SLA Research: Who Cares?
TESOL Spain Conference
March 2011
Geoff Jordan
Do You Agree?
• Krashen is right: acquisition and learning
are essentially different. Yes No
• Explicit grammar teaching is a waste of
time. Yes No
Beyond Krashen: Cognitive Processing
• SLA = Cognitive process by which
linguistic skills become automatic.
• At first, processes need attention. With
practice, they become automatic.
• The process results in the restructuring of
the existing mental representation.
• Key Constructs:
o
o
o
Interlanguage;
Implicit/explicit knowledge
Acquisition/learning
McLaughlin: Automaticity and
Restructuring
• Controlled processing requires attention;
automatic processing does not.
• Automaticity: an associative connection
between input and output.
• Analogy: driving a car with a clutch.
• Restructuring: a qualitative change in the
learer's interlanguage. "U-shaped
bevaviour" (Wotcha gonna hav?).
Long’s Interaction Hypothesis
• The negotiation of meaning (repeat,
confirm, clarify, check, re-cast, etc.)
helps to make input comprehensible.
• For input -> intake, learner must focus
on form (which negotiation of meaning
helps).
• Swain: Canadian immersion learners
showed that input not enough. Learners
need comprehensible output.
Long: Problems of Instructed SLA
Problem 1. Purely implicit child L1A is
overwhelmingly successful
L1 learning during first 6 years takes place
• Implicitly, without intention, incidentally:
while focused on something else.
• Without awareness of the process or of
the end-product.
….but purely implicit adult L2A is highly
variable and largely unsuccessful
Prolonged immersion in L2 environment
without formal instruction results in:
1.limited functional communicative
abilities in most cases,
2.near-native communicative abilities in
only a tiny minority of cases,
3.never, as far as we know, native-like
abilities.
Solution 1: Adult SLA is maturationally
constrained.
Research findings suggest early closure of
sensitive periods:
• native-like phonology: 6 to 12.
• lexis and collocations: 6 to 10
• morphology and syntax: 14
Solution 1a: Adults are partially
‘disabled’ language learners
• Adults use entrenched L1 processing habits for
L2 processing.
• Unless “re-set” by explicit learning or teaching,
implicit processing tuned for L1 will filter the L2
through the L1 grid.
• Result: some differences perceived are as
unimportant, others are completely missed.
• See “Developmental sharpening.” (Cutler, 2001).
Problem 2: Some linguistic features in
adult SLA are fragile
Adult starters’ failures are not random.
“Fragile” features = non-salient and low
perceptual saliency. Infrequent, irregular,
non-syllabic, string-internal, semantically
empty, and communicatively redundant.
Solution 2: Explicit learning is required to
improve implicit processing.
• Implicit learning is still the default learning
mechanism in adult SLA.
• So non-salient features not learned.
• Explicit learning: a new form-meaning
connection is held in s-t memory so it can
be processed, rehearsed, and an initial
representation stored in l-t memory, thus
altering future implicit processing of
additional exemplars of the item
concerned in the input.
Explicit Knowledge facilitates
Implicit Knowledge….
….by helping the learner to modify
entrenched automatic L1 processing
routines, so as to alter the way that
subsequent L2 input is processed implicitly.
" Changing the cues that learners focus on
in their language processing changes what
their implicit learning processes tune."
(Ellis, N. 2005)
Pedagogical Implications of SLA
Research: What Do You Think?
• How does L1 affect learning L2?
• Which is more helpful: comprehension
or production?
• Is explicit grammar instruction helpful?
• Does error correction help?
• Can you teach pronunciation?
• How can “fossilization” be overcome?
The influence of L1
•
•
•
•
It’a big influence, but it's complex.
“Spanglish” is a commonplace.
Pronunciation is affected.
But it’s not predictable, and can be
misleading.
• Interlanguage development is the key.
Comprehension or Production?
• Comprehensible input is a necessary
but not a sufficient condition.
• Massive reading (TAVI not TALO) is
very important, and so is extensive
listening.
• Interaction helps comprehension
(teacher talk - minimise L1).
• Learners need to control information,
and interact using meaningful content.
• Drills are OK.
• Writing: increasingly important.
Role of explicit grammar instruction
• Pienemann et. al: you can influence
rate, but not route.
• Focus on Form vs. Focus on FormS
(FoF = Intergration of form and
meaning: TBLT.)
• "Input enhancement": make the input
more noticeable.
• "Input flood": learners are exposed to
vast quantities of a given structure.
Does error correction work?
• Errors indicate learners’ hypotheses about
L2. Overt correction can’t alter natural
path.
• Classroom correction is highly diverse and
little studied.
• Correction must bring students’ attention
to their own errors, and do so in
meaningful, communicative contexts.
• Face Value
Can you teach pronunciation?
• The most important variables are the ones
teachers have the least influence on: L1,
aptitude for oral mimicry, motivation &
attitude
• Research shows that accurate
pronunciation is an unrealistic goal and
over-valued as a measure of proficiency
How can we help learners who seem to
have reached a plateau?
• What are the causes? Lack of integration?
neurological constraints of mature
learners? the communicative approach?,
....?
• Writing
• Grammar-based materials
• Collocation & discourse instruction
• ESP
Conclusion
• SLA theory still very incomplete.
• More classroom-based research needed.
• An experienced teacher “knows” more
than even the best researcher.