Optimizing a Lexical Approach to Instructed Second Language Acquisition

1. Optimizing a Lexical Approach to Instructed Second Language Acquisition Frank Boers

2. What parts of language is this about?

3. ‘Chunks’ (a.k.a. ‘phrases’, ‘formulaic sequences’, etc.) Fair trade coffee may be a familiar sight on supermarket shelves, but a new study has found the British do not practise what they preach when it comes to buying it. While most people claim to take social issues into consideration,their purchasing behaviour shows little evidence of this. Although the vast majority of consumers believe their choice could make a difference to companies' ethical policies, they are still failing to act on their beliefs.

4.  Fair trade coffee may be a familiar sight on supermarket shelves, but a new study has found the British do not practise what they preach / when it comes to buying it. While most people claim to take social issues into consideration,their purchasing behaviour shows little evidence of this. Although the vast majority of consumers believe their choice could make a difference to companies' ethical policies, they are still failing to act on their beliefs.

5. More “chunking” practice Are the numbers of boys and girls in our families really down to the toss of a coin? In fact, it’s not quite so simple. You as an individual may actually load the dice towards a son or a daughter right at conception. Especially the condition of mothers could be playing a part according to some studies.Ruth Mace was in Ethiopia when that country was hit by a severe food shortage. As part of a study on nutrition she looked at the birth statistics of women caught up in the crisis: “Mothers that had a higher body-mass index were more likely to have boys than girls.” Why this happens is still open to debate. Valerie Grant says dominance in personality may also tip the balance towards male offspring: “I’ve come to notice that dominant women tend to have more boys.”

6.  Are the numbers of boys and girls in our families really down to the toss of a coin? In fact, it’s not quite so simple. You as an individual may actually load the dice towards a son or a daughter right at conception. Especially the condition of mothers could be playing a partaccording to some studies.Ruth Mace was in Ethiopia when that country was hit by a severe food shortage. As part of a study on nutrition she looked at the birth statistics of women caught up in the crisis: “Mothers that had a higher body-mass index were more likely to have boys than girls.” Why this happens is still open to debate.Valerie Grant says dominance in personality may also tip the balance towards male offspring: “I’ve come to notice that dominant women tend to have more boys.”

7. Plenty and varied collocations (e.g. commit a crime), social-routine formulae (e.g. Have a nice day), discourse markers (e.g. On the other hand), compounds (e.g. peer pressure), idioms (e.g. take a backseat), standardised similes (e.g. clear as crystal), proverbs (e.g. When the cat’s away …), genre-typical clichés (e.g. Publish or perish), exclamations (e.g. You must be kidding!) open-slot frames (e.g. it takes [time][for x] to …) ...

8. Principal function of chunks in L1 Receptive and productive fluency As a matter of ___ On the other __ Through thick and __ Last but not __ It was two in the morning and I was still wide __ The difference was not statistically __ Cf. genre analyses by K. Kuiper Cf. eyetracking studies by N. Schmitt & colleagues Cf. work by J. Bybee

9. Principal functions of chunks in L2 • Fluency • Idiomaticity and Accuracy Avoidance of L1 interference: ? Do an effort ? With other words ? Realise a survey ? Let’s drink a glass ? Whose feet are you playing with?

10. Any evidence ? Research procedure: • Speaking task in L2 • Oral proficiency scores by blind judges • Chunk-counts by more blind judges • Calculating correlations: proficiency scores ~ chunk counts? • Results: coefficients up to .60 (highly significant) • Conclusion: chunks are good for you !

11. Proposals for a chunk-oriented pedagogy • Nattinger and DeCarrico (1992). • Michael Lewis’ (1993, 1997, 2000) Lexical Approach. Not really ‘new’: e.g. Firth (1957): “You shall know a word by the company it keeps”

12. Can you guess which verbs the following columns of nouns are strong collocates of? verb+ verb+ verb+ verb+ damage crime studytask trouble offence researchfunction pain murdersurveymusic cancer adulteryinterviewdance injury rapeinvestigationsong harm fraudexperimentrole

13. Just a couple of challenges for the learner ... • About 50% of native-speaker discourse is estimated to be chunky (cf. Erman and Warren 2000) • The native speaker’s repertoire contains thousands of chunks (cf. Pawley and Syder 1983)

14. Lewis’ Lexical Approach in a nutshell • The aim = learner autonomy: equip students with strategies to pick up L2 chunks outside the classroom. • Class time is best spent on awareness-raising; not by focussing on individual items. The key activity is chunking of texts. • Lexis is arbitrary teachers must not waste precious time on trying to give ‘explanations’ about chunks. “Why” questions should be answered by “That’s-just-the-way-it is” answers.

15. Does that work, then ?

16. Learner autonomy? Set-up: • Experimental group: a school year of text chunking • Control group: same texts, but no chunking Post-test: both groups underline ‘chunks’ in a new text. Results: Experimental students underlined significantly more bits of text ... But not more chunks ...  Catch 22: how can you recognise a chunk if you haven’t encountered it several times before?

17. Likelihood of incidental acquisition? Incidental uptake of vocabulary is very slow. Why? • Requires multiple encounters(cf. Paul Nation) • Insufficient ‘noticing’ Any more hopeful when it comes to chunks? • Is a given chunk likely to be frequent enough? • Are chunks (e.g. make an effort) likely to attract attention?

18. Verb-noun collocations in 120 pages of a popular novel Verb-noun collocations occurring more than once: make a point (p. 10; 61; 90); make a move (p. 26; 32; 78); make sense (p. 47; 73; 107); make a decision (p. 39; 50); spend time (p. 71; 88); pay attention (p. 91; 119); tell the truth (p. 28; 119). Verb-noun collocations occurring only once: complete a mission (p. 3); fulfil a task (p. 3); bend the truth (p. 6); spend the night (p. 15); lose your mind (p. 18); see the point (p. 21); clear your throat (p. 22); speak your mind (p. 23); make conversation (p. 26); do your duty (p. 28); shake hands (p. 32); practise a religion (p. 41); commit suicide (p. 44); waste time (p. 48); climb stairs (p. 52); pay a price (p. 54); take notice (p. 59); having a laugh (p. 63); do the right thing (p. 63); read your mind (p. 75); make a start (p. 82); give pause (p. 85); make an impression (p. 90); do your best (p. 92); shed light (p. 94); serve a purpose (p. 94); make a statement (p. 100); make no difference (p. 101); pay tribute (p. 102); spend the evening (p. 103); watch TV (p. 105); have a drink (p. 107); crack a joke (p. 112); take a look (p. 119); take a picture (p. 119).

19. Eye-tracking Eye-tracking experiment • Procedure: comparison of reading behaviour real words versus pseudowords e.g. [...] push boundaries [...] versus [...] push paniplines [...] • Results: longer contemplation of pseudowords But: NO evidence of any attention to immediately preceding or succeeding words (i.e. potential collocates)

20. But surely chunks attended to in class stand a good chance of retention ? Hmm... • Treatment: - experimental groups: a school year of text chunking - control groups: same texts, no chunking • Post-tests: speaking tasks; chunk-counts by blind judges • Results: NO differential uptake from the course materials! (in fact, very limited uptake altogether)

21. Now what ?

22. Let teachers do what they are good at: teach! • Do something with the chunks encountered in class • Help students remember through ‘elaboration’

23. Pathways for elaboration?

24. First port of call: exploiting imagery

25. What domain of experience do you think the following idiom comes from? “to show someone the ropes” Prison/torture Boats/sailing Games/sports Example

26. Feedback: a novice sailor needs to be taught by a experienced sailor which ropes he should handle

27. What domain of experience do you think the following idiom comes from? “to cut no ice with someone” Boats/sailing Games/sports Food/cooking

28. Feedback: Ice skating: if the blades of your skates are too blunt, they will not cut into the ice, and so …

29. What domain of experience do you think the following idiom comes from? “to jump the gun” Jurisdiction / punishment Games / sports War / aggression

30. Feedback: Athletics: a contender who jumps the gun sets off before the starting pistol has been fired.

31. What domain of experience do you think the following idiom comes from? “to run the gauntlet” food / cooking games / sports jurisdiction / punishment

32. Feedback: Running the gauntlet used to be a form of punishment in the military in which the wrongdoer was forced to run between two lines of men armed with sticks, who beat him as he passed.

33. What is the figurative meaning of the following idiom: “to show someone the ropes” To disclose the truth to someone To give someone a severe penalty To teach someone how to do a task Next stage

34. What is the figurative meaning of the following idiom: “to cut no ice with someone” To have a misunderstanding To get on well with someone To make no impression on someone Next stage

35. What is the figurative meaning of the following idiom: “to jump the gun” Defend someone at your own peril Do something before the appropriate time Be startled by an unexpected event Next stage

36. What is the figurative meaning of the following idiom “to run the gauntlet” Run away from your hometown Be in a position of power Go through an unpleasant treatment Next stage

37. When I started working here as a novice, nobody bothered to teach me how things were done around here. I had to find out all by myself how to do my new work properly. You could say that nobody showed me the _____________ consolidation

38. Scientists argue that high voltage power lines increase the risk of cancer, but their arguments cut no ____________ with the big bosses of the electricity industry. The scientific evidence does not seem to make any impression on them. consolidation

39. Although we had agreed not to tell anyone about my pregnancy until we were absolutely certain about it, my husband jumped the ___________ and told his parents straightaway. consolidation

40. When her fellow-students found out she had started a relationship with one of their lecturers, she had to put up with a lot of verbal abuse. Her fellow-students really made her run the _______________. consolidation

41. Summing up the procedure • Stage one: awareness of the origin of the idiom Purpose: dual coding(association with images) • Stage two: figuring out the meaning of the idiom Purpose: deep processing(from image to meaning) • Stage three: consolidation • Stage four to stage n: revision

42. Synopsis of experiments

43. Control group: 1) Meaning MC 2) Gap fill Experimental group: 1) Origin MC 2) Gap fill Exp > Ctr p < .001 Does it help?

44. Across the idiom board? Yes, but below-average scores in case of: • Explanations longer than five lines • ‘Culture-specific’ source domains (e.g. cricket)

45. Which sequence helps most? Control:Experimental: • Meaning MC 1) Origin MC • Origin MC 2) Meaning MC • Gap fill 3) Gap fill 72% 81% p < .01

46. Long-term effect? Gap-fill scores after two-year lapse  mean 85% followed by origin MC gap-fill scores ~ origins scores: rs .8

47. A bit of a dampener on our enthusiasm: Troublesome standard deviations • Cognitive-style variables ?

48. Correlation analyses ‘Imager’ cognitive style~ Gap-fill scores ? high imagers: mean 78%low imagers: mean 72% p < .05 So what? Let’s fix this …

49. What domain of experience do you think the following idiom comes from? “a carrot-and-stick method” Religion/superstition Animals/wildlife Food/cooking

50. Feedback: Donkeys can be urged on by dangling a carrot before them and at the same time by hitting them with a stick.