In this time, I just read the article brifely, so, I am not sure what I undersatand is right or not.
Among various contents, the word 'noticing' captured me.
The noticing Hypothesis is the claim that second language learners must consciously notice the grammatical form of their input in order to acquire grammar. That is, the hypothesis is a claim about how input becomes intake – that part of the input that is used for acquisition. It claims that conscious awareness of grammar plays an important role in the process.
Noticing the gap is learners’ awareness of a mismatch between the input and their current interlanguage. The conscious awareness of the gap is a requirement. And then, arguments that learners must compare input to their interlanguage grammar are not arguments for noticing.
2010년 4월 21일 수요일
2010년 4월 14일 수요일
Should we consider variation in interlanguage performance in second language acquisition?
According to Tarone and Liu, there are two points of views about interlanguage variation. One prefers to study language as idealized form and excludes the study of variation. The other studies language forms in relation to their use in context, including the study of variation. However, Tarone and Liu focus on the latter. Variationists, like Tarone and Liu, focus upon external interactions and L2 learner performance in a variety of social contests. For them, interlanguage variation across those contexts is importantly related to change in learner’s Interlanguage knowledge over time. So, according to their perspectives, variation is a source of information about the way in which interaction in different social contexts can influence both interlanguage use and overall interlanguage development.
In this article, Liu conducted a very interesting study. It was a 26-month longitudinal study of a Chinese boy named Bob. Liu observed Bob’s speaking in English with his pre-school peers and supervisory staff, his teachers in his primary school classroom, primary school peers, and the researchers. There are interesting results. Even though Bob had the same knowledge system of English at disposal, Bob’s use of his interlanguage varies in its general shape as he moves from one situation to another.. More specifically, in interaction with the teachers, Bob only used very simple English. In interacting with peers, he made more extensive use of his knowledge by producing more complex English. In interaction with the researcher, he made still more extensive use of the knowledge to the extent of attempting syntactic structures. In other words, Bob’s use of his interlanguage knowledge is affected by the different interactional contexts. So, he is performing his competence differently in these different interactional contexts.
And then, why Bob’s competence develops differentially depending on the different interactions? Lie suggested that the different interactions in which Bob engaged had an impact on his interlanguage development, not only in terms of the rate of that development, but also on the route of his interlanguage development. That is, different interactional contexts support different rates of development of particular interlanguage features. And also, external social demands can be so strong that they can cause an alternation in internal psychologically motivated sequences of acquisition.
Before reading this article, I had only believed innate forces in language acquisition. However, it was very narrow point of view. There are obviously not only internal innate forces but also contextual forces in second language acquisition. Therefore, now I understand that it is very important what circumstance the child learns his or her SLA.
In this article, Liu conducted a very interesting study. It was a 26-month longitudinal study of a Chinese boy named Bob. Liu observed Bob’s speaking in English with his pre-school peers and supervisory staff, his teachers in his primary school classroom, primary school peers, and the researchers. There are interesting results. Even though Bob had the same knowledge system of English at disposal, Bob’s use of his interlanguage varies in its general shape as he moves from one situation to another.. More specifically, in interaction with the teachers, Bob only used very simple English. In interacting with peers, he made more extensive use of his knowledge by producing more complex English. In interaction with the researcher, he made still more extensive use of the knowledge to the extent of attempting syntactic structures. In other words, Bob’s use of his interlanguage knowledge is affected by the different interactional contexts. So, he is performing his competence differently in these different interactional contexts.
And then, why Bob’s competence develops differentially depending on the different interactions? Lie suggested that the different interactions in which Bob engaged had an impact on his interlanguage development, not only in terms of the rate of that development, but also on the route of his interlanguage development. That is, different interactional contexts support different rates of development of particular interlanguage features. And also, external social demands can be so strong that they can cause an alternation in internal psychologically motivated sequences of acquisition.
Before reading this article, I had only believed innate forces in language acquisition. However, it was very narrow point of view. There are obviously not only internal innate forces but also contextual forces in second language acquisition. Therefore, now I understand that it is very important what circumstance the child learns his or her SLA.
2010년 4월 7일 수요일
The Critical Period Hypothesis
An interesting example of the 'Critical Period Hypothesis" is the case of Genie, also known as "The Wild Child." A thirteen years old victim of lifelong child abuse. Genie was discovered in 4th November in 1970 when her mother entered a social service office to apply for finaicial aid. The child drew attention because she was underized for her age and did not speak. In her case, we could question that a nurturing environment could somehow make up for a totla lack of language past the age 12. Genie was not able to acquire language completly although the degree to which she acquired language is disputed. I wonder why she did not acquire language perfectly. Is it because of the critical period or her retared birth? In this point, I would look over the DeKeyser's study(2000) about the critical period hypothesis.
DeKeyser replicated Johnson and Newport’s study in 1989. However, he did not conduct exactly the same way that Johnson and Newport did. He tried to accept the criticism about Johnson and Newport’s research. So, he supplemented the method. First, he picked up all participants who lived in US at least 10 years. Second, to avoid fatigue of participants, the test was shortened and the break time was given. Third, he tried to distinguish between the age of arrival and the age of test taking. More importantly, in study of DeKeyser, there was aptitude test to explain why there was the partial overlap of the native and nonnative distribution.
At first, looking at the method in Dekeyser, there were 57 native speakers of Hungarian. He had a reason why he picked up Hungarians for his study. Because Hungarian is a non-Indo-European language, he could eliminate variability due to the L1. For age of arrival, there are 42 participants who were older than 16 years old and 15 participants who younger than 16 years old. For this study, there were 3 instruments. First, to know language and educational background, age of arrival in North America and age of at the time of the test, all participants filled out the questionnaire. Second, there was the grammaticality judgment test based on the tape recording and correct-incorrect pair. Finally, the aptitude test was administered consisting of multiple-choice answers.
The goal of DeKeyser’s study is to assess the effect of verbal ability. In other words, he would like to find the effect of foreign language learning aptitude on ultimate attainment. In order to reveal more findings, studying the effects of age and verbal aptitude, and their interaction, should be better than studying them separately.
In this research, there were three hypotheses. First, the hypothesis of a strong negative correlation between age acquisition and score on the grammaticality judgment test was confirmed. Second, he predicted that no adult acquirers would score within the range of child acquirers unless they had high verbal aptitude. And this hypothesis was also supported. The third hypothesis that different structures showed different degrees of correlation with age of arrival was proved through this study.
Rendering the Dekeyser’s research, it provided an explanation for why certain learners and certain structures appear to be exceptions to the critical period effect. Through this study, we could find that adults with high verbal ability can reach near native speakers by using explicit learning mechanism and it proved evidence for Fundamental Difference Hypothesis. And regardless of verbal ability or age effect, certain structures can be learned explicitly by all learners. It also answered the question about the role of language-learning aptitude in naturalistic acquisition by showing that aptitude is a predictor of ultimate attainment in L2. The most important finding is that there really is a critical period for language acquisition. It is not just sensitive or optimal period for learning language. He suggested that the Critical Period Hypothesis only applies to implicit learning of abstract structures. That is, all findings of this study imply that explicit learning processes are a necessary condition for achieving a high level of competence in a nonnative language after childhood.
Reading this article, I wonder what is the best way to teach foreign language for adult learner. And also, I wonder whether it is worth or not to place a high value on early-childhood Englich Education.
DeKeyser replicated Johnson and Newport’s study in 1989. However, he did not conduct exactly the same way that Johnson and Newport did. He tried to accept the criticism about Johnson and Newport’s research. So, he supplemented the method. First, he picked up all participants who lived in US at least 10 years. Second, to avoid fatigue of participants, the test was shortened and the break time was given. Third, he tried to distinguish between the age of arrival and the age of test taking. More importantly, in study of DeKeyser, there was aptitude test to explain why there was the partial overlap of the native and nonnative distribution.
At first, looking at the method in Dekeyser, there were 57 native speakers of Hungarian. He had a reason why he picked up Hungarians for his study. Because Hungarian is a non-Indo-European language, he could eliminate variability due to the L1. For age of arrival, there are 42 participants who were older than 16 years old and 15 participants who younger than 16 years old. For this study, there were 3 instruments. First, to know language and educational background, age of arrival in North America and age of at the time of the test, all participants filled out the questionnaire. Second, there was the grammaticality judgment test based on the tape recording and correct-incorrect pair. Finally, the aptitude test was administered consisting of multiple-choice answers.
The goal of DeKeyser’s study is to assess the effect of verbal ability. In other words, he would like to find the effect of foreign language learning aptitude on ultimate attainment. In order to reveal more findings, studying the effects of age and verbal aptitude, and their interaction, should be better than studying them separately.
In this research, there were three hypotheses. First, the hypothesis of a strong negative correlation between age acquisition and score on the grammaticality judgment test was confirmed. Second, he predicted that no adult acquirers would score within the range of child acquirers unless they had high verbal aptitude. And this hypothesis was also supported. The third hypothesis that different structures showed different degrees of correlation with age of arrival was proved through this study.
Rendering the Dekeyser’s research, it provided an explanation for why certain learners and certain structures appear to be exceptions to the critical period effect. Through this study, we could find that adults with high verbal ability can reach near native speakers by using explicit learning mechanism and it proved evidence for Fundamental Difference Hypothesis. And regardless of verbal ability or age effect, certain structures can be learned explicitly by all learners. It also answered the question about the role of language-learning aptitude in naturalistic acquisition by showing that aptitude is a predictor of ultimate attainment in L2. The most important finding is that there really is a critical period for language acquisition. It is not just sensitive or optimal period for learning language. He suggested that the Critical Period Hypothesis only applies to implicit learning of abstract structures. That is, all findings of this study imply that explicit learning processes are a necessary condition for achieving a high level of competence in a nonnative language after childhood.
Reading this article, I wonder what is the best way to teach foreign language for adult learner. And also, I wonder whether it is worth or not to place a high value on early-childhood Englich Education.
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