Second Language Learning in The Classroom

There are some theories about the learning a
second language in the classroom and some

methods and materials have been developed to
apply these theories in the classroom.
The only way to promote language learning in
the classroom requires a knowledge of the
relationship between teaching and learning.
There were 6 theoretical proposals for second
and foreign language teaching are presented
to illustrate which one holds the greatest
promise for improving the language learning in
the classroom.
2/50
Six Proposals for Classroom Teaching
1. Get it right from the beginning
2. Just listen… and read
3. Let’s talk
4. Two for one
5. Teach what is teachable
6. Get it right in the end

3/50
Proposal 1: Get it right from the beginning
 Introduction
This proposal emphasizes the importance of
accuracy in second language teaching and
the use of structure-based or form-based
approaches.
It includes the two most common traditional
approaches to second language teaching:
grammar translation and audio-lingual
approaches.
4/50
Grammar-Translation Approach
The grammar translation method is an old
approach.
It has its origin in the teaching of classical
languages (e.g. Greek and Latin).
5/50
Characteristics of the Grammar Translation
approach:
According to Richards and Rodgers (1986)
1. Vocabulary lists, often accompanied by translation

equivalents
2. Focus on grammar rules
3. Reading and writing are the major focus; little or
no systematic attention is paid to speaking and
listening.
4. Vocabulary selection is based solely on the reading
texts used, and words are taught through bilingual
word lists, dictionary study, and memorization.
6/50
Characteristics of the Grammar Translation
approach:
According to Richards and Rodgers (1986)
5. The sentence is the basic unit of teaching and

language practice. Much of the lesson is devoted to
translating sentences from and into the target
language.
6. Accuracy is emphasized.
7. Grammar is taught deductively, that is, by
presentation and study of grammar rules.
8. The student's native language is the medium of
instruction.
7/50
Its purpose:
8/50
 Audio-lingual instruction arose as a reaction to the

grammar translation approach.
 The argument was that, unlike grammar
translation teaching in which students learned
about the language, audio-lingual teaching would
lead students to actually speak the language.
 The audio-lingual approach is based on
behaviorism and contrastive analysis (habit
formation, drills, repetition, distinguishing
minimal pairs and similar sounds, etc)
9/50
Characteristics of the Audio-lingual Method:
(Prator & Celce-Murcia 1979)
1. New material is presented in dialogue form;

2. There is dependence on mimicry and memorization
of set phrases.
3. Structural patterns are taught using repetitive drills;
4. There is little or no grammatical explanation.
Grammar grammar is taught inductively not
deductively;
5. Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context;
10/50
Characteristics of the Audio-lingual Method:
(Prator & Celce-Murcia 1979)
7. there is much use of tapes, language labs, and visual

aids;
8. Great importance is attached to pronunciation;
9. Very little use of the mother tongue by teachers is
permitted;
10. Successful responses are immediately reinforced;
11. There is a great effort to get students to produce
error-free utterances;
12. There is a tendency to manipulate language and
disregard content. 11/50
Even though the focus is on the oral

language, students rarely use the language
spontaneously.
Teachers avoid letting beginning learners
speak freely because this would allow them
to make errors.
According to this view, errors could become
habits (habit formation).
So it is better to prevent these bad habits
before they happen.
12/50
Research findings:
1. The grammar translation approach is useful for the
intensive study of grammar and vocabulary and
for understanding important texts.
2. These two approaches are too limited to be used in
ordinary school programs because these cannot
meet the needs of students who have different
levels of motivation and aptitude to the classroom.
4. The traditional grammar translation and audio-
lingual methods frequently failed to produce
fluency and accuracy in second language learners.
5. This likely lead to early fossilization of errors.
13/50
Study 12 – Audio-lingual Pattern Drill
 This study was carried by Patsy Lightbown in the late

1970s.
 The research included descriptive studies of the inter
language development of second language learners in
audio-lingual programs.
 In this study, the learners’ acquisition of certain
English grammatical morphemes was compared in the
natural learning environment and in the isolated
pattern practice drills.
 The results showed that repetition and drill of
decontextualized sentences didn’t develop the
learners’ comprehension, fluency and communicative
abilities outside the classroom.
14/50
Study 13- Grammar plus

communicative practice
 It is one of the studies of Sandra Savignon on

the linguistic and communicative skills of 18
college students enrolled in French language
courses at on American University.
15/50
Study 13- Grammar plus

communicative practice
 In the research, there are three different audio-lingual
groups:
1. group one receives audio-lingual instruction and
communicative tasks.
2. Group two receives audio-lingual instruction and culture
through films, music and art.
3. Group three receives audio-lingual instruction with
controlled grammar and pronunciation drills.
 At the end of the research, L2 programmes focusing only
on accuracy and form don’t develop learners’
communication abilities in L2.
16/50
Proposal 2. Just listen… and read
 This proposal emphasizes the importance of
comprehensible input through listening and/or
reading.
 Just listen…and read’ proposal is particularly
associated with Krashen’s Input hypothesis.
 Learners don’t need to drill and practice the
language and also they don’t need to speak at all
in their learning process.
 ‘just listen and read’ are based on the studies of
comprehension-based teaching and extensive
reading.
17/50
Study 14- Comprehension-based

instruction for children
 It is the investigation of Patsy Lightbown and
her colleagues.
 Students’ learning in the comprehension based
program and in the regular program which is
mainly audio-lingual approach are compared.
 The result shows that the learners in the
comprehension-based program know as much
English as learners in the regular program in
terms of not only their comprehension skills but
also their speaking skills
18/50
Study 15- Reading for words
 Marlise Horst (2005) used simplified readers in a
study of vocabulary development among adult
immigrants who were enrolled in an ESL program in
a community centre in Montreal, Canada.
 Reading is a particularly valuable source of new
vocabulary.
 Substantial vocabulary growth through reading is
possible.
19/50
Study 16- Total Physical Response
• TPR developed by James Asher
• In TPR, learners simply listen and show their
comprehension by their actions
• It shows that learners can develop comprehension
in the language without using oral practice.
• This approach has some limitations but it gives
beginners a good start. It is stated that learners
will be less nervous because this approach doesn’t
lead them to speak instead it present inputs and
learners receive and comprehend the input firstly.
20/50
21/50
22/50
 refers to a variety of things that might draw

learners’ attention to features in the second
language.
 There is a study of Joanna White on enhanced
input.
 French-speaking learners are given the reading
passages designed to draw their attention to a
particular form-the possessive determiners; his/her
 These forms are embedded in the text by using
typographical enhancement such as in bold type,
underlined, italicized or written in capital letters.
23/50
 At the end of the research, the performance of

learners who read the typographically enhanced
passages and the learners who read the passages
without enhancement are compared.
 Results show that there is little difference between
them. At this point, it can be said that the
enhancement may not be explicit enough to draw
the learners’ attention to that form.
24/50
Processing instruction is another approach

to comprehension-based learning
In this approach, learners not only
comprehend a sentence by depending only
on context, prior knowledge or other clues,
but also focus on the language itself.
25/50
 In this study, learners receiving processing

instruction and the ones receiving more traditional
approach are compared.
 The first group receives explicit information and
then comprehension-based processing instruction
through listening and reading activities and paying
attention to how the target forms are used to
convey meaning.
 According to the results, it is clear that learners who
receive the comprehension-based processing
instruction have higher levels of performance on
both the comprehension tasks and the production
tasks than the other group.
26/50
• Summary:
 Comprehension-based programs appear to be
beneficial in the development of basic comprehension
and communicative performance in the early stages
of L2 learning.
 However, it may not be sufficient to get learners to
continue developing their L2 abilities to advanced
levels.
 In particular, these approaches may make it difficult
for learners to discover and eliminate patterns
already present in the interlanguage that are not
grammatical in the TL. 27/50
 Let’s talk proposal focuses on the importance of
both comprehensible input and conversational
interaction between teacher and other students.
 According to this proposal, if there is an
interactional situation, then learners feel it
necessary to negotiate for meaning; therefore, they
can express their intentions, thoughts, opinions
etc…
 The learners have a chance to under stand each
other. This occurs especially if the learners work
together. So, task-based instruction is based on let’s
talk proposal.
28/50
 In these studies the effects of interaction on
second language production and
development are examined.
 Generally the interaction hypothesis has an
important role in these research because it is
claimed that interaction facilitates learning
and contributes the learners’ attitude to
language.
 In addition, corrective feedback is seen as on
crucial feature. It helps learners make
connections between form and meaning.
29/50
Study 20- Learners talking to learners
 Michael Long and Patricia Porter study on learner
interaction
 They compare the speech of native and non-native
speakers in conversations and analyze the differences
across proficiency levels in conversation pairs.
 This study shows that there are more productions
when they talk with advanced-level learners because
the conversations between advanced learners last
longer than intermediate-level partners.
30/50
Study 20- Learners talking to learners
According to these studies it can be concluded
that learners can-not always provide each
other with the accurate grammatical input, but
they can share the some meaning with
negotiation.
This negotiation of meaning is the main point
on which the supporters of the ‘Let’s talk’
proposal aim to focus.
31/50
Study 21- Learner Language and Proficiency Level
 This is a study about the role of different-level

learners in a two-way communication task on
the differences in their interactive behavior.
 During the research, one learner from the high
proficiency is in the role of sender and one
learner from the lower-proficiency is in the
receiver role. Another group has the low-
proficiency senders’ paired with high-
proficiency receivers.
32/50
Study 21- Learner Language and Proficiency Level
 As a result, it is seen that lower-level receivers

are in a very passive role.
 However, when the lower-level learners play in
the ‘sender’ role, there are more negotiation of
meaning and variety in the interaction.
 Talking this study into consideration it can be
stated that teacher should sometimes give
opportunities to lower-level learners to be in
dominant roles.
33/50
Study 22- The dynamics of pair work
 It is Naomi Starch study. She tries to investigate
the patterns of pair interaction and wants to
define whether different types of interactions lead
to differences in second language learning. She
uses four distinct patterns of interaction;
1. ‘Collaborative’ interaction
2. ‘dominant-dominant’ interaction
3. ‘dominant-passive’ interaction
4. ‘expert-novice’ interaction
34/50
 the study shows that learners in the
collaborative and expert-novice pairs use their
second language knowledge over time.
 However, learners in the dominant-dominant
and dominant-passive pairs use their L2
knowledge less.
35/50
 These studies can be linked with Vygotsky’s theory
of cognitive development.
 Learners can engage in the co-construction of
knowledge more successfully when they are
working in an expert-novice relationship.
 Collaboration and sharing the knowledge
mutually in pair works can affect the success in
the second language.
36/50
Study 23- Interaction and Second Language
Development
• Alison Mackey makes a study on adult learners of ESL.
• Learners engage in different communicative tasks. The
research is carried out on three groups;
 Group 1: learners interact with native speakers, who
modified their language.
 Group 2: learners only observe the interactions between
the learners and native speakers in Group 1.
 Group 3: learners and native speakers participate in the
communicative tasks as Group 1 but their input is pre-
modified.
37/50
Study 23- Interaction and Second Language
Development
• The result of the research shows that learner in

Group 1 who engage in conversational
interactions produce more advanced question
forms than the two other experimental
groups.
38/50
Study 24: Learner-learner interaction in a that
classroom
 McDonough makes a research on the use of pair and small
group activities in English as a foreign language classes in
Thailand.
 Audio record is used during the activities to see the extent to
which students used interactional features such as negative
feedback and modified output.
 Result show that learners who use more negative feedback
and modified output significantly improve in the accuracy of
their conditional clauses.
 The usefulness of pair work and small group activities is
explored and it is found that students do not see pair and
group activities as useful for learning English. 39/50
Proposal 4: Two for one
• This proposal refers to the content-based
instruction on the idea here is to acquire a
second or foreign language as the student
study subject matter in that language.
• The main aim of this approach is that
students can get ‘two for one’, learning
the subject matter content and the
language at the same time.
40/50
Study 25: French immersion program in
Canada
• Most immersion program are offered in
primary and secondary schools and the
studies sow that French has a great success.
• In addition, French immersion students
develop fluency, high levels of listening
comprehension, and confidence in using their
second language.
41/50
Study 25: French immersion program in
Canada
However, there are also some problems in French
immersion program in terms of some aspects of
French grammar.
The reasons are that comprehensible input is not
enough and there is too much teacher centered
learning.
there is a problem in terms of students’ lack of
progress on certain language features because of
their rarity in content-based instruction.
42/50
Study 26: Late immersion under stress in Hong
Kong
 This subject, Keith Johson raises concerns about the
ability of the educational system to meet the
demands for late English immersion programs.
 He notes that students lack the English proficiency
needed to follow the secondary level curriculum
successfully.
 Furthermore, teachers’ difficulties of delivering the
content because of limitations in their own English
proficiency are observed.
43/50
Study 27: Inuit children in content-based
program
 Nina Spada and Patsy Lightbown observe the
teaching and learning of school subject and
language with Inuit children.
 The general problem which is observed is that
really all students have some difficulty coping
with subject matter instruction in their second
language
 The teachers also have to work very hard to help
students understand the subject.
44/50
• The purpose in this proposal is to choose
appropriate language features to teach
according to the learners’ second language
developmental stages.
• Manfred Pienemann and his associates
have tried to explain why it often seems
that some things can be taught
successfully whereas other things seem to
remain unacquired.
45/50
• These structures are called ‘developmental
features’.
• On the other hand, according to researchers
supporting this proposal also claim that some
language features can be taught at any time
such as vocabulary items.
• These kinds of structures are called ‘variational
features’. Learning these variational features
depends on motivation, intelligence, language
aptitude, the quality of instruction cultures and
etc.
46/50
Study 28: Ready to learn
 Manfred Pienemann investigates whether
instruction permits learners to skip a stage
in the natural sequence of development.
 This study clearly supports that learners
cannot be taught what they are not
developmentally ready to learn.
47/50
Study 29: readies, unreadies and recast
• The research question is whether adult ESL learners
who are at different stages in their acquisition of
questions can advance in their immediate
production of these forms if they receive implicit
negative feedback in conversational interaction.
• The results show that the readies in the interaction
plus recast make the learners improve more than
the readies in the interaction without recasts.
• Unready who are exposed to recast do not show
more rapid improvement than those who are not.
48/50
Study 30: Developmental stage and first language
influence
 The acquisition of question in relation to learners’
developmental readiness is investigated by Nina Spada and
Patsy Lightbow.
 Some learners are exposed to more advanced question
forms. Learners who are considered to be developmentally
ready and the learners who are not yet developmentally
ready are focused on.
 These results indicate that developmental readiness may
move learners into more advanced stages.
 First language influence is regarded to be responsible for
learners’ inability to generalize their knowledge of
questions. 49/50
• Conclusions
 The research only measured the short-term effects of
instruction. There is no way of knowing whether
instruction had any permanent or long-term effects on
learners’ developing interlanguage systems.
 Explicit instruction might have led to more positive
results, particularly if the instruction had consisted of
contrastive information about L1 and L2.
 “Teach what is teachable” position is of great
potential interest to syllabus planners as well as
teachers.
50/50
Proposal 6- Get it right in the end
• ‘Get it right in the end’ proposal advocates
the importance of form- focused instruction
and corrective feedback within
communicative second language programs
because it is said that this can improve
learners’ use of particular grammatical
features.
• This proposal regards the comprehension-
based, content-based, task-based etc… as
the instructions focusing on meaning too
much. 51/50
• Proponents of this proposal also agree with
advocators of the ‘Teach what is teachable’
proposal. However, ‘Get it right in the end’
proposal differs from ‘Teach what is
teachable’ proposal because it states that
some aspects of language must be taught
and may need to be taught quite explicitly.
• Explicit instruction is particularly needed.
• This may prevent them making errors.
52/50
Study 31: Form-focused experiments in ESL
• The investigation is about the effects form-
focused instruction and corrective feedback
on the developing English of French
speaking students participating in intensive
ESL classes in Quebec.
. Descriptive studies indicate that teachers
rarely focus on language form; there aren’t
structural studies and language features are
learned communicatively. There is a focus on
meaning in activities. 53/50
Study 31: Form-focused experiments in ESL
• learners develop listening comprehension,
fluency, and communicative confidence in
English. On the other hand, they have problems
in linguistic accuracy and complexity.
• According to some research, form-focused
instructions are not always long-lasting. This can
be explained in terms of the frequency of use of
the particular structure in regular classroom
input. Additionally, the way of giving
instruction may affect language features in
different ways.
54/50
Study 32: Focusing on the conditional in French
immersion
• There is a study by Elaine Day and Stan Shapson.
• It is about the effects of instruction on the ability of French
immersion students to use the conditional mood of verbs in
sentences.
• Students are divided into two groups; Experimental group
receives several hours of focused instruction on the conditional.
Control group continues their usual classroom routines.
Additionally, experimental group are supported with special
teaching materials such as group work, written or oral
exercises, self-evaluation activities etc.
• results show that learners in the experimental group are better
than those in the control group.
55/50
Study 33: Focusing on sociolinguistic forms in French
immersion
• The study is carried out by Roy Lyster on the effects of
form-focused instruction on the knowledge and use of
sociolinguistic style variations.
• Learners in the experimental group are given explicit
instruction, guided practice activities with role plays and
feedbacks from teachers and peers. The other two
comparison classes receive their regular instruction without
any focused instruction or guided practice in using socio-
linguistically appropriate form.
• The study shows that the experimental classes are better
than comparison classes in terms of written and oral
production tasks and the multiple choice test.
56/50
Study 34: Focusing on gender in French immersion
• It is a study carried out by Birgit Harley on the effects
of instruction with very young children in French
immersion programs.
• Learners are given focused instruction on a
grammatical feature, it is grammatical gender.
• There is a focus on gender distinctions to take
children’ attention. Some learners receive instruction
and these are much better at recognizing and
producing accurate gender distinctions for familiar
nouns than those who don’t receive instruction.
• However, learners don’t generalize their learning to
new nouns. 57/50
Study 35: Focusing on verb form in content- based
science classrooms
• It is Catherine Douhty’s and Elizabeth Varela’s study
on a ESL group who receive second language
instruction in content-based teaching.
• Two groups are compared. One group with a variety
of first language backgrounds receives corrective
feedback; both implicitly and explicitly. The other
group doing the same science doesn’t receive
corrective feedback on the verb forms.
• So, the students who receive the corrective feedback
make more progress in using the forms.
58/50
Study 36: Recast and prompts in French immersion
classrooms
• Lyster explores the effects of form-focused
instruction and feedback type on second
language learning for students in grade 5 French
immersion classrooms.
• As a result, Lyster finds that prompts can
enhance control over already internalized forms.
All three FFI groups are more accurate than the
comparison group. Furthermore, the FFI +
prompts group do better than the FFI+ recasts on
the written measures.
59/50
Study 37: Focus on form through collaborative dialogue
• Merrill Swain and Sharon Lapkin observe the language
development of two grade 7 French immersion students as
they write a story collaboratively.
• In the study, there is a focus on finding out what students
notice about differences between their original version and
the reformulated one.
• Another point they are interested in is whether they make
revision their original stories based on their collaborative
talk about the reformulated version. These show that
multiple opportunities for learners to engage in collaborative
talk on the language features lead them to a greater
understanding of their correct use.
60/50
Study 38: Focus on form in task-based
instruction
• Virginia Samuda investigates the importance of the teacher’s
role in task-based instruction and explores ways of guiding
adult ESL learners’ attentions to form- meaning relationship.
• First learners work in groups to speculate on the identity of
an unknown person.
• Then they come together as a whole group to tell each other
what they have decided. In the final stage of the task, they
prepare and present a poster.
• Meanwhile, the teacher responds to the content and not the
form of their work. The first stage of the task and the final
stage are compared and some improvements are seen.
61/50
• Conclusions:
 Form-focused instruction and corrective feedback
provided within the communicative contexts are more
effective in promoting L2 learning.
 The challenge is to find the balance between meaning-
focused and form-focused activities. The right balance is
likely to be different according to the characteristics of the
learners, such as age, metalinguistic sophistication,
motivation, goals, and the similarity of the TL to the L1.
 Explicit, guided form-focused instruction is needed when
features in the TL differ from the L1 in subtle ways,
particularly when the information about these differences
is not available in the regularly occurring input.
62/50
THE IMPLICATIONS OF CLASSROOM
RESEARCH FOR TEACHING
• These research show that there should be focus on
neither only meaning nor on the form.
• Communicative and content-based instructions
receive the most support from classroom research.
• In language teaching, grammar translation and
audio-lingual instructions are unduly the most
widely used methods; but the researches indicate
that ‘Get it right from the beginning’ doesn’t
correspond to the way the majority of successful
second language learners. Their advantages are
limited and they can be used special situations.
63/50
• On the other hand, there are also some program

that give little or no importance to form-focused
instruction such as ‘Just listen…. and read’, ‘Two
for one’ proposals.
• Similarly, in ‘Let’s talk’ proposal learners have a
chance to engage in conversational instructions
which lead to increased fluency. However, the
learners may make slow progress on acquiring
more accurate language because of inadequate
focus on form.
64/50
• It can be concluded from all the research

about the proposals that the critical point is
to find the balance between meaning-
based and form-based activities. This will
also be different according to the
characteristics of the learners including
learners’ age, metalinguistic sophistication,
prior knowledge, experiences, motivation,
goals, needs etc.
65/50
Prepared by:
Mercy D. Bulan
Jenalyn May D. Palanas
Mateo H. Palanas, Jr.
66/50

Second Language Learning in The Classroom

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Second Language Learning in The Classroom

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

There are some theories about the learning a

second language in the classroom and some

1. Get it right from the beginning

2. Just listen… and read

4. Two for one

5. Teach what is teachable

6. Get it right in the end

1. Vocabulary lists, often accompanied by translation

5. The sentence is the basic unit of teaching and

 Audio-lingual instruction arose as a reaction to the

1. New material is presented in dialogue form;

7. there is much use of tapes, language labs, and visual

Even though the focus is on the oral

 This study was carried by Patsy Lightbown in the late

Study 13- Grammar plus

 It is one of the studies of Sandra Savignon on

Study 13- Grammar plus

Study 14- Comprehension-based

 refers to a variety of things that might draw

 At the end of the research, the performance of

Processing instruction is another approach

 In this study, learners receiving processing

 This is a study about the role of different-level

 As a result, it is seen that lower-level receivers

• The result of the research shows that learner in

• On the other hand, there are also some program

• It can be concluded from all the research

Вам также может понравиться