suggests that Krashen is wrong in at least two of his hypotheses.

a) The Input hypothesis - productive behaviour on the part of the learner is not necessaryto language acquisition. If we mean by acquisition the ability to produce correct

utterances, both orally and in writing, we suspect that he is wrong.

b) Also seems to be wrong when he suggests that learned language - the rules of grammar- are only of much use when writing - people do seem to need the rules in order to speak

in well-formed sentences. This may lead us to believe that the first hypothesis itself - thatof the distinction between learning and acquisition - is an oversimplification.

Nevertheless, if we look at Krashen's hypotheses, they may provide us with a framework withinwhich a number of crucial questions can be asked.

B : The Acquisition/Learning hypothesis

We have seen that this has been criticised as an oversimplification. We can ask the question :


7/36

'How is language stored in the brain, and in particular, how is a second language stored in thebrain?'

Krashen does not really tell us :

a) what the process of acquisition is. (How does the learner build up a usable model ofsecond language behaviour from input alone?)

b) why learned information is not accessiblein the same way as acquired informationIt is feasible that the distinction between learned and acquired knowledge is in fact moreproperly a distinction between two stages of the learning process. We are ready to agree with

Krashen that the two are distinct kinds of knowledge because we have usually forgotten how we

ourselves shifted knowledge from the conscious to the unconscious domain.

A rival hypothesis about learning comes from the work of Anderson, and other cognitive

scientists. According to this perspective, learning is a process of assimilation whereby new

information is processed by the brain in such a way as to be incorporated in already existingknowledge.

We may conceive of the brain as having two different types of memory :

1. Short term memory - or working memory - a finite storage space We use it to carryinformation while we make use of it. The information may come from external input - a

telephone number, that we memorise long enough to make the phone call - or from -

2. long-term memory - items are stocked in associative networks - thus the word 'home' willcarry with it a whole series of associations - depending on our experience, our culture and so on.

For learning to occur,the information that is in short term memory must be incorporated inthe network system. This may occur by simply adding it to a set of already existing associations

:

- the child learns that Eskimos live in igloos, and adds that to the conception that he has ofhome.

- or it may need a major reassignment of links between different concepts

- when we learn that nearly 50% of murders take place within the home or are committed bymembers of the family, our concept of home changes radically, is linked to the possibility of

violence and conflict, rather than simply the old log fire and mum cooking something nice in the

kitchen.

Anderson distinguishes also betweentwo different kinds of knowledge:

1. Declarative knowledge
http://home.att.net/~OPSINC/knowledge_in_KM.pdfhttp://home.att.net/~OPSINC/knowledge_in_KM.pdfhttp://home.att.net/~OPSINC/knowledge_in_KM.pdfhttp://home.att.net/~OPSINC/knowledge_in_KM.pdf


8/36

This is conscious, and is stored as a series of statements or images. It is knowledge about the

world - who is the President of France, for example, or the fact that 'move' is a verb, whereas

'movement' is a noun.

2. Procedural knowledge

This is unconscious, and consists of routines or proceduresthat allow us to bring declarativeknowledge into use. Thus, our procedural knowledge of our mother tongue permits us to

construct grammatically correct sentences without consciously thinking about it.

For Anderson,learning takes place in three stages:

1. the Cognitive Stage- learner receives instruction, or watches an expert, or studies the questionon his own - conscious effort, and - knowledge is formulated in a series of rules - conscious

factual statements which Anderson refers to as 'declarative knowledge'.

For L2 learning, this would include the rules of grammar and lists of vocabulary,as

well as chunks of useful languagethat can help us out in specific situations.

At this stage, the learner can describe the rules,but does not use them skilfully-performance is hesitant, and there are many errors.

For Anderson, the model of L2 learning is the classroom, and the Cognitive Stagecorresponds to being instructed by a teacher - the expert. You may also think of learning

to drive, with an instructor. You learn how to use the clutch, how to learn the gear-lever,

how to use the brakes and so on. The knowledge is there, but the learner may not be ableto use it. Thus, as Rod Ellis suggests, the learner may know that the word 'drowned'

consists of 'drown' + 'ed', but not be able to construct the word in conversation.

2. The Associative Stage - two things occur :o a) errors in the declarative statements are detected and eliminatedo b) connections between the different elements of the skill are strengthened

This implies that, from being declarative, the knowledge becomes procedural. Thus the

learner's knowledge abut 'drown' and 'ed' will be linked to his knowledge of 'save' and 'ed'and will be subsumed under a single production rule for producing the past tense - and

indeed, the rule may be overgeneralized and used to produce 'goed', for example.

The initial declarative representation is not always lost- we still remember the rules -

but we no longer need to apply them consciously.This may be why Krashen can pointto the existence of two separate systems - the old system, taken on board at the first stage

of learning, remains, but is not directly used in language production.

Performance begins to resemble expert performance, but may be slower. Instead of

thinking of the clutch, the gear-lever and the brakes separately, we now mould themtogether into a non-verbalised procedure.
http://www.scism.sbu.ac.uk/inmandw/review/cogpsy/review/rev5548.htmlhttp://www.scism.sbu.ac.uk/inmandw/review/cogpsy/review/rev5548.htmlhttp://www.scism.sbu.ac.uk/inmandw/review/cogpsy/review/rev5548.htmlhttp://www.scism.sbu.ac.uk/inmandw/review/cogpsy/review/rev5548.html


9/36

3. The Autonomous Stage:- skill becomes virtually automatic and errors disappear. It can now be executed without

attention - driving a car and having a conversation at the same time. With a complex skill,this stage takes a long time to reach.

At this point, the conscious declarative knowledge may be lost - if you ask a competentdriver to tell you how he drives, he may be unable to tell you - which is why we have

specially qualified driving instructors, and also why the fact that you are a speaker of

French does not qualify you as a teacher of French as a foreign language!

The acquisition of the skill - like any other skill - depends on learning and practice- in

this, Anderson differs radically from Krashen. For Anderson - the rules which we learnwhen acquiring a second language = rules of grammar as taught in class.

However, other observers have pointed out that this is hardly likely to be the case.

1. First of all,many people learn foreign languages without going to classesand without beginpresented with the formal rules.

2. Secondly, the rules that are presented in class are by no means all the rulesthat are neededto speak a foreign language well.

3. Finally, not all foreign language classes actually present the rules of grammar,and yetmembers manage to acquire the language.

So what does happen? It seems that individuals generate their own rules.Thus what is needed,

it may be claimed, is not a class in which rules are dictated and learnt by heart, but whatGagnrefers to as 'cued performance'and opportunities for practice.

This involves :

- modelling by an expert- the expert shows how it is done - the language teacher shows how toproduce correct and/or comprehensible statements.

- active attempts by the learner to produce the activity himself- with the instructor cueing himat moments when he forgets the rules - think of the father running alongside the child who is

riding a bicycle for the first time, and shouting instructions

The learner tries out the activity before possessing it completely. She is thus able to learn from

her successes and her mistakes - learning by trial and error.

This is formalised as the construction and testing of hypotheses. Based on input, or on herunderstanding of the rule pronounced by a teacher, or whatever, the student makes a prediction

about the effect of using a rule that she has generated. She can then test this through :

1. Reception- compares the hypothesis to further input.2. Production- uses the hypothesis to generate language, and then assesses the result.3. Metalingually- consults a native speaker, or a grammar book.4. Interactionally- makes an intentional error to elicit a repair from a native speaker.
http://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/KeyTheorists/GagneAudio.movhttp://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/KeyTheorists/GagneAudio.movhttp://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/KeyTheorists/GagneAudio.movhttp://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/KeyTheorists/GagneAudio.mov


10/36

It will be seen that this view is in opposition to Krashen's input hypothesis. It is not sufficient for

the learner to simply accumulate input - he or she must actively engage with the activity.

There are also problems with this account - in particular, the claim that is made in this tradition

of cognitive science is that the learner proceeds through trying out hypotheses and receiving

feedback.However, as we have seen - this is certainly not the case in FLA, where children donot tend to copy their parents' speech, and where parents do not inform their children when they

have made a grammatical error.

Furthermore, the model has not as yet demonstrated how rules of language can be stored in a

way that makes them usable by normal procedures - Chomskians argue that this failure is due to

the fact that linguistic knowledge is notstructured in the same way as other forms of knowledge.

Finally, these models rely on repetition and strengthening of the knowledge networks - but the

child manages to learn the rules of her language with very little repetition. Furthermore, it doesnot explain why children and adult learners of an L2 make predictable, sequenced errors, which

they have never heard, nor how it is that children avoid errors, when they have heard no evidenceto suggest that the structures not employed are erroneous.

C : Conclusion

We have seen two models of SLA. One of these, which its author claims is based uponChomsky's account of FLA, and central to which is the idea that language learning is a special

skill, posits that SLA is similar to, if not exactly the same as FLA, and that the learner does not

have to direct any conscious effort towards the language itself. Language lessons should, in fact,

be about something else - something that the student wants to study, in which he is interested.This approach underlies the growing movement in educational establishments to have courses in

one or other subject area given in a foreign language. As we have seen, in Canada, this meansyoung anglophones learning French through doing maths. In Scandinavian universities, allscience teaching is done in English.

The other model also assumes that SLA is similar to FLA - but does not agree that languagelearning is in any way different from other kinds of learning. Moreover, it suggests that work on

the formal aspects of language is necessary, and that the learner needs to be given the rules of the

language. Students need to be encouraged to build up their own rules, and to pack them intonetworks, where they will become available for work by procedural routines. This may leave the

impression that speaking a language is effortless - but the conscious effort is mainly made during

the first phase of learning.

In Anderson's model, and in particular in the work of those who have followed it up, the learner

is expected to do the work for him or herself, and thus it is that the learner needs to be

encouraged to develop specific learning strategies. We shall return to this question later on in thecourse.

Next week, we shall look more closely at the second of Krashen's hypotheses - that is the idea

that the grammar of a language is learnt in a natural order.


11/36

Didactics -6 : Critique of Krashen II

The Natural Order Hypothesis

A : Recap:

We have seen that Krashen's first hypothesis - that there is a distinction between consciouslearning, on the one hand, and unconscious acquisition on the other, and that the latter is far more

effective in enabling people to use an L2 - can be criticized :

1. It oversimplifies the cognitive processes of learning, and draws too rigid a distinctionbetween acquisition and learning:

2. It is based mainly on the observation of learners acquiring an L2 that is generally usedin the surrounding environment - that is immigrants to the US learning English. In othersituations one may expect classroom learning, of the conscious kind, to be important.

In looking at cognitive processing, we have considered the work of Anderson, who distinguishes

three phases in the learning process

1. the Cognitive Stage- learner receives instruction, or watches an expert, or studies thequestion on his own.

2. The Associative Stage - two things occur :o a) errors in the declarative statements are detected and eliminated.o b) connections between the different elements of the skill are strengthened 3. The Autonomous Stage- skill becomes virtually automatic and errors disappear. The

skill can now be executed without attention - driving a car and having a conversation atthe same time. With a complex skill, this stage takes a long time to reach.

Gagn suggests that the rules that the learner uses are not necessarily the traditional rules of thegrammar class, but are rules that he constructs for himself through observation, interaction, and

the construction of hypotheses. This idea leads us on to consider Krashen's second hypothesis -

the natural order hypothesis.

B : The Natural Order Hypothesis:

Krashen makes several claims about what he calls the 'natural order'. Some of these are strongclaims, with a high degree of falsifiability. Others are more general and of less interest. Let us

have a look at the idea more closely.


12/36

The American psychologist,Roger Brown,who investigated the acquisition of a firstlanguage by young children, discovered that they assimilated a number of grammatical

morphemesin a predictable sequence.

o Grammatical morphemes are those like 'the', 'of', or 'is', and the 's' of the genitive, theplural, and the 3PS. At first, children tend to leave them out, using only the lexicalmorphemes to produce sentences such as :

'Here bed', or ''Not dada'.

When they do acquire them, they appear to do so in a specific order.

Krashen, using the research of colleagues Dulay & Burt, suggests that, just as there is anatural sequence in the way children pick up their own first language, with certain

grammatical morphemes being acquired before others, so there is for second languages.

Average Order of Acquisition of Grammatical Morphemes

for

English as a Second Language (Children and Adults)

ING (progressive)

PLURAL

COPULA (to be)

IRREGULAR PAST

AUXILIARY (progressive)

ARTICLE (a, the)

REGULAR PAST

IlI SINGULAR (-s)

POSSESSIVE (-s)
http://bowland-files.lancs.ac.uk/chimp/langac/LECTURE8/8beyond.htmhttp://bowland-files.lancs.ac.uk/chimp/langac/LECTURE8/8beyond.htmhttp://bowland-files.lancs.ac.uk/chimp/langac/LECTURE8/8beyond.htmhttp://bowland-files.lancs.ac.uk/chimp/langac/LECTURE8/8beyond.htm


13/36

(NOTES: (from Krashen & Terrell)

:

1. This order is derived from an analysis of empirical studies of second languageacquisition in a 1981 study by Krashen. Most studies show significant correlations with

the average order. 2. No claims are made about ordering relations for morphemes in the same box. 3. Many of the relationships posited here also hold for child first language.

Some of the morphemes have the same rank order as for first language acquisition, but some do

not. In general the bound morphemes have the same relative order for first and second languageacquisition (-ing, Plural, Ir. Past, Reg. Past, III Singular, and Possessive) while Copula and

Auxiliary tend to be acquired relatively later in first language acquisition than in second

language acquisition.) According to Krashen, this order is found only when the subjects use the

L2 in light monitoring situations - thus we do not find it in students' answers to formal grammar

test questions, when the 3rd person Singular, for example, is reproduced correctly at quite anearly stage.

The studies by Krashen himself, and by Dulay and Burt have been criticized by a number of

other observers.

To begin with, it is not clear how we decide whether a morpheme has been acquired ornot - the fact that a learner uses a specific grammatical feature does not necessarily mean

that he uses it in an appropriate fashion, or that he understands how it works. As Krashenhimself recognizes, a learner may use the feature in one context and not in another.

Moreover, the studies carried out by Krashen's associates have all been cross-sectional -that is, they have studied different learners at different points in their career: other

longitudinal studies, following the same learners through various stages of the learning

process, have not always found a similar progression.

A more damning criticism is that, although the findings might indeed be true, they are notopen to any theoretical interpretation - this is in large part because there is no evidentlinguistic relationship between the different items. Some of them are free morphemes,

whilst some are bound. They pertain to different areas of grammar - the morphology of

the main verb, the morphology of the noun, the auxiliary verb 'to be' - and there is no

attempt to show how they may be related. They are thus divorced from the system ofEnglish grammar, and grammar is nothing if it is not systematic.

At the moment, we may say that there are strong reasons to believe that there is indeed

some kind of an order in the acquisition of certain grammatical morphemes, but not of all.

There is perhaps a stronger case to be made out for the existence of 'developmental sequences'.

This refers not to the fact that one morpheme comes before or after another, but that a certain

rule is acquired gradually, that the learner makes certain predictable mistakes at each stage in


14/36

the learning process, and that these mistakes follow a similar order whatever the mother tongue

of the learner.

Let's see how the negation is put in place by learners of English as an L2. What we see here is

that, like the child learning her mother tongue, the adult L2 learner will produce utterances that

he has never heard from her teacher or from a native speaker. Instead, they build up their masteryof the negation through successively using a series of self-generated rules, many of which

display a similar simplification and over-generalisation to that used by the child. Thus, first

attempts at negation would be :

No very good.

No like it.

Then the learner moves on to place the negativizer inside the utterance :

I not want to.

He no can speak.

She don't come.

In a third phase, the learner attaches the negation to modal verbs, although without necessarily

analysing the utterances :

I can't play this one.

I won't go.

Then in a final phase, negation follows fully English rules, although mistakes may occur in tense

uses.

Individual learners may go through the phases more or less quickly, and some never reach thefinal phase at all. In this case, we often speak about 'fossilization' - for some reason or other, the

learner makes no further progress. In fact, this may be seen as a perfectly rational judgement on

the part of the learner, who decides that any further investment in perfecting his grasp of the L2will not pay sufficient dividends in added communicative and social power.

C : Implications for teachers

We may gather from the above that L2 learning is similarto L1 learning in a number of ways,

but is not exactly alike. In particular, whereas all normal L1 learners achieve fluency, the

majority of L2 learners do not, even if they have lived in an L2 environment for a long time. The

reasons for this are not always clear, but may, in part, be due to personality and attitudinal factorsas much as to any intrinsic difficulty in language learning.


15/36

a) Unlike children learning their first language, adult and adolescent learners do not have an

overwhelming need to learn an L2.

b) Adults and adolescents do not have the time to consecrate to language learning - theyalso need to learn other subjects - in school - to work and earn a living, and so on. Their

concentration is more limited.

c) Adults and adolescents may have invested heavily in their first language, and regard itas being a part of their basic personality. To speak another language fluently would be tochange their personality:

Teachers will need to take all of these possibilities into account. A student who is no longer

progressing may very well have perfectly rational reasons for her failures. The teacher needs to

make it worth the learner's while to continue learning.

Another consequence of the above is that learners are themselves implicated in constructing their

language. They make their way to mastery through a number of intermediate stages. Thesestages, following Selinker, are referred to as 'interlanguage'. Interlanguage differs from onelearner to another, and will show the following features :

- interference from the L1. The amount of interference will depend upon the similarity ofthe two languages, and upon the context within which the L2 is learned.

- developmental features intrinsic to the L2 - natural order and developmental sequences. - avoidance and communicative strategies - the learner may avoid certain linguistic

features with which he or she does not feel comfortable, and use circumlocutions in order

to express the desired meanings.

The errors that the student makes are a natural part of the learning process. Krashen implies that

there is very little that we can do other than encourage the learner to form his own hypotheses,

and to continue along the 'natural pathway' to mastery - or at least to the level of master which

satisfies him. However, other observers have noted that classroom teaching may help the learnergo through each stage in the process rather more quickly, even if it cannot enable him to beat the

system.

This implies that it can only be done through a rigorous identification of the present needs of the

student - it is no good trying to get the learner to correct errors which are as yet beyond his

competence. The teacher needs to work in concert with the learner to determine what featuresshould be worked on, and to make the learner conscious of the hypotheses and strategies that he

uses in communicative situations.

D : Conclusion

Krashen appears to be on stronger ground in his second hypothesis. However, his conclusions asto teaching strategies do not necessarily follow from his premises : formal learning, if directed to


16/36

the specific problems that a learner is encountering, can benefit the learner and lead to a more

rapid progress through the 'natural stages'.

On the other hand, we may conclude that Krashen's insistence that the normal 'lock-step', whole-

class teaching of grammar is of little value is well-founded. Traditional grammar teaching - that

is, imposing the linguists' grammar on the learner whether or not he needs it - does not have anyappreciable effect on L2 acquisition. A fruitful teaching strategy would be to help the student

construct his or her own grammar, or rather to construct a series of intermediate grammars,

gradually approaching full mastery.


17/36

Didactics -9 ; Critique of Krashen V

The Input Hypothesis

A : Recap

We have looked at the concept of interlanguage and of fossilisation, and we have seen thataccording to theorists such as Selinker and Ellis, language learning proceeds through a series of

intermediary languages, with elements being at times in competition with each other. Through a

process of elimination and elaboration, the learner progresses, testing his or her hypotheses about

the L2 in a variety of ways. The great danger lies in fossilisation - and it appears sometimes thatall learners reach a stage at which they fossilize unless there is a radical change in aspects of

their environment related to SLA. We may derive from these propositions the idea that mistakes

on the part of the learner are a necessary part of the learning process, but that they should be

surveyed by the teacher for signs of fossilization.

B : The input hypothesis

It is now time to consider more closely Krashen's idea that language learning is propelled by

the receptive skills rather than by the productive ones. He holds, we remember, that the

typical learner goes through a silent period, when they absorb the language, and that later theybegin to produce, but always at a lower level of competence than their understanding. Krashen

himself says :

The Input Hypothesis maintains that increased input will result in more language acquisition,

and that increased output ... will not. ... there is no clear evidence that more output, wr itten ororal , resul ts in more language acquisit ion.

A correlate of this position is that when teachers correct output, they do not help the student.

Krashen quotes numerous studies that tend to suggest that error-correction has no or little effect

upon learner's competence. He cites a study by Cohen and Robbins (1976) that concluded that

correction of advanced ESL students' papers over a period of 10 weeks had no significant effecton student errors. In a study by Lalonde, the teacher followed a policy of total error correction,

followed by special exercises - students kept track of their errors on an 'error-awareness' sheet.

According to Krashen, the effect was very small, with 10 of the 30 students actually getting

worse. Nevertheless, Lalonde goes on to recommend a policy of total correction - in the controlgroup, using grammar-based instruction including error-correction, 22 out of 30 actually got

worse.

Krashen acknowledges that learners themselves often say that they want to be corrected, both

when in a learning situation and when in ordinary conversations with native speakers (Cathcart

& Olsen, 1976). Chenoweth et al found that learners said that they liked to be corrected by nativespeakers during ordinary conversation. However, Cathcart & Olsen went on to look at the real


18/36

effect of error correction, and found that when teachers tried to provide constant correction, the

learners did not like the resulting communication.

As we might imagine, Krashen's position is hotly contested. There are broadly two kinds of

objection to the input hypothesis.

1. Krashen talks abut 'comprehensible input'. It is not at all clear what he means by this.o a) He appears sometimes to mean that the input should be written or spoken in such a

way that the language itself is comprehensible to the student- hence he refers to

Motherese, caretaker language and foreigner talk. This kind of speech, he says, is'roughly tuned'to the learner's language level, and tends to get more complex as the

learner progresses. In this case, it is the language input itself that is modified.

o b) On other occasions, he stresses that the language used must be backed up with ascaffolding of environmental clues - pictures, gestures, objects and so on, which make

the meaning clear. In this case, it is the context, the environment, that is modified.

The problems with the first interpretation are :

o - K claims that this is what happens in natural language learning situations-however, as we have seen, in some cultures, children are not addressed directly until they

are capable of 'giving information' themselves - and yet they manage to learn thelanguage.

Indeed, it has been suggested that middle class mothers use less Motherese than do working class

mothers, and that this results in their children having a greater grasp of the language.

o - if the theory is taken seriously by language teachers, it may lead to the learner's beingsubjected to substandard or language poor samples of the L2 -the Mrs Plornish

syndrome.

(i) Foreigner talk is often of an ungrammatical and misleading nature. 'You comprenez,monsieur?'.

(ii) Ferguson has noted that many of the features found in Foreigner talk are also found inpidgins.

(ii) It also happens that, just as we tend to slide into the accent of the person we aretalking to, so native speakers adopt the errors of the foreigners that they are speaking to,

as a kind of semi-conscious goodwill gesture.

o - moreover, learners are often irritated by 'foreigner talk',as they feel that it expressescontempt. Lynchfound that some learners objected to the speech of one of their teachersbecause they felt that he was 'talking down' to them.
http://www.readbookonline.net/read/50/2275/http://www.readbookonline.net/read/50/2275/http://www.readbookonline.net/read/50/2275/http://www.readbookonline.net/read/50/2275/http://www.readbookonline.net/read/50/2275/http://www.readbookonline.net/read/50/2275/


19/36


20/36

But not only does production allow the teacher to check the learner's competence.Boulouffe suggests that personal production, which allows the student to reorganise

his knowledge of the language in an authentic attempt to communicate, is essential.It is only when the learner speaks or writes that she is compelled to take modality into

account.

Il ressort de tout ce dveloppement que les deux activits de comprhension et de production

gagnent s'imbriquer plutt qu' se succder. L'une prendra le pas sur l'autre selon que

l'association simple ou l'association double est en vue : la comprhension favorise l'associationsimple, lie l'objectif, au lexical, au pragmatique; la production favorise l'association double,

lie au subjectif et l'intriorisation. La mme dichotomie se retrouve, d'ailleurs, dans les

instruments de mesure : les tests de comprhension tendent valuer l'interprtation

pragmatique, alors que les tests de production tendent valuer la capacit structurale (Flynn1986).

Le langage est constamment tiss d'associations simples et d'associations doubles. S'il est

naturel que les associations simples ne soient produites qu'aprs avoir t comprises, il est peut-tre moins naturel, mais tout aussi probable, que les associations doubles ne soient vraiment

comprises aprs avoir t produites : c'est en ce sens que la production peut rejaillir sur la

comprhension. L'appropriation s'enclenche plus srement au lieu rel de rencontre d'une demi-expression produite avec un demi-souvenir reproduit, qu'au lieu alatoire de rencontre entre ce

qui est compris avec ce qui reste comprendre. Si tant est qu'on vise la matrise totale du

langage et non la seule comprhension, on voit mal comment la position de l'enseignement axsur la comprhension peut se justifier : remettre la production plus tard quivaut postposer

l'accs la subjectivit sans laquelle le langage reste hors d'atteinte. Mme si la comprhension

cre le terrain de l'apprentissage, la production en constitue probablement le moteur principal.

J. Boulouffe, Les vitements de l 'enseignement axsur la comprhension , dans'Comprehension-based Language Teaching' , Cour chne et al , p. 192.

o Similarly,Swainargues that learners need the opportunity to use the L2 meaningfully,because when they are faced with communication failure, they are forced to make

their output more precise, coherent and appropriate. She claims that when students

focus on comprehension, most of the work is done at the semantic level - top-down

processing- while when they focus on production, they must work at the syntactic level -bottom-up processing.

Swain bases her argument on the experience of immersion classes. When she and her colleaguesobserved interaction in a French immersion classrooms in 9 grade 3 and 10 grade 6 classrooms,

they found that less than 15% of students' utterances were of more than a clause in length ,

and only 19% of grammatical errors were corrected 'often in a confusing unsystematic way'.

These arguments suggest that, if comprehensible input is necessary, then so also iscomprehensible output. The learner should be forced to produce comprehensiblelanguage, and this in turn forces her to focus upon form.
http://www.utpjournals.com/jour.ihtml?lp=product/cmlr/581/581-Swain.htmlhttp://www.utpjournals.com/jour.ihtml?lp=product/cmlr/581/581-Swain.htmlhttp://www.utpjournals.com/jour.ihtml?lp=product/cmlr/581/581-Swain.htmlhttp://www.utpjournals.com/jour.ihtml?lp=product/cmlr/581/581-Swain.html


21/36

Ellis distinguishes three ways in which the listener may behave when faced with a

communication break-down. They may :

o - demand clarification.o - demand confirmation - 'Do you mean ...?'o

- repetition

Pica found that of the three, the first was the most useful, as it ensures that the learner hasto reformulate their utterance. Pica and colleagues also found that comprehensionincreased when meanings were negotiated. This implies that it is important that input

and output stages are not radically separated - the learner needs to be able to

interact with the input, either through direct negotiation, in the case of oral input,

or through mediated negotiation. Pica et al compared the effects of three types of input

on the ability of 16 low-intermediate ESL learners to understand oral instructions :

o - unmodified input - the authentic text or recording of an authentic dialogue.o - premodified input - simplification and greater redundancy - the specially created text, or

dialogue, or the highly adapted text.

o - interactionally modified input - begin with unmodified input, but given the chance todemand clarification. (This should not be understood as simply reading the text through

in class, and listening to the teacher's explanations).

It was the third of these that resulted in the greatest comprehension. Some care needs tobe exercised about the result, because it may simply be that in the third case, learners

benefited from greater quantity rather than greater quality.

Tanaka & Yamazaki discovered that opportunities to modify input interactionally notonly increased comprehension, but also resulted in greater vocabulary acquisition.This kind of finding is backed up by the fact that active students usually acquire language

faster than passive ones - although the reasons why this should be so are not altogether

clear.

We will remember that one of the points made by Boulouffe was that without output,teachers cannot identify learners' problems. Lydia White is of the same opinion - shesuggests that whereas learners do hear or read what canbe done through processing

input, they get negative evidence about what cannotbe done - the learner cannot simply

assume that if she doesn't hear some particular structure or usage, that it does not exist ;certain of their overgeneralizations, for example, will not be disconfirmed. It is only

when they produce language, and are corrected by a teacher or a native speaker,

that they will discover that they have made an incorrect inference.

She also suggests that if input is too easy to understand, the students will not makeprogress. It is through recognising that they do not understand a passive sentence, for


22/36

example, that learners are forced to make the effort to acquire more language - input

should by no means always be comprehensible.

Conclusion

Krashen's input hypothesisis, once again, an interesting starting point, but does not prove fullysatisfactory. As Mclellan puts it, he has done language teaching a favour in drawing teachers'

attention to the fact that previously courses were overly based on grammar, and did not provide

the amount or the variety of input that was needed. But it oversimplifies considerably the

processes of acquisition, begs the question of how input aids acquisition, and plays down the roleof production.


23/36

Didactics -11 : Critique of Krashen VII

The Affective Filter Hypothesis

A : Recap

Last week, we looked at Krashen's Monitor Hypothesis. We saw that, according to Krashen, theformal, class-taught kind of knowledge that can be summed up in grammatical rules, can only be

used after our utterances have been presented to us in fluent form by the acquired system. That

is to say that this knowledge can be used to monitor our production, correcting our mistakes.

The monitor can only be used when there is enough time, when the speaker or writer is thinkingabout linguistic accuracy, and when she knows the rule. We saw that these three conditions -

particularly the last one - are difficult to fulfil. Krashen implies that it is counter-productive to

use the monitor in normal conversation, .

Like the other hypotheses, this one has been criticised. I cited the criticisms that arise out of

studies done on good learners. These studies have tried to identify the strategies used by peoplewho are successful at learning foreign languages. Most of the studies that have been carried out

in this tradition have shown that the good learner is someone who pays attention to grammatical

form, and that they use monitoring as part of the learning process, listening to and correcting not

only their own production, but also that of others.

These studies have in their turn been criticised. It can be pointed out that the 'good' learners are

those who have been identified as such by teachers. Teachers use grammatical knowledge as oneof the criteria by which they determine who is and who is not a good student. They also tend to

react positively to the kind of student who shows that she thinks about her learning. It may bethat what these studies have uncovered are simply the characteristics that lead teachers to labelstudents positively. This does not necessarily mean that these are the characteristics that naturally

lead to good language learning.

The process may, indeed be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy - that is to say that teachers

identify students who behave in particular ways as being most likely to succeed, and so behave

towards these students in a particularly positive and encouraging was. This, in turn, leads to thesestudents enjoying their lessons, looking forward to them, and working harder. So, in fact, what

happens is not that the school rewards these students because they succeed, but that these

students succeed because school rewards them. This brings us to Krashen's last hypothesis -

B : The Affective Filter Hypothesis.

Krashen points to the importance of motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. He holds that thesefactors are more involved in constructing the acquired system than in learning - they are more

strongly related to achievement as measured by communicative tests than by formal language

tests. He writes : -


24/36

The Affective Filter Hypothesis captures the relationship between affective variables and the

process of second language acquisition by positing that acquirers vary with respect to the

strength or level of their Affective Filters. Those whose attitudes are not optimal for second

language acquisition will not only tend to seek less input, but they will also have a high or strongAffective Filter - even if they understand the message, the input will not reach that part of the

brain responsible for language acquisition, or the language acquisition device. Those withattitudes more conducive to second language acquisition will not only seek and obtain moreinput, they will also have a lower or weaker filter. They will be more open to the input, and it

will strike "deeper". (Stephen D. Krashen, Principles and Practice in Second Language

Acquisition, Prentice Hall International, 1987, p. 31

The Affective Filter is the basic reason why people fossilize. From this hypothesis, Krashen

deduces that :

... our pedagogical goals should not only include supplying comprehensible input, but also

creating a situation that encourages a low filter ... The input hypothesis and the concept of the

Affective Filter define the language teacher in a new way. The effective language teacher issomeone who can provide input and help make it comprehensible in a l ow anxiety situation.(Krashen, Principles and Practice, p.32)

Let us turn to the three basic factors that underlie the Affective Filter.

Motivation

It seems evident that a motivated student will learn better than one that is not. But what do we

mean by motivation, and how might we measure it? Moreover, do we conceive of motivation asbeing something that the learner already possesses, prior to her arrival in the classroom, or is it

something that is subject to change? And in the latter case, what can we do to change it in apositive way?

General considerations :

Psychologistsdistinguish between :

basic motivations- hunger, thirst, sexuality, and so on - and psychological motivations, which, although they may be derived from the former,

through conditioning and learning, are not so directly tuned to survival and reproduction.

We should also note that, according to Freudian psychology, motivations are not alwaysconscious, and negative or positive feelings about a given activity may be only indirectly relatedto the activity itself. For example, Louis Wolfson, a schizophrenic, learned foreign languages

such as German, Hebrew and French, compulsively, so as to escape from the sound of his

mother's voice.

According toexpectancy value theory,motivation is a function of :
http://www.wwnorton.com/psychsci/ch9_overview.htmhttp://www.wwnorton.com/psychsci/ch9_overview.htmhttp://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Public%20Relations,%20Advertising,%20Marketing%20and%20Consumer%20Behavior/Expectancy_Value_Theory.doc/http://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Public%20Relations,%20Advertising,%20Marketing%20and%20Consumer%20Behavior/Expectancy_Value_Theory.doc/http://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Public%20Relations,%20Advertising,%20Marketing%20and%20Consumer%20Behavior/Expectancy_Value_Theory.doc/http://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Public%20Relations,%20Advertising,%20Marketing%20and%20Consumer%20Behavior/Expectancy_Value_Theory.doc/http://www.wwnorton.com/psychsci/ch9_overview.htm


25/36

o a) expectancy - that is, the belief concerning the probability that a certain course of actionwill be followed by a particular outcome)

o b) valence - the value that the individual attaches to the possible outcomes of his actions.Thus,

- if the most probable outcome of an action is also highly valued, then the motivation ishigh.

- if, on the other hand, either the likelihood that the action will be followed by success ispoor, or the most probable outcomes are not highly valued, then motivation will be low.

However, it should be noted that psychologists do not believe that behaviour is necessarily

initiated by such calculations - the calculations help direct the behaviour once it has been

embarked upon.

Motivation and SLA

In Second Language learning, the main work has stemmed from the interests ofGardner,whosework began on language learning in Canada. Gardner distinguishes between :

o - integrative motivation a learner has in interest in learning an L2 because of a 'sincere and personal interest in the

people and culture represented by the other language group.

- instrumental motivation here the learner has an interest in learning an L2 because of the practical advantages that

will accrue to s/one who speaks it.

In his early work, Gardner found that there was a consistently positive correlation betweenintegrative motivation and L2 achievement.However, it was pointed out by other observersthat :

o 1. Gardner's concept was in itself difficult to pin down.Thus, Muchnick and Wolfe (1982) found that the 337 American high-school students ofSpanish that they investigated had motivations that could not be clearly distinguished as

either integrative or instrumental.

How would you class a desire to learn Spanish so as to go to Mexico on holiday?
http://publish.uwo.ca/~gardner/GardnerPublicLecture1.pdfhttp://publish.uwo.ca/~gardner/GardnerPublicLecture1.pdfhttp://publish.uwo.ca/~gardner/GardnerPublicLecture1.pdfhttp://publish.uwo.ca/~gardner/GardnerPublicLecture1.pdf


26/36

o 2. He had worked with learners in bi-lingual Canada, where conditions might be such thatintegrative motives were powerful. Perhaps in other cultures, instrumental motivation

might prove to be as effective.

Oller, Baca and Vigil (1977) found that amongst a group of poor Mexican women living in

California, those who rated Anglos positively were less successful in learning English than werethose who rated them negatively. This lead Oller and Perkins to suggest that some learners may

be motivated by a desire to manipulate the speakers of the TL - they referred to this as

Machiavellian motivation.

It has also been found that in countries where there is likely to be little contact with Native

Speakers, but where the language is necessary for business and career purposes, instrumentalmotivation can be more powerful than integrative motivation. This was true of Tagalog speakers

in the Philippines, and of non-westernised women living in Bombay, for example.

How does motivation influence behaviour in such a way as to lead to more effective language

learning?

Gliksmanfound that in his sample of anglophone students learning French in Canadianhigh schools, the pupils who had higher integrative motivation also

- received more questions from teachers, - volunteered more answers, - gave more correct answers and - received more positive reinforcement.

Neiman et al (1978)found a similar pattern - but strong instrumental motivation hadsimilar effects.

It should also be pointed out that although common sense suggests that these behavioursshould lead to better language learning, no study has yet conclusively shown that they do.

Ramage (1990), however, did discover that US high-school students were less likely to

drop out of language classes if they reported an interest in the target culture, and a desireto gain proficiency. They attached low importance to fulfilling curriculum requirements -

that is, to instrumental factors.

Finally, let us note that Kruidenier and Clement (1986) found no evidence for

integrative orientation as an important factor. Indeed, they stress that motivations

differ according to both the situation of the learner, and the language being learned -

learners of Spanish, for example, being more motivated by travel orientations, whileCanadian francophone learners of English were more influenced by friendship

orientation.

Motivation in the classroom

Gardner's conception of motivation is that it is in some way prior to the learner'sseeking out tuition. But teachers would suspect that the learning situation itself

has some effect on motivation - that is, that the teacher's own behaviour can either


27/36

positively or negatively influence the learner's desire and willingness to learn and

continue learning the language.

In-class motivation may be of the purely instrumental kind. Dunkel(1948) offered

financial rewards to learners of Farsi ; the results were positive, but not significantly so.In a more recent experiment, Gardner and McIntyrefound that when they offered a

reward for a French English vocabulary-pairing task, students concentrated more, and got

better results than did those who were not rewarded. However, the behaviour only lastedas long as the reward was offered, so although the results are positive - at least in the

short-term - they do not have a carry-over effect.

Motivation - learning, or learning - motivation?

Most of the studies we have looked at so far were correlational, rather than causal- that is to say, they found that higher motivation was correlated with higher

achievement, but did not show in which direction the causality ran.

Strong (1984) looking at Spanish-speaking kindergarten children learning EFL, found

that fluency preceded inclination to associate with target-language groups, so that the

ability to speak the language actually lead to integrative attitudes, rather than the other

way round. Savignon found that the desire to learn French amongst American studentsincreased with gains in proficiency. Hermann (1980) who had similar results, put forward

the Resultative hypothesis, which claims that motivation is caused by progress and good

results, rather than the other way round. Ellis suggests that this line of causation may beparticularly applicable where learners have low initial motivation.

Intrinsic motivation

But is it simply success that leads to motivation - in which case, we are stuck with the

problem of motivating students whose progress is slow - or is there something in the

course content that can affect the desire to learn? Could there not be some kind ofmotivation related to the kinds of tasks that learners are expected to do in class?

McNamarasuggests that communication itself is an important motivation - learnersacquire motivation from the need to express themselves, and from the pleasure that they

feel when they achieve this. This means that classes that provide opportunities for

communication are going to have a more positive effect than those that do not - but also

poses the question of what real communication consists of. Interest increases as thelearners are made responsible for their learning activities.

Bachman(1964) found that involving learners in the decision-making processes lead to

increased motivation, and to increased productivity.


28/36

Gardner, Ginsburg & Smythe (1976)compared the effects of two kinds of programmes

on 25 learners of French as a Foreign language in a Canadian university. One of the

programmes was characterised as traditional, with lockstep teaching and an emphasis ongrammatical accuracy. The other, which they called innovative, had individualised

instruction, and opportunities for free communication. Students in the second programme

appeared, on self-report, to have a greater desire to excel, and had a more positive attitudetowards both their teacher, and towards learning French.

Motivation - a summary

To sum up the comments on motivation, we have seen that although some investigators

have made much of the distinction between integrative and instrumental motivation,

seeing the former as more efficient than the latter, a great deal must depend on the

specific situation of the learners. We may also distinguish between background

motivation, which the learner brings with her to the learning situation, and those

motivations that are provided by the classroom itself. While the teacher may do very

little about the former, she can have an effect on the latter, both in her choice ofapproach, and in her personal style. As Mary Finocchario put it :

Motivation is the feeling nurtured primarily by the classroom teacher in thelearning situation. The moment of truth - the enhancement of motivation - occurs

when the teacher closes the classroom door, greets his students with a warm,

welcoming smile, and proceeds to interact with various individuals by makingcomments or asking questions which indicate personal concerns.

Self-confidence

We will recall that Krashen also referred to self-confidence as one of the variables that

affected the Affective Filter.

Self confidence as basic character traitSelf-confidence as a general characteristic is often linked to family variables.

Families who display inconsistent discipline, or over-severe discipline anddisapproval of their children produce people who have a low self-image and little

confidence in themselves.

On the contrary homes where parents are strongly approving of their children, and

of their friends, who join in many activities with them, and who have regular butnot rigid routines, and where standards of behaviour are open to discussion

produce children who are confident of themselves.

Self confidence as a variableHowever, once again, self-confidence can be variable. Thus, one study of

American adolescents found that young males who were failing at school tended

to have a low self-image, but if, in the subsequent year, they became delinquent,their self-image improved. This implies that a variety of factors may affect self-

image, from family through school to peers.


29/36

Once again, we will note that the relationship between success and self-image

may not necessarily be all one way. Although there are reasons to believe that

children who have a good self-image may do better than those who have a poorself-image, there are also grounds for believing that a child's self-image can be

undermined by poor results at school.

One study on the relationship between self-confidence and FL learning wascarried out by Clement (1986) who investigated 293 francophone students at theUniversity of Ottawa, who were learning English. The integrative orientation had

no effect on language outcomes - the best predictor was self-confidence.

Anxiety

Anxiety, the third factor mentioned by Krashen, is also multiple in its forms and in its

origins. Psychologists distinguish between

trait anxietythis is a permanent disposition to be anxious. Once again, it appears to be relatedto upbringing, and indeed may be closely linked to self-image.

state anxietyhere the anxiety is linked to a specific moment in time, within a specific situation.It may be relational, being linked to specific persons - a particular teacher, for

example.

situational anxietythis is aroused by a specific type of situation or event - examinations, public

speaking, or classroom participation.

Examinations of learner diaries suggest that anxiety does accompany language learning

in several of its aspects.

Bailey, after examining 11 such diaries, found that the learners tended to becomeanxious when they compared themselves with other learners in the class and

found themselves wanting. Their anxiety decreased as they became moreproficient.

Ellis & Rathbone, in their examination of learner diaries, discovered that some ofthe learners found teachers' questions threatening, and claimed to freeze up wheninterrogated. The greatest anxiety was found to be associated with the oral skills.

Oxfordfound that some learners were anxious about losing their identities in thetarget culture. This lead to emotional regression, panic, alienation and a 'reduced

personality'.

None of the above studies demonstrated that anxiety was necessarily negative in its effect

on learning. It has been discovered that sometimes students who are anxious do betterthan those who are not. Higher levels of anxiety may be associated with higher levels of

risk-taking, so that those who actually attempt to produce more difficult structures may

report more anxiety than those who are content to remain at a lower level of attainment.

(Kleinmann)


30/36

Albert and Haberdistinguish between facilitatingand debilitatinganxiety. The former

is positive in its effects, pushing students on to make greater efforts, while the latter

frightens the student off task. It may, of course, be more a matter of the intensity of thefeeling, than of its quality.

Conclusion

Within a school systemthe amount of motivation that children bring into the classroom

with them is highly variable. It depends both on age and on family background factors.

Younger children may be less firm in their cultural and national identities than are

adolescents, and therefore keener to open themselves to other cultures. Middle classparents may encourage their children to learn a foreign language more, seeing the need

more clearly, and also accompanying their children on visits to foreign countries, or

paying for them to take part in exchange visits and so on.

In-school factors will also influence motivation. While we do not usually pay children to

learn, we do give them grades, and other marks of approval or disapproval. Children whodo not obtain good marks perceive themselves as failing, and may therefore make less

effort. Unfortunately, we are unable to escape completely from our function of

classifying children into achievement bands, but nevertheless, we should do our utmost to

enable them to measure their progress, and to make a positive judgement on the work thatthey have done.

The work itself must also bring satisfaction. Clearly defined tasks, which are bothinteresting and sufficiently challenging to give the child the sentiment that s/he is making

progress, are of the utmost importance. Giving the children responsibility for their ownlearning is important, and they can be encouraged to participate in such decisions as whattexts, subject areas and tasks they will engage with.

Opportunity for meaningful communication is also necessary. At best, this should includeexchanges with schools in English-speaking countries - and language teachers should be

willing to use such technology as the Internet. As a minimum, it should involve role-play,

group problem solving and well-structured discussions.

Anxiety should be of a low level, and should be attached to the need to communicate,

rather than to personality factors, or the fear of appearing ridiculous.

Teachers can make a difference in motivation, in anxiety levels and in the self-image of

the student. Respect your pupils, listen to them, and take note of what they say. They willrespond more efficiently to your teaching.


31/36

Didactics - 13 : Evolution of the Human Brain

A : Introduction

For the next few weeks I want to talk about the psychology of the learning process, and in

particular about the psychology of the adolescent. But before I do that, I would like to stop for a

moment and consider how the human mind emerged through the process of biologicalevolution#1.. The story that I am going to tell you is largely speculative, and should be taken as

illustrative rather than factual. I would like to believe that it will lead you to reflect about the

place of language in human society - about its functions and its functioning.

B : The Human Animal

To understand the human being, we need to begin with the fact that he is an animal. We haveevolved. Evolution works throughselection.If an animal is born with a characteristic that makesit more likely to survive than its brothers, sisters and cousins, it will have more offspring. The

gene that gave it that characteristic will spread through the population, and those who do not

possess the gene will gradually die out. But evolution can only build upon what exists - we carrytraces in our bodies of the conditions that shaped our ancestors. Sometimes, these traces appear

to have no function at all for us now - the appendix, for example, does not seem to do anything

that we need, but is very useful for herbivorous mammals such as the rabbit. Sometimes thefunction has changed; an ape's feet provide him with a second pair of hands, which he uses for

grasping objects and for climbing trees. Man uses his feet for standing on and walking. This

shows us that evolution is an opportunistic process; often accidental characteristics can be

transformed into central ones - human beings are among the animals that are designatedneotenic-that is to say that we mature slowly, and in fact retain many juvenile characteristics

well into adult life. One of these is a large head - and hence, a large brain - we have large brains

not because they fulfilled any particularly useful function, but because neoteny fulfilled a usefulfunction, and the large brain came with it #2.

We are mammals - that is to say that we are descended from small, furry creatures that weremainly nocturnal - thus avoiding being stomped on by dinosaurs. For reasons that we will see,

these creatures became more intelligent - or at least developed larger brains - largely because of

their nocturnal habits. We are monkeys - that is to say that our ancestors were arboreal creatures,

swinging from tree to tree, living mainly off fruit. It is thanks to the monkeys' way of life that our

forebears developed3-D vision,were able tosee in colour,and developed that marvel of geneticengineering, which sets us and our simian cousins apart from all almost other animals - the hand

with an opposable thumb.

We then found ourselves ejected from the forests, living out in the open, in competition with the

large specialist predators such as the leopard and the lion. We ate what we could find - thepowerful jaws and large teeth of our ancestors were developed for grinding grain and roots,

rather than tearing flesh. But humans became omnivorous - meat began to make up a
http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L13_BrainEvolution.htm#BM1http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L13_BrainEvolution.htm#BM1http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L13_BrainEvolution.htm#BM1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selectionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selectionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selectionhttp://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Neoteny_in_humans.htmhttp://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Neoteny_in_humans.htmhttp://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L13_BrainEvolution.htm#BM2http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L13_BrainEvolution.htm#BM2http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L13_BrainEvolution.htm#BM2http://nzphoto.tripod.com/sterea/3dvision.htmhttp://nzphoto.tripod.com/sterea/3dvision.htmhttp://nzphoto.tripod.com/sterea/3dvision.htmhttp://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/genome/genesandbody/hg07f009.htmlhttp://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/genome/genesandbody/hg07f009.htmlhttp://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/genome/genesandbody/hg07f009.htmlhttp://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/genome/genesandbody/hg07f009.htmlhttp://nzphoto.tripod.com/sterea/3dvision.htmhttp://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L13_BrainEvolution.htm#BM2http://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Neoteny_in_humans.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selectionhttp://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L13_BrainEvolution.htm#BM1


32/36

considerable part of their diet - today, hunter/gatherer peoples obtain about one third of their

nutritional resources from animal protein.This also had an effect on the way that we are.

C : Pathways to the human brain

To understand the mind, we may as well start with the brain - although, as we shall see, thehuman mind cannot be simply equated with the brain. If we look at the lower vertebrates, such as

fish and reptiles, we may see that they have a relatively small brain - on average, about one

quarter the size of the mammalian one. Reptiles' main information input system is visual, and a

large part of the processing for visual information actually takes place in the eye itself, which iswell equipped with nerve cells. As reptilian life developed, two broad branches could be

identified; one of these was highly successful, and gave rise eventually to such creatures as the

dinosaurs. The other branch was rather less successful, and evolved into creatures that mainly

subsisted at night - these were the animals thatevolved into mammals.

The original mammals were small, nocturnal creatures. Obviously, vision could no longer play

the role that it does for reptiles, and so they developed greater acuity of hearing and of smell.There was no place for the extra nerve cells needed in the ears, or in the nose, and so it was the

brain itself that grew. Moreover, now that the animals were functioning on three input systems -

sight, hearing and olfaction - they needed to be able to integrate them, and this called for a morecomplex nervous system - a bigger brain.

Eventually, the dinosaurs died out, and mammals were able to move back into the daytime worldagain. This meant that they needed to develop their visual systems once again - however, there

are no backward roads in evolution - they did not go back to the reptilian visual system, but

developed larger brains, and more highly integrated nervous systems.

Amongst the mammals, certain developed an arboreal existence, living mainly off fruit. Thisenvironment favoured three developments :

- three-dimensional vision - if you cannot judge distances, life jumping from branch to branchcan lead to nasty surprises

- colour vision - the ability to find fruit among all the greenery was important - the opposable thumb - this helps in climbing trees - and also allows the animal to develop the

use of tools - chimpanzees, for example, use sticks and rocks as tools. It also means that the

animal can pick things up and examine them. Get someone to tie your finhers together and try

being a dog for an hour.

All of these developments favoured a lager brain, for they needed higher processing skills. Mostprimates also live in groups - and, as Harry Jerison says, they are noisy animals#3.. They signalto each other through the noises that they make -vervet monkeys,for example, have a large

repertoire of specific sounds that have regular meanings - such as 'look out, there's a snake', or

'hey, the food is good over here'. Group life puts a premium on socials skills, such as facialrecognition,

didactic s

Documents