The role of vocabulary and grammar knowledge in second-language oral fluency: A correlational study

1. The role of vocabulary and grammar knowledge in second-language oral fluency: A correlational study Nel de Jong, Free University Amsterdam Laura Halderman, University of Pittsburgh SLRF 2009, Michigan State University

2. Oral Fluency in L2 Speakers • Broad vs. narrow definition (Lennon, 1990) • Broad: general oral proficiency • Narrow: speed and smoothness of oral delivery • Oral fluency depends on fast and automatic retrieval of vocabulary and processing of grammar knowledge (e.g., Levelt, 1999; Kormos, 2006; Schmidt, 1992) • Lexical and grammatical knowledge play a large role in second language oral fluency

3. Lexical knowledge • Lexical retrieval in writing • Lexical retrieval training of words lead to greater use of those items and more essential content elements were expressed. No effect on global text quality. (Snellings et al., 2004) • Lack of (access to) lexical knowledge is a major cause of dysfluencies (Hilton, 2007)

4. Aspects of Lexical Knowledge • Breadth • How many words a person knows • Greater breadth leads to fewer lexical searches • Depth • How well a person knows a word • Greater depth leads to easier integration into context • Lexical retrieval speed • How fast a person retrieves a word • Faster retrieval leads to less dysfluencies

5. Grammatical knowledge • Automatic syntactic encoding is fast and requires little attention • (Anderson et al., 2004; Kormos, 2006; Segalowitz & Hulstijn, 2003) • Automaticity leads to oral fluency • (De Jong & Perfetti, in preparation; Towell, Hawkins, & Bazergui, 2006) • Implicit grammatical knowledge can tell us what structures have been proceduralized

6. Research Goal Examine the relationship between lexical and grammatical knowledge and oral fluency in a sample of English Language Learners

7. Our Tests • Picture Naming – Immediate & Delayed • Breadth of Lexical Knowledge • Lexical Retrieval Speed (Immediate) • Articulation Rate (Delayed) • Vocabulary Knowledge Scale • Depth of Lexical Knowledge • Elicited Imitation • Grammatical Knowledge • Two minute recorded monologue • Oral production sample

8. Measures of Oral Fluency • Temporal Measures: • Length of fluent runs • Number of syllables between pauses • Length of pauses • Phonation/time ratio • % of time filled with speech • Articulation rate • Syllables per minute (Kormos & Dénes; Towell et al., 1996)

9. Hypotheses • Greater breadth of vocabulary [PN accuracy] => longer fluent runs; higher phonation/time ratio • Faster lexical retrieval [Imm. PN RT] => shorter pauses • Greater vocabulary depth [VKS] => longer fluent runs • Greater grammatical ability [EI] => longer fluent runs

10. Participants • 23 students enrolled in English language courses; Speaking course • High intermediate (~60-79 on Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency) • L1s: Arabic (3), Chinese (3), French (1), Italian (2), Japanese (3), Korean (5), Russian (1), Slovak (1), and Spanish (1), Turkish (3)

11. Picture Naming • Immediate • Timing began as soon as the picture was shown • Delayed • Timing began at the onset of a “beep” that was played 3 seconds after the picture appeared • 24 pictures of nouns each • Frequency bands sampled • 1-1000, 1001-2000, 2001-3000 & 3001-10,000 • Measures – Accuracy & Reaction Time

12. Vocabulary Knowledge Scale • 12 nouns, 12 verbs • Four frequency bands: • 1-2000, 2001-3000, 3001-5000 & 5001-10,000 • Definitions: • 1-9 words; avg. 4.0 words • Only 2,000 most frequent words • Distracter definitions adapted from Vocabulary Levels Test

13. Target word Definitions shown when 3 - 5 is selected Textbox to type sentence

14. Elicited Imitation • 32 sentences, 16 were grammatically incorrect • 8 grammatical structures: • third person singular –s – regular plural nouns • embedded questions – regular past tense • indefinite articles – relative clauses • Modals – verb complements • Sentences: 6-11 words, avg. 8.2 • Sampled from Erlam (2006)

15. Elicited Imitation

16. Results: Time 1 * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 † Frequency 1-1000 & 2001-3,000 only

17. Results: Time 2 * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 † Frequency 1-1000 & 2001-3,000 only

18. Conclusions from Correlations • PN accuracy (breadth) correlates with MLP and PTR, but inconsistently • Outlier in the Pretest measures? • Easier to find appropriate word (more fluent) • EI (grammatical ability) and VKS (depth) correlate with LFR • Building sentence structures • EI (grammatical ability) and VKS (depth) correlate with AR • Do students slow down their articulation rate for planning?

19. Gains Time 1 – Time 2:Picture Naming Accuracy • Main effect of pre/post • Main effect of frequency • Interaction - naming type by frequency • Frequency effect only in Immediate Naming: • Naming under time pressure is less accurate

20. Gains Time 1 – Time 2:Picture Naming Reaction Time • Main effect of naming type • Interaction - naming type by time • Effect of time only in Delayed Naming: • No improvement in lexical retrieval, but in initiation of articulatory processes (cf. Barry et al., 2001)

21. Gains Time 1 – Time 2:Elicited Imitation • Main effects • time, structure, accuracy • Interaction (marginally sign.) • structure X accuracy X pretest/posttest

22. Conclusions from Pre/Post-tests • Improvement in vocabulary breadth • Improvement in initiation of articulatory processes • Naming under time pressure is less accurate • Lexical retrieval in speeches also occurs under time pressure • Improvement in grammatical ability • Mostly noun plurals, relative clauses, verb complements

23. Hypotheses Greater breadth of vocabulary [PN accuracy] => longer fluent runs; higher phonation/time ratio PTR: yes; MLFR: no Faster lexical retrieval [Imm. PN RT] => shorter pauses No support Greater vocabulary depth [VKS] => longer fluent runs Yes; and higher articulation rate Greater grammatical ability [EI] => longer fluent runs Yes; and higher articulation rate

24. Possible Explanations • Curriculum focuses on academic vocabulary acquisition • Our Pictures sample more general vocabulary and highly imageable nouns • Recorded monologues are very open-ended • It’s hard to predict what vocabulary and grammatical structures they will use

25. Many thanks to: • Co-PIs: Prof. Charles Perfetti, Dr. Laura Halderman • Research assistants: Colleen Davis, Mary Lou Vercellotti • The students and teachers at the ELI • The Robert Henderson Language Media Center • Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center • Contact: cam.de.jong@let.vu.nl, lkh11@pitt.edu This work was supported in part by the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center, which is funded by the National Science Foundation award number SBE-0354420.

26. Correlations Gains – Gains Gain in PTR with gain in Delayed Picture Naming r = .477, p = .053n = 17 All other correlations n.s.

27. Extra slides …

28. Elicited Imitation

29. Overall Conclusions • Vocabulary breadth predicts fluency • At single points in time: MLP and PTR • Gain: only Accuracy on Delayed Naming with PTR • Lexical retrieval speed predicts articulation rate • Articulation rate is not a reflection of proceduralization • Vocabulary depth predicts fluency • At single points in time: MLFR, AR • Gain: no post-test • Implicit Grammar Knowledge predicts fluency measures the most • At single points in time: MLFR, AR • Gain: no significant correlations with temporal measures