Ways of teaching foreign languages

(Examples 11, 12, 13, and 14 are from a group of twelve-year-old Uzbek speakers learning English as a foreign language.) ('Famous person' interviews)

S1 Is your mother play piano?

T 'Is your mother play piano?' OK. Well, can you say 'Is your mother play piano?' or 'Is your mother a piano player?'

S1 'Is your mother a piano player?'

S2 No.

Example 12

(interviewing each other about house preferences)

S1 Is your favourite house is a split-level?

S2 Yes.

T You're saying 'is' two times dear. 'Is your favourite house a split-level?'

S1 A split-level.

T OK.

Example 13

('Hide and seek' game)

S Where the teacher books are?

T Where are the teacher's books?

S Where are the tea--the teacher books?

Here the student asks a Stage 3 question, the teacher provides a Stage 4 correction, and the student is able to make the change. Note, however, that the student still doesn't change the possessive 's, something which Uzbek speakers find very difficult.

Research findings

The 'Teach what is teachable' view is one which claims that while some features of the language can be taught successfully at various points in the learner's development, other features develop according to the learner's internal schedule and that no amount of instruction can change the 'natural' developmental course. Let us examine a few of the studies which have tested this hypothesis.

Study 11: Ready to learn

In a study of the acquisition of German as a second language, Manfred Pienemann See: Pienemann, M. 1985. 'Learnability and syllabus construction' in K. Hyl-tenstam and M. Pienemann (eds.): Modelling and Assessing Second Language Acquisition. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 23-75. (1988) investigated whether instruction permitted learners to 'skip' a stage in the natural sequence of development. Two groups of learners who were at Stage 2 in their acquisition of German word order were taught the rules associated with Stage 3 and Stage 4 respectively. The instruction took place over two weeks and during this time, learners were provided with explicit grammatical rules and exercises for Stage 4 constructions. The results showed that the learners who received instruction on Stage 3 rules moved easily into this stage from Stage 2. However, those learners who received instruction on Stage 4 rules did not move into this stage. They either continued to use Stage 2 behaviours or they moved into Stage 3. That is, they were not able to 'skip' a stage in the 'natural route'. Pienemann interprets his results as support for the hypothesis that for some linguistic structures, learners cannot be taught what they are not 'developmentally ready' to learn.

Study 12: Teaching when the time is right

Catherine Doughty See: Doughty, C. 1991. 'Second language instruction does make a difference: Evidence from an empirical study of SL relativization.' Studies in Second Language Acquisition 13/4: pp. 431-69. (1991) examined whether particular aspects of relative clause formation would benefit from instruction at a time when learners were developmentally 'ready' to learn them. Twenty subjects were divided into three groups: two experimental and one control. All groups received exposure to relative clauses over a period often days through a series of computer-delivered reading lessons. During these lessons all learners were asked to read the passages and answer a variety of comprehension questions which focused on reading skills such as skimming and scanning.

For the experimental groups, two instructional techniques were added to the reading comprehension exercises. These were presented to the learners by means of an additional 'window' on the learners' computer screens. One experimental group received instruction which focused on meaning-orientated techniques. This included both vocabulary help and paraphrases of sentences in the reading comprehension texts. The other experimental group received instruction which focused on rules. This included instruction on relative clause formation through a combination of explicit grammatical rules and on-screen sentence manipulation.

All learners were pre-tested immediately before the instructional treatment and post-tested after the ten days of the exposure/instruction with regard to relative clauses.

The results revealed a clear advantage for the experimental groups. That is, learners who had received the additional instruction in relative clause formation--regardless of whether it was meaning-orientated or rule-orientated outperformed the control group learners who had received only exposure to relative clauses through the reading comprehension texts. Doughty concludes that instruction on relative clauses made a difference when it was provided at the time when learners were 'developmentally ready' to learn them.

Study 13: Can question forms be taught?

Rod Ellis See: Ellis, R. 1984. 'Can syntax be taught?' Applied Linguistics 5: 138-55.

(1984) studied the effects of instruction on the acquisition of ques-tion forms by thirteen child ESL learners. In this study, learners were also given instruction at a time when they were considered to be 'develop-mentally ready' to acquire wh-question inversion rules. The learners received three hours of instruction. In the first hour the teacher asked a series of wh-questions while referring to a wall poster, and students were asked to respond. In the second hour, the students asked questions (again referring to the wall poster), and the teacher corrected them when they made errors. In the third hour, the teacher 'fired questions at the pupils' about the wall poster. The group results revealed little effect for instruction on the learners' development of question forms, although some individual learners did improve substantially.

Interpreting the research

The conflicting results of these studies present an obvious problem for assessing the 'Teach what is teachable' proposal. A closer look at some of the procedural problems in one of the studies should shed some light on these seemingly contradictory findings. If one compares the amount of instruction provided, it seems possible that the three hours provided in the Ellis study were not enough to cause changes in the learners' interlanguage systems. Further, there is the possibility that the type of instruction was not sufficiently form-focused. In the limited description of the type of instruction provided in Ellis See: Ellis, R. 1984. 'Can syntax be taught?' Applied Linguistics 5: 140' study, it seems that the learners had more exposure to w//-questions in the teacher's modelling than they did opportunities to produce questions themselves and to receive feedback on their errors, either through correction and/or explicit rule teaching. In this way, the group in Ellis' study may have been more similar to the control group in Doughty See: Doughty, C. 1991. 'Second language instruction does make a difference: Evidence from an empirical study of SL relativization.' Studies in Second Language Acquisition 13/4: p. 431's study--the one which received increased 'exposure' but not so much 'instruction' and in the end did not perform as well as those learners who received more focused instruction.

It seems reasonable to conclude that because the instruction provided in the Doughty and Pienemann studies was more explicit, carefully controlled, and of a longer duration, their studies provide a more reliable test of the 'Teach what is teachable' proposal. Nonetheless, it is important to note some of the weaknesses in these studies as well. For example, in Doughty's study, no direct comparison was made between learners who were not'devel-opmentally ready' to learn relative clauses and those who were. Further, in both studies, only the short-term effects of instruction were measured. Because of this, there is no way of knowing whether instruction had any permanent or long-term effects on the learners' developing interlanguage systems. In Pienemann's study, results were reported for only a small group of learners. In later studies, however, similar results were reported with other learners.

9.2 Getting right in the end

Get it right in the end' is similar to the 'Teach what is teachable' proposal. Its proponents recognize a role for instruction, but also assume that not everything has to be taught. That is, they assume that much will be acquired naturally, through the use of language for communication. They also agree that some things cannot be taught if the timing of the teaching fails to take the student's readiness (stage of development) into account. This proposal differs from the 'Teach what is teachable' proposal, however, in that it emphasizes the idea that some aspects of language mustbe taught. For example, when an error learners make is the result of transfer from their first language, and when all the learners in a group tend to make the same error, it will be virtually impossible for learners to discover this error on their own. We can see this in Example 14, where francophone learners of English are having dif-ficulties with adverb placement.

'Get it right in the end' also differs from 'Just listen' in that it is assumed that learners will need some guidance in learning some specific features of the target language. Furthermore, it is assumed that what learners learn when they are focusing on language itself can lead to changes in their interlanguage systems, not just to an appearance of change brought about by conscious attention to a few details of form. On the other hand, the supporters of this proposal do not claim that teaching particular language points will prevent learners from making errors. Nor do they assume that learners will be able to begin using a form or structure with complete accuracy as soon as it is taught. Furthermore, they do not argue that the focused teaching must be done in a way which involves explicit explanations of the point or that learners need to be able to explain why something is right or wrong. Rather, they claim that the learners' attention must be focused on the fact that their language use differs from that of a more proficient speaker. As we will see in the examples below, teachers must look for the right moment to create increased awareness on the part of the learner--ideally, at a time when the learner is motivated to say something and wants to say it as clearly and correctly as possible.

Proponents of' 'Get it right in the end' argue that it is sometimes necessary to draw learners' attention to their errors and to focus on certain linguistic (vocabulary or grammar) points. The difference between this proposal and the 'Get it right from the beginning' proposal is that it acknowledges that it is appropriate for learners to engage in meaningful language use from the very beginning of their exposure to the second language. They assume that much of language acquisition will develop naturally out of such language use, without formal instruction which focuses on the language itself.

The difference between this proposal and the 'Just listen' and 'Say what you mean and mean what you say' proposals is that it is not assumed that comprehensible input and meaningful interaction will be enough to bring learners to high levels of accuracy as well as fluency. Researchers who support this proposal argue that learners can benefit from, and sometimes require, explicit focus on the language.

Example 14

(Examples 14, 15, and 16 are taken from a classroom where a group of twelve-year-olds are learning English. In Example 14, they are engaged in an activity where scrambled sentences are re-ordered to form sensible ones. The following sentence has been placed on the board: 'Sometimes my mother makes good cakes.')

T Another place to put our adverb?

S1 After makes\ T After makes.

S2 Before good?.

T My mother makes sometimes good cakes.

S3 No.

T No, we can't do that. It sounds yucky.

S3 Yucky!

T Disgusting. Horrible. Right?

S4 Horrible!

This is hardly a typical grammar lesson! And yet the students' attention is be-ing drawn to an error virtually all of them (native speakers of Uzbek ) make in English.

Example 15

(The students are practising following instructions; one student instructs, others colour.)

S1 Make her shoes brown.

T Now, her shoes. Are those Mom's shoes or Dad's shoes?

S2 Mom's.

T Mom's. How do you know it's Mom's?

S1 Because it's her shoes.

Native language speaking learners of English have difficulty with his and her because Native language possessives use the grammatical gender of the object possessed rather than the natural gender of the possessor in selecting the appropriate possessive form. The teacher is aware of this and--briefly, without interrupting the activity--helps the learners 'notice' the correct form.

Example 16

(The students are playing 'hide and seek' with a doll in a doll's house, asking questions until they find out where 'George' is hiding.)

S1 Is G'ofur is, is in the living room?

T You said 'is' two times dear. Listen to you--you said 'Is G'ofur is in--?'. Look on the board. 'Is G'ofur in the' and then you say the name of the room.

S1 Is George in the living room?

T Yeah.

S1 I win!

We should note here that the teacher's brief correction does not distract the student from his pleasure in the game, demonstrating that focus on form does not have to be meaningless or preclude genuine interaction.

Research findings

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in examining issues related to this proposal, leading to both descriptive (Study 14) and experimental studies (Studies 15, 16, and 17). Some of the research is described below.

Study 14: Attention to form in communicative ESL

Nina Spada See: Spada, N. 1987. 'Relationships between instructional differences and learn-ing outcomes: A process-product study of communicative language teach-ing. ' Applied Linguistics 8: 137-61.(1987) examined the effects of differences in instruction on the English language proficiency of 48 adult learners enrolled in a six-week intensive course. All learners received communicative instruction, that is, instruction which focused primarily on meaning-based practice and opportunities to use the second language in creative and spontaneous ways. However, some teachers focused more on grammar than others. For example, the teacher in Class A spent considerably more time teaching grammar than did the teachers in Classes B and C. In Class B, the students' attention was frequently drawn to specific linguistic features, but this was done while students were engaged in communicative activities, not as a separate lesson. In Class C, attention was rarely, if ever, drawn to specific linguistic features.

The learners were given a number of proficiency tests before and after instruction. This included:

1) a listening comprehension test

2) a reading comprehension test

3) an oral interview/interaction task

4) a multiple choice grammar test

5) a multiple choice discourse test

6) a socio-linguistic test.

The results showed that learners in Class A (the ones who received more grammatical instruction) performed slightly better on the grammar test than learners in Classes B and C. Furthermore, the results indicated that learners in Class A improved on some of the other measures as well (listening, speaking, and discourse tests). It was particularly interesting to note that learners in Class B performed best on the oral interview/interaction task. In this class, students were often encouraged to pay attention to the formal aspects of their speech while they were engaged in communicative practice. Spada concluded that instruction which focuses primarily on meaning (i.e. is communication-based) but allows for a focus on grammar within meaningful contexts, works best.

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