Lacy Renee Mosier
May 4, 2009
Research on the Effects of Interaction and Recasts on Grammar and Vocabulary Learning
According to the research from class, language may be learned through students
interacting and having possible communication difficulties. Dobinson’s research said that
students learn the same no matter who initiates the topic. It may be student led, teacher led,
or audio led. In this study, repetition of activities/ topics only improved students recall/ ability
up to a certain point. After a certain point it actually seemed to have a negative impact on
recall. When the study focused attention on vocabulary, some retention was seen even though
some vocabulary was learned incidentally. Learners in this study were able to learn vocabulary
by watching others practice output even though they didn’t necessarily practice output
themselves. This leads to the assumption that some learners may be able to learn some things
through only input but some interaction/ output is required. However, whether they are active
or not in producing the output may matter individually. Swain and Watanabe’s research tested
four types of interactions including upper and lower level students working with each other.
Their research found that even when lower level students worked with each other, they were
able to benefit. When an expert worked with a novice, only the expert learned due to possible
dominating of the learning experience. If groups collaborated equally, proficiency didn’t matter
as much because the cooperation led to learning. Pinter’s research said that repetition is good
because it enables students to understand more each time and allows students to understand
more about their own language. The research said that repetition increases fluency and
confidence while also creating collaboration. It allows for students to accomplish tasks at
younger ages and lower proficiencies. Students also benefit from teaching their peers. For
teachers, this research indicates that students should have many opportunities for interaction
such as small group work. However, teachers must carefully instruct and demonstrate how
groups should cooperatively work together so a handful of students don’t become dominant in
the groups. Teachers should also mix students of different abilities when creating groupings.
Teachers should use different types of learner centered tasks and not be afraid of repeating
some tasks. TPRS does take these research findings into account because it emphasizes
repetition. Its circular manner of questioning allows students to repeatedly be exposed to what
the topic of focus is. Input is everything in the TPRS method while output takes a back burner
and is only used to keep student interest. However, the research says that students learn from
talking with each other and by doing student centered activities. TPRS is far from student
centered. Teachers dominate the conversation in interactions which may affect the fluency of
learners.
Doughty and Varela’s research said that recasts may not be helpful for students to learn
grammar. When students watched taped of themselves being corrected with recasts, they
noticed vocabulary mistakes and mistakes with pronunciation but not with grammar. They also
Lacy Renee Mosier
May 4, 2009
said that corrections shouldn’t disrupt teaching or be overwhelming for students. Egi’s
research found that students paid attentions to both grammar and morph syntactic errors
when they were recasted. She, however, only targeted three different errors. This research
said that recasts may be effective if mistakes are targeted and that proficiency plays a role in
what students are capable of noticing. Lyster’s research tested whether recasts, prompts, or no
correction was better for students. This research found that prompts were better at pointing
out a mistake had been made and therefore better at giving the student an opportunity to
correct themselves. They were more explicit and let the students know that there was
something they needed to fix. The research also said that making consistent corrections for
one type of mistake was more effective for students than making more than one correction if
recasting was used. One implication from the research for teachers would be to use very short
corrections that don’t interrupt the entire class. Teachers should also focus on one error to
correct during recasting but be careful to tell students why you aren’t correcting them on
everything. When working with younger students, teachers should use more recasting but
when working with older students teachers should correct more explicitly through prompting. I
don’t think TPRS takes these research findings into account well. In TPRS, students are focused
on making simple responses during story telling. Students are mainly utilizing input by the
teacher and actors for learning instead of practicing output. Without output practice, they
don’t really have an opportunity to make mistakes for teachers to orally correct through either
recasting or prompting.
Bibliography
Dobinson, T. (2001). Do learners learn from classroom interaction and does the teacher have a
role to play? Language Teaching Research, 5(3), 189-211.
Doughty, C., & Varela, E. (1998). Communicative focus on form. In C. Doughty & J. Williams
(Eds.), Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition (pp. 114- 138).
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Egi, T. (2007). Interpreting recasts as linguistic evidence: The roles of linguistic target, length,
and degree of change. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 29(4), 511-537.
Lyster, R. (2004). Differential effects of prompts and recasts in form- focused instruction.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 399-432.
Pinter, A. (2007). Some benefits of peer- peer interaction: 10-year-old children practicing with
a communication task. Language Teaching Research, 11(2), 189-207.
Watanabe, Y., & Swain, M. (2007). Effects of proficiency differences and patterns of pair
interaction on second language learning: collaborative dialogue between adult ESL
learners. Language Teaching Research, 11(2), 121-142
Lacy Renee Mosier
May 4, 2009