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Teacher- and learner-led discourse as tools for L2 grammatical development in task-based Spanish instruction

Teacher- and learner-led discourse as tools for L2 grammatical development in task-based Spanish instruction. Paul D. Toth University of Wisconsin-Madison ptoth@wisc.edu 2007 TLBT Conference, University of Hawai’i. Instruction & L2 grammatical development.

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Teacher- and learner-led discourse as tools for L2 grammatical development in task-based Spanish instruction

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  1. Teacher- and learner-led discourse as tools for L2 grammatical development in task-based Spanish instruction Paul D. Toth University of Wisconsin-Madison ptoth@wisc.edu 2007 TLBT Conference, University of Hawai’i

  2. Instruction & L2 grammatical development • Provision of comprehensible L2input via: • Modifications to instructional speech or materials • Opportunities for learner negotiation • Attention directed to L2 form-meaning relationships via: • Salience in instructional speech or materials • Explicit, metalinguistic information about the L2 • Feedback on learner performance • Opportunities for L2 output(Swain, 1985, 1995, 2000) • Learners “pushed” to encode meaning in morphosyntax • Test hypotheses about L2 form-meaning relationships • Notice gaps in L2 grammar • Conceptualize L2 grammar through “metatalk”

  3. Task-Based Instruction • “Require[s] learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective” (Bygate, Skehan, & Swain, 2001, p. 11) • “Focused tasks” target the purposeful use of specific L2 structures to express meaning (Ellis, 2003, p. 16) • Descriptions = adjective agreement • Narration = past tense and aspect marking • Requests of others = subjunctive mood • Explaining procedures = impersonal passive • Narrating spontaneous events = inchoative verbs

  4. Learner-Led Discourse • Strengths: • More like real world communication (Nunan, 1987) • Participatory structure more suitable for negotiation, especially during “information gap” tasks (Pica, 1987; Pica et al., 1993) • More discourse turns per learner = more opportunities for negotiation (Lee, 2000; Long & Porter, 1985) • Greater linguistic autonomy and self-regulation (van Lier, 1996) • Learners assist each other during task performance (Donato, 1994; Swain, 1998, 2000; Swain & Lapkin, 1995)

  5. Learner-Led Discourse • Weaknesses: • Learners often produce minimal utterances (Seedhouse, 1999) • Learners are poor L2 models for each other (Prabhu, 1987) • Learners prefer to focus on lexical rather than morphosyntactic L2 issues when negotiating (Buckwalter, 2001; Morris, 2002; Williams, 1999) • Suggested Remedies: • Make target forms “useful” or “essential” to task performance (Loschky & Bley-Vroman, 1993; Fotos, 2002) • Precede tasks with pre-task warm-up to orient learners to necessary language; follow tasks with post-task activity to lend accountability to learner performance (Skehan, 1996, 1998)

  6. Teacher-Led Discourse • Strengths: • Teacher input and support provides expert “scaffolding” for task performance (Adair-Hauck & Donato, 1994; Antón, 1999; McCormick & Donato, 2000). • Teacher feedback has been shown to benefit non-turn-taking listeners as well as active discourse participants (Ohta, 2000, 2001). • Weaknesses: • Far fewer speaking turns per learner (Lee, 2000) • IRF sequences (Initiate, Response, Feedback) often limit learner utterances and prevent development of broader interactional competence (Brooks, 1993; Hall, 1995, 2004; Leemann-Guthrie, 1984; Mehan, 1979; Nunan, 1990)

  7. Teacher-Led Discourse • Suggested Remedies: • Design whole-class activities as collaborative communication tasks, rather than mechanical grammar drills (DeKeyser, 1998; Wong & VanPatten, 2003) • Teachers should build their turns upon topical content of learner utterances, as “follow up” moves (Johnson, 1995; Toth, 2004; Wells, 1998) • Solicit multiple learner responses to teacher questions before moving onto another question (Toth)

  8. Motivation for comparing TLD & LLD • Importance of interlocutors and interaction in L2 acquisition • Little previous research: • Pica (1987), Doughty & Pica (1986): More negotiation for LLD in “information exchange” tasks; similar amounts of negotiation in more open-ended “collaborative discussion” • Fotos (1993, 1994): TLD and LLD classes perform nearly equally, with TLD group “noticing” one of target structures more frequently • Calls for further research: • Pica (1994): Benefits of negotiated interaction in learner dyads need to be supported by quantitative assessments of learning outcomes • DeKeyser (2003), Doughty (2003), Pica (2005): Quantitative studies of learning outcomes through LLD negotiation need to be conducted in ecologically-valid classroom contexts, rather than only in laboratory settings.

  9. Spanish se Se used to derive intransitive syntax from a transitive verb (Dobrobie-Sorin, 1998; Montrul, 2004; Raposo & Uriagereka, 1996) X a. Ellos prepararon la comida. AGENT PATIENT “They prepared the food.” Ellos se prepararon. AGENT • “They prepared themselves / each other.” X b. Ellos prepararon la comida. AGENT PATIENT “They prepared the food.” Se preparó la comida. PATIENT “The food was prepared / One prepared food.” “anticausative se” X c. Ellos cocinaron la comida. AGENT PATIENT “They cooked the food.” Se cocinó la comida. PATIENT “The food Ø cooked / was cooked / One cooked food.”

  10. Research Questions • Question 1: Will LLD provide an advantage in grammaticality judgments for Spanish anticausative se when compared to TLD? • Question 2: Will LLD provide an advantage over TLD in performance with anticausative se on sentence-level picture descriptions? • Question 3: Will excerpts of classroom interactions reveal differences in the way learners in each group attend to the form-meaning relationships associated with anticausative se and use the target form for output?

  11. Method: Participants 6 intact classes of 2nd semester beginning L2 Spanish in two large, public American universities with identical Spanish curriculums. Each group comprised of two classes. • Teacher-Led Discourse (TLD): n = 28 • Learner-Led Discourse (LLD): n = 25 • Control Group (C): n = 25 • Native Speaker comparison group: n = 30

  12. Method: Instruction Sequence of lesson topics for treatment groups anticausative se

  13. Method: Instruction • Standard 50-minute daily lesson: • Whole-class warm-up activity, reminiscent of previous day’s tasks (5 mins.) • Explicit grammar explanation for current day’s topic (5 mins.) • LLD: 2 passes through pre-task, task, post-task sequence, with most tasks designed as two-way information gaps (40 mins.) • TLD: 4-6 tasks mirroring those of the LLD group, implemented as whole-class, collaborative interaction. (40 mins.)

  14. Method: Instruction • Spotting differences activity: • LLD: implemented as a two-way information gap in small groups • TLD: implemented as whole-class collaborative discourse

  15. Method: Assessment • Experimental Design: • Pre-test, • Immediate posttest • Delayed posttest (24 days after instruction) • Two test versions, piloted on two native speakers, and randomly assigned to learners. Then rotated over the three test administrations • Grammaticality judgment (GJ) task • Picture description task • Lesson on “se of unplanned occurrences” recorded and transcribed in each group

  16. Method: GJ Task Sample items from the grammaticality judgment task

  17. Method: Picture Description Task Sample item from the picture description task

  18. Results: Picture Description Task increase = 0.02 increase = 0.31 increase = 0.46

  19. Results: Picture Description Task • NS mean = 0.48

  20. Results: GJ Task increase = 0.09 increase = 0.36 increase = 1.07

  21. Results: GJ Task • NS mean = 2.24

  22. Results: Transcripts 1. LLD Information gap activity   

  23. Results: Transcripts 2. LLD information gap activity   

  24. Results: Transcripts 3. TLD whole-class collaborative discourse IRF{ 

  25. Results: Transcripts 3. TLD whole-class collaborative discourse (cont.)  

  26. Results: Transcripts 4. TLD whole-class collaborative discourse   

  27. Results: Transcripts 5. TLD whole-class collaborative discourse      

  28. Results: Transcripts 5. TLD whole-class collaborative discourse (cont.)  

  29. Results: Transcripts 6. LLD information gap activity    

  30. Results: Transcripts 7. LLD Information gap activity   

  31. Results: Transcripts 7. LLD Information gap activity (cont.)    

  32. Results: Transcripts 7. LLD Information gap activity (cont.)   

  33. Discussion • Under the best circumstances, learner’s attention to target forms may be limited in LLD: • Developmental needs that focus attention other areas of L2 morphosyntax • Widely-observed tendency to focus on lexis rather than morphosyntax, and to prioritize getting meaning across over formal accuracy • Preference for self-correction rather than other-correction (Buckwalter, 2001; Seedhouse, 2004) • Participatory roles that, while increasing turn-taking, do not authorize individuals to assist in procedures for making output

  34. Discussion • In TLD, attention to target forms may be more consistent • Provision of accurate input models and cues for using target form • Feedback centers on target form • Cumulative benefit of feedback to others, if relevance is maintained across discourse turns • Participatory roles allow teacher-expert to directly assist learners in formulating utterances • Following Ohta (2001), potential for collaborative listeners to indirectly realize output benefits if they are cognitively engaged.

  35. Discussion • Teachers as providers of procedural assistance in output processing: • Assistance with linguistic task of utterance formulation and morphosyntactic assembly, rather than conceptual or analytical “scaffolding” (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). • Proactive, simultaneous assistance to learner rather than reactive and subsequent feedback, as in clarification requests, confirmation checks, or recasts. (Long, 1981, 1996). • Assistance utilizing L2 morphosyntax that is more complex than the learner’s extant interlanguage, OR • Useable metalinguistic information that can guide learners toward incorporating new forms into their L2 speech.

  36. Discussion • Hypothesized benefits of procedural assistance • Some current models of language processing hold that hierarchical morphosyntactic relationships are computed on-line, during comprehension or production (Harrington, 2001; Juffs, 2004; Pritchett, 1992) • Parsing, or processing, L2 form-meaning relationships may be key to a transition theory that explains how the L2 linguistic properties become incorporated into interlanguage grammars. (Carroll, 2001; Gregg, 2001; Pienemann, 1999) • Procedural assistance may allow learners to implement, or “proceduralize,” the declarative L2 metalinguistic knowledge they have, increasing the complexity of L2 utterances that they can process • If learners are able to assemble more complex utterances with the assistance of an expert, this may facilitate incorporation of these structures into the implicit L2 grammatical system.

  37. References

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