Teachers' language use in university foreign language classrooms: A qualitative analysis of English and Target Language Alternation - 1994 (original) (raw)
Related papers
1994
This bode presents an empirical study of teacher-student interaction in ESL classes, particularly in the area of student responses to teachers' questioning techniques. Data were gathered from six teachers and their twelve ESL classes at an English language institute in New York City during the spring semester of 1985. Three of the classes were beginning-level and the other three were advanced-level. The students included native speakers of Amharic, Arabic, Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, and Turkish. Those whose Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) scores fell below 400 were placed in beginning-level classes, while those who scaed around 500 wCTe placed in advanced-level classes. Except for their language background and TOEFL scenes, no other information on the twenty-seven
Teacher’s Language of Instruction and Student’s Second Language Acquisition
2016
Abstract: In 2006 - 2012 there wa s a new trend at Junior and Senior High Schools in Indonesian to conduct classes labeled an International Class based on the government decree for Educational Quality Enhancement. “Sekolah Menengah Atas Negeri I Jember” executed this regulation by designing “Kelas Rintisan”(a Pioneering Class) where the instruction of English and Science subjects wa s done in English by the expert teachers. The teacher’s language of instruction wa s intended to design an artificial classroom English “ learning environment” which c ould stimulate the students using their English consciously and unconsciously whiles they aimed to understand the content subjects and communicate with teacher and classmates. The communicative interaction m ight happen when language wa s modified to fit the students’ level of difficulty . T hus the students c ould involve actively in using English. Classroom interactions c ould give direct help to students solv e the breakdown in a commu...
Input for the Second Language Classroom: Some Innovations and Insights
2015
The importance of target language (TL) data in the learning environment has been increasingly recognized by instructional practitioners. One contributing factor is the surge of instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) research since the 1980s, which has resulted in a variety of input-based insights and approaches. Conceptually, Krashen's (1982, 1985) Input Hypothesis alludes to the essentialness of making input "comprehensible" enough (i+1). That is, learners' exposure to input must occur at a level just beyond their current capabilities in order for it to be beneficial for acquisition. Pedagogically, focus on form (FonF) (Long, 1991; Long & Robinson, 1998) techniques such as textual enhancement, input flood, and processing instruction (VanPatten, 1996, 2002, 2004) offer practical means for language instructors to make certain physical or formal features of input more salient to classroom learners within a communicative, meaning-focused context. Such meaning-oriented contexts include, for example, processing input for comprehension as part of a larger pedagogic task. That being the case, the past decade of ISLA research has gradually moved beyond the abovementioned focus on the surface, formal features of input to probe into the more intrinsic attributes of L2 input at the phonological, lexical, grammatical and discourse levels. Not surprisingly, teacher-talk, authentic documents, and textbooks remain by and large the main sources of native-like classroom input to date (Meunier, 2012). Traditionally, teachertalk is classified as a sub-variety of "foreigner talk"-and a defining feature of many L2 classrooms. It is also regarded as a key source of "modified input." Research has shown, for example, that teacher talking time comprises of as much as 70 percent of total class time on average (e.g., Meunier, 2012). While error correction or corrective feedback (CF) (Lyster & Ranta, 1997) is generally considered to be the predominant kind of modified input that makes up the bulk of classroom discourse, teacher-talk entails more than CF. Teacher questions, teachers' use of metalanguage and of the learners' first language (L1) in the L2 classroom also fall within the domain of L2 teacher-talk research-and have been empirically studied at least to some extent (Ellis, 2012). One probable reason why these other types of teacher-talk have been less researched than CF is that teacher-talk has been perceived as only indirectly related to L2 acquisition and the corresponding learning outcomes. Nevertheless, recent findings on the effectiveness of teacher-talk as an input source for incidental vocabulary acquisition (e.g., Horst, 2010) and formulaic language teaching (e.g., Meunier, 2012) apparently bear important pedagogical implications. Overall, teacher speech alone was found to be inefficient and insufficient for promoting the acquisition of essential vocabulary knowledge. For example, vocabulary acquisition requires repetition and recycling of previously encountered words, but many studies have shown that extremely low frequencies of recycled vocabulary occur in teacher-talk. This in turn renders teacher-talk a somewhat undependable source for building up the critical mass required for successful vocabulary acquisition. Moreover, teacher-talk is insufficient from a depth-of-processing perspective, which posits that the level of processing involved has direct implications for the acquisitional outcomes concerned. Establishing and/or mapping form-meaning links for vocabulary heard in teacher speech involve only receptive processing at best. Learners are not required to take up any greater
Two complementary modes of foreign language classroom interaction, ELT Journal Volume 56/3 July 2002
The aim of this paper is to look at foreign language (FL) classroom talk as a special type of interaction (Seedhouse 1996; Cullen 1998), which has two complementary modes: the natural and the pedagogical (Stern 1983; Kramsch 1985; Gil 1999). The reason for adopting such a perspective is that it seems to create a bridge between theory-driven investigations of classroom interaction and actual pedagogical practice in the foreign language classroom
L2 input and characteristics of instructional techniques in early foreign language classrooms
L2 input and characteristics of instructional techniques in early foreign language classrooms, 2021
Linguistic input is considered one of the most important prerequisites for the acquisition of a foreign language. In recent decades, theoretical approaches within a cognitive-interactionist framework (Long, 2015) have identified various aspects of L2 input and characteristics of instruction that predict learners’ L2 outcomes. Teaching principles relate (1) to characteristics of communicative activities in which the L2 is embedded and encountered by the learners, and (2) to the quality of L2 input, L2 interactions and learners’ L2 output (Ellis & Shintani, 2014). They are in line with task-based and content-based L2 teaching approaches. This chapter starts out with the theoretical underpinnings to L2 instructional principles (Gass et al., 2020, Kormos, 2011, Leow, 2015, Truscott & Sharwood Smith, 2019). Based on two graphical illustrations on characteristics and processes in ISLA and internal knowledge construction, it introduces the roles of sensory input and individual perception, the internal meaning-making process, prior knowledge and selective attention. Consequences of this type of information processing for instruction are discussed with respect to the instigation of noticing, salience, cognitive activation and depth of processing. The second part of the paper gives an overview of characteristics of teachers’ linguistic behavior which includes how teachers modify verbal input in the L2 both lexically, structurally and prosodically, how they shape communicative interactions in terms of authenticity, negotiation of meaning, feedback and focus on form, and how they create opportunities for productive L2 output of the learners. Linguistic input is typically supported by different types of non-verbal scaffolding techniques and is embedded in communicative-instructional activities that have the potential to facilitate L2 acquisition. Especially scaffolding techniques which foster comprehensible input are crucial in early stages of SLA. Instructional characteristics of activities comprise autonomous action-oriented problem-solving (construction of knowledge), the activation of learners’ prior experiences, the stimulation of multiple senses, and a positive learning environment. The goal of these instructional principles is to pro-vide comprehensibility and cognitive stimulation during the L2 acquisition process, induce wide-spread neural activity and ultimately facilitate long-term retention. All of these principles are derived from the above mentioned theoretical framework and operationalized as ‘teaching techniques’ in the Teacher Input Observation Scheme (TIOS, Kersten et al., 2018) which serves as a structuring matrix for the second part of the paper. Techniques are defined as “description of how a communicative behavior or activity is carried out in the classroom at a given moment as the actual point of contact with the learner/s”. This operationalization has specific measurement implications for research studies as it provides a systematic basis of multidimensional categories of L2 teaching techniques. In terms of teaching practice, the classification of these techniques allows for L2 classroom observation, teacher training and teachers’ self-evaluation. The paper closes with empirical and practical examples on the effect of such teaching techniques in preschool and primary school classrooms. The TIOS can be downloaded at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340096869\_Teacher\_Input\_Observation\_Scheme\_TIOS\_and\_Manual. Revised version, to appear in: Special Issue on 'Teaching English to Young Learners' (Cirocki, A. & Wilden, E., eds.), The European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL, 2021 (2). (under review)
Student Uses of the First Language for L2 Classroom Interactions
2019
In foreign language education today, the use of the first language (L1) is a highly debated topic. Entire pedagogies are designed to limit the amount of L1 use in the classroom and reach the goal of total immersion in the second language (L2) classroom. From much of the discussion, the perception is that the closer a teacher or class reaches 100% target language use, the better. In fact, the 2010 ACTFL position statement on the matter indicated that teachers should attempt to communicate in the L2 between 90 and 100 percent of the class. A 2013 survey study found that foreign language teachers had the goal to abide by these ACTFL standards or come close, but many failed to actually do so in their classrooms (Ceo-DiFransesco, 2013). At first glance, more L2 might seem better, however, this may not be the case. Recent work into L1 use in the L2 language learning classroom shows that the L1 supports and enhances specific functions, as well as the language learning process in general (s...
Second Language Acquisition and Language Teaching
International Journal of English Studies, 2004
After discussing the ties between language teaching and second language acquisition research, the present paper reviews the role that second language acquisition research has played on two recent pedagogical proposals. First, communicative language teaching, advocated in the early eighties, in which focus on the code was excluded, and then the more recent research-based proposals of integrating some degree of focus on form in meaning-based curricula. Following Ellis (1998), four macro-options of focus-on-form interventions and their theoretical motivations are presented, followed by recent research evidence: input processing, input enhancement, formfocused output and negative feedback. The last section of the paper deals with two related pedagogical issues: the choice of linguistic forms in focused instruction and its benefits depending on individual factors and the learning context.