Merged Ppts

Second Language Acquisition
for Teachers
Lecture course
Albert Ágnes
Department of English Applied Linguistics
In today’s lecture
• About the course
• What is SLA?
• Key questions in SLA
About the course
• Weekly 1.5 hours (= 90 min.)
• Written exam
• Requirements: Lectures/readings
• Reading pack on canvas.elte.hu

– 1 article/topic + electives
Topics to be covered
• 1. Introduction to course, key questions in SLA
• 2. Teaching language as communication
• 3. Going beyond the native speaker
• 4. The use of L1 in teaching and learning L2
• 5. Grammar acquisition
• 6. Vocabulary acquisition
• 7. Listening in an L2
• 8. Speaking in an L2
• 9. Reading in an L2
• 10. Writing in an L2
• 11. The age factor iin SLA
• 12. Revision, exam preparation
Questions?
• What is SLA?
• What do we mean by the term second language (L2)?
• What does the term foreign language (FL) mean?
• What do we mean by first language (L1)? Is it the same
as the mother tongue?
Definitions: SLA
(Review)
second language = additional language
i.e. any language other than the first

language (mother tongue)
can be third, or fourth language as well
Second vs. Foreign Language
• Second language: the language plays an
institutional and social role in the
community; e.g.: learning English while
living in the USA, Britain or Nigeria.
• Foreign language: the language plays

no major role in the life of the community
and is primarily learnt in the classroom.
• What do we mean by language learning?
• What do we mean by language acquisition?
Acquisition vs. learning
Krashen, 1981
• Acquisition: subconscious process of
picking up the language through exposure
vs.
• Learning: conscious process of studying a
language
No clear, operational definition.
Unless otherwise stated, researchers use
the terms interchangeably.
• What do we mean by?
– Input
– Output
– Intake
– Uptake
• Input: what learners are exposed to
• Output: what learners produce
• Intake: what learners have processed/understood
• Uptake: what learners have learnt
Definition
SLA is the study of the way in which people
learn a language other than their mother
tongue (L1) inside (instructed SLA) or
outside (naturalistic SLA) of a classroom.
The goals of SLA research
1 Describe
• Learner language
• Development over time (longitudinal
studies)
2 Explain
• External factors: input, context
• Internal factors: L1, previous knowledge,
aptitude, strategies, motivation, etc.
What to describe?
• Language: it is too complex
– Researchers focus on one particular
aspect (e.g. making requests, using the
plural, etc.)
• Acquisition entails:
Declarative knowledge (know the rule)
Procedural knowledge (can apply the
rule)
The use of formulaic chunks. (Can I
have a...)
What to explain?
• Account for descriptive findings.
Example:
• Learner X is observed over time
• Focus on making requests
• Learner is observed to use Can I have a…
appropriately and frequently.
• Question: Does this mean that the learner
has acquired the use of can?
• Explanation: Learners are involved in
different kinds of learning: Item learning vs
system learning
What SLA research is not:
• SLA is not about pedagogy unless the
pedagogy affects the course of acquisition.
• Nevertheless, knowledge about SLA
sheds light on the field of language
teaching.
• Methodologies must be based on a firm
basis:
understanding how language learning
does and does not take place.
Why should teachers know about SLA?
• Pedagogical decision making must

reflect what is known about the
process of learning, which is the
domain of SLA
Areas of study SLA draws from
and/or impacts on:
• linguistics
• sociology
• psychology
• psycholinguistics
• sociolinguistics
• discourse analysis
• conversation analysis
• education
Key questions in SLA
• What is the nature of language learning?
• What is the initial state? What do learners bring to the task of
acquisition in terms of underlying knowledge related to language?
• Can L2 learners become native-like?
• Is there a critical period?
• What does development look like?
• What are the roles of input and output in SLA?
• Does instruction make a difference?
• What is the nature of language learning?
Nature of language learning
• Modularist approaches: language learning in unique
– LAD, UG (principles and parameters)
• Non-modularist approaches: language acquisition is
goverened by the same principles as other types of
cognition/learning
• What is the initial state? What do learners bring to the
task of acquisition in terms of underlying knowledge
related to language?
Initial state
• Full transfer position: initial state = learners’ L1
– UG: parameter resetting
– L1 processing routines
• No transfer position: initial state = any internal
mechanism guiding language acquisition in the case of
children
– UG
– Other universals
• Partial transfer position: limited L1 transfer
– Eg.: transfer lexicon and syntactic properties but not
functional features related to tense, agreement, etc.
• Can L2 learners become native-like?
Can L2 learners become native-like?
• Impossible
– Depends on age as well (children are more likely)
• Possible
• Possible in some domains
– Or: competence may be native like, but performance is not
– Or: optionality (native-like options are present but the
preference is NOT the native like one)
• Is there a critical period?
Existence of a critical period
• CP exists (strong version)
– Everyone succeeds in learning L1 but not in learning L2
– Child L1 acquisition and adult SLA are different
• CP does not exist
– No cut-off period but gradual decline
– Possible role of L1
• CPs for some things
– Different for syntax, morphology, phonology, etc., different for
principles and parameters
• What does development look like?
What does development look like?
• Acquisition orders for different structures
– Verbal inflections in English: 1. progressive -ing, regular past tense,
irregular past tense, third person -s
• Stage-like development for any particular structure
– Negation: external to sentence, inside sentence, modals, analysed +do
with negation attached
• Variation and variablity
– Free variation and systematic variation
• There is first language influence, processability might explain developmental
stages, but not acquisition orders, so multifactor approaches are needed!
• What are the roles of input and output in SLA?
Role of input and output
• Input
– Needed for setting parameters in UG
– Connectionism: grammar emerges from the statistical analysis
of input
– Comprehensible input (Krashen)
• Output
– Comprehensible output hypothesis (Swain)
– Interaction hypothesis (Long): negotiation of meaning, feedback
as negative evidence
• Does instruction make a difference?
Role of instruction
• Instruction makes no difference
– Krashen acquisition/learning
– Acquisition orders, developmental sequences cannot
be altered significantly
• Instruction is constrained
– Set order of developmental features, processability
constraints (Pienemann)
• Instruction is beneficial
– Long’s review of studies
– Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis
– Learners speed up or get further along because of it
Readings
• Readings and slides will be uploaded to canvas:
canvas.elte.hu
• Canvas contains the core material, there are progress
tests after each module, which need to be completed
to access the next module
• Log in with your neptun code
Questions?
Thank you for your attention
See you next week 

Teaching English as Communication:
Understanding Communicative Competence
Lecture 2
Second Language Acquisition for
Teachers
1
EFL teaching and Communicative
Compentence
• What do you remember about communicative

competence from your previous studies?
• What does EFL teaching have to do with

communicative competence?
2
Dell Hymes (1971)
• Possibility
• Feasibility
• Appropriateness
• Attestedness
Canale and Swain (1980)
• Grammatical competence
• Sociolinguistic competence
• Discourse competence (Canale 1983)
• Strategic competence
Savignon (2002)
Bachman & Palmer (1996)
• Organisational knowledge
– Grammatical knowledge
– Textual knowledge
• Pragmatic knowledge
– Functional knowledge
– Sociolinguistic knowledge
• Strategic competence
Simiarities and differences
Communicative language teaching
• As a student of English, have you been taught

by communicative methods?
• Can you recall the experience (characteristic

features of the instruction) and your reaction to
it?
Communicative Language Teaching
• CLT refers to both processes and goals in classroom learning

• Goal: communicative competence
• „Competence is defined in terms of the expression,
interpretation and negotiation of meaning and looks to both
psycholinguistic and sociocultural perspectives in second
language acquisition (SLA) research to account for its
development.” (Savignon, 1972, 1997)
Communication
Communication involves
• the exchange & negotiation of information/meaning
• between at least two individuals through
• the use of verbal or non-verbal symbols
• oral or written/visual modes
10
Verbal communication (Canale, 1983)
1 a form of social interaction
2 involves unpredictability and creativity
3 takes place in contexts: discourse &
sociocultural
4 always has a purpose
5 is carried out under limiting conditions
6 involves authentic language
7 is judged as successful on the basis of
outcomes
11
Principles of CLT (Berns, 1990, p. 104)
• 1. Language teaching is based on a view of language as
communication, that is, language is seen as a social tool
which speakers use to make meaning; speakers
communicate about something to someone for some
purpose, either orally or in writing.
• 2. Diversity is recognized and accepted as part of
language development and use in second language
learners and users as it is with first language users.
• 3. A learner's competence is considered in relative, not in
absolute, terms of correctness.
• 4. More than one variety of a language is recognized as a
viable model for learning and teaching.
• 5. Culture is recognized as playing an instrumental role in
shaping speakers' communicative competence, both in their
first and subsequent languages.
• 6. No single methodology or fixed set of techniques is
prescribed.
• 7. Language use is recognized as serving the ideational, the
interpersonal, and the textual functions and is related to the
development of learners' competence in each.
• 8. It is essential that learners be engaged in doing things with
language, that is, that they use language for a variety of
purposes in all phases of learning.
Further characteristics of CLT
• Focus on the learner
– Learner’s communicative needs
– Assessment?
• Emphasis on meaning (at the expense of form?)
• „Communication cannot take place in the absence of
structure, or grammar, a set of shared assumptions
about how language works, along with a willingness of
participants to cooperat in the negotioation of meaning”
(Savignon, 2002, p. 7)
Issues to consider in the classroom
• What does teacher-learner interaction look like?
• What happens during pair work or group work?
• It the aim truly communication (negotiation of meaning) rather
than practice of grammatical forms?
• What are the opportunities for interaction in the second language?
• Who particiates?
• Who initiates discourse in the second language?
• What are the purposes of this discourse?
Communicative curriculum design (Savignon,
2002)
1. Language arts
2. Language for a purpose
3. My language is me
4. Theater arts
5. Language use beyond the classroom
Language arts
• Focuses on forms of the language including syntax,

morphology, and phonology
• Vocabulary
• Pronunciation
Language for a purpose
• Use of language for real and immediate communicative

goals
• Meaningful language use, focus on meaning
• Content-based instruction
My language is me
• Relates to the learner’s emerging identity in the L2

• Takes affective aspects of language learning into
consideration
• Learners use the language for self-expression – this
should be respected
• Near-native performance may not be the goal for the
learner
Theater arts
• Learners have different roles

• Different rules of sociocultural appropriateness apply to
these roles
• Language classroom may be seen as an opportunity to
experiment with roles, try things out
• Provide learners with tools to act in a new language
Language use beyond the classroom
• Classroom is only a rehearsal

• Need to discover learners’ needs, interests, and
opportunities to prepare them for language use beyond
the classroom
• In an EFL setting incorporating language use beyond the
classroom can present challenges (radio, Tv, internet,
CMC)
Communication tasks
• Can you think of any tasks/exercises that you would

consider communicative?
• Can you think of any tasks/exercises that you would
consider non-communicative?
Long’s (1996) Interaction Hypothesis
• The Interaction Hypothesis claims that acquisition is

facilitated when learners obtain comprehensible input
as a result of the opportunity to negotiate meaning
when communication breaks down
• Meaning negotiation serves to draw learners’

attention to linguistic form, it induces ‘noticing’
(Schmidt, 1990)
Examples of communication task types 1.
Jigsaw task: Pairs of students are each given a

partially completed chart giving different information
about four people. Their task is to answer questions
regarding the person’s home, occupation, and present
location without looking at the partner’s chart in order to
complete the grid.
Information gap task: Students are given a

list of questions to use to conduct an interview
with a classmate to gather information on the
partner’s birthplace, school, work, and family
background.
Problem-solving task: ‘Hotel theft’ activity. A guest

staying at a hotel exits the bathroom to discover that all
personal belongings, including clothing, are missing. It is
early morning so the hotel staff is unavailable. One student
takes the role of the guest who was robbed and must
‘phone’ the other students, who are guests at the same
hotel to ask for help. Together, the stranded guest and the
other guests must figure out how to get assistance and
solve the problem.
Decision-making tasks: ‘Who gets the heart’. Students

are given information about 6 individuals who are in
need of a heart transplant. Based on the circumstances
described for each person, students must work together
and choose which person will ultimately receive the one
available donor heart.
Opinion-exchange task: Students are asked to

give their advice to a teen and her parents who
disagree on curfew time or to an elderly man who
wants to be cared for by his daughter's family.
Communication task types (Pica, Kanagy, &
Falodun, 1993)
Interactant Distribution of Interaction Goal Outcome

Task type
relationship information requirement orientation options
jigsaw Info requester and Every participant required convergent 1
supplier has some info (not
the same)
Info gap Either info 1 participant has all required convergent 1

requester or info info, other has
supplier nothing
Problem Info requester and Everyone has optional convergent 1

supplier access to all info
solving
Decision Info requester and Everyone has optional convergent 1+
making
Opinion Info requester and Everyone has optional divergent 1+/-

exchange
The ideal communication task according to Pica et al., 1993
• Each interactant holds a different portion of

information which must be exchanged and
manipulated in order to reach the task outcome
• Both interactants are required to request and supply
information to each other.
• Interactants have the same or convergent goals
• Only one acceptable outcome is possible from their
attempts to meet this goal
What CLT is not
• It is not only face-to-face oral communication
• It does not necessarily require work in small groups or pairs
• It does not reject familiar materials (any material can be used
communicatively)
• It does not exclude a focus on metalinguistic awareness or
knowledge of the rules of syntax, discourse, social
appropriateness
Strategic competence
• We conceptualize strategic competence as
knowledge of communication strategies and how to
use them.
(Celce Murcia, et al, 1995)
Knowledge needs input

Skills need practice
32
Strategic competence
is the mastery of verbal and non-verbal
communication strategies, which can enable us
to
• overcome difficulties when communication
breakdowns occur
• and to enhance the effectiveness of communication
(e.g.: slow down, paraphrase)
33
Types of Communication strategies
1.
• Avoidance or reduction strategies involve tailoring
one's message to one's resources by either
– replacing messages,
– avoiding topics, or, as an extreme case,
– abandoning one's message altogether.
‘Language learners should say what they can, and not
what they want to.’
34
2.
• Achievement or compensatory strategies involve
manipulating available language to reach a communicative
goal and this may entail compensating for linguistic
deficiencies.
(see Bialystok, 1990; Cook, 1993)
35
2.1
• Stalling or time-gaining strategies include
– fillers,
– hesitation devices
– gambits
– repetitions (e.g., repeating what the other has said
while thinking).
• Note: danger of L2 learners using taught

fillers/gambits inappropriately if the presentation has
been superficial and not adequately contextualized.
36
2.2
• Self-monitoring strategies involve correcting or

changing something in one's own speech (self-
repair) as well as rephrasing (and often over-
elaborating) one's message to further ensure
that it gets through.
37
3.
Interactional strategies highlight the cooperative
aspect of strategy use.
38
3.1
• Appeals for help are similar to achievement strategies in
function but through using them the learner exploits
his/her interlocutor's knowledge rather than manipulating
his/her own language resources.
3.2
• Meaning negotiation strategies are of various types:
– ways of indicating a problem,
– responding to such an indication,
– and making comprehension checks.
40
Where can teachers go wrong?
• * Teach “how English people talk” = teach phrases not
strategies
• * Eliminate spontaneity
• * Eliminate struggle
41
Thank you for your attention
42
Reading
• Savignon, S. (Ed.). (2002). Interpreting communicative
language teaching: Contexts and concerns in teacher
education. Chapter One, pp. 1-27. New Haven; London:
Yale University Press.
Recent developments in
SLA research:
Going beyod the native
speaker
Lecture 3
Teachers
Who is a native speaker?
• Were you taught by native speakers before coming to
university?
• Who were they? What were your experiences like in
connection with them?
• Who is a native speaker? Please, try to come up with a
definition!
Bio-developmental definition
• „An individual is a native speaker of the L1 learnt in

childhood” (Davies, 1996)
• Unalterable historic fact
Native speakers have… (Stern, 1983)
• Subconscious knowledge of rules
• An intuitive grasp of meanings
• The ability to communicate within social settings
• A range of language skills
• Creativity of language use
• Identification with a language community (Johnson &
Johnson, 1998)
Further features… (Davies, 1996)
• The ability to produce fluent discourse

• Knowledge of differences between their own speech and
that of the „standard” form of the language
• The ability “to interpret and translate into the L1 of which
he or she is a native speaker”
Considering the list…
• Do these features characterise all native speakers?
• Are these features characterstic of only native speakers?
Accepting the bio-developmental
definition means…
"Asserting that adults usually fail to become native

speakers is like saying that ducks fail to become swans:
Adults could never become native speakers without being
reborn” (Cook, 1999, p. 187)
Controversies surrounding the concept of
native speaker
• It has political and economic benefits for the countries
from which particular language originated
• Imposition of native speaker interaction norms contrary to
the students’ own preferred types of interaction
• Native speakers form only one of the social groups to
which a speaker belongs
NSs in language teaching
• Question: which kind of native speaker should be the
model? (not whether they should be used as models at
all…)
• Most coursebooks also present native speakers
interacting with native speakers
• (Do you know of any exceptions?)
NSs in SLA research
NSs as reference group in EFL
• Interlanguage: intermediate linguistic
systems of classroom learners striving to
reach NS communicative competence
L1 L2
beginning IL advanced
Critique of the NS as target
The enormous variations among NSs are
not taken into account:
NS is presented as a
• stable, monolingual entity
• speaking a homogenous standard
language
• NS competence is seen as constant, fully
developed, and complete
NNS’s perspective
NNS is presented as
• “deficient/defective communicator”
• limited by an underdeveloped communicative
competence
WRONG/UNFAIR
Someone who did not learn a language in childhood
cannot be a native speaker of the language.
NNS’s perspective
• NS of a first language (L1) should not be the

model for all L2 learners;
• A monolingual speaker model is inappropriate
for aspiring bilinguals,
• Multilingual speakers are not moving towards
someone else’s target; they are constructing
their own norms.
(Canagarajah, 2007, MLJ)
Multicompetent users
Multilingual
L2
competence
≠
Multilingual Monolingual
L1 L1
competence competence
Schematic representation of compound and co-ordinate bilingualism (Seliger &
Vago, 1991)
Integrated view of cross-linguistic influence in bilingualism (Schmid and Köpke,
2007)
Multicompetent language users
• Their L2 knowledge is different from the L1 knowledge of
a monolingual speaker
• Even their L1 knowlegde is different from the L1
knowledge of a monolingual speaker
• Their language processing is different from monolingual
speakers
• Their thought processes are different from monolingual
speakers
Difference or Deficit?
• L2 users differ from L1 monolinguals :
“difference” = deficit from NS standard?
Labov, (1969):
ONE GROUP SHOULD NOT BE MEASURED
AGAINST THE NORM OF ANOTHER.
People cannot be expected to conform to the
norm of a group to which they do not belong
(race, class, sex, ethnicity)
Consequences for TEFL
Teachers, researchers, “people” in general

think:
• L2 users can be judged by L1 NS norms
• Different than NS grammar/vocab/pron =
sign of the L2 user’s failure to become NS
Instead: Accomplishment in learning to

use L2
What could be done?
• Set goals appropriate to L2 users
– Establish Ss’ communicative needs instead of relying on NS
models
• Include L2 user situations and roles
– Present situations in which L2 users take part, cross-cultural
training
• Use teaching methods that acknowledge the Ss’ L1
– For presenting meaning, communication during classroom
activities, set traslation tasks
• Base teaching on descriptions of L2 users
– Description of L2 English is needed, ELF?
Percentage of English speakers by country.
80-100% 60-80% 40-60%
20-40% 0.1-20% Not available

British Council Statistics:
Can you guess the missing figures?
• English has official or special status in at least ....... countries,
with a total population of more than ....... .......
• one out of ....... of the world's population speak English to some
level of competence; demand from the other ....... ....... is
increasing
• more than ....... ....... of the world's scientists read in English
• three .......... of the world's mail is written in English
• ....... per cent of the world's electronically stored information is in
English.
What English?
• Sociolinguistic research over the past half century
indicate clearly that languages are shaped by
their use.
• Currently: non-native users of English outnumber

native speakers 4:1

• non-native speakers of English become the main
agents in the ways English is used, is maintained,
and changes.
The Ownership of English
1986: E. spoken by at least 750 million people and barely
half of those speak it as a mother tongue.
1996: ‘at least 4 NNSs of E for every NS’
(Kachru, 1996, p.241)
80% of verbal exchanges in E don’t involve NSs
English is the official language of international air and
sea travel
English is the lingua franca in EU headquarters in
Brussels.
Pop music, pop culture, Internet, CNN, MTV, etc.
The global spread of English (Kachru, 1992)
Inner circle,
US, AU
Outer circle:
India, Nigeria
Expanding
circle: Europe,
China
“the lingua franca Englishes of the expanding circle
are learnt and used in communication contexts
where NSs are not the target interlocutors, and
therefore where they do not have the right to regard
themselves as the reference point against which
correctness is judged.” (Jenkins, 2006, p. 139)
“NSs may feel the language belongs to them, but it

will be those who speak E as a S/FL who will
determine its world future.” (Graddol, 1997)
What is ELF?
• Have you ever heard of ELF before learning about in at
univerity?
• Where? What did you hear?
• What do you think about ELF now?
• How would you define it?
Description
ELF is:
• English used mainly in multilingual contexts as a
second language and for communication btw non-
native speakers
• A distinct manifestation of English not tied to its native
speakers
• In LF communication, linguistic forms are negotiated
by each set of interlocutors for their own,
communicative ends
• Speakers focus on intelligibility rather than correctness
Multicompetent ELF users
A B
Multilingual
Multilingual
L2
competence
≈ L2
competence
Multilingual Multilingual
L1 L1
competence competence
Does TEFL follow these changes?
ELF is practically nonexistent in language

teaching curricula and materials
i.e. ELF has not had any major impact on how the
subject “English” is actually
• conceptualised,
• linguistically described,
• and pedagogically prescribed for learning.
• teachers are expected to help their learners cope with
“real English”, which is taken to be the English used
by native speakers in their speech communities in
e.g. the UK or the US.
• The status of the native speaker as the model

condemns all learners to ultimate failure (COOK,
1999); since nobody can become a native speaker of
an additional language.
Student conceptions of ELF interaction
(Hynninen, 2010)
• How do university students who study in international

contexts & regularly use ELF perceive the situation?
Findings:
• The students prefer L1 English and L1 English speakers
as their language learning models;
• Appropriate ELF use is described as different from L1
English. (modified, simplified, clear)
• L1 English is natural, fluent, but more difficult to
understand
• L1 correctness is not an issue in ELF situations.
• “We try to to to speak all the time in easy sentences”
Local identities, global connections: Affinities to
English among students at the Freie Universität
Berlin (Erling, 2007)
Students do not link E with particular geographical or
cultural communities but with a spreading international
culture.
A significant no. of students are not interested in Br/Am
culture or history.
Language = means to communicate internationally.
• “I don’t care about what Clinton does in his private life ...
and I don’t really care about England. I suppose I study
English because it’s become the Latin of the 20th
century.” (p.127)
Swiss teachers’ views on “Euro-English”
(Murray, 2003)
• Survey, 253 teachers: 54.6% NS & 41.1% NNS

• Paradox: although the role of English in global
communication is generally acknowledged,
teachers and learners alike still have trouble
accepting any kind of English other than the NS
speaker model.
• Difference btw. Ts of adults vs school Ts
• Ts of adults: higher level of agreement with
“Learners should have more say in whether they
imitate native or non-native speakers.”
Swiss teachers (cont.)
• non-native speaker teachers invest a substantial
amount of time developing their competence in (ENL)
English and are reluctant to discount this investment.
• foreign language teaching at school tends to test and
value what has been taught rather than what has been
acquired: emphasis on accuracy
• “I’ve never met a learner who wanted to imitate a non-
native speaker.”
• adult language teaching: places greater emphasis on
performance & communication
Swiss teachers: signs of change
T1: “I welcome the development of Euro-English
… because it confirms my growing discomfort
with correcting errors … which do not interfere
with understanding”
T2: “I have more or less eliminated all
metaphors, idioms, etc. from my courses and
only insist on correcting grammar mistakes
when they inhibit understanding … I don’t put
any emphasis on phrasal verbs as I find
Europeans understand their synonyms better”
Challenges in teaching ELF in the periphery
(Sifakis, 2009)
• Research shows that EFL teachers seem to recognize the

usefulness of the ELF-based skills mentioned in NNS–NNS
communication but are prone to taking up an NS-oriented
perspective when asked specifically about language teaching
• Lack of detailed description of ELF/ELF use
• Exam requirements
• An additional concern: the degree to which teachers are
willing and ‘ready’ to engage in ELF teaching.
Sifakis (cont.)
• Skills based curriculum:
1 making learners aware of what is involved in
contextualized instances of successful NNS–
NNS communication and
2 engaging them in similar interactions among
themselves.
Teaching ELF
• ELF: why we can’t teach it (Laura Patsko, 2013)
• We can’t ‘teach ELF’
• just as we can’t precisely ‘teach EFL/ESL’.
• What we’re really doing is teaching learners to
use English
in a particular way
in a particular setting/environment
for a particular purpose.
ELF: why we MUST teach it
• So in the sense of teaching something fixed,
absolute, black-and-white, you can’t teach ELF.
• But in the sense of teaching flexible, adaptable
communication skills and strategies for
dynamic, diverse situations, there’s plenty of
room for development. We can (and should)
teach students how to use their linguistic
resources appropriately for the situation at
hand.
Consequences for L Teaching in Hu
• Abandoning the NS is currently unrealistic
• More emphasis on the student as L2 user
• Students should encounter skilled L2 use
• Base teaching on description of L2 users (corpora)
• NNS teachers present a more achievable model for students
than NSs.
• Use of L1 in the classroom:
– getting the meaning across;
– natural code switching;
– activities deliberately using both L1 & L2
References
Cook, V. (1999). Going beyond the native speaker. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 185-209.
British Council: How to teach E as a lingua franca (ELF)?
https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/how-teach-english-lingua-franca-elf
Erling, E. (2007). Local identities, global connections: Affinities to English among
students at the Freie Universität Berlin. World Englishes, 26, 111–130.
Hynninen, N. (2010). “We try to to to speak all the time in easy sentences” –Student
conceptions of ELF interaction. Helsinki English Studies, 6, 29–43.
Murray, H. (2003). Swiss English teachers and Euro-English: Attitudes to a non-native
variety. Bulletin VALS-ASLA (Vereiningung für angewandte Linguistik in der
Schweiz) 77, 147–165.
Patsko, L. (2013). ELF: Why we can’t teach it.
https://laurapatsko.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/elf-why-we-cant-teach-it/
Sifakis, N. (2009). Challenges in teaching ELF in the perifery: The Greek context. ELT
Journal, 63(3), 230-237. doi:10.1093/elt/ccn057
Thank you for your attention!
Reading
• Cook, V. (1999). Going beyond the native speaker.
TESOL Quarterly, 33, 185-209.
The use of the L1 in language
teaching and learning
Lecture 4
Teachers
1
Use of L1
• What do you think about using the L1 in language
teaching/learning?
• Can you think of arguments for and against it?
Pros and Cons of using the L1 in…
1. Conveying L2 meaning
2. Maintaining discipline
3. Explaining tasks and tests
4. Explaining grammar
5. Practising codeswitching
6. Building personal relationships with students
Pros and Cons of using the L1 in…
7. Avoiding unnecessary input modification

8. Developing translation skills
9. Preparing for activities conducted in the L2
10. Reducing anxiety in the learner
11. Demonstrating respect for the learner by acknowledging
their L1 identity
Monolingual principle
• Advocates the maximal use of TL in the classroom
• Arguments for it
– Maximize exposure to TL
– Role of comprehensible input (Krashen)
– Students perceive the TL as useful medium for communication
– Students learn to „think in the TL” – avoid translation and keep L1
and TL separate (?)
– Native teachers?
L1 use in different language teaching approaches
Methods based on exclusive L2 use Methods requiring the use of L1
• Direct Method • Grammar Translation

• Audiolingual Method • Community Language Learning
• Total Physical Response • Bilingual Method
• Situational Language Teaching • Translanguaging Approach
• Silent Way • Two-way Immersion Programmes
• Natural Approach
Use of L1 in instructional activities
• Many popular handbooks for teachers make hardly any
reference to the L1 in teaching activities (e.g.: Ur, 1996; Celce-
Murcia, 1991; Harwood, 2010, Tomlinson, 2010)
• General assumption: language teaching activities should be
almost entirely L2 based
• But: in Chinese, Japanese textbooks
– Rubrics for activities in the L1
– Translation equivalents of L2 words are provided
Monolingual principle in national policies
• Hong Kong
• UK
• China
• South Korea
• L2 use in encouraged in all the above countries
• Hungary?
What happens in the classroom?
Teachers’ perspective
• Teachers of French in Canada used 28%-76% English in their
classes (Turnbull, 2001)
• Teachers of Japanese, Korean, German and French in New
Zealand used 12%-77% English (Kim & Elder, 2005)
• English teachers in Korea: average 40% Korean used on
recordings, real figure might be around 68% (Liu et al., 2004)
• Foreign language lessons in the USA: big differences in TL use
(from exclusive TL use to less than 10%) (Duff & Polio, 1990)
What happens in the classroom?
Students’ perspective
• Immersion learners speak in the L1 throughout the programme
when interacting with each other (Tarone & Swain, 1995)
• EFL learners are more likely to use the L1 when the focus is on form
(Storch & Aldosari, 2010)
• L1 can be used as a cognitive resource (e.g. generating ideas before
writing) (Stapa & Majid, 2009)
• L1 is used for metatalk when discussing how to perform a task
(Brooks & Donato, 1994)
• L1 use is less common when learners do not share the same L1
(Storch & Wigglesworth, 2003)
Students’ perceptions of the teacher’s L1 use in
China and HK
Students’ perceptions of the teacher’s L1 use in
Hungary
• „A nyelvórán többet beszélünk az idegen nyelven, mint
magyarul”
1. Egyáltalán nem igaz/nincs ilyen

2. Nem igazán
3. Közepesen
4. Eléggé
5. Nagyon igaz
Hungary, 2017
általános iskola 7. évfolyam
„We use the foreign language more in gimnázium 7. évfolyam
class than Hungarian" percentages gimnázium 11. évfolyam
szakgimnázium 11.
évfolyam
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
egyáltalán nem nem igazán közepesen eléggé nagyon igaz
igaz, nincs ilyen
N=8131
Teachers’ feelings in connection with L1 use
• Feeling guilty
• Feeling unprofessional
Purposes of L1 use in China and HK
Purposes of L1 use in the USA
Main categories of purposes of L1 use
1) Building social relationships
2) Communicating complex meanings
3) Maintaining control over class environment
• These are important factors in classroom learning

• They would provide an ideal framework for TL communication
motivated by real communicative needs
• Why do teachers not use them?
Reasons given for resorting to L1 use
• Students’ low level of proficiency
• Teacher’s own level of proficiency
• Large class size
• Pressure of exams
• “Comforting effect” and “psychological reassurance” provided by
L1
• Excluding the L1 entirely might make students feel powerless,
demotivating effect
• Etc.
The role of the L1 in L2 learning- negative transfer
• L1 transfer (earlier), cross-linguistic influence (now)

• L1 was seen as interference, Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis
(CAH) attempted to predict errors
– Strong form of CAH untenable, weak form ok
• Need to differentiate between transfer phenomena and
developmental orders
The role of the L1 in L2 learning - L1 as a resource
• Positive transfer
– Study of relative clauses
– Cognates
– Transfer of literacy skills
• Communication strategies (conscious, problem solving, L1 or L2-
based)
– L1 based communication strategies
• Literal translation
• Language switch
• Foreignizing
– Low proficiency learners tend to use L1-based strategies more
– In case of a lexical problem L1-based strategies are more common
• Not clear whether they prevent or facilitate interlanguage
development, could be both
• L1 as a mediational tool
– In Sociocultural Theory, L1 is seen as one of the primary means by
which learners can mediate L2 learning
– Learner frequently use their L1 in private speech
– L1 plays a facilitative role in social interaction involving L2 learners
(metatalk, problem solving)
• Affect
– Using the L2 is often anxiety provoking for learners
– L1 as a means of showing respect towards students’ culture
– L1 as a means of creating rapport
– L1 as a means of reducing anxiety (no empirical evidence for this)
Principled approach to L1 use
• Creating a principled approach for integrating the L1 in the L2
classroom
• Distinguishing
– Core goals (teaching the target language)
– Framework goals (managing the classroom)
• Distinguishing
– Teachers’ strategic use of the L1 (serving a pedagogical purpose)
– Teachers’ compensatory use of the L1 (responding to a current
problem)
Framework (Littlewood & Yu, 2011)
Strategic use of Compensatory use of
L1 L1
Core goals Planned learning An ad hoc crutch to
activities help learning
Framework Affective and An aid to class
goals interpersonal management
support
Use of the L1 to achieve core goals
• Strategic use of L1
– Presentation stage:
• Clarifying meaning
• Comparison between TL and L1 can help understanding and increase
confidence
– Practice stage:
• Drill like use of L1 stimuli to elicit target structures (not only at word
level)
• Translation, interpretation
– Production stage
• Start from situations of L1 use, which serve as input for TL use
Use of the L1 to achieve core goals
• Compensatory use of L1
– L1 used in ad hoc manner when communication difficulties arise
– As students gain more knowledge and teacher develops more
confidence, gradual reduction of L1 use is expected in this domain
Use of the L1 to achieve framework goals
• Strategic use of L1
– Reassuring role of the L1, especially in majority language contexts
– Affective considerations
– Unpredictable, complex nature of such communication
– BUT these are opportunities for using the TL for authentic
communication – no „recipe-style” solutions
– Growing TL use is expected, but acknowledge L1 as source of support
and security
Use of the L1 to achieve framework goals
• Compensatory use of L1
– Focus is on pragmatic aspects for setting up a context for learning
(opening and closing lessons, giving instructions, maintaining
discipline, etc.)
– Tension between:
• These are opportunities for natural communication and negotiation of
meaning using the TL
• L1 use might save time
– Reducing the L1 and aiming for the TL would be desirable
Strategies for maximizing TL use
• Teacher’s own determination and confidence
– Increased experience leads to more confidence, less anxiety
• Communication strategies
– Repetition, substitution, simple explanation, exemplification, giving
clues, compensatory strategies (paraphrase, gestures, pictures, etc.)
• Starting simple
– When giving instructions, teachers should start with familiar or
simple tasks
– Familiar classroom routines, with predictable meaning
Using the L1 for teaching grammar
Butzkamm, 2011
Principle of double comprehension
1. Understanding message – functional level
2. Understanding structure - formal level
Understand both what is literally said and what is meant

Clarifying grammatical functions through idiomatic
translations
German French
If it had rained, Wenn es S’il avait plu, on

we would have geregnet hätte, serait resté à la
stayed at home wären wir maison.
zuhause
gebleiben.
Clarifying grammatical forms through MT mirroring
English It’s three o’clock. Literal
translation
German Es ist drei Uhr. It’s three clock.
French Il est trois It’s three hours.
heures.
Finnish Kello on kolme. Clock is three.
Spanish Son las tres. Are the three.
Idioms and compounds
English Chinese (literal
translation)
Spend money like water Spend money like soil
Lead a dog’s life Live a pig’s and dog’s life
Practice makes perfect Practice can make mastery
Fight fire with fire Use poison defeat poison
Conclusion
Teachers should aim for
– Systematic
– Selective
– Judicious
use of the L1!
Thank you for your attention!
Reading
• Littlewood, W., & Yu, B. (2009). First language and target
language in the foreign language classroom. Language
Teaching, 44(1), 64-77. doi:10.1017/S0261444809990310
Grammar acquisition in SLA
Lecture 5
Second Language Acquisition for Teachers
1
Debate in SLA
• Can grammar be learnt?
• Through conscious learning of grammar rules
• Should it be acquired?
• Picked up in the context of meaningful language use
• What do you think?

Changing view of grammar instruction
• Focus on grammar
• Grammar-translation method (deductive), Audio-lingual method (inductive), etc.
• Synthetic syllabi, Focus on Forms
• Presentation, Practice, Production (PPP)
• Focus on meaning
• Communicative language teaching
• Strong and weak forms of CLT
• Focus on Form (FonF) approach
• Task-based language learning
• Analytic syllabi
• Task cycle
• Performance areas/communicative competence: accuracy, fluency, complexity
Explicit learning
•Learning with awareness
•Takes place through explicit instruction
•Leads to explicit knowledge
• Conscious, learnable, verbalisable, declarative
•Stored in prefrontal cortex
Implicit learning
• Learning without awareness
• Takes place when learners are exposed to meaning-
focused input
• Leads to knowledge acquired incidentally and stored
implicitly
• No conscious awareness, procedural, cannot be verbalised
• Stored in perceptual and motor cortex
Relationship between implicit and explicit
learning
• Non-interface position
• No connection between implicit and explicit knowledge, explicit cannot turn into
implicit
• UG, Krashen
• Strong-interface position
• Explicit knowledge resulting from instruction can turn into implicit knowledge
through practice
• Automaticity (skills acquisition or instance theory)
• Weak-interface position
• Explicit knowledge facilitates the development of implicit knowledge through other
processes (e.g. noticing) that aid acquisition
• Noticing Hypothesis (Schmidt, 1993)
Skills Acquisition Theory (Adaptive Control of Thought,
Anderson,1983)
Model of the acquisition of expertise
Step 1.
Task relevant declarative information employed step by step to solve the task
(heavy demands on WM)
Step 2.
Associative stage – steps are simplified
Composition (steps are combined)
Proceduralisation (learner recognises the relevance of particular piece of
knowledge to specific situation)
As a result: single automatic choice is made – rules become overgeneralised
Step 3.
Practice is needed to reduce reaction time, error rate and attention required,
gradual automatisation of knowledge takes place
Instance theory (Logan, 1988)
• Automatization means that instead of rule application, the solution is
retrieved from long-term memory in one step
• When solving any particular task, a representation is formed in long-
term memory, but retrieving one particular memory trace might take
too long – it is probably quicker to apply the rule
• When a task is solved several times, the number of representations
increase in memory, so it is likely that at least one of them can be
retrieved quicky – in this case memory-based retrieval is likely to be
quicker
Empirical evidence is needed about…
• Role of grammar instruction
• How explicit knowledge (developed as a result of explicit instruction)
assists implicit knowledge
• Key questions
• Whether instruction makes any difference in general?
• What type of instruction is more effective?
• When it is effective?
• What factors affect its effectiveness?
• What role instruction plays in the development of both explicit and implicit
knowledge?
Effectiveness of grammar instruction in
general
• Long, 1983:
• Compared instructional learning with exposure learning
• Conclusion: overall positive effects of instruction
• True for all age groups and levels
• Ellis, 1990, 1994 and Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991:
• Sequences of acquisition were not affected by instruction
• BUT facilitative effects both on rate and ultimate level of acquisition
• Recent studies support the effectiveness of form-focused instruction
• Explicit instruction has a positive effect irrespective of the nature of
the target structure
Need to explain variation in empirical findings
• Grammar instruction can be a wide range of things
• Explicit versus implicit
• Focus on form versus focus on forms
• Input versus output instruction
• Etc.
• Different types of instruction can have differential effects on different

types of knowledge!
Explicit versus implicit instruction
• Explicit instruction
• Presents Ls with clear information about grammatical rules and how they
work
• Implicit instruction
• Does not attempt to make Ls aware of what they are supposed to learn
• Studies in general show better results for explicit instruction
• Critique: language acquisition in these studies is usually tested on
explicit knowledge tests and NOT spontaneous usage
• Spada & Tomita’s (2010) metaanalysis: 50% of studies used measures
of implicit knowledge, and explicit instruction was still found to be
more effective!
Focus on form versus focus on forms
• Focus on Forms
• Traditional structure based instruction, language is segmented into discrete
items, presented to Ls in an isolated, decontextualised manner
• E.g.: pattern drills, fill in the blanks, etc.
• Focus on Form (FonF)
• Draws Ls’ attention to form as they arise incidentally in lessons whose focus is
on meaning and communication
• E.g.: interactional feedback, recasts
• Inconclusive results, both can be effective
• Also, it is not clear what exactly each approach entails in the studies,
i.e. what exactly differentiates them (operationalization problems!)
Input-based versus output-based instruction
• Input-based instruction
• Refers to instructional strategies that involve the use or the processing of
input
• Assumption: Ls’ attention can be drawn to grammatical forms through
activities whose aim is to understand input for meaning
• Types: processing instruction, input enhancement (textual enhancement,
input flood)
• Output-based instruction
• Draws attention to grammatical structures through eliciting and practising Ls’
output
Processing instruction (VanPatten, 2002)
Processing
instruction
Output-based
instruction
Processing instruction (PI)
• Instruction is beneficial if Ls are helped to attend to linguistic forms
when they are processing input for meaning
• Effectiveness of PI is supported by studies, but it also depends on the
complexity of target structure and the type of skill in question
• PI might be more effective for promoting comprehensions skills rather
than production skills
• PI often uses decontextualised sentences plus explicit instruction;
therefore, its effectiveness in spontaneous communication is not
clear
Input enhancement
• Forms: textual enhancement and input flood
• Textual enhancement: highlighting aspect of input (in written input:
bolding, underlining, italicizing; in oral input: added stress or repetition)
• Input flood: provision of numerous examples of a form
• Aim: raise attention to form by making it more salient
• Inconclusive results about its effectiveness
• Input enhancements seems to facilitate noticing, but not
necessarily learning
• IE only provides positive evidence but no negative (no info about what is
not possible)
• IE may not lead to deeper cognitive processing needed for acquisition
(no production is involved!)
• It is usually effective when combined with explicit instruction
Effects of different types of instruction
on different types of knowledge 1.
• Ellis, 2002: effects of explicit instruction on implicit knowledge

• 2 factors were found to mediate success
• 1. kind of target structure (in case of simple structures instruction is more effective)
• 2. extent of instruction (longer instruction is more effective)
• Ellis, Loewen & Erlam, 2006: usefulness of explicit metalinguistic
explanation and implicit recasts on the development of English past
tense –ed
• Explicit metalinguistic feedback contributed to the development of both
implicit and explicit knowledge
Effects of different types of instruction on
different types of knowledge 2.
• Andringa, de Glopper & Hacquebord, 2011: classroom study with
English learners of Dutch as L2
• Ls received either implicit or explicit instruction on 2 Dutch structures, they
were tested on tasks measuring both explicit and implicit knowledge
• Results: both types of instruction promoted implicit knowledge, but for one of
the target structures explicit instruction was more effective
• Spada & Tomita, 2010: their metaanalysis suggests that explicit
instruction contributes to the development of both explicit and
implicit knowledge
• But: few direct comparisons of implicit and explicit instruction in the studies
they examined
Pedagogical implications 1.
• Explicit grammar instruction is beneficial for the development of L2
knowledge, including implicit knowledge
• However, the relationship between instruction and learning is
complex, and the benefits of instruction might only occur under
suitable conditions
• Instruction is overall most effective when it is incorporated into a
meaning-focused context
• Focus on meaning and grammar should be combined!
• Problem-solving grammar tasks present learners with language
activities that illustrate some language structures. Ls work in
pairs/groups to reflect on grammar form and discover the underlying
rule. Ls use the target L to communicate about L – thus integrating a
grammar focus into communicative tasks
• Ls’ developmental readiness also influences whether they can benefit
from instruction
• Since individual Ls’ needs differ, Ts should use a wide range of
activities or instructional strategies to present grammatical forms
• Make use of interactional feedback during communicative activities,
where attention to form takes place at the time when Ls need it
• Nature of the target structure should also influence the way it is
taught (factors like: linguistic complexity, transparency of form-
function mapping, salience, and frequency should be taken into
account)
• e.g.: instruction may be required for grammatical features with little
communicative value
• ID differences (age, aptitude, motivation, etc.) also mediate the
effectiveness of instruction, so Ts should take these into account
Teaching tips 1.
• Make sure to include some attention-to-form or consciousness-raising
activities into the design of communicative lessons (e.g. by explaining
grammatical forms, by giving feedback, by using input enhancement)
• Provide opportunities for the development of both explicit and implicit
knowledge, but do NOT assume that explicit knowledge will be converted
automatically into implicit knowledge (practise!)
• Be aware that learning is a gradual process. Instruction is important in
raising Ls’ attention to form, but the key to the development of implicit
knowledge is continual exposure to meaningful input and practice! Provide
opportunities for the repeated use of the target grammatical forms in
meaningful communicative contexts.
Teaching tips 2.
• Ss learn a target form when they are linguistically and cognitively
ready to acquire it. Thus, Ts should target features that Ls are ready to
learn
• The nature of the target structure should be an important factor in
designing the grammar lesson
• Learners are different and learn differently, so individual learner
differences that can mediate the effect of instruction should be taken
into account
Sample tasks
From: Nassaji, H., & Fotos, S. (2011). Teaching grammar in second language
classrooms. New York , NY: Routledge.
Processing instruction 1.
Processing instruction 2.
Textual enhancement - oral
Textual enhancement - written
Input flood – definite and indefinite articles
Grammar through discourse 1.
Grammar through discourse 2.
Grammar through interactional feedback 1.
Activity 1. Interactional Feedback during Group Work Activities
The following from Hawkes (2007) shows an example of a small group
work activity involving feedback that can also be used in the
classroom.
Situation: Students are told that their school needs to hire a new
English teacher and that, as a group, the students need to decide
which of the applicants to hire.
1) Students are divided into groups of three or four. Each student is
given a different (fictional) CV and is required to share the information
on the CV with the other students.
2) Students discuss and come to a consensus on which applicant is the
best person to be hired.
3) The teacher goes around the class and provides interactional
feedback on erroneous utterances.
Grammar through interactional feedback 2.
Activity 3. Feedback on Students’ Questions using Tic Tac Toe
The following activity from Bell (2008) illustrates an example of such a task in an ESL classroom. The
target structure is ESL question formation and the elicitation task is a tic tac toe game. This is a game
consisting of a blank grid that two players fill in with Xs and Os to make complete rows in vertical,
horizontal and diagonal directions. The game is considered over when no squares in the grid remain
and the player with the highest number of completed rows wins the game.
1) Students are presented with a game board that contains nine vocabulary cards in three rows of
three. The cards are placed face down so that students do not see what the card shows. There is one
vocabulary word or phrase on each card that is familiar to the student.
2) Students are divided into teams: A and B. Students from each team come to the front of the class
to play the game. They take turns selecting one of the cards from the grid and make a question with
the word on the card.
3) When students make the question with an error, the teacher provides recasts in response to the
erroneous utterances (please note that the use of tic tac toe is simply to elicit questions). The teacher
can provide any other type of feedback. The game can be adapted so that teams of students can play
at once.
Structured grammar-focused tasks 1.
Activity 1. Prepositions of Location
The first task is an implicit structured grammar-focused task and
consists of a picture of a living room. Working in groups of three or
four, learners are given task cards with questions about the location of
different items, such as a book, a table or a chair. The other learners
answer the questions. The target structure is the use of prepositions of
location, although this is not mentioned in the task, which appears to
be purely communicative.
Activity 5. Discovering Rules for Word Order in the Target Language
This explicit task compares word order in the learners’ native language
and the target language. Groups of three or four pupils are given two
texts, one in the target language and one in the L1. The groups are then
asked to mark the subjects and the verbs in the texts, comparing the
position of the subjects and the verbs in the two languages. They then
propose rules for the word order in the L1 and the target language to
the rest of the class.
Activity 6. Discovering Rules for “For” and “Since”
The following task is adapted from R. Ellis (2002) and provides an
example of an explicit structured grammar-focused task. Groups of
learners are presented with sentences on task cards such as the ones
below and are asked to determine when for is used and when since is
used:
• Ms. Smith has been working for her company for most of her life.
• Mr. Jones has been working for his company since 1970.
• Ms. Williams has been working for her company for 9 months.
• Mr. Thomas has been working for his company since February.
The groups then develop rules to explain when for and since are used
and present their rules to the rest of the class. Alternatively, the learners
can be presented with sentences that contain correct and incorrect
instances of since and for such as the following.
• I have read this chapter for five times.
• I was at this school since 1998.
• I have been in this room for 2 hours.
• I haven’t seen you for quite a long time.
• I have been studying this lesson for two o’clock.
The learners can then be asked to determine which sentences are
grammatically correct and which are grammatically incorrect. The
learners then develop a grammar rule that explains the correct uses of
for and since.
Grammar through collaborative output tasks 1.
Activity 1. Dictogloss
You, as the teacher, intend to teach or practice the use of relative
clauses. You may choose a text such as the following, in which
several instances of this structure occur.
Friendship
We are always looking for good friends. These days it is hard to
find true friends whom we can trust. Certainly, it is important to
be considerate of those who care for us. However, a true friend is
someone who is sincere and loyal, and is with us through tough
times. We don’t have to wonder if a friend, who is busy with a
new partner and three kids, will have time to comfort us after a
bad day. However, a true friendship is like a bridge that is built
with planks of loyalty and fastened with nails of sincerity. It is that
kind of connection that binds us together.
Procedures for completing the task:
1) Preparation and warm-up: discuss the importance of friendship and
the different ways in which someone can be a friend. Examine the
different characteristics of a good friend. Also, tell the class that they are
going to hear a text on friendship. Ask them what they guess the text
would include. Explain difficult vocabulary such as trust, loyalty, sincerity,
and considerate.
2) Dictation: read the text at a normal pace. Ask learners to jot down the
words related to the content as you read.
3) Reconstruction: ask learners to form groups of two or three and pool
their resources to reconstruct the text as closely as possible to the
original.
4) Analysis and correction: when they finish, ask learners to analyze and
compare their versions. Go around the class and help learners to correct
their errors. Do not show learners the original text until after the text has
been compared and analyzed.
Grammar through collaborative output tasks 2.
Activity 4. Collaborative Output Jigsaw Task

The following provides an example of a collaborative output jigsaw task (modelled after
Pica et al. (2006)) with a cloze component. The task includes two versions or an original
text (e.g., versions A and B), with sentences that are the same as the sentences in the
original passage and sentences which are modified. The target structure is the English
simple past tense.
1 The teacher reads the original text.
2 One student receives version A and another version B.
3 Students try to choose the correct order of individual sentences as they appeared in
the original version. They also compare different sentences in versions A and B to find
which ones are the same and which ones are different in terms of grammatical accuracy
from the original text. They also justify their choices.
4 Students try to supply any missing words and justify their choices.
5 Finally, students compare their constructed passage with the original passage.
Original text (version A)
There was a concert one night, and Bob wanted to go. He

found tickets online and purchased them. However, he could
not find anyone who wanted to attend the show with him. Bob
asked people in his class, but they did not think they had
enough money for accommodation. He asked people he
worked with, but they were not able to get days off. When he
was about to give up and sell his tickets to someone else, Bob
received a phone call from his best friend, who told him that
she was able to go with him.
Version given to student A
Sentence –
There was a concert one night, and Bob wanted to go.
Sentence –
He found ticket online and purchased them.
Sentence –
He asked people he work with, but they were not able to get days –.
Sentence –
Bob asked people in his class, but they did not think they had enough
money – accommodation.
Sentence –
When he was about to give up and sell his tickets to someone else,
Bob received a phone call from – best friend, who told him that she
was able to go with him.
Version given to student B
Sentence –
There was a concert one night, and Bob wanted to go.
Sentence –
He found tickets online and purchase them.
Sentence –
He asked people he worked – but they were not able to get days
off.
Sentence –
When he was about to give up and sold his tickets to someone
else, Bob received – phone call from his best friend, who told him
that she was able to go with him.
Sentence –
Bob asked people in his class, but they did not think they had
enough money – accommodation.
Thank you for your
attention!
Reading
• Nassai, H. (2017). Grammar acquisition. In S. Loewen & M. Sato
(Eds.), Routledge handbook of instructed second language acquisition
(pp. 205-223). New York, NY: Routledge.
Vocabulary acquisition in SLA
Lecture 6
1
Questions to consider
• How important is learning/acquiring vocabulary compared to

learning/acquiring grammar?
• How should vocabulary be taught/learnt?
Vocabulary myths (Folse, 2004)
1. In learning another language, vocabulary is not as important as
grammar or other areas.
false
2. Using word lists to learn second language vocabulary is unproductive.
false
3. Presenting new vocabulary in semantic sets facilitates learning.
false
4. The use of translations to learn new vocabulary should be encouraged.
true
Vocabulary myths (Folse, 2004)
5. Guessing words from context is not necessarily a useful strategy for
learning second language vocabulary.
true
6. The best vocabulary learners make use of one or two really good
specific vocabulary learning strategies.
false
7. The best dictionary for second language learners is a monolingual
dictionary.
false
Importance of vocabulary learning
• Vocabulary knowledge
• influences both productive and receptive skills
• is considered a key predictor of general language proficiency
• Lack of vocabulary knowledge is often seen as the main reason for
difficulties in acquiring, comprehending and using the L2 by learners
• Definition of vocabulary acquisition:
• All the processes involved in learning lexical items in sufficient depth to be
able to use them both productively and receptively, by means of multiple
incidental and intentional encounters with these items in varied contexts
Historical background 1.
• Grammar translation method
• Concentrated on grammar, mostly ignored vocabulary
• Vocabulary Control Movement (VCM)
• In the early 20th century, this movement attempted to raise the status of vocabulary
(in British sphere of influence)
• VCM was based on the use of vocabulary lists
• Used innovative and systematic criteria to select the most useful vocabulary for
language learning
• General Service List (GSL) (West, 1953)
• Audiolingual method
• Concentrated on the acquisition of grammar with the help of the principles of
behaviorism
• Assumed that vocabulary would be picked up incidentally through exposure to
language
Historical background 2.
• Communicative Language Teaching
• Acquisition of functional language, attention directed to the message, fluency, and
appropriacy (not so much to accuracy)
• Vocabulary occupied second place, thought to be acquired incidentally through
exposure
• Reemergence of Vocabulary
• Nation’s book Teaching and learning vocabulary (1990) inspired new interest in
vocabulary research and teaching
• Reintroduced some ideas of VCM, frequency-based approach, emphasizing the value
of corpus studies
• The new millennium
• Vocabulary acquisition has a central role in the field of ISLA
Mental lexicon
• Definition:
• Mental dictionary where humans store the words they have
some knowledge of. Words are not stored individually, but
appear to be highly organised and connected to each other in
an intricate system
• Metaphors:
• a dictionary
• a thesaurus
• an encyclopedia
• a library
• a computer
• a map/graph
• It stores different types of knowledge about lexical
items
• Learning of new items influences others
Learning new L2 items 1.
• L2 learners develop their mental lexicon by adding and reorganising
the connections between the words
• Williams and Cheung (2011) – newly learnt L2 words did not simply
adopt the L1 meaning but acquired their own semantic
representations which were associated with the contexts and
meaning situations in which the words were learnt.
• Priming experiment: écureuil (squirrel), but écureuil is not associated with nut
but created its own associations based on the context in which it was learnt
Learning new L2 items 2.
• Thus, L2 vocabulary learning is not simply integration of new
knowledge into an existing L1 system
• It involves establishing new connections between aspects of word
knowledge through exposure to the word in varying contexts
• Word knowledge develops from encounters with the language, thus
acquisition of lexical items is not a fixed process
• Word knowledge is a dynamic system that changes and develops over
time
Models of the bilingual
lexicon
Revised hierarchical model (Kroll & Stewart,
1994)
Revised hierarchical model (Kroll & Stewart,
1994)
• This model captures developmental change
• In the early stages of language acquisition
• L2 words are more strongly connected to their L1 translation
equivalents than to concepts
• Conceptual access takes place via the L1 equivalents
• As proficiency increases
• Links between L2 words and concepts become stronger
• Learners begin to rely more on direct links to concepts
Distributed feature model (de Groot, 1992)
Distributed feature model (de Groot, 1992)
• This model focuses on cross-linguistics differences

• Representations of concrete words and cognates are largely
shared across languages
• Representations of abstract words share fewer semantic
features
The shared asymmetrical model (Dong et al.,
2005)
The shared asymmetrical model (Dong et al.,
2005)
• This is a more dynamic model

• L1 and L2 lexicons are linked and both are connected to a
shared store of conceptual elements
• It successfully accounts for the differences across the two
languages and demonstrates the developmental process
• But the representation of concepts is vague
Modified hierarchical model (Pavlenko, 2009)
Modified hierarchical model (Pavlenko, 2009)
• Novel features of the model

• Organization of the conceptual store (fully shared, partially
overlapping, fully language-specific)
• Recognition of the phenomenon of conceptual transfer (as
different from semantic transfer)
• Semantic representation=mapping between words and concepts and
connections between words
• The main goal of L2 learning is conceptual restructuring and
the development of target-like linguistic categories
Breadth and depth of word
knowledge
Can you guess...
• the number of words in English today
• the number of words in Old English
• the number of words in German, French, Spanish, Italian and
Hungarian
• the number of words an educated native speaker of English uses
• the number of words an educated native speaker of Hungarian uses
• the number of words an average native speaker of English uses a
week
Facts about vocabulary size
• the number of words in English today (500,000 + 500,000 scientific
and technical words)
• the number of words in Old English (50-60,000)
• the number of words in German (185,000), French and Spanish
approximately 100,000) and Hungarian (110,000)
• the number of words an educated native speaker of English uses
(20,000) starting with 4-5000 words at 5
• the number of words an educated native speaker of Hungarian uses
(25,000)
• the number of words an average native speaker of English uses a
week (2,000)
Breadth and depth of word knowledge
• Breadth or size of vocabulary knowledge refers to the quantity of words a
person has some knowledge of
• usually conceptualised as form-meaning links
• Depth of vocabulary knowledge indicates the quality of that knowledge,
that is, how well those words are known
• Can include aspects like word class, collocations, grammatical functions, polysemous
meaning, associations, and constraints on use.
• Breadth and depth do not always grow in a parallel manner
• But the two dimensions are interrelated and contribute to one another
• Depth is more problematic for learners and lags behind size/breadth
• But depth is needed for using the words correctly, fluently and appropriately in
situations!
Receptive and productive knowledge 1.
• Receptive knowledge refers to understanding words encountered
while reading or listening
• Productive knowledge refers to using words in speaking and writing
• Receptive mastery comes before productive one
• As recalling the form-meaning link is enough for receptive understanding
since many other aspects are provided by the context
• But for accurate and appropriate production
• All/many aspects are necessary
Receptive and productive knowledge 2.
• Studies testing the receptive and productive mastery of form-
meaning links found:
• Receptive mastery is always higher (can be 5 times higher)
• For high frequency words: the words are recognized and their forms recalled,
but with low frequency words only form is recognized
• When learning new items (words or non-words), receptive knowledge of all
knowledge aspects was always larger than the productive knowledge
• Thus, receptive knowledge of different word knowledge aspects
seems to be more robust and acquired earlier than productive
knowledge
Vocabulary size needed for communication in
L2
• For oral communication in everyday informal situations:
• 2,000-3,000 word families are needed (if 95% coverage is the aim) – enough
for informal narratives
• 6,000-7,000 word families are needed (if 98% coverage is the aim)
• For reading:
• 8,000-9,000 word families provide 98% coverage – needed for reading
authentic texts
• 4,000-5,000 word families provide 95% coverage – enough for initial
engagement, but there is a need for teacher support
• These figures do not take into account lexical phrases or formulaic
language, so they underestimate the actual numbers!
Depth of word knowledge: aspects
• Most common framework: components approach, which describes
the various aspects of word knowledge
• Nation’s (2013) list is the most detailed:
• Form (spoken, written, word parts)
• Meaning (form and meaning, concept and referents, associations)
• Use (grammatical functions, collocations, constraints on use)
• All nine aspects should be mastered both receptively and productively
• Not even native speakers might know all of these fully for all their
lexical items, so this should not be expected of learners either!
Nation’s (2013) framework of the dimensions involved
in knowing a word
Vocabulary acquisition is incremental in
nature
• Various word knowledge aspects are not learnt at the same rate
• Some are learnt before others and at different rates
• The development of each word knowledge aspect occurs
incrementally
• Aspects are not learnt in a dichotomous unknown/known fashion, but rather
along a continuum
• Learners’ knowledge of vocabulary develops from receptive mastery
to productive mastery
• This is true of all aspects of vocabulary knowledge
• But the process of vocabulary acquisition is somewhat unpredictable,
there can also be regressions
Formulaic language is important
• Traditional way of looking at vocabulary
• Single words strung together by syntactic rules
• Corpus research has demonstrated the existence of large amounts of formulaic
language
• Definition: various types of vocabulary (idioms, lexical bundles, collocations) which operate
as multiword units
• Formulaic language is common in a range of languages
• one third to one half of English discourse is estimated to be formulaic
• Communicative functions
• social interaction, functional use, organising discourse
• Facilitates fluency as it reduces cognitive load
• Very diverse, so it is difficult to teach, but because of its importance, it should be
taught!
Pedagogical implications
• Vocabulary is an essential aspect of language
• Still in many L2 classrooms not much time is allocated to it
• This is problematic as vocabulary learning entails the acquisition of
thousands of items, with many different aspects per item, which
requires multiple encounters and considerable time
• Teachers should not assume that sufficient vocabulary can be
acquired by exposure to grammatical or communicative activities
• Principled approach is needed!
Four main principles of vocabulary instruction
(Graves, 2006)
1. Provide rich and varied language experiences
Through various skills, variety of topics, and genres
2. Instruction of words
Direct instruction, explicit methods, from simple definition to more detail
depending on the word and the stage of learning
3. Teaching strategies for autonomous vocabulary learning
Infer words from context, clues, use of dictionaries, connecting new knowledge
to what has previously been acquired
4. Foster the active engagement of students in vocabulary learning
Promote interest and involvement an motivate learners
Incidental and intentional
learning of vocabulary
Incidental learning of vocabulary 1.
• It refers to the process of acquiring vocabulary knowledge when the
specific lexical item being learnt is not the main focus of either the
teaching or the learning activity
• Learners’ purpose is enjoying the task or understanding a message,
but in this process they acquire some words without making a
conscious effort
• What is the number of exposures necessary for learning a word
incidentally from context?
• 8-10 exposures – for answering form-meaning multiple choice items
• If the reading is important or interesting, 3 exposures might be enough
• In the case of listening, more than 15 exposures might be needed
Incidental learning of vocabulary 2.
• Consequently, repeated contact with words should be ensured
• Teachers need to find ways of increasing students’ L2 exposure inside
and outside the classroom
• Extensive reading is one of the most common way for doing this – good
solution for high-frequency words but not for low-frequency ones
• Corpus-based study: words beyond the 2,000 most frequent level will be met
rarely if at all, in the period of a year with relatively large amounts of reading
exposure
• Therefore, incidental learning in NOT enough, explicit instruction is
also required
Intentional vocabulary learning
• It refers to the deliberate attempt to learn new words through direct
instruction and the use of personalised vocabulary learning strategies
• It has been found to lead to better results than incidental vocabulary
learning
• More effective regarding recognition of meaning and form and leads to long-term
retention
• There are many potential vocabulary learning activities
• No results about their relative effectiveness
• Any activity can be useful, e.g. bilingual word cards, meaning-focused output (use
vocabulary in new contexts)
• Intentional vocab acquisition is effective in increasing both L’s vocab size
and depth
Intentional and incidental vocabulary learning
• Intentional activities need to be combined with incidental
contextualized message-focused activities
• Intentional learning increases vocabulary size and depth but
incidental message-focused activites help consolidate the previous
knowledge as well as develop further depth of word knowledge
• Some word knowledge aspects are better learnt through explicit
study (e.g. form-meaning link) while others require exposure to many
instances in a variety of contexts (e.g. collocations, register)
Multiple encounters with a word are
necessary
• In vocabulary instruction form-meaning link is considered the most
important component (prerequisite of communication)
• it can be acquired even after one encounter
• Knowing vocabulary involves more than establishing the form-meaning
link, as many aspects of word knowledge should be enhanced as possible
• this requires many encounters with the word
• Recycling of a target word has been found to improve knowledge of the
various aspects of word knowledge both receptively and productively
• 10 or more encounters with a word resulted in substantial gains in word form
recognition, word class recall and meaning recognition and recall
• Recycling is fundamental to effective vocabulary instruction
Selection of words
• The most useful words should be taught to learners, aspects
to consider:
• Frequency
• Generalisability (words useful for many purposes)
• Relevance (words relevant to L1s personal needs)
• Learnability (cognates and concrete words are easier than false
cognates or abstract words)
Frequency
• From a cost-benefit perspective, high-frequency words give a better
return
• Especially true for the earliest stages of learning
• The 3.000 most frequent words/word families are essential in English
• High-frequency vocabulary allows Ls to understand around 90% of
written and spoken English
• Ls also need mid-frequency vocabulary (3,000-9,000), Ls should as
many of these as possible
• Low-frequency words (9,000+) are too rare, Ls should use learning
strategies to acquire these on their own
Word frequency list based on BNC (Leech, Rayson &
Wilson, 2001)
1. the 11. I
2. of 12. for
3. and 13. that
4. a 14. you
5. in 15. be
6. to (infinitive) 16. with
7. it 17. on
8. is 18. by
9. to (preposition) 19. at
10. was 20. have
Needs of learners, learnability, word lists
• Ts should focus on the particular needs of their Ls and words that are
useful in a specific context (e.g. technical vocabulary)
• Learnability of words should also be taken into consideration (raise Ls’
attention to cognates)
• Ts can use word lists to guide their vocab selection
• New General Service List (NGSL) – general high frequency vocabulary
• Academic Vocabulary List – academic vocabulary
• PHaVE – list of phrasal verbs
• PHRASE- list of phrasal expressions
Appendix The PHRASE List
:
Phrasal expressions divided to match 1K frequency bands of the most common word families in the BNC. The ‘Integrated List Rank’
represents where each item falls when both lists (individual and phrase lists) are merged together.
There are three categories of genre with frequency information to help the list user discern the appropriateness/usefulness of each
phrase. The frequency information breaks down as follows:
*** = phrase most common in this genre (or as common)
** = phrase less common in this genre
* = phrase infrequent in this genre
X = phrase rare or non-existent in this genre
Integr Frequency
ated Phrase Spoken general Written general Written academic Example
List (per 100 million)
Rank
107 HAVE TO 83092 *** ** * I exercise because I have to.

165 THERE IS/ARE 59833 *** *** ** There are some problems.
415 SUCH AS 30857 * *** *** We have questions, such as how it happened.
463 GOING TO 28259 *** ** x I’m going to think about it.
(FUTURE)
483 OF COURSE 26966 *** ** * He said he’d come of course.
489 A FEW 26451 *** ** * After a few drinks, she started to dance.
518 AT LEAST 25034 *** ** ** Well, you could email me at least.
551 SUCH A(N) 23894 *** ** * She had such a strange sense of humor.
Nation’s four strands of vocabulary
instruction
1. Learning from comprehensible, meaning-focused input
2. Learning from meaning-focused output
3. Learning from language-focused or form-focused instruction
4. Fluency development
• Devote roughly equal amounts of time to these in class
1. Learning from comprehensible, meaning-
focused input
• Learning vocabulary through reading and listening activities where
the main focus is on understanding, gaining information, or enjoying
the activity
• Connected to incidental learning and the receptive use of language,
acquiring knowledge through context (e.g. watching tv, extensive
reading, etc.)
• For this to be effective Ls should already know 95-98% of the words
and be interested and motivated to do the activity
2. Learning from meaning-focused output
• Learning occurs through speaking and writing where the main focus is
on using the language to convey a specific message (not accuracy)
• Typical activities: conversations, writing a letter, telling/writing a
story, giving a talk, etc.
• Learning opportunities: noticing gaps in productive vocab knowledge,
taking the risk and using new words thereby learning about the use of
new words
3. Learning from language-focused or form-
focused instruction
• Involves direct teaching and learning of vocabulary and its different

aspects
• Typical activities: matching, fill-in-the-blanks, using word cards or
word lists, practising pronunciation, translation, dictionary use, etc.
4. Fluency development
• Focusing on receiving and conveying messages using the four skills

without worrying about accuracy
• Ls should use previously learnt vocab in timed activities in order to
develop and enhance fluency of use, that is the ability to utilize vocab
in real-time use
• Activities: skimming, scanning, speed reading, timed writing
Aspects of
teaching L2
vocabulary: the
complementary
approach
(Dóczi &
Kormos, 2016)
Teaching tips
• Include an extensive reading (e.g. graded readers) component to your
language curriculum to maximize the amount of incidental vocabulary
learning.
• Certain aspects of vocabulary (constraints of use, collocations) have
been found to require many more exposures than aspects such as
form and meaning. Such aspects are good candidates for incidental
learning from massive exposure.
• Ls can learn much vocabulary on their own. Make a list of possibly
unknown words and make Ls study these before class, so that they
understand them better in contextualized settings.
• Textbooks usually do not recycle words to a great extent. Creating
supplementary materials (word games, speaking activites) focusing on
already-taught words will aid their retention and elaboration.
• Use available vocabulary lists that can help support vocab teaching
(NGSL, NAWL, PHaVE, PHRASE)
• Use Nation’s four strands to make sure Ls receive adequate range of
input and output opportunities to learn and use vocabulary
Useful links
• Norbert Schmitt’s resources
• https://www.norbertschmitt.co.uk/vocabulary-resources
• Paul Meara, lognostics – vocabulary tests
• http://www.lognostics.co.uk/tools/
• Links to corpora – e.g. Corpus of Contemporary American English
(COCA)
• http://corpus.byu.edu/
• Corpus-based dictionary
• https://www.wordandphrase.info/old/
Thank you for your
attention!
Reading
• Gonzalez-Fernández, B. & Schmit, N. (2017). Vocabulary acquisition.
In S. Loewen & M. Sato (Eds.), Routledge handbook of instructed
second language acquisition (pp. 280-298). New York, NY: Routledge.
Listening in an L2
Lecture 7
1
Questions to consider…
• In your opinion, how important is listening?

• How did you feel about listening as a student?
• How do you feel about it as a future teacher?
• How do you think students feel about it based on
your experiences?
Issues to be resolved
in L1 speech perception
• The linearity issue. There is no precise point at which the
sound /k/ can be said to end
• The non-invariance issue. Because of the blending effect,
there is no ‘pure’ example of /k/ (cf., cool vs. kill)
• The normalisation issue. Speakers have their own idiolects
• The accommodation issue (e.g., assimilation: green paint,
elision: next spring)
• The lexical segmentation issue. There are no consistent
gaps between words in connected speech as there are in
written language
• The storage issue. The listener has to rely entirely on their
own mental representation of the utterances so far
Co-articulation
Lower level processes in
speech perception
Identifying phonemes
- How do we distinguish /p/ from /b/?
- Difference in: Voice Onset Timing (VOT) (how quickly voicing
begins for the vowel that follows)
• /ba/ voicing may start with /b/ but occurs no longer that 25
milliseconds afterwards
• /pa/ gap of 30-80 millisecond before the voicing of the vowel
starts
• VOT enables researchers to manipulate speech sound by
computer: proceed in equal steps from 0 to 80 milliseconds of
VOT
• Results show categorical perception
• Difficult or impossible to distinguish 0 ms VOT from 20 ms VOT (i.e.,
/ba/)
• 20 ms VOT accurately distinguished from 30 ms VOT (i.e., /ba/ vs. /pa/)
• Difficult or impossible to distinguish 40 ms VOT from 65 ms VOT (i.e.,
/pa/)
Categorical perception
crossover point
When do we acquire categorical
perception?
• Eimas, Siqueland, Jusczyk, and Vogorito (1971) – High
amplitude sucking procedure
• 4 months old babies make the same categorical distinctions
as adults
• Conclusion? Categorical perception may be innate?
• Kuhl and Miller (1978) tested /ba/pa/ distinction on
chinchillas
• Auditory apparatus of chinchillas is similar to that of humans
• Divide occurs at 25 millisecond boundary
• Conclusion? Spoken language has evolved in a way to
take advantage of certain acoustic properties to which
the human ear is especially sensitive
• Categorical boundaries may well coincide with focal
points where, because of the way our hearing is
constructed, we find it particularly easy to
distinguish sounds
• (similar focal points help us in distinguishing between
colours)
• Challenge to this:
In certain languages (e.g. Thai) phoneme
boundaries differ from those of English (these
boundaries are usually not recognised by very
young children!)
Constructive processes
in speech perception
Phonological illusions
McGurk Effect
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSjOXyutkCM
Role of visual input
• Limited assistance in identifying phonemes is provided
by lip movements called McGurk effect
• McGurk and MacDonald (1976)
• Show people a video where the audio and the video don’t match
• /ba/ replaces /ga/ in /garage/ with lip movements intact→
perceived as /darage/
• Massaro and Cohen (1983)
• Synthesised set of sounds ranging between /ba/ and /da/ played
together with video recording where lip movements indicated
either /ba/ or /da/
• Marginal example of /da/ is more likely to be interpreted as /ba/
when lip movements also signal /ba/
• Implications: phoneme perception is an active process
influenced by both audio and visual information
Phoneme Restoration
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLPQZgYMJ7Q
Activity
• The state governors met with their respective
legislatures convening in the capital city.
• Slice – s*lice
• The *eel was on the axle.

• The *eel was on the shoe.
• The *eel was on the table.
• The *eel was on the orange.
Phoneme restoration effect
• Warren and Warren (1970) examined what happened when
listeners hear a word with a phoneme missing. (For instance, if
the initial /p/ phoneme of the spoken word [peel] is deleted to
produce [*eel] it is ambiguous between several possible words,
including peel, meal, seal, heel and steal.)
• These sentences were presented in sentence contexts that were
biased in favour of one of the possible forms of the ambiguous
word.
• Findings: Listeners are often unaware of the missing phoneme
and are able to understand the sentence and report “hearing” the
complete word.
• Conclusion?
• context influences word perception; it can “fill in” missing phoneme
information
• speech perception is an active, constructive process in which listeners
do not simply attend to spoken information, but use lexical (word) and
contextual knowledge to generate hypotheses about the likely form of
the spoken information.
Issues in listening to L1
and L2
Listening in L1
• Infants are able to discriminate the phonemes of a
range of languages, not only those in their mother
tongue
• There is a decline in this ability between 6-8 and
10-12 months
• Decline in non-native sound discrimination
• Native sound perception is facilitated
• https://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_ling
uistic_genius_of_babies?referrer=playlist-
the_genius_of_babies&language=en
• These findings raise the issue of the impact of age
on L2 speech perception!
Better L2 performance of early
starters
• Early exposure to American English /r/ and /l/
resulted in better perception of these sounds by
native speakers of Japanese (Yamada, 1995)
• Effect of maturational constraints/CPH/loss of
neuroplasticity?
• Differences in the state of development of L1 phonetic
categories and perceived L1-L2 phonetic distance?
• Native Language Magnet Theory – L1 acts as a
“magnet”, reducing the perceptual distance between L2
sounds that are attracted by the same L1 prototype?
Core issues
• Length of residence and L2 input
• L1 and L2 use
• Modifying the adult perceptual system through
auditory training
• Modifying the adult perceptual system through
auditory-visual input
• Relationship between perception and production
Length of residence and L2 input
• Factors accounting for the lack of uniform success
among L2 learners in speech perception?
• Length of Residence (LOR) and input (Flege & Liu,
2001)
• The effects of short LOR (0.5-3.8 years) and long LOR
(3.9-15.5 years) and occupational category (student vs.
non-student) were compared on sound perception tasks
• Significant effect of LOR for students only (who probably
had more native speaker input than non-students)
• Importance of input- and interaction-rich L2
environment in the development of L2 perception!
L1 and L2 use
• Reduced use of L1 leads to better identification of
English consonants, recognition of more English words
in noise, better perception of L2 vowel contrasts
• When combined with Age of Arrival (AOA), reduced L1
input (around 8%) was more beneficial than high L1
input (around 48%) although there was still a difference
between the low input, early arrival group and native
speakers!
• Findings are compatible with the Speech Learning
Model (SLM) hypothesis, which claims that neural
plasticity in terms of the ability to establish new
perceptual categories exist throughout life
Speech Learning Model
• Speech Learning Model (SLM) hypothesis claims
that neural plasticity in terms of the ability to
establish new perceptual categories exist
throughout life and predicts
• The development of L2 perceptual categories is
dependent on the perceived distance between an L2
speech sound and the closest L1 sound
• As L1 phonetic categories develop throughout life, they
are more likely to assimilate perceptually close L2
sounds
Modifying the adult perceptual
system through training
Empirical findings
Data and common elicitation measures:
synthesized vs natural speech
• Synthesized speech
• It allows researchers to manipulate critical acoustic cues of
interest along a continuum, the end points of which represent
good examples of each of the categories that NSs clearly
perceive as different
• In contrast to NS categorical perception, less experienced Ls
typically exhibit more continuous pattern of perception
• When used as training stimuli, it results in poorer
generalization ability
• Natural speech
• It may be presented in citation form or minimal pairs which
may be words or non-words
Data and common elicitation measures:
discrimination tasks vs identification tasks
• Discrimination tasks
• Often uses synthesized speech segments
• AXB: 3 stimuli are presented and the participant decide whether X is
similar to A or B
• AX: 2 stimuli are presented, participants determine their similarity
• Performance on these tasks relies on low-level acoustic-phonetic input
• Identification tasks
• Performance on these tasks direct attention to the phonemic level,
matching input to stored representations in memory thus mirroring
daily language tasks more closely.
• Familiarity with the stimulus plays an important part (established with
the help of: likelihood of familiarity or familiarity scale)
• Density of lexical neighbourhood is also important
• Words in dense lexical neighbourhoods have many neighbours, words that
differ from the target by a one-phoneme addition, substitution or deletion in
any position)
• For L2 learners, more exposure to the spoken language is related to the ability
to recognize words from denser neighbourhoods
Modifying the adult perceptual
system through auditory training
• Perception of L2 sounds involving spectral differences,
such as /r/ and /l/ is more challenging than perception
of contrasts involving temporal differences
• NSs of English were able to learn a new VOT category in one
session
• Japanese NSs after being trained on synthesized tokens (14-
18 sessions) were unable to generalise to natural speech
tokens
• Japanese NSs after 3 weeks of training on forced choice
identification tasks involving stimuli produced by native
speakers were able to generalise performance accuracy to
novel words (produced by familiar voices) and a new voice
• Role of stimulus variablity tested: participants receiving
multiple-talker training showed better generalization to a
new voice!
Characteristics of successful L2
perception training
• Multiple exemplars
• Representative of the variability of natural language
• Natural (rather than synthesised) speech
• To preserve all acoustic cues
• Multiple talkers
• Implicit training
• Identification (rather than discrimination) tasks
• To promote observation of within-category similarities and
between-category differences
• Testing compatible with the training
• Feedback during training
Stimulus variability should be
controlled
• In successful training studies they used
• Stimuli spoken in citation form, recorded and presented
under ideal conditions
• Intelligible talkers
• Consistent rate and style of speech
• Stimuli produced by one talker per training session
• “Too much or too little variability at too early a
stage may prevent the learner from discovering
with sufficient accuracy the prototypical forms that
exemplars expound” (Leather, 1990, p. 96).
Hyperarticulated/exaggerated
speech
• Exaggerated cues were found in speech directed towards
infants and adult non-native speakers of English
• Exaggerated stimuli (adaptive training) were used to train
Japanese learners of /r/ and /l/, and its effectiveness was
compared to fixed training (good examples of the sounds)
• Results showed that fixed training with feedback was best,
followed by adaptive training with or without feedback
• Exaggerated stimuli may be perceptually more salient
leading to faster gains, but it is unlike the natural language
environment!
• Transfer and retention are unknown with such approaches
Modifying the adult perceptual system
through auditory-visual input 1.
• Visual stimuli contribute to speech perception in native
speakers (see the McGurk effect), which suggests that visual
cues should be explored in L2 perception training as well
• Audio-visual (AV) and auditory-only (A-only) training for /r/
and /l/ were compared for Japanese and Korean
intermediate learners of English
• Both types of trainings resulted in significant gains, but the
AV training was significantly more effective
• Both groups improved their lip-reading ability, as
demonstrated by a video-only test
• Successful generalisation was observed for novel stimuli and
a new talker, with transfer to improved production of /r/
and /l/
• There is variability in the degree to which visual and
auditory cues are helpful for L2 learners
• Hazan et al. (2005) found gains for labial-labiodental
contrast (/v/-/b/-/p/) for Spanish speakers but not for
the perception of /r/ and /l/ for Japanese speakers
• AV training is more effective when the critical visual cues
are sufficiently salient
• Studies are often not comparable because
• They use different varieties of English where lip movements
may be different
• Differences between speakers in stimulus
• Differences between learners
• Methodological elements of the studies
• Computer-animated talking heads have also been
used with L2 learners and children with language
disorders
• Here the articulators can also be made visible, but this
did not provide an additional benefit
• Visual input can also be provided in the form of
visual displays of pitch contours, waveform displays
for visualisation of segmental duration
• These have also been found useful, enhancing
performance
Relationship between perception
and production – word level
• Successful training usually leads to
• Retention of perceptual abilities (only 2% loss of
accuracy 3 months after the training in a foreign
language environment)
• Significant improvement in production in the absence of
production training
• But there is variability across domains and across

learners!
and production – segmental level
• Speech segmentation poses a challenge in the early
stages of L2 acquisition when learners rely on cues
relevant to the L1
• E.g. stress units in English, syllables in French, morae in
Japanese
• With increasing proficiency, learners adopt
segmentation strategies focusing on L2 relevant cues
• Segmental level perception training can improve
learners’ word identification processes, benefits are
offered by:
• Visual cues
• Sentence context
and production – gestures
• Multiple choice listening comprehension task was
administered to low-intermediate and advanced ESL
learners
• Both proficiency level learners scored significantly higher
when were could see the speaker
• For low-intermediate group: seeing the face and gestures provided
the best results
• For advanced group: seeing only the face produced the highest
scores
• Hand gestures were related to the semantic component of the
stimulus whereas lip movements were linked to the phonological
component
• Co-speech gestures also facilitated the recall of Japanese
words by L1 English learners
• co-speech gesture probably deepens the imagistic memory trace
for the new word’s meaning in the brain
Neural representations 1.
• Studies that demonstrated the importance of variable
performance across phonetic contexts and talkers support
the view that variability might be a feature of neural
representations
• Learners may rely on context dependent exemplars (rather
than abstract prototypes) for input identification
• Multiple-trace memory (MTM) theory suggests that
exemplars of episodic models and the prototypes of an
abstractionist approach could co-exist
• Memory encoding of a perceptual event involves storage of the
attended details as episodes or traces, preserving aspects of
variability
• At the time of retrieval, abstract knowledge can be derived from a
composite of memory traces. Thus, a category is regarded as an
aggregate of individual exemplars activated together at the time of
information retrieval
Neural representations 2.
• L2 learners may store details of both auditory and
visual elements of speech events in memory
• Unimodal signals may be integrated in multisensory
areas of the cortex with feedback pathways to primary
sensory areas
• The contribution of multisensory sites may lie in the
predictive role of one modality’s information on the
other to reduce stimulus uncertainty and facilitate
processing
• Visual speech can speed up the cortical processing of
auditory signals by NSs, so the importance of AV
training with feedback should be emphasised for L2
learners
Applications
• Teaching someone how to perceive a sound is not really feasible
• Production of sounds can be taught (+ influence of surrounding
sounds, rate and style of speech, proprioceptive feedback)
• Perception process can be facilitated by manipulating the input
• Studies suggest that stimulus variability contributes to the
development of perceptual categories robust to the variable input
of the natural language environment
• Feedback is also important (might be useful for the instructor to
have some knowledge of the phonology of the learners’ L1)
• Visual cues such as articulatory gestures and hand gestures
should be pointed out to learners
• Besides book and audio input, videos should also be used, care
should be taken to ensure variability and provide feedback
• Useful programs for editing audio-recordings: Audacity, Anvil,
Praat
Thank you for your
attention!
Speaking in an L2
Lecture 8
Revision of L1 speech production models
• Modular vs. Spreading activation models

• The role of activation spreading
• Hierarchical levels
• Possibility of feedback/monitoring
Levelt’s blueprint of the speaking process
Levelt’s blueprint of the speaking process
1. Conceptualization (in the conceptualizer)
message generation with the help of retrieving infromation from long-term memory (about the
discourse model, situation knowledge etc.)
2. Formulation (in the formulator)
deals with the linguistic encoding of the message in two steps:
1. grammatical encoding takes place with the help of lemmas (contaiingn syntactic
information.) resulting in the surface strucutre (sentence frames with empty slots)
2. phonological encoding takes place: with the help of lexemes (containing phonological and
morphological information) resulting in the phonetic plan (internal speech) ready to be
articulated
3. Articulation (in the articulators)
turns this internal speech into overt speech by saying it out loud
4. Monitoring
happens with the help of the speech comprehension system, if an error is detected, the process
starts again from conceptualization
A model of L2 speech production also need to
take into account…
• Effect of the L1
• Code-switching
• Transfer
• Learners’ competence
• Learners’ knowledge of the L2 is incomplete
• Speed of production
• Lack of automaticity
L2 fluency development
Types of fluency (Segalowitz, 2010)
• Fluency
• It refers to the flow or fluidity of speech
• Cognitive fluency
• Responsiveness and rapidity of the mental processes required to produce
speech, such as short-term memory, lexical retrieval, and grammatical choice
• Utterance fluency
• Associated with measures such as speech rate, pausing, hesitation, self-repair
(oral manifestations of the speaker’s underlying cognitive fluency)
• Perceived fluency
• Judgements made about speakers fluency based on impressions drawn from
their speech samples (usually correlates with utterance fluency)
Measures of fluency
Why is fluency important
• Listeners find it tiring and annoying to listen to highly dysfluent
speech
• If potential interlocutors avoid talking to the learner, they will lack
input, opportunities to speak, and negotiate meaning
• Listeners’ judgements of learners’ fluency and intelligence seem to
correlate strongly, being dysfluent may lead to overall negative
impressions
Current issues in studying fluency: Fluency in the
L1
• Pawley and Snyder (1975) collection and analysis of
conversational speech samples
• Speakers operate under a "one-clause-at-a-time” constraint, as they are
limited by cognitive processes to focus on a single clause at a time
• Pawley and Snyder (2000) reanalysed their data
• Drew attention to the use of conventional expressions as a key to native-
like fluency
• These are numerous strings of words which appeared to be learnt and
used together as a single unit, thus extending the capacity for fluent
production (also called: collocations, lexical bundles, formulaic
sequences, lexical chunks)
• These can be investigated with the help of corpus linguistics
• Multi-word units are advantageous for learners since by using
these
• NSs can understand them better
• Over time they contribute to increasing the utterance fluency of Ls
Current issues in studying fluency: Automaticity of
cognitive processing 1.
• de Bot’s (1992) adaptation of Levelt’s model

1. Conceptualiser – semantic notion that the speaker wishes to express
• choice of language is made here for bilingual or multilingual speakers
2. Formulator – words, grammar and phonology are implemented
• Separate stores for the different languages, but one common lexicon in which
items are connected, with item of the same language forming subsets
• Feedback loop for L2 speakers, who struggle with lexical retrieval
3. Articulator – speech is actually produced here
4. Monitor – for self-correction via the “speech comprehension system”
Current issues in studying fluency: Automaticity of
cognitive processing 2.
• In this model, L2 proficiency determines fluency
• Word-finding speed, knowledge of grammatical and lexical concepts
• Segalowitz (2010) identified several points where fluency could break
down
• Micro-planning stage in conceptualizer, encoding of grammar, lexical retrieval,
phonological and phonetic encoding, articulation, and the speaker’ self-
perception of their own production
• Automaticity can include: speed of processing, stability of processing, the
ballistic (unstoppable) nature of processing and the effortlessness of it
• The ease with which the learner can redirect attention as needed will also
contribute to overall cognitive fluency
Current issues in studying fluency: Complexity
theory
• A key aspect of this theory is that a change (or problem) in one area
will have an effect on other areas (accuracy, complexity, fluency)
• Language learning is not a linear process, but the linguistic system is
dynamic and shifting
• Relationships between different components are complex and affect
each other
• Individual trajectories can be quite distinct because each person’s
system is influenced by context, input, aptitude, other ID variables
and other factors in different ways.
Empirical studies
Speaker’s L1 fluency is likely to be reflected in L2 production
• Towell, Hawkins and Bazergui (1996) – 12 English native

speakers studying French
• The faster their speech rate was in their L1, the faster it was in L2
• Derwing, Munro, Thomson and Rossiter (2009) – 16
Mandarin and 16 Slavic speakers studying ESL in a 2-year
longitudinal study (data collection at 2-months, 10-months,
2-year with the help of a narrative)
• At 2-months, significant correlations were found between L1 and L2
fluency ratings
• At 10-months and 2-years, there were no significant correlations
• Explanation: greater variability in English proficiency across participants
• But one complex relationship was identified: if someone was a slow talker in
their L1, they should not be expected to be faster in their L2
Awareness of production difficulties
Kahng (2014) elicited 2 minutes of spontaneous speech from

high and low proficiency Korean learners of English and asked
them to comment on their production difficulties
• Lower proficiency participants commented more frequently on
their production difficulties and they focused more on specific
vocabulary and syntactic issues
• Higher awareness is probably due to less reliance on automated,
procedural knowledge and more reliance on declarative knowledge
L2 fluency and the L1
L2 fluency seems to be related to the participants’ L1
• Derwing et al. (2009) examined the fluency of Mandarin and Slavic
language speakers after spending several years in an L2 environment
• They found that even after spending 7 years in an L2 environment, Mandarin
speakers showed almost no improvement in fluency, while the majority of Slavic
speakers did
Fluency differences found to be related to the learners’ L1, might
be explained by other factors.
• Derwing et al. (2013) interviewed Mandarin and Slavic speakers about
time spent interacting in English and being exposed to English input (e.g.
radio)
• Slavic learner were found to have more contact with the English language
• Differing fluency levels could all be explained by socio-affective and motivational
factors
Nature of the task
Derwing et al. (2004) and Foster and Skehan (1996) found
fluency differences related to different types of tasks
• Picture narrative/picture description tasks usually resulted in less
fluency than cooperative tasks
• Unfamiliar lexical items cannot be avoided in the case of picture
narration/description
• Differences might be explained by a higher cognitive load
characteristic of these tasks
Planning
Opportunity to plan before a task also influences fluency
• Ellis (2009) review of several studies
• Rehearsal (doing the task once before just to try) had a
positive effect on fluency, but it did not necessarily transfer to
new tasks
• Strategic planning seems to have increased fluency in most
studies
• On-line planning does not increase fluency
• Planning time of 5-10 minutes was preferable to 1 minute
planning
• Effects of guided vs unguided planning should be examined!
Power dynamics and complexity of message
The dynamic between the L2 speaker and the interlocutor can
also have a powerful effect on fluency
• Derwing, Waugh and Munro (2014) gave pragmatic training to
learners, which was judged successful based on pre- and post-task
ratings
• Still, out of the 4 situations (2 refusals, 2 requests) tested, fluency
only improved in one
• The only scenario where fluency improved was one where the speakers
were in a position of power (acting as a bank clerk, they had to refuse a
customer without an ID)
• Power dynamics might play a role in fluency, as well as the complexity of the
message to be relayed!
How to increase Ls’ fluency?
• Although fluency is limited by the learners’ own cognitive
processing speeds, pedagogical activities can increase
automaticity through
• Increased awareness of fluency markers
• Planning and rehearsal tasks
• Instruction of frequently occurring formulaic sequences
• Common discourse markers
• Intensified focus on speaking and listening activities
Obstacles to increasing Ls’ fluency
• Many L2 learners do not have much opportunity to enhance their
spoken fluency in classrooms because of:
• Large class sizes
• Competing demands of other language skills that also need to be taught
• Time limitations
• Lack of familiarity on teacher’s part about activities that target oral fluency
• Solution
• Learners should engage in substantive interactions outside the classroom
• If that’s not possible, then their oral fluency should be developed in the
classroom
Instructed oral fluency development 1.
• There are very few studies
• Nation (1989): successive retellings of the same story in progressively
shorter periods of time
• Resulted in fewer pauses and fillers, Ls became more fluent
• Temple (2005): investigated fluency development in instructed
learners of French
• After 3 months of instruction, the Ls speech rate increased, the placement of
pauses changed from clause-internal to clause-initial (approximating NS
norms)
• Gatbonton and Segalowitz (2005) proposed ACCESS
(Automatization in Communicative Contexts of Essential
Speech Segments), which has 3 phases:
• Creative automatization
• Pre-task and main task (essential speech elements are introduced by the
teacher to suit the task)
• Language consolidation
• Reinforcement of important sequences and form-focused practice if
needed
• Free communication
• Discuss the topic freely (because of the same topic, Ls are likely to repeat
essential speech elements)
• Nation and Newton (2009) provide suggestions for a listening and
speaking pedagogical approach to enhance fluency
• Ls should focus on all language skills
• Tasks should entail language with which the Ls are completely familiar
• Focus: sending and receiving messages + time pressure
• Besides receiving large amounts of input, Ls should be encouraged to produce
similar amount of output to become fluent!
• Swain’s (1985) Output Hypothesis – output is needed for
• Switching from semantic analysis to syntactic analysis
• Noticing aspects of Ls that are not necessary for comprehension
• Galante and Thomson (2016): pre-intermediate learners of
English were tested on 5 tasks after a 4-month instruction
period. Half of the students were taught by communicative
methods, the other half using drama methods.
• Before instruction there was no difference in fluency between the
groups. The fluency of the communicative group did not change as
a result of the training, but the drama group became considerably
more fluent.
• Students were able to generalise their improvisational skills
Fluency development outside the
classroom
Effects of study abroad programs
• Lennon (1990): compared fluency ratings of 4 German learners who
spent 6 months in England.
• All participants showed improvement on some fluency measures, especially
noticeable: reduction in pause time and different pause placement!
• Special issue of SSLA (2004)
• Simply going abroad does not guarantee gains in fluency
• Context is important
• Learner’s willingness to communicate and proficiency level on arrival matter
• Spending time with the host family does not guarantee success – probably
short routine conversations
Practice in authentic settings in SLA contexts
• Volunteer opportunities can be useful
• If they provide interaction-rich contexts
• Host Program/Community Connections
• In Canada, highly proficient or native speakers of English spend time with
newcomers on a social basis
• Such programs should be encouraged to help the language learning and social
integration of immigrants
Teaching tips 1.
• Raise Ls’ awareness or markers of fluency, such as appropriate
intonation to indicate that the speaker still holds the floor, placement
of pauses at phrase or clause boundaries, and explicit instruction of
oral fluency (can be practised by transcribing YouTube videos and
shadowing the speakers).
• Watch talk shows in the L2 to analyse the speakers’ use of strategies
for buying time, without sounding dysfluent.
• Engage learners in rehearsal and repetition tasks, such as Nation’s 4-
3-2 task (telling the same story every time).
Teaching tips 2.
• Develop activities that focus on meaning making.
• Explicitly teach high frequency formulaic sequences appropriate to
students’ proficiency.
• Teach discourse markers such as fillers, sequential markers, and
conventions for opening and closing conversations.
• Provide Ls with contact activities in which they must interact with others in
their L2.
• Practise formal speaking with the help of the “pyramid procedure”. Talk
should be given to a fellow student; the speaker can use detailed notes.
Following feedback, the talk is given to bigger and bigger groups with the
help of fewer and fewer notes.
Sample tasks
From: Rossiter, M. J., Derwing, T. M., Manimtim, L. G., & Thomson, R. I. (2010). Oral
fluency: The neglected component in the communicative language
classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review, 66(4), 583-606.
Disappearing Text
Aim: promoting the automatization of formulaic sequences
The instructor chooses a text of about 60 words that is
relevant to learners’ needs and interests and contains
numerous target formulaic sequences (e.g., collocations,
phrasal verbs, idioms). The instructor displays the text on the
board and reads it out loud. One or two students are then
asked to read it out loud. Next, the instructor deletes some of
the formulaic sequences and asks another learner to read the
text out loud and fill in the missing formulaic sequences.
Phrases are gradually deleted, other learners read, and so on,
until all the words have been deleted and the learners are
repeating the passage and the formulaic sequences from
memory.
Gambits Role Plays: When things aren’t quite
what they seem . . .
Aim: practising gambits
The instructor provides a sample dialogue containing gambits such as the following:
• The way things seem The way they are
• Lots of people think . . . The truth is, . . .
• It may seem . . . In reality, however, . . .
• It looks like . . . But it’s really . . .
• Supposedly, . . . Actually, . . .
Following a focus on the meaning, use, and production of the gambits, the instructor asks learners
to engage in a series of role plays such as the one below, using target expressions from the lists.
With each successive production, the gambits become more automatized.
Scenario 1: Your friend is interested in buying a used car from a classmate for $2,000. Your friend
doesn’t have much money. Convince him/her that it would be a bad idea to buy the car.
Communication strategies
Communication strategies can be used to overcome learners’
performance problems and to provide online planning time
(Dörnyei & Scott, 1997). Instructors could teach achievement
strategies such as circumlocution, which can be used to describe
ideas for which the lexis is unfamiliar and thus assist in avoiding
communication breakdown.
Activities such as the communicative crossword puzzle, depicted in
Figure 1 (adapted from Woodeson, 1982), require learners to
formulate paraphrases or definitions to assist their partners in
filling gaps in the puzzle. In so doing, learners are encouraged to
repeat and develop automaticity in using such sentence stems as
‘It’s a tool/machine that . . .’; ‘It’s a person who . . .’; ‘It’s a place
where . . .’; ‘It’s a type of . . .,’ and so on. This activity can also be
designed to reinforce new vocabulary items (using free online
puzzle creation programs).
Organizing Your Ideas
Aim: practising macro-markers
The instructor asks small groups of learners to prepare a brief presentation on
a specific topic. For example, a group of English for Academic Purposes
students could be provided with this outline:
A university education is beneficial because it
a) provides you with critical thinking skills;
b) allows you to meet people with similar interests;
c) can lead to a more interesting and financially rewarding career.
Students work together to develop the given topic with examples,
explanations, etc., using discourse markers to provide a coherent and logical
flow to the specific points being made. Such markers may include first, to
begin with, second, third, next, finally, for example, in other words, in
addition, moreover, therefore, in conclusion, in summary, etc. Groups may be
given different topics to develop. When prepared, they can then be paired
with a series of classmates from different groups to make their presentations.
Conversation Expansion
Aim: practising micro-markers
The instructor provides learners with a dialogue consisting of single word
utterances that convey a coherent message. Working in pairs, learners
alternate to construct their own dialogues of single-word utterances.
A: Movie?
B: When?
A: Friday.
B: Okay.
Learners are asked to practise the skeleton dialogues in their original form.
Then they work in pairs to expand the dialogues as fully as possible without
altering the basic meaning or structure. This will conceivably lead to extensive
use of micro-markers:
A: So, do you want to go to a movie or something?
B: Well, I’m not sure. When were you thinking of going?
A: Oh, I don’t know. Maybe Friday night.
B: Yeah, okay. Actually, that sounds like fun.
Consciousness-raising: Online planning
strategies
Aim: consciousness raising
The instructor explains to learners that the ability to organize ideas in
conversation is limited by time. Learners are asked which strategies
they use in their native language to gain planning time. Do they use
long silent pauses? Do they fill them with sounds such as um, uh, and
er? Do they use particular expressions (e.g., I think . . . or What I mean
is . . .) to give themselves more time to prepare their thoughts? Have
they noticed similar strategies being used by native speakers of
English? What sorts of fillers do native speakers use?
Data collection and analysis: Interactional
fillers
Aim: consciousness raising
The instructor asks learners to audio- or videotape two native speakers
in a one-minute conversation with each other on a given topic. Next, in
groups, the learners transcribe the conversations and identify any
lexical (e.g., well, like) or non-lexical (e.g., um, er) fillers that the native
speakers may have used. Then they compile the results, present their
findings to the class, and discuss which fillers were commonly used and
which may be more limited to specific speakers. Finally, the learners
record their own conversation with a partner, compare their use of
fillers with the fillers used by the native speakers in the previous
exercise, and report the similarities and differences that they notice.
Poster presentations
Aim: rehearsal, repetition
Each pair of learners in a class selects and reads or listens to a different
passage on a topic of interest (e.g., health issues, the environment),
then prepares and displays a poster based on the text. One learner of
each pair (the ‘host’) stands next to the poster, prepared to answer
questions about the subject, while the other (the ‘visitor’) moves in a
clockwise direction, pausing at each of the posters of other classmates
for several minutes to ask questions about their topics. When the
visitor returns to his or her original poster, the partners switch roles.
The variety of reading/listening passages provided keeps interest high
and helps to extend learners’ knowledge in a given subject area.
For or against?
Aim: repetition outside the class
The instructor and/or learners choose a topic of current interest in the
local media (e.g., Should the government ban the use of cell phones by
drivers?). With the instructor’s guidance, students formulate a series of
questions related to the issue (including open-ended questions), along
with openers (Excuse me, . . .) and closers (Thanks for your time).
Learners practise asking and answering the questions among
themselves in class. For homework, they gather responses to the
survey questions from six English speakers in the community. Results
are tallied, reported, and analyzed in the following class.
Tracking or shadowing
Aim: repetition
The instructor plays a short audio recording or podcast of a passage or
interaction that presents no comprehension problems for learners. Then, as
the first few sentences are replayed, the instructor guides the learners in
identifying pauses, thought groups, and formulaic sequences in the printed
transcript. The learners listen carefully to the entire recording two or three
times more on their own, following the transcript and paying attention to
pauses and thought groups throughout. When they feel confident in their
ability to reproduce the passage, they read it aloud several times in unison
with or slightly after the speaker, paying particular attention to the target
features. They continue to work individually at their own pace until they feel
confident enough to make their own recordings of the passage for self-, peer,
or instructor assessment.
The 4/3/2 Technique
Aim: introducing time constraints
A learner is given several minutes to mentally prepare a talk
on a topic without making notes. Topics can relate to course
content or to issues of wider interest. The learner is paired
with a classmate and asked to deliver the talk in four minutes,
while his or her partner listens. The speaker is then paired
with a different classmate and given only three minutes to
deliver the same talk. Finally, the speaker is paired with a third
classmate and instructed to deliver the talk in only two
minutes.
Thank you for your
attention!
Reading
• Derwing, T. M. (2017). L2 fluency development. In S. Loewen & M.
Sato (Eds.), Routledge handbook of instructed second language
acquisition (pp. 246-259). New York, NY: Routledge.
Reading in an L2
Lecture 9
• In your opinion, how important is reading?
• How did you feel about reading as a student?
• How do you think students feel about it based on your experiences?
• What are the terms/labels we use for different types of reading?
Say the colour in which the
word is written!
Blue
Red
White
Green
Yellow
Pink
Orange
Reading in different writing systems
• Lexical route
• Dual route
• Lexical + sub-lexical
Input-driven view of learning (Ellis, 2002)
• Learning is regarded as a process of detecting, abstracting, and
internalizing regularly co-occuring elements in input as corresponding
units
• Learning is achieved through the cumulative experience of mapping
between corresponding elements
• Frequency supports the formation of strong links
• Reading:
• Cumulative experience of symbol-to-sound as well as symbol-to-morpheme
mappings
Developmental perspective (Perfetti, 2003)
• Reading is regarded as a dynamic pursuit embedded in two
interrelated systems: a language and its writing system
• Since no writing system encodes meaning independent of the
language, links need to be established between these two systems
• Children must uncover how language elements are mapped onto the
graphic symbols that encode them
• Reading development necessitates substantial linguistic knowledge
Transfer
• Transfer is a major theoretical concept in SLA research
• L2 reading research assumes that L2 reading skills are shaped jointly
by transferred L1 skills, L2 linguistic knowledge and L2 print input
• L2 reading is cross-linguistic, it entails interaction and assimilation of
L1 and L2 factors
• L2 reading development needs to explain:
• How L1 skills are assimilated in L2 reading
• How the resulting L2 skills vary across learners with diverse L1 backgrounds
Historical overview
Of theories of L1 reading
Top-down approach
Bottom-up approach
Top-down view of reading
• Reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game
• Readers are forming and confirming hypotheses about up-coming text
contents
• Two underlying assumptions
• Reading is a single unitary construct
• Reading is universal across languages
• These assumptions were challenged and discredited later!
Reading is not a unitary construct
• Newer models of reading consider it as a complex, multi-faceted
process
• “Component skills approach”
• Reading is the product of a complex information-processing system involving
the constellation of closely related mental operations
• The operations are distinct and theoretically separable
• Each operation necessitates a set of processing skills
• There is variance in all facets of reading ability
• Attempts to determine the source of reading problems attributable either to
a single deficiency or a combination of multiple deficiencies
Reading is not universal across languages
• Language processing theories based on solely from native English
speakers have been challenged by experimental psychologists
• Cognitive strategies involved in sentence comprehension and production are
heavily constrained by the syntactic properties of the language involved
• Word recognition studies have also reported that different procedures are
used during print information processing by skilled readers of typologically
different writing systems
New conceptualisation of reading universals
• Currently, re-emergence of “Reading universals”
• But this new theory incorporates the multi-dimensionality of reading and the
cross-linguistics variation in its operation
• It intends to specify the universally mandated demands for learning to read
imposed on all learners in all languages
• It lays the foundations on which the language specific demands of learning to
read can be identified and compared systematically across typologically
diverse languages
Changing conceptions of reading transfer 1.
• Despite the fact that transfer is a major concern in SLA
studies, there is no explicit theory about the transfer of
reading skills from one language to another
• Studies have been conducted in the framework of
“Developmental interdependence hypothesis”
• It posits that academic language competence is supported by a set
of non-language specific capacities referred to as “common
underlying proficiency”
• Since literacy skills are part of this competence, L2 reading skills are
determined by the extent this “common underlying proficiency”
has been established in the L1
Changing conceptions of reading transfer 2.
• Critique:
• In earlier studies, it was unclear what “common underlying proficiency”
meant exactly, what was the core construct
• This led to major differences in research design making studies impossible to
compare
• In more recent studies, reading skills have been more clearly defined
within the component skills approach, which helped to clarify the
notion of “common underlying proficiency”
• These studies have revealed connections in a small but critical set of skills, like
phonological awareness, decoding, orthographic processing, across diverse
combination of languages
Core issues in L2 reading
• How do reading skills in two languages relate to each other?
• Which factors affect the way transferred reading skills are assimilated
in L2 reading?
• How do the resulting L2 skills vary across learners with diverse L1
backgrounds?
Central processing hypothesis
• Concentrates on underlying cognitive factors
• It states that differences in underlying cognitive factors (e.g. working
memory and coding speed) are responsible for variances in reading
achievement
• Good readers are likely to be good readers in another language, while
those experiencing problems will probably run into similar difficulties when
learning to read in an L2
• Although the idea of “central processing” originated in the “common
underlying proficiency” framework, the identification of the skills became
possible due to the “component approach”
• This allows to test the hypothesis generated by this theory
Script-dependent hypothesis
• Concentrates on underlying language-specific skills
• It states that decoding development is facilitated by phonological
transparency of the writing system
• Phonological transparency = the degree of regularity in symbol-sound
correspondences
• It aims to explain why decoding skills are acquired more easily in
some languages than in others
• It emphasises the importance of phonological transparency and other
language-specific properties in explaining variations in reading
acquisition
Central processing hypothesis vs script-
dependent hypothesis
• Although concentrating on different factors thus arriving at different
conclusions, the two hypotheses are complementary
• Central processing hypothesis deals with non-language specific skills
• Script-dependent hypothesis deals with language-specific skills
• This is important, as the two sets of skills are supposed to behave
differently when transferred to L2 reading
• Non-language specific skills once developed should be available when
learning to read in another language
• Language-specific skills are closely related to L1 properties which may or may
not be shared between, and can only become functional in a L2 after
modification
Factors affecting the assimilation of L1 skills in
L2 reading
• Which factors affect the way transferred reading skills are assimilated in L2
reading?
• Linguistic distance (degree of similarity) between the 2 languages matters
• When 2 language share similar structural properties, processing should also be
similar
• E.g. alphabetic writing systems share the basic unit of orthographic representation,
thus similar symbol-to-sound procedures are required for decoding regardless of the
graphic form of the symbols
• Ultimately, it is the quality (linguistic/orthographic properties) and quantity
(frequency) of L2 print input that determine the L2 skills emerging
• Studies so far have focused on the effect of L2 proficiency
• A detailed analysis of L2 input properties is needed!
Variations in L2 reading skills
• How do the two languages interact during L2 print information
processing?
• The basic assumptions are two-fold
• L2 reading skills are shaped through continual cross-linguistic interactions
between transferred L1 skills and L2 print input
• Such interactions induce sustained assimilation of print processing
experiences in two languages
• Thus, the resulting L2 skills should reflect the major properties of the two
languages involved, and therefore, vary systematically across learners with
diverse L1 backgrounds
• How do the resulting L2 skills vary across learners with diverse L1
backgrounds?
How do the resulting L2 skills vary across
learners with diverse L1 backgrounds?
Generating hypotheses
Construct of reading
Reading involves 3 major operations:
1. Decoding
• Extracting phonological and morphological information from print
2. Text-information building
• Integrating the extracted info into phrases, sentences, paragraphs
3. Reader-model construction
• Synthesizing the amalgamated text-information with prior
knowledge
Questions
What are the requisite skills for each operation?
How do they differ across languages?
Linguistic analysis
• Reliable methods of comparing corresponding skills between two
languages are needed
• Language-specific demands for a particular task need to be
identified by analysing the properties of the linguistic facet
directly related to the task
• E.g., decoding: linguistic demands of phonological information
extraction are
• Uncovering which phonological unit is directly encoded in each graphic
symbol and how the symbols are combined to represent spoken words
• In English
• Decoding depends on orthographic knowledge (understanding the rules
about how graphic symbols represent sounds)
Cross-linguistics analysis
• Documentation of the linguistic demands for a particular
task allows systematic comparisons of the requisite skills for
the task in two languages
• It allows estimates with regard to how the transferred skills
might be used in another language
• E.g., decoding: cross-linguistic variation in the requisite skill
for phonological information extraction can be identified by
comparing the basic unit of orthographic representation in
the languages involved
• Korean: sensitivity to both syllables and phonemes is needed
• Hebrew: stronger sensitivity to consonants than to vowels
• Chinese: morphological awareness is more important than
phonological awareness
Testing hypotheses
• Correlational studies
• If a new set of skills is built on a set of previously acquired ones,
correlation is expected between them
• Causality cannot be attributed based on correlation, more
sophisticated statistics are needed (regression analysis,
structural equation modelling, etc.)
• Group comparison studies
• Cross linguistic experiments on L2 learner groups with different
L1 backgrounds
• E.g., L2 learners of English with alphabetic and logographic L1
backgrounds can be contrasted in their reliance on phonemic
analysis during phonological information extraction
Empirical findings
Cross-linguistic relationships in reading skills 1.
• Early bilingual studies
• Showed strong relationship between reading abilities in L1 and L2 in school-
aged children
• Componential view of reading – a variety of skills and cognitive
capacities were investigated
• Phonological awareness is systematically related in Chinese and English, but
phonological awareness in one language only minimally contributes to
decoding in the other (orthographic knowledge and morphological awareness
are not related across the languages)
• There is a strong relationship between L1 phonological awareness and L2
decoding skills in Spanish-English bilingual children
Cross-linguistic relationships in reading skills 2.
• Biliteracy studies examining common deficiencies explaining reading
failure in both languages (in at-risk bilingual school-age learners)
• Poor readers have weak phonological skills in both languages
• Their problems are domain-specific and cannot be explained by non-
phonological factors
• On the whole, these studies suggest that
• L1 and L2 reading skills are systematically related
• As in L1 reading, L2 decoding development depends on phonological
awareness
• Caution! Studies involved school-age children, at the initial grades, having 2
alphabetic languages
Factors affecting the assimilation of L1 skills
• Input-driven view of learning assumes that previously acquired
reading skills continue to evolve through L2 print input processing
until they reach optimal efficiency in the new language
• Question:
• What factors affect the assimilation of transferred L1 skills
• L1 and L2 linguistic distance
• L2 print processing experience
L1 and L2 linguistic distance
• Studies have repeatedly shown faster and more accurate
processing performance for Ls from typologically related
backgrounds
• Less is known about how shared structural properties
facilitate L2 reading development
• When comparing Chinese (logographic) and Indonesian
(alphabetic) learners of English, only Indonesians benefitted from
intra-word structural congruity (spelling patterns consistent
between English and Indonesian), superiority was far less
pronounced with incongruent items
• When comparing Chinese (logographic) and Korean (alphabetic)
learners of English, Koreans were more efficient in morphological
segmentation, but much less so on unique items
• Conclusion: the distance effect seems to be much more
specific and localised than it has been assumed before
L2 print processing experience
• Input received by Chinese as a Heritage Language learners analysed
(course book analysis)
• CHL learners (from grade 1-6) are taught 35% of the characters and 20% of
the radicals taught to native Chinese children
• As a result, CHL learners were sensitized to the major properties of the
morphologically complex characters, but very few learners showed sensitivity
to refined facets of morphological awareness
• It seems that input was too limited, so morphological awareness remained
basic
Cross-linguistic variations 1.
• Two basic assumptions:
• L2 skills are shaped through cross-linguistic interactions between transferred
L1 skills and L2 print input
• The resulting L2 skills reflect both L1 and L2 linguistic properties
• Results show that L2 learners respond differently to a variety of
experimental manipulations and the observed differences are
attributable to the structural variations in participants’ respective L1
writing systems
• Studies examining the relative impact of L1 and L2 factors
• Relative impact of phonological and graphic manipulations on judgement
performance among ESL learners with Korean (alphabetic) and Chinese (logographic)
L1 backgrounds
• Both phonological and graphic manipulations interfered with category judgement
regardless of he Ls L1 background
• Chinese learners were more mislead by graphically manipulated items, whereas
Korean learners made more mistakes in response to phonologically manipulated
items
• Results suggest that the two groups of ESL learners were (1) similarly
sensitized to L2 properties, (2) the two groups relied on different info
sources during L2 lexical processing and (3) these differences are consistent
with the variations predicted from participants’ L1 orthographic properties
Two main conclusions:
1. Prior literacy experience affects L2 reading development
2. Previously acquired skills play a pivotal role in explaining individual
differences in L2 print information processing
• But L2 input is probably a more dominant force in shaping L2 reading
skills (than L1 literacy)
• Cross-linguistic variations in L2 print processing are very complex and
can be explained by a number of factors (reading skills, linguistic
distance, L2 input, experimental manipulation, tasks used)
Applications
• Since both L1 and L2 factors play a role in shaping L2 reading skills
• Teachers should be aware of the lasting effects of previously acquired reading
skills (in constructing assessment tasks, interpreting test results and fine-
tuning their instruction)
• Since L2 reading skills are shaped through input and experience
• Teachers should try to improve the quality and quantity of L2 input
(manipulating input presentation and increasing input processing experience)
• Dual-language involvement has different implications for learners of
different ages
• Children’s problems might result from underdeveloped L1 metalinguistic
awareness, insufficient L2 linguistic knowledge, inadequate “central
processing” capacity, etc.
Future directions for research
• Incorporating a broader range of reading skills
• Besides decoding, higher-order operations, such as text-information building
and reader-model construction, should be studied, too
• Including a wider range of languages
• The effect of typologically distant/diverse languages should be considered,
too!
• Integrating learner-external factors with learner-internal ones
Thank you for your
attention!
Reading
• Koda, K. (2012). Development of second language reading skills: Cross
linguistic perspectives. In S. M. Gass, & A. Mackey (Eds.), The
Routledge handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 303-318).
New York, NY: Routledge.
Writing in an L2
Lecture 10
• In your opinion, how important is writing?
• How did you feel about writing as a student?
• How do you think students feel about it based on your experiences?
Different types of writing systems
•Alphabets
• Symbol for each phoneme
•Syllabaries
• Symbol for each syllable
•Logographic systems
• Symbol for each word
Logographic systems
Chinese
• Chinese characters represent whole words
• Sometimes represent semantic relationships between words
• 90% of Chinese characters consist of two parts
• A radical + phonetic element
• Orthography does not solely rely upon link between character + meaning,
but also represents how words are pronounced (association between
homophones)
• There are six times as many pronunciation markers as radicals (role of
phonology!)
• From 1958 Pinyin – phonemic representation of Mandarin based on Roman
alphabet
Logographic systems
Japanese
• Mixed orthography
• Lexical items represented by kanji characters derived from Chinese
• Inflections and function words represented by 71 kana characters –
correspond to set of syllables in Japanese
• Different processing is suggested
• when studying patients suffering from agraphia because of brain damage -
kana and kanji are affected to different degree
• In senile dementia kanji lost before kana (alternative explanation: kana learnt
first)
Alphabetic systems
• Alphabetic system: learnt and stored character by character

• From pronunciation of words – writer can guess spelling
• Alphabetic systems – not necessarily easy to acquire
• We learn to recognise individual phonemes of our language as a result of
learning an alphabet and not the other way round!
• Children acquiring syllabaries make fewer mistakes than those acquiring
alphabets
Alphabetic systems
• Alphabetic systems vary considerably
• Arabic represents consonants only, no vowels
• Orthographies characterised according to how close the match is
between graphemes (units of writing) and phonemes
• Transparent orthography
• one-to-one relationship between written forms and sounds
• All words can be interpreted using consistent grapheme – phoneme
correspondence (GPC) rules
• Opaque orthography
• Words that can be spelt using GPC rules
• Words that can be spelt by analogy with other words
• Words with unique spelling (require whole-word processing like logographic
systems)
Revision: A model of writing
(Flower & Hayes, 1980)
The stages of writing
• Formulation stage
main difference between skilled and less skilled writer is in amount of processing here, skilled
writer takes account of: task demands, text demands
• Planning
• Setting goals, generating ideas, organising ideas coherently
• Translating
• Transforming abstract concepts into linguistic form (vocab, syntax)
• Buffer stores the results
• Execution stage
• Programming
• Convert phonological codes into motor instructions
• Execution
• Carry out motor instructions
• Monitoring stage
further mark of skill, good writer reviews both while and after writing
• Reading
• May lead to revisions to the form of text (spelling)
• Editing
• Rethinking decisions made at formulation stage (grammatical correctness, cohesion)
Higher and lower level of processing
• In experienced writers lower level processes (spelling, letter
formation, letter sequencing) are highly automatized
• Higher level processes of planning and organisation can only operate
if we have automatic command of lower level activities
• Trade-off because of limited WM capacity
The writing buffer
• It is not possible to write without some forward planning
• When we are in the process of writing we need to store strings of
words in a buffer in the mind
• Form of storage appears to be phonological “voice in the head”
• Why not visual?
• Writing is learnt as an extension of speaking
• Phonological code more durable/can be rehearsed
• Spoken form in mind does not interfere with written form
produced on paper
• Key words and abbreviated sequences seem to be stored in buffer
History of written SLA research
• Emphasis on comprehensible input
• Writing neglected (a way to monitor language)
• Emphasis on interaction and negotiation of meaning
• Not possible in writing
• Swain’s (1985) Output Hypothesis
• Role of output emphasised, writing became more relevant
• Students engage in problem solving while writing
• Manchon (2011) writing-to-learn-language approach
• Writing no longer viewed as a way of practising grammar and vocab but as a
site for language development
Theoretical issues
Role of writing in SLA 1.
• Oral and literacy skills are related
• L1 literacy skills seem to help learners process an L2
• Harklau (2002) found in her classroom-based research that Ls learnt from
written input
• Evidenced by the fact that they wrote more than they spoke and they received more
feedback in writing
• Weissberg (2000) argued that writing might be the preferred modality for
the use of new grammatical forms
• New forms appeared first in writing and Ls were more accurate in writing
• He argued for a speaking-to-writing approach
• Much less discussion of a writing-to-speaking approach
Role of writing in SLA 2.
• Williams (2012) argued that writing facilitates SLA
• Because writing is permanent (visual record)
• It is slower than speaking (more learner control over attentional resources)
• Thus, language produced can be attended to both during and after
production
• “involvement load hypothesis”
• learners retained vocabulary better after writing than reading
• Writing activities could help learners create new knowledge during the
internalization and restructuring phases of SLA
• As learners write together, they co-construct L2 knowledge that later appears in their
writing
Written corrective feedback (WCF)
• The term refers to feedback on language (as opposed to content or
organisation) in the form of direct correction, coding, or underlining an
error.
• Truscott (1996) argued that WCF is not effective and should be abandoned
• Many of the studies he cited were actually problematic in terms of research design,
so no valid results could be expected
• He also argued that given what we know of SLA, error correction was not
expected to be effective
• Developmental sequences cannot be altered
• But Skills Acquisition Theory suggests a role for feedback and explicit knowledge in
SLA
The effect of different tasks on written
language production 1.
• Need to understand how writing tasks or prompts affect written
language production
• Two influential theories in TBLT
• Limited attention capacity model (Skehan, 1998)
• Performance areas (accuracy, complexity, and fluency) compete for attentional
resources, thus a more complex task is less likely to produce more complex language
• Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2001)
• Complex tasks will result in more accurate and complex language
• Both theories predict that planning time will have beneficial effects
Skehan’s (1998) cognitive approach
• Learners represent knowledge in two ways
• Exemplar-based
• Rule-based system
• Skehan examines learner production in three areas
• Fluency
• Accuracy
• Complexity
• Limited processing capacity – trade-offs between CAF
• Aims to find out what task variables predispose learners to emphasise which aspect of CAF
• Task types / features
• Implementation conditions
Task characteristics affecting task difficulty (Skehan)
1. Code complexity
2. Cognitive complexity
 Cognitive processing
 Cognitive familiarity
3. Communicative stress
 Time pressure
 Modality
 Scale
 Stakes
 Control
Robinsons’s Cognition Hypothesis
• Multiple resources theory - form and content do not always compete for
attentional resources, no general capacity constraints on attention unless it
involves attention switching between resource pools
• Cognition Hypothesis - increasing the cognitive demands of tasks contributing to

their relative complexity along certain dimensions will; (a) push learners to
greater accuracy and complexity of L2 production in order to meet the greater
functional and conceptual communicative demands they place on the learner; (b)
promote interaction, and heightened attention to and memory for input, so
increasing learning from the input, and incorporation of forms made salient in the
input; as well as (c) longer term retention of input; and that (d) performing simple
to complex sequences will also lead to automaticity and efficient scheduling of
the components of complex L2 task performance. (Robinson & Gilabert, 2007,
p.162)
The Triadic Componential Framework for task classification – part 1
(Robinson, 2001)
Task Complexity (Cognitive Task Condition (Interactive Task Difficulty (Learner
factors) factors) factors)
(Classification criteria: cognitive (Classification criteria: (Classification criteria: ability
demands) interactional demands) requirements)
(Classification procedure: (Classification procedure: (Classification procedure:

information-theoretic behaviour-descriptive ability assessment
analyses) analyses) analyses)
(a) Resource-directing variables (a) Participation variables (a) Ability variables and task-
making cognitive/conceptual making interactional relevant resource
demands demands differentials
+/- here and now +/- open solution h/l working memory
+/- few elements +/- one-way flow h/l reasoning
-/+ spatial reasoning +/- convergent solution h/l task-switching
-/+ causal reasoning +/- few participants h/l aptitude
-/+ intentional reasoning +/- few contributions needed h/l field independence
-/+ perspective taking +/- negotiation not needed h/l mind/intention reading
The Triadic Componential Framework for task classification – part 2
(Robinson, 2001)
Task Complexity (Cognitive Task Condition (Interactive Task Difficulty (Learner
factors) factors) factors)
(Classification criteria: cognitive (Classification criteria: (Classification criteria: ability
demands) interactional demands) requirements)
(Classification procedure: (Classification procedure: (Classification procedure:
information-theoretic behaviour-descriptive ability assessment
analyses) analyses) analyses)
(b) Resource-dispersing (b) Participant variables (b) Affective variables and
variables making making interactant task-relevant state-trait
performative/procedural demands differentials
demands
+/- planning time +/- same proficiency h/l openness to experience
+/- single task +/- same gender h/l control of emotion

+/- task structure +/- familiar h/l task motivation
+/- few steps +/- shared content knowledge h/l processing anxiety
+/- independency of steps +/- equal status and role h/l willingness to
communicate
+/- prior knowledge +/- shared cultural knowledge h/l self-efficacy
Performance areas in SLA
• Accuracy
• Reflects L’s capacity to handle whatever IL complexity they attained
• Fluency
• Reflects L’s capacity to mobilise IL system to communicate in real
time
• Complexity
• Reflects elaboration of the underlying IL system (for more efficient
communication)
• Can refer to grammar or lexis
23
The effect of different tasks on written
language production 2.
• Problems
• “Planning time” is difficult to control in writing
• Genre effects
• Differences in linguistic complexity have been found across genres (language used in
argumentative essays is more complex than in narratives)
• Is it because of differences in cognitive complexity or in communicative demands of the
genres?
• Writing tasks investigated in the testing literature
• Role of “general knowledge” (related to university students’ major) versus “ specific
knowledge” (related to students’ personal interest
• Scores were consistently higher on “general knowledge” tasks
• Familiar content was easier, so more resources were left for planning other aspects of their
essays?
Written language development in
instructional contexts
• Studies attempt to investigate how Ls’ writing develops over the course of an
instructional period
• CALF (complexity, accuracy, lexis, fluency) or CAF (complexity including lexis,
accuracy, fluency) measures
• Wolfe-Quintero, Inagaki, and Kim (1998)
• Accuracy correlated with holistic measures of essay quality rather than external proficiency
measures
• Connor-Linton and Polio (2014)
• Learners’ development over an AEP course, no change in accuracy, some in complexity, but
change from personal focus to informational focus
• Verspoor, Schmid, and Xu (2012)
• Cross-sectional study, 64 measures across 5 levels of proficiency, Dutch school-age learners of
English, different patterns
• No yardstick for measuring progress in L2 writing classes/programs
Empirical studies
Role of writing in SLA
• “Involvement load hypothesis”
• Keating (2008) do learners retain vocabulary items better if they use
writing?
• Writing seemed to bring about better results but not if time was considered, too
(better results might have been caused by spending more time on the task)
• Huang, Willson and Eslami (2012) meta-analysis
• Output led to better retention, but it is unclear whether it is the composing
process or the time spent on-task which was in the background
• Kim (2008) studied 5- and 6-year-old ESL learners
• Integrated oral and written production led to better results on oral assessment
tasks than oral-only instruction
Written corrective feedback 1.
• Hartshorn et al. (2010) tested the effectiveness of dynamic corrective
feedback (feedback given with coded symbols, students need to rewrite
until all their errors are gone)
• Treatment group produced significantly fewer errors
• Van Beuningen, Do Jong, and Kuiken (2012) learners were divided into 4
groups (direct feedback – errors corrected, indirect feedback – errors
coded, self-correction – given time to self-correct, additional writing – time
spent on new writing task), learners were given feedback once, then wrote
another piece 1 week and 4 weeks later
• Both corrective feedback groups were more accurate and did not use simpler
language to avoid errors
• Direct feedback more effective for grammatical errors, indirect feedback more
effective for lexical and spelling errors
Written corrective feedback 2.
• Results of meta-analyses:
• Truscott (2007)
• Excluded single-treatment designs, conclusion: WCF has small negative effect
• Kao and Wible (2012)
• Used Truscott’s criteria but included more studies, found positive effect for WCF
• Kang and Han (2015)
• Positive effect of WCF
• Shintani and Aubrey (2016) investigated synchronous computer-
mediated feedback besides traditional and no feedback
conditions
• Students improved under the synchronous computer-mediated feedback
condition the most (immediateness?)
Effect of different tasks on written language
production 1.
• Increasing planning time
• Increases fluency (operationalised in different ways)
• Effects on syntactic and lexical complexity are less clear
• Increasing cognitive complexity (by increasing the number of
elements)
• Increases accuracy but not complexity
• Conclusion:
• Although planning time seems to have an effect, the effects of cognitive
complexity seem much less robust than they are in oral language
Effect of different tasks on written language
production 2.
• Studies on genres have revealed robust differences in the complexity
of learner writing
• Learners’ language is more complex in argumentative writing than in
narratives
• Also, tasks with reasoning demands contained more adverbial clauses
• This is probably due to the communicative demands and not the cognitive
load of the tasks
Written SLA in instructional contexts 1.
• Godfrey, Treacy and Tarone (2014), longitudinal study
examining written SLA in classroom and study abroad
contexts (8 learners)
• Both groups made some improvement but on different measures
• Difficult to attribute effects to exposure or instruction
• Verspoor and Smiskova (2012), longitudinal study examining
20 Dutch high school learners studying English for two years
• The high-input group used more chunks or sequences in their
writing than the low-input group
• Mazgutova and Kormos (2015) investigated development
over a 4-week intensive EAP course
• Students were give feedback but no explicit instruction
• 2 groups examined: B2 and C1
• Lexical diversity of the essays of both groups increased despite the
lack of instruction
• Both groups used a smaller variety of syntactic structures at the
end of the course than at the beginning (these might be those
structures that are more prominent in academic writing)
• De Oliveira and Lan (2014) and Yasuda (2011) examined students
taught using a genre-based approach
• Yasuda taught different types of emails
• Students write longer text, but their lexical variety did not change over 13 weeks only
their lexical sophistication
• De Oliveria and Lan conducted a case study of a 4th grade ESL student
learning to write science texts
• Teacher deconstructed a science text with the student, constructed one with the
student, then the student constructed one on his own
• The use of field-specific vocabulary and a wider use of temporal connectors could be
traced back to the teacher’s influence
Writing activities in general language courses
• Learners focus on language as they write
• Writing-to-learn activities should be used in most language classes
• Pre-task writing or post-task writing activities should be used
• Dictogloss is a common activity
• Learners listen to a passage then try to reconstruct it in writing alone or
jointly
• Teachers should not limit themselves to real-life writing tasks
• Story continuation after reading a story in the L1 or L2 of learners
Varying tasks and genre
• Learners use more complex language in certain genres
• Learners need to learn genre appropriate language
• So genres should be varied even for beginner learners
• Learners need appropriate scaffolding when they write new genres
(see research on science texts)
• Teachers help learners deconstruct a model text before writing their own
• Learners can construct their texts together, as Ls have been shown to be able
to produce and revise texts together
Taking a middle ground on corrective
feedback
• Evidence seems to prove that some type of corrective feedback is
helpful although it is not always effective
• Since simply producing written output can facilitate acquisition,
teachers should not avoid having students write on the grounds that
they do not have time to give feedback
• Feedback can sometimes be given orally only
• Only 37% of teachers stated that they commented on all or most of
students’ writing
Future directions 1.
• Technology
• Group and project-based writing activities, group collaborative writing in
google docs
• Learners engage more with meaning than form, make more correct
grammatical changes than ungrammatical ones
• Differences between online and offline collaborative writing are not clear
• Innovative types of feedback can be given, e.g. automated feedback and
corpus consultation
• Students seem to prefer different types of feedback for different purposes
(oral for global issues and written for form)
Future directions 2.
• Interventions that push complexity development
• What are the effects of forcing Ls to produce more complex language over an
extended period of time?
• Linking instruction to SLA
• Mixed-method study drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data from
a course or a set of lessons might help us link instruction and writing
development
Teaching tips
• Have students do a related writing activity before they do an in-class oral
activity
• Use writing activities even if students are generally more interested in
developing their speaking skills
• Have students work together on some writing activities
• Give students a variety of writing tasks and genres
• Do not be discouraged if students keep producing errors
• Correct errors on some assignments and have the students revise those
assignments
• Get students to focus on genre-specific chunks or formulas
• Provide scaffolding for students as they construct new genres
Thank you for your
attention!
Reading
• Polio, C., & Lee, J. (2017). Written language learning. In S. Loewen &
M. Sato (Eds.), Routledge handbook of instructed second language
acquisition (pp. 299-317). NY: New York: Routledge.
The role of age in language
learning
Lecture 11
1
Questions to consider
• What do you think of age effect in SLA?
• How important is age in language learning?
• What is the most suitable age for starting to learn a foreign language?
• Do you agree with the idea „the earlier the better”?
• When did you start learning a foreign language?
• Did you start at the „right age”?
• Do you see any differences between second language and foreign
language contexts?
• Do you see any differences between how young children and more
mature students should be taught?
Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) 1.
• There is a time in human development when the
brain is predisposed to success in language
learning (like maturational processes or
imprinting in animals)
• If a child is not exposed to language during this
period, his linguistic competence will not develop
fully
• Lenneberg (1967) thought that this phenomenon
is linked to the lateralisation of brain hemispheres
3
Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) 2.
• Consider:
• How long is the CP? When does it end? When does the brain
lose its plasticity?
• Does the end of the CP only make language acquisition more
difficult or totally impossible?
• Some authors argue for “sensitive period(s)” instead of
a “critical period” (gradual decline or drop-off?)
• CPH in L1 acquisition: anecdotal evidence from
feral/wild children
4
Famous case: Genie
• She was 13 years old when she was discovered
• Past the critical period?
• Socially deprived?
• Mentally challenged?
• Her speech was grammatically incorrect, but her
vocabulary constantly increased
• What does this prove?
• Can we say that the CP exists since she failed to learn proper
grammar?
• Which interpretation does her case support? Drop-off or gradual
decline?
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjZolHCrC8E&t=1s
5
Conclusions from language deprivation data during L1
acquisition
• Skuse (1995)
• In adverse circumstances, language seems to be more vulnerable
than other cognitive faculties
• Speech appears to be more retarded than comprehension; it
develops more slowly after discovery
• Interpersonal contact makes important contribution to speed and
success of late language development
6
Critical period and L2 learning
• Critical period extended to L2 learning
• Plasticity of brain allows younger learners to acquire L2 more
successfully than adults
• UG is not available after a certain age
• Evidence
• Children starting L2 before 8 years of age are likely to end up with
native-like accent and fluency
• In areas other than pronunciation, adolescents and adults are
more successful in the early stages
• Possibility of a set of critical periods
• Different features of Linguistic Competence lateralised at different
stages
7
Possible reasons/explanations of CPH
• Neurological changes
• Lateralisation, loss of brain plasticity
• Difference in cognitive abilities
• Different learning mechanisms (implicit/explicit learning, access
to UG)
• Social psychological reasons
• Accent=identity, linguistic toddler
• More and better input for children
• Motherese
8
Studies exploring the
relationship between
language acquisition and
age in naturalistic settings
9
Patkowski (1980) 1.
• Aimed to explore the effects of age (disregarding
pronunciation)
• Participants:
• 67 highly educated immigrants with more than 5 years
of residence in the USA , 15 native-born Americans
• Method:
• Interview, 5 parts transcribed so that accent would
have no effect, judgement on a scale of 0 to 5 (0 = no
knowledge of language to 5 = educated native speaker)
by native speakers
10
Patkowski (1980) 2.
• Results:
• Those who arrived at the age of 15 or before were
rated 4-5 (with one exception)
• Majority of post-puberty group was rated around 3,
but there was a great deal of variation
• In itself, neither the length of residence, nor the
amount of instruction had a significant effect on the
scores
• However, length of residence (LOR ) was not
independent of the age of arrival (AOA) in the study –
confounded results?
11
Johnson and Newport (1989)
• Intuitions of grammaticality
• Participants:
• 46 Chinese and Korean speakers, began learning English at
different ages and had been in the USA for at least 3 years, 23
native speakers of English
• Method:
• Grammaticality judgements (12 rules of English morphology and
syntax)
• Results?
12
Relationship between age of arrival (2-16) and
test scores (Johnson and Newport, 1989)
13
Relationship between age of arrival (16-40) and
test scores (Johnson and Newport, 1989)
14
Snow and Hoefnagel-Höhle (1979)
• Study: English native speakers learning Dutch
• 3 groups: children (from the age of 3), adolescents, adults
• Language tasks:
• Pronunciation, auditory discrimination, morphology, sentence
repetition, sentence translation, grammaticality judgement,
vocabulary, story comprehension, storytelling
• Data collection:
• 3 occasions, at 4-5 months intervals
• For interpreting the results on the next slide:
• X: group best at the beginning of the year
• Y: group best at the end of the year
15
Snow and Hoefnagel-Höhle (1979)
Task Child Adolescent Adult
Pronunciation Y Y X
Auditory XY
discrimination
Morphology XY
Sentence repetition XY
Sentence Too difficult XY
translation
Sentence Too difficult XY
judgement
Peabody picture XY
vocabulary test
Story Y X
comprehension
Storytelling Y X 16
Snow and Hoefnagel-Höhle’s conclusions
• Some tasks were obviously too difficult for children (e.g.:

translation, grammaticality judgements)
• Adults and adolescents make greater progress in the initial
stages of language learning, but children catch up or might
even surpass them if they have adequate opportunity to use
the language
• Adults and adolescents can make considerable and rapid
progress towards the mastery of second language in
contexts were they use the language in social, personal,
professional or academic interactions
17
Age effects in school
contexts
(Lambelet & Berthele, 2015)
Results of studies on age in educational
contexts
• In terms of rate of learning, late learners attain better results than

earlier learners (this is also the case in natural environments); thus,
rate of learning is correlated with age of onset
• Studies reveal a relative lack of advantage to early language education
with regard to the level of proficiency attained; that is, foreign
language learning at an earlier age does not ensure achieving higher
language proficiency.
Other influential factors besides age in the
school context
• Number of contact hours
• Implicit versus explicit instruction
• CLIL/Immersion
• L2 exposure outside school
• Learner-related factors
• Motivation and attitude
Differences in age effects
between naturalistic and
instructed contexts
(Munoz, 2010)
Differences between naturalistic and
classroom contexts
• (1) instruction is limited to 2-4 sessions of approximately 50 minutes
per week;
• (2) exposure to the target language during those class periods may be
limited both in source (mainly the teacher) and quantity;
• (3) the target language is not the language of communication
between peers;
• (4) the teacher’s oral fluency in the target language may be limited;
and
• (5) the target language is not spoken outside the classroom
Age-related advantages
• Rate of attainment – how quickly students progress
• Ultimate attainment – what is the level they are capable of achieving
• In naturalistic settings:
• Older learners have a rate advantage (they progress more quickly in the beginning)
• Younger learners have an attainment advantage (they are slower first but catch up
later and achieve higher levels than older learners)
• In instructed contexts:
• Older learners have a rate advantage
• There is no evidence for younger learners having an attainment advantage (BAF
project: older learners generally outperformed younger ones at all measurement
times, but long-term superiority of young learners was not confirmed)
Age of acquisition
• Age of Acquisition/Onset – beginning of significant exposure,
immersion in L2 context
• AOA is usually one of the best predictors of language learning success
• In most studies where first exposure to the target language via instruction
was also taken into consideration, it was not found to be a good predictor of
ultimate attainment – insignificant exposure?
• In instructed settings:
• Initial age of learning is taken as starting point – this might be insignificant
exposure
• In this context, the whole age range over which learning takes place should be
taken into account rather than the starting point
Length of exposure
• Length of exposure – length of residence in target language
community
• Attainment should be studied after 10 or more years (at shorter intervals we
are more likely to observe rate effects)
• Length of residence ceases to be a predictor after a certain period of time (10
years)
• In instructed settings:
• 10 years of exposure = more than 50.000 hours of instruction (in 4 hours per
week it would take over 200 years…)
• Amount of instruction is expected to correlate with proficiency (10 years’
worth of input cannot be provided…)
Learning mechanisms
• Implicit learning works slowly and requires massive amounts of input
and interaction
• DeKeyser argues that the capacity for implicit learning for abstract
patterns declines between 6-7 and 16-17
• Children have enough time and access to enough input
• In instructed setting:
• Not enough time and input for implicit learning
• Explicit instruction is provided which is better suited for older learners
The role of learning context
There are considerable differences between naturalistic
settings and instructed contexts; thus, findings CANNOT be
generalised from one to the other
1. Long-term advantage (despite slower initial rate, young learners tend
to have higher ultimate attainment in naturalistic settings) of young
learners is NOT present in instructed settings
2. In instructed settings, young learners do not have access to the
amount and type of input (NO massive exposure), which would be
needed for implicit learning
3. Explicit instruction provided at schools favours explicit language
learning that older learners are better at because of their cognitive
maturity.
27
Key principles of teaching young learners (Cameron,
2001)
• Children try to construct meaning actively
• Teachers should aid them in making sense of what goes on in the classroom
• Children need space for language growth
• Zone of proximal development, scaffolding, routines
• Language in use carries cues that may not be noticed
• Cues need to be pointed out, but not in the form of grammar rules
• Language development is a result of internalising language from
social interaction
• Language learnt through its use with others
• Children’s FL learning depends on their experiences (not on
grammar rules taught to them)
• Provide rich learning opportunities in the classroom
28
Dividing up „language” for child foreign language
learning (Cameron, 2001, p.19)
29
References
• Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching language to young learners. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
• Johnson, J., & Newport, E. (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: The
influence of maturational state on the acquisition of ESL. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 60-99.
• Lambelet, A., & Berthele, R. (2015). Age and foreign language learning in school.
Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan.
• Lenneberg, E. H., Chomsky, N., & Marx, O. (1967). Biological foundations of
language (Vol. 68). New York, NY: Wiley.
• Muñoz, C. (2010). On how age affects foreign language learning. In A. Psaltou-Joycey &
M. Mattheoudakis, (Eds.), Advances in research on language acquisition and teaching:
Selected papers (pp. 39-49). Thessaloniki, Greece: Aristotle Univerity of Thessaloniki.
• Patkowski, M. S. (1980). The sensitive period for the acquisition of syntax in a second
language. Language Learning, 30(2), 449-468.
• Skuse, D. H. (1993). Extreme deprivation in early childhood. In D. Bishop & K. Mogford-
Bevan (Eds.), Language development in exceptional circumstances, (pp. 29-46). Hove, UK:
Psychology Press.
• Snow, C. E., & Hoefnagel-Höhle, M. (1979). Individual differences in second-language
ability: A factor-analytic study. Language and Speech, 22(2), 151-162.
30
Thank you for your
attention!
Reading
• Muñoz, C. (2010). On how age affects foreign language learning. In A.
Psaltou-Joycey & M. Mattheoudakis, (Eds.), Advances in research on
language acquisition and teaching: Selected papers (pp. 39-49).
Thessaloniki, Greece: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

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Second Language Acquisition

• Weekly 1.5 hours (= 90 min.)

• Reading pack on canvas.elte.hu

second language = additional language

i.e. any language other than the first

• Foreign language: the language plays

• Pedagogical decision making must

See you next week 

• What do you remember about communicative

• What does EFL teaching have to do with

• As a student of English, have you been taught

• Can you recall the experience (characteristic

• CLT refers to both processes and goals in classroom learning

• Focuses on forms of the language including syntax,

• Use of language for real and immediate communicative

• Relates to the learner’s emerging identity in the L2

• Learners have different roles

• Classroom is only a rehearsal

• Can you think of any tasks/exercises that you would

• The Interaction Hypothesis claims that acquisition is

• Meaning negotiation serves to draw learners’

Jigsaw task: Pairs of students are each given a

Information gap task: Students are given a

Problem-solving task: ‘Hotel theft’ activity. A guest

Decision-making tasks: ‘Who gets the heart’. Students

Opinion-exchange task: Students are asked to

Interactant Distribution of Interaction Goal Outcome

Info gap Either info 1 participant has all required convergent 1

Problem Info requester and Everyone has optional convergent 1

Opinion Info requester and Everyone has optional divergent 1+/-

• Each interactant holds a different portion of

Knowledge needs input

• Note: danger of L2 learners using taught

• Self-monitoring strategies involve correcting or

• „An individual is a native speaker of the L1 learnt in

• The ability to produce fluent discourse

"Asserting that adults usually fail to become native

• NS of a first language (L1) should not be the

Teachers, researchers, “people” in general

Instead: Accomplishment in learning to

80-100% 60-80% 40-60%

20-40% 0.1-20% Not available

• Currently: non-native users of English outnumber

“NSs may feel the language belongs to them, but it

ELF is practically nonexistent in language

• The status of the native speaker as the model

• How do university students who study in international

• Survey, 253 teachers: 54.6% NS & 41.1% NNS

• Research shows that EFL teachers seem to recognize the

7. Avoiding unnecessary input modification

Methods based on exclusive L2 use Methods requiring the use of L1

• Direct Method • Grammar Translation

1. Egyáltalán nem igaz/nincs ilyen

„We use the foreign language more in gimnázium 7. évfolyam

class than Hungarian" percentages gimnázium 11. évfolyam

• These are important factors in classroom learning

• L1 transfer (earlier), cross-linguistic influence (now)

Understand both what is literally said and what is meant

If it had rained, Wenn es S’il avait plu, on

• What do you think?

• Different types of instruction can have differential effects on different

• Ellis, 2002: effects of explicit instruction on implicit knowledge

Activity 4. Collaborative Output Jigsaw Task

107 HAVE TO 83092 * * I exercise because I have to.