SLA

Question 1

Affective Filter hypothesis

Answer 1

(Krashen, 1982) How receptive to comprehensible input a learner is going to be.

Question 2

Attrition

Answer 2

The loss of all or part of a first or second language either by an individual or a community. Several Competing L2 Attrition Hypotheses -Order of Acquisition: last thing learned, first thing lost -Frequency of Use: things learned best are retained most -Age and pre-proficiency levels: the amount of L2 loss is mediated by age and proficiency at the time attrition begins

Question 3

Backsliding/U-Shaped Curve

Answer 3

Sharwood Smith & Kellerman (1989)

A correct form appears at an early stage of development, is replaced by incorrect form at intermediate stage, and reappears with mastery at a later stage of development.

Question 4

Comprehensible Input

Answer 4

Krashen (1982)

Learners will acquire language when the input contains language structures that are slightly beyond their current level. (i +1)

Input: the language (spoken or written) that learners are exposed to.

Question 5

Connectionism

Answer 5

N.C. Ellis (2003)

Instead of formulation of “linguistic rules.” language learning leads to the formation of neural pathways in the brain–Neural Networks–nodes and pathways are strengthened through activation.

Question 6

Contrastive Analysis

Answer 6

A structure-by-structure comparison of the L1 and L2 used to determine and anticipate potential errors.

• intended to predict aspects of L2 that will either be easy or diffiicult to learn
• assumes the primary source of L2 errors is the L1
• assumes that the greater the difference between L1 and L2, the more errors that will occur

research showed that contrastive analysis does not predict nor account for all learner errors

Question 7

Corrective Feedback

Answer 7

Responses to language learner’s errors that are intended to facilitate lanugage development

• error correction
• negative feedback

Question 8

Critical Period Hypothesis

Answer 8

Lenneberg (1967)

There is a specific and limited time frame during the first few years of life in which an individual, if presented with adequate language stimuli, can acquire a first language.

Question 9

Error Analysis

Answer 9

Corder (1967)

the systematic investigation of L2 learners’ errors

Question 10

Focus on Form and Focus on FormS

Answer 10

Focus on Form

Keeping the main focus on task, content or communication while explicitly teaching a linguistic form (grammar, morphology, phonology).

Focus on FormS

• Traditional teaching of linguistic forms in isolation
• Limited to the teaching of forms

Question 11

Fossilization

Answer 11

Selinker (1972) Term used to characterize cases of ‘permanent lack of mastery of a target langauge (TL) despite continuous exposure to the TL input, adequate motivation to improve, and sufficient opportunity to practice’ (Han, 2004)

quoted from Ortega; Understanding SLA.

Question 12

• Individual Differences Learner Differences

Answer 12

Even if following a common developmental route, learners differ greatly in degree of success. (Gardner and MacIntyre, 1992, 1993):

• Cognitive Factors (language aptitude and language learning strategies)
• Affective Factors (attitudes, motivation, anxiety and willingness to communicate)

Question 13

Information Processing

Answer 13

(McLaughlin, 1987) Skill building model Computer as metaphor: controlled versus automatic processing - Using new and unfamiliar forms requires greater attentional resources -Familiar forms are automatic; attentional resources are available for learning

Question 14

Interaction Hypothesis

Answer 14

(Long, 1985, 1996) 1. Opportunities for negotiation of meaning 2. Modified interaction -> increased comprehensibility 3. Opportunity for output 4. Elicits negative feedback to draw learner’s attention to mismatches between their own output and target language forms

Question 15

Interlanguage

Answer 15

Selinker (1972)

the language produced by learners

• a system in its own right, obeying it own rules
• a dynamic system, evolving over time

Question 16

Language Acquisition Device

Answer 16

(Chomsky, 1965) the “little black box” in the brain that processes language

Question 17

Language Transfer

Answer 17

“the psychological process whereby prior learning is carried over into a new learning situation” (Gass & Selinker, 2001,p. 66)

Question 18

Monitor Model

Answer 18

(Krashen

Question 19

Motivation

Answer 19

(Gardner and MacIntyre, 1993) the desire to achieve a goal with devotion of effort and satisfaction in activities that help attain the goal

Question 20

Noticing Hypothesis

Answer 20

(Schmidt, 1990) Nothing is learned unless it ihas been noticed. Noticing is the essential starting point of acquisition.

Question 21

Pushed Output Hypothesis

Answer 21

(Swain, 1985, 1995) “the activity of producing the target language may push learners to become aware of gaps and problems in theur current second language system. . .and provides them with opportunities to experiment with new structures and forms” (quoting Mitchell & Myles, 2004)

Question 22

Recast

Answer 22

a form of implicit feedback in which the teacher restates the student’s utterance with corrected grammar Ellis, Loewen & Erlam (2006) found that recasts were not as effective as explicit metalinguistic feedback in long-term learning

Question 23

The Cause of Learner Error

Answer 23

”Learners’ second-langauge utternaces may be deviant by comparison with target langauge norms, but they are by no means lacking in system. Errors and mistakes are patterned, and although some regular errors are caused by the influence of the first language, this is by no means true of all of them. Instead, there is a good deal of evidence that learners work their way through a number of developmental stages, from apparently primitive and deviant versions of the second language, to progressively more elaborate and target-like versions. Just like fully proficient users of a langauge, their language productins can be described by a set of underlying rules; these interim rules have thier own integrity and are not just inadequately applied versions of the target langauge rules.” (M & M, 1998, p. 16)

The systematicity in the langauge produced by second-langauge learners is of course paralled in the early stages through which first langauge learners also pass in a highly regular manner.

However, learner langauge (or interlangauge) is not only characterized by systematicity. Learner langauge systems are presumably unstable and in course of change; certainly, they are also characterized by high degrees of variabiltiy(Towell and Hawkins, 1994). Most obviously, learners’ utterances seem to vary from moment to moment, inthe types of ‘errors’ that are made, and leraners seem liable to switch between a range of correct and incorrect froms over lengthy periods of time.

Restructuring, a step within McLaughlin’s(1996) infromation processing model may explain learner error. Automatization (McLaughlin 1987, 1990; McLaughlin and Heredia 1996) is based on the work of psychologists such as Shiffrin and Schneiderr (1977) who claim that the way in which we process infromation may be either controlled or automatic, and that learning involves a shift from controlled towards automatic processing. Applied to SLL the model works as follows:

Learners first resort to controlled processing in teh second langauge. This controlled processing involves the temporary activation of a selection of infromation nodes in the memory, in a new configuration. Such processing requires a lot of attentional control on the part of the subject, and is constrained by the limitiations of the short term memory.

Through repeated activation, sequences first produced by controlled processing become automatic. Automatized sequences first produced by controlled processing become automatic. Automatized sequences are stored as units in the long-term memory, which by means that they can be made available very rapidly whenever the situation requires it.

Learning in this view is seen as teh movement from controlled to automatic processing via practice (repeated activation). When this shift occurs, controlled processes are freed to deal with higher levels of processing.

This continuing movement from controlled to automatic processing results in a constant restructuring of the linguistic system of teh second language learner. This phenomenon may account for some of teh variability characteristic of learner language. Restructuring destabilizes some structures in the interlangauge, which seemd to have been previously aquired, and hence leads to the temporary reapperance of second langauge errors.

Question 24

The relationship between learning processes and langauge teaching

Answer 24

Enrichment of the linguistic environment especially in naturalistic settings, but also in the communicative classroom, comes to learners in the midst of oral interaction with one or more interlocutors. In the early 1980’s Michael Long established the Interactin Hypothesis (Long 1996). The hypothesis extended Krashen’s proposal by connecting it in novel ways with studies in discourse analysis that had entered the field via the work of SLA founder Evelyn Hatch (1978) and work done on caretaker speech and foreigner talk in neighboring disciplines. At the time, Long agreed with Krashen that learning happens through comprehension, and that the more one comprehends, the more one learns. However, he departed from the strong input orientation of the times by focusing on interaction and proposing that the best kind of comprehensible input learners can hope to obtain is imput ath has been ineractionally modified, or that has been adjusted after recieving some signal that the interlocutor needs some hlep in order to fully understand the message.

Interactional modifications are initiated by moves undertaken by either interlocutor in reaction to (real or percieved) comprehension problems, as they strive to make meaning more comprehensible for each other, that is, to negotiate for meaning. Typically, negotiation episodes begin with clarification requests if non-understanding is serious (eg whaddya mean? uh? pardon me?), confrimation checks when the interlocutor is somewhat unsure she has understood the message correctly (eg you mean X? X and Y, right?) and comprehension checks if one interlocutor suspects the other speaker may not have understood what she said (eg you know what I mean? do you want me to repeat?). Following signals of a need to negotiate something, the other interlocutor may confirm understanding or admit non-understanding, seek help, repeat her words exactly or try to phrase the message differently. Often this two-way process makes both interlocutors modify their utterances in ways that not only increase the comprehensiblity of teh message but also aument the salience of certain L2 forms and make them available to the learner for learning.

Sociocultural Theory and Conversational Analysis attribute interaction to L2 learning. Conversational Analysis grew out of ethnomethodological thinking of Erving Goffman and Harold Garfinkel, two sociologists during the 1950’s and 60’s. Goffman focused on the self, symbolic interaction and life as a theater, whereas Garfinkel emphasized practical activity, interactionally created sequentiality and the local production of social organization. In the 1960’s Garfinkel coined the term ethnomethodology to refer to his approach to the study of social order. CA grew out of this thinking. The CA school of thought was joined by Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson.

Quoted and paraphrased from Ortega; Understanding Second Langauge Acquisition

Question 25

The Role of
Correction in L2 Learning

Answer 25

“Interaction is also interesting to linguistic theorists, because of recent controversies over whether the provision of negative evidence is necessary or helpful for second language development. By ‘negative evidence’ is meant some kind of input that lets the learner know that a particular form is not acceptable according to target language norms. In second language interaction this might take different forms, ranging from a formal correction offered by a teacher, to a more informal rephrasing of a learner’s second language utterance, offered by a native-speaking conversation partner.” (M & M, 1998, p.22) For many SLL corrective feedback is ineffective. “For some current theorists, any natural language must therefore be learnable from positive evidence alone, and corrective feedback is largely irrelevant.” (p. 22)
Within the context of social theories, the use of scaffolding is used to transmit second-language forms. Scaffolding is used between an expert and a novice.
It is possible that the corrections which are produced by learners immediately after negative feedback are quickly forgotten, and do not affect their underlying interlangauge system; it is also possible that recasts can function as effective input and lead to learning, without any explicit repair being produced.
I. Mackey and Philp (1998) pg. 182 Second Language Learning Theories
1. The use of recasts, and their impact on the learning of English as a second language question forms.
II. 35 Adult learners
1. Program of information gap pushing them toward production of English as a second language questions (story completion, picture sequencing, picture drawing)
2. Student carried out tasks with a native speaker interlocutor, and also completed a series of pre- and post- tests that identified their level on the Pienemann and Johnston (1987) developmental scale for English questions.
III. Some of adults in the study received intensive recasting from the native speaker interlocutor whenever they made an error in question formation. Others did the same tasks, but without receiving the recasting ‘treatment’, whereas a control group did the pre- and post- tests only. During the actual study, the learners who received the recasts very seldom repaired of modified their utterances in response to them (only 5% of recasts were followed by learner repairs). However the post-tests showed that most of the learners who began the study at stage 4 on the developmental scale for questions, and who experienced recasting, progressed by at least one Stage (ie to Stage 5) in course of the study. No other group made similar progress; the researchers interpret these results as showing that recasting was beneficial for learners who were developmentally ready, in spite of the lack of overt uptake while interaction was actually in progress.
IV. The Mackey and Philp (1998) study compared the effectiveness of interaction plus recasting, with interaction alone, and found that the inclusion of recasting seemed to promote interlangauge development as far as question formation was concerned (though only for the most advanced learners in the study).

Question 26

The Role of Instruction in L2 Learning

Answer 26

Anderson’s ACT model speaks of declarative knowledge (knowledge that something is the case) to become procedural knowledge (knowledge how to do something). “Anderson posits three kinds of memory: a working memory, similar to McLaughlin’s short-term memory and therefore tightly capacity-limited, and two kinds of long-term memory- a declarative long-term memory and a procedural term memory.” (Mitchel & Myles, 1998, p. 102) To see how declarative and procedural knowledge apply to SLL we can look at the example given in “Second Language Learning Theories.” Declarative knowledge would be when the student knows that the third person s/he + verb requires an –s to the stem of the verb. “However, that same learner might not necessarily be able to consistently produce the –s in a conversation in real time. This is because this particular learner has declarative knowledge of that rule, but it has not yet been proceduralized. After much practice, this knowledge will hopefully become fully proceduralized, and the third person –s will be supplied when the context requires it.” (M & M, 1998, p. 103) The role of instruction is to help transform the student’s declarative knowledge into procedural knowledge.
“According to Anderson, the move from declarative to procedural knowledge takes place in three stages:
1. The cognitive stage: a description of the procedure is learnt.
2. The associative stage: a method for performing the skill is worked out.
3. The autonomous stage: The skill becomes more and more rapid and automatic.” (M & M, 1998, p. 103)

Question 27

Theories of Language Learning

Answer 27

1)Nativist Approaches: Chomsky-LAD & Universal Grammar. 2) Computational Models: Connectionism Information Processing. 3) Social Interactionist Approaches: Sociocultural Theory

Question 28

UG and Language Universals

Answer 28

(Chomsky, 1965)

Question 29

Ultimate Attainment

Answer 29

the final outcome of second language acquisition

Question 30

critical and sensitive period

Answer 30

The idea that there may be an optimal, maybe even critical, age period for the acquisition of language entered SLA research through the work of neurolinguists Penfield and Roberts (1959) and Lenneberg (1967). These authors contributed neurolinguistic data supporting a natural predisposition in the child’s brain for learning the first language, together with anecdotal observations that possible causes were also adept foreign language learners, when compared to adults.