First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Class outline

• Cognitive issues in L2 learning

Information processing

Consciousness

Attention

Skills aspect

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

L2 learning

Linguistic aspect Skills aspect

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

L2 learning

Linguistic aspect Skills aspect

Explicit and implicit knowledge

Controlled & automatic processes

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

• Learners have a limited processing capacity (channel capacity: “room in the mind”)

• How can L2 learners maximize this processing ability?

– By routinizing skills, that is by automatizing certain processing skills.

– By restructuring stored information

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Automization (Johnson, 2001):

• When a skill is newly learnt it takes up a great deal of conscious attention (channel capacity)

• Lower level skills must become automatic (e.g. tense, differentating sounds this/thing, etc) for higher level skills to occur (ensure a message is properly conveyed).

• How? For example, by giving the learner increasingly demanding activities, pushing him towards producing the tense with less and less channel capacity available.

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Controlled processes:

• Short-term memory• Require attention &

effort• Operate in linear

sequence

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Automatic processes:

• Long-term memory

• No attention required

• Operate in parallel

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Restructuring (McLaughlin in Johnson, 2001):

As people learn, the way they “view” what they are learning changes. Example:

Simple mathematical problem of adding up ten twos.

1. (2+2=4+2=6 and so on)

Restructuring

2. (2x10=20)

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

The role of attention: Noticing

• Does input processing require noticing features in the input, that is, conscious attention?

Noticing

• Features in the input are attended to and so become intake (stored in temporary memory), but may or may not be subsequently accommodated in the interlanguage system.

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

• Attention: “The control process that transfers information into focal awareness.” (Schmidt, 1990)

Noticing the gap

• Schmidt and Frota suggest that for noticed input to become intake, learners have to carry out a mental comparison of what they have observed in the input with what they are producing (output).

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

FACTORS THAT FAVOR NOTICING

• FREQUENCY• PERCEPTUAL SALIENCE: how prominent is a form?

(Cf. unstressed forms)• INSTRUCTION: The role of instruction is not

necessarily in the clarity or explanation it provides, but rather in the way it channels attention and brings L2 features into awareness

• (Schmidt´s learning experience: what had been unstructured undifferentiated input became noticeable and analyzable.)

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

OUTPUT in SLA

• “Practice makes perfect” Audiolingualism(Behaviorism, 60s)

• Only a sign of the second language acquisition that has taken placeKrashen (80s)

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Rediscovering OUTPUT in SLA

• SKILLS ASPECT • LINGUISTIC ASPECT

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Rediscovering OUTPUT in SLA

• SKILLS ASPECT

FLUENCY

•Proceduralization of declarative knowledge (ACT*Model)

•Routinization (Mc Laughlin)

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Rediscovering OUTPUT in SLA

• LINGUISTIC ASPECT

The Output Hypothesis (Swain, 1995)

ACCURACY (Form & function in a context-sensitive task)

“PUSHED” OUTPUT

•Helps to stretch interlanguage to meet communicative goals (p.127)

•Has a role in the development of syntax and morphology (p.128)

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Endangered Species

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

• Teachers: Endangered Species

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

1. Teachers are leaving their profession at an alarming rate.

2. A recent poll showed that the number of teachers with more than twenty years´experience has dropped by half in the last fifteen years.

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

• 3. One third of the teachers contacted in the poll said that they would not choose teaching if they had the chance over again.

• 4. Only sixty per cent of those polled said they planned to teach until retirement.

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

• 5. Many interviewed said that factors like stress isolation, powerlessness, and alienation had contributed to the current climate of dissatisfaction within the profession.

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

DICTOGLOSS (also dictocomp)

WHAT IS A DICTOGLOSS?

• Note-taking of a text

• Individual reconstruction

• Small group reconstruction

• Error analysis

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

FEATURES

• Context-based task procedure designed to help L2 students towards a better understanding of how grammar works on a text basis

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

• Learner-needs based: exposes learner´s language shortcomings

• Interaction provides scaffolding for SLA

• Teaching while testing

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

• STEPS

• Preparation: arouse interest / pre-teach vocabulary / explain stages of procedure /organize learners in groups

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Dictation:

• Learners just hear the dictation

• Learners write down content words

• Text is dictated at normal spoken speed

• Pauses are made between sentences (5´´)

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Reconstruction:

• Individual reconstruction of text

• Collective reconstruction through “scribe”

• Teacher monitors but does not help

• Teacher may help to correct peripheral errors

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Analysis and correction:

• The first sentence of each group is discussed

• Original text´s sentence is shown

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

CONTRIBUTION TO SLA

• Learners understand and use grammar in discourse

• Learners develop explicit knowledge by reflecting on their hypotheses (negotiation about form)

• Motivation is fostered by spotting learners´ language needs and satisfying affiliation needs

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Function 1: Noticing/Noticing the gap

• Consciousness-raising role • Notice an L2 feature or a gap in interlanguage

Function 2: Implicit Hypothesis-testing

• Trying out new forms (well-formedness and comprehensibility)

• Stretch interlanguage to meet communicative needs • Modified or reprocessed utterances represent the

leading edge of a learner’s interlanguage

The Output Hypothesis

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Function 3: Explicit hypothesis-testing (Metalingual function: Conscious reflection, Swain)

• Negotiation about form in the context of a

meaning-based task (E.g. Dictogloss, planned conversations, etc)

• Context-sensitive knowledge of grammar (form, function and meaning)

The Output Hypothesis

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Dialogic interaction & SLA

Vygotsky (1986) • cognitive processes arise from interaction

inter-mental intra-mental (linguistic change)

Donato• Scaffolding (supportive conditions to

outperform competence) • L2 features in 80% of negotiated solutions

were learned in post-tests

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

• Vygotsky´s Zone of proximal development: The distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem-solving and the level of potential development as determined thru problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers (scaffolding).

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Information gap activity. Instructions for drawing. Example of negotiation of meaning. What type of

knowledge does it contribute to?

A: A man is uh drinking c-coffee or tea with the saucer of the uh uh coffee set is uh in his knee

B: In him knee

A: uh on his knee

B: Yeah

A: on his knee

B: so sorry. On his knee

(Gass and varonis 1986:81)

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Example:Keith and George are trying to determine whether the correct form is

nous tracasse or nous tracassons. Keith: Nous tracassonsGeorge: Oh (beginning to realize what is happening) Keith: Yeah? George: The problems which are worrying us. Like the …it’s the

problems …like, that concerns us.Keith: Yes, but tracasse isn’t it o-n-s?George: Tracasse it’s not a, it’s not a, yeah, I dunnoKeith: OK, it says, the problems which worry us. Therefore is tracasse

a verb? That you, that you have to conjugate? Teacher: Uh huh.Keith: So is it tracassons?Teacher: It’s the problems which are worrying us.George: Us, it’s, it’s not, it’s not, yeah, it’s the problems, it’s not, it’s

not us.Keith: Ah! E-n-t (third person plural ending), OK, OK.

Dictogloss. What type of knowledge does it help to develop?

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

Pedagogical implications

Different pedagogical implications arise:

• Opportunities for both intentional and incidental language learning are needed

• Pedagogy should provide opportunities for practice to ensure that controlled processes are automatized (skill-building)

• Pedagogy should find ways of promoting “noticing” (e.g. by means of interpretation tasks)

• Pedagogy should focus on developing explicit knowledge and enabling learners to make use to facilitate acquisition.

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo

LET´S RECAP

Answer the following questionnaire based on the article by Swain on output.

1. Why is output referred to as “pushed” output in the article?

2. How do processes involved in comprehension differ from those involved in production? In general terms, how does pushed output contribute to develop more accurate interlanguages?

3. Complete:Negotiation of meaning may help to develop ……… knowledge.Negotiation about form may develop ……………… knowledge.

4. What is the connection between Vygotskyan theory and the metalinguistic function of output?

First & second language acquisition – Prof. Pampillo