Research, Theory and the

Monitor Model

3002LAL
WEEK 3
 What is research?

A systematic approach to finding answers to questions

Research includes:

 Research questions or hypotheses

 Data
 Interpretation

Research is CREATIVE
 The roles & outcomes of research
 Exploration and description
– Perceiving important aspects of a situation missed by
others
– Organising & labelling important phenomena

 Explanation
– Recognising a relationship between & among variables
– Helps us make predictions

 Validation
– Testing the explanation to make sure it works

Exploration  Description  Explanation  Validation

 Kinds of research (in general)
 Quantitative
– Tests a hypothesis
– Uses measures & statistics
– Tightly designed & controlled
– Independent & dependent variables
– Demonstrates a relationship between variables
– Deductive logic to predict results from a proposed
explanation

 Qualitative
– Shaped by research questions NOT research
hypotheses
– Verbal descriptions
– Unstructured interviews
– Inductive logic to find an explanation
 Kinds of research II
 Experimental (quantitative)
 Ethnographic (qualitative)
 Evaluation
– Determining the effectiveness of something
 Case study
 Action research
– Research with a view to change
 Cross-sectional
– At a point in time
 Longitudinal
– Over a period of time
 Historical
– Hitler’s diaries
 Model building
– Economists
 What is theory & why is it important?

 An explanation of behaviour that makes good logical

sense and that is consistent with research findings

 When we consider the huge number of things that

could be researched, theories help us find the
significant variables
 They suggest research directions and help locate
points where more research is needed to strengthen
the arguments
 Good research problems are strengthened when they
relate to theory
Research in Second Language Acquisition

 Eclectic: SLA uses a variety of quantitative and

qualitative methods & techniques including…

 Introspection
– Ls examine their own behaviour (self-report data)
– Successful in research on Learning Strategies

 Participant // Non-participant observation

– Researchers take part // Researchers do not take part
– No initial hypotheses
– Descriptive (e.g. diary entries)
– Long term observation
 SLA research methods & techniques II

 Focused description
– Of course, descriptive
– Narrow scope with focus on specific variables (e.g.
morphology, or learner motivation)
– Interaction analysis  classification schemes
– Dulay & Burt’s study of morpheme acquisition

 Experimental
– A true experiment tries to establish a causal relationship
– Requires experimental and control groups
– Requires random selection (cf quasi-experimental)
 Research settings
 The classroom setting
– Can instruction alter natural language processing?
– Textbook & teacher-induced errors (“However”)
– Students forced to produce structures before they are ready
– Feedback on errors

 Naturalistic settings
– Different input
– Focus on communication of meaning
– No formal articulation of rules
– Only very occasional feedback on errors
 Instrumentation: Production data
elicitation
 Reading aloud
 Structured exercises
 Completion task
 Elicited imitation/translation
 Guided composition
 Question & Answer
 Reconstruction
 Communication games
 Role play
 Oral interview
 Free composition
 Instrumentation: Intuitional data
elicitation
 Error recognition and correction

 Grammaticality judgements

 Other judgement tasks

– E.g. judging sentences in terms of their social acceptability

 Card sorting
– E.g. Most polite to least polite
 The problem of defining
“language proficiency”

 Dividing language proficiency into:

– The four skills
– The language components (vocabulary, phonology,
grammar)
 Problem
– Language learning is unitary & indivisible 

 Communicative competences
– Grammatical competence
– Sociolinguistic competence
– Discourse competence
– Strategic competence
 Krashen’s Monitor Model
 A general theory of language learning

 Based on a set of five basic hypotheses:

– The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis
– The Monitor Hypothesis
– The Natural Order Hypothesis
– The Input Hypothesis
– The Affective Filter Hypothesis
 The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

 Highly influential in SLA research and in language

teaching; still the subject of much debate today
 Premise is that acquisition & learning are separate
processes

 Acquisition: the ‘subconscious process identical in

all important ways to the process children utilise in
acquiring their first language.’ (Krashen 1985, p. 1)
 Learning: the ‘conscious process that results in
“knowing about” language’.
 The Monitor Hypothesis
 Learning & Acquisition are used in very specific
ways in second language performance

 The Monitor Hypothesis states that conscious

‘learning has only one function, and that is as the
Monitor or editor’

 Learning comes into play only to ‘make changes in

the form of our utterance, after it has been
“produced” by the acquired system’

 Acquisition ‘initiates’ the speaker’s utterances and is

responsible for fluency. (McLaughlin, 1987)
 The Natural Order Hypothesis

 The acquisition of grammatical structures proceeds

in a predictable order.

 ‘We acquire the rules of language in a predictable

order, some rules tending to come early and others
late. The order does not appear to be determined
solely by formal simplicity and there is evidence that
it is independent of the order in which rules are
taught in language classes.’
(Krashen 1985, p. 1)
 The Input Hypothesis

 Linked to the Natural Order Hypothesis

 L2 learners move along the developmental continuum
by receiving comprehensible input
 Defined as L2 input just beyond the learner’s current
L2 competence, in terms of its syntactic complexity.
 This hypothesis is central to Krashen’s model of SLA.
 The Affective Filter Hypothesis

 Determines how receptive to comprehensible input

the learner is going to be.
 The learners’ emotional state or attitudes as an
adjustable filter that freely passes, impedes or
blocks input necessary to acquisition

 Three main kinds of affective or attitudinal variable

related to SLA
– Motivation
– Self-confidence
– Anxiety
 The Natural Approach

Derived from:

 Tracy Terrell’s experiences teaching Spanish

 Stephen Krashen’s theory of language learning

 The Natural Approach: Language Acquisition in the
Classroom (Krashen & Terrell, 1983)
 Key features of the Natural Approach

 The primary function of language as communication

 Central role of comprehension and meaning
 No use of L1

Emphasis on:
 Comprehensible input rather than practice
 Meaningful communication rather than form
 Listening & reading; speaking allowed to “emerge”
 Optimising emotional preparedness for learning
 Visual aids, written and other materials as a source
of comprehensible input