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WK 3 Monitor
WK 3 Monitor
Monitor Model
3002LAL
WEEK 3
What is research?
Research includes:
Research is CREATIVE
The roles & outcomes of research
Exploration and description
– Perceiving important aspects of a situation missed by
others
– Organising & labelling important phenomena
Explanation
– Recognising a relationship between & among variables
– Helps us make predictions
Validation
– Testing the explanation to make sure it works
Qualitative
– Shaped by research questions NOT research
hypotheses
– Verbal descriptions
– Unstructured interviews
– Inductive logic to find an explanation
Kinds of research II
Experimental (quantitative)
Ethnographic (qualitative)
Evaluation
– Determining the effectiveness of something
Case study
Action research
– Research with a view to change
Cross-sectional
– At a point in time
Longitudinal
– Over a period of time
Historical
– Hitler’s diaries
Model building
– Economists
What is theory & why is it important?
Introspection
– Ls examine their own behaviour (self-report data)
– Successful in research on Learning Strategies
Focused description
– Of course, descriptive
– Narrow scope with focus on specific variables (e.g.
morphology, or learner motivation)
– Interaction analysis classification schemes
– Dulay & Burt’s study of morpheme acquisition
Experimental
– A true experiment tries to establish a causal relationship
– Requires experimental and control groups
– Requires random selection (cf quasi-experimental)
Research settings
The classroom setting
– Can instruction alter natural language processing?
– Textbook & teacher-induced errors (“However”)
– Students forced to produce structures before they are ready
– Feedback on errors
Naturalistic settings
– Different input
– Focus on communication of meaning
– No formal articulation of rules
– Only very occasional feedback on errors
Instrumentation: Production data
elicitation
Reading aloud
Structured exercises
Completion task
Elicited imitation/translation
Guided composition
Question & Answer
Reconstruction
Communication games
Role play
Oral interview
Free composition
Instrumentation: Intuitional data
elicitation
Error recognition and correction
Grammaticality judgements
Card sorting
– E.g. Most polite to least polite
The problem of defining
“language proficiency”
Communicative competences
– Grammatical competence
– Sociolinguistic competence
– Discourse competence
– Strategic competence
Krashen’s Monitor Model
A general theory of language learning
Derived from:
Emphasis on:
Comprehensible input rather than practice
Meaningful communication rather than form
Listening & reading; speaking allowed to “emerge”
Optimising emotional preparedness for learning
Visual aids, written and other materials as a source
of comprehensible input