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SECOND LANGUAGE
IN THE CLASSROOM

How Languages are Learned – Ch. 6

 Six proposals for classroom teaching
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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
 Large-scale quantitative studies, in-depth
qualitative studies and action research were
introduced to assess these six proposals.
 Get it right from the
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beginning
 Grammar translation method Form
 Audiolingual method vs
 Communicative language teaching Meaning
 Opponents of ‘get it right from the beginning’
(errors are valuable and natural)
 Developing fluency before accuracy
 Audiolingual pattern drill (Lightbown, 1983) on
interlg development
 Longitudinal and cross-sectional investigation
 French-speaking learners aged 11-16
 Results: receiving regular and isolated pattern drill lead
to a developmental sequence that was different from
that of learners in natural learning setting
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 (Lightbown ,1983) (cont.)

 Results: an exclusive focus on accuracy and drills of
decontextulaized sentences does NOT mean learners
would be able to use these forms outside classrooms.
 Grammar plus communicative practice
(Savignon, 1972)
 Forty-eight college students enrolled in French courses
 Audiolingual + Communicative group / cultural group /
control group
 Measures of linguistic and communicative competence
 Results: communicative group scored significantly
higher than the other two groups on the four
communicative tests
 Implication
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 Limitations: unable to communicate

messages and intentions effectively
 No guarantee of development in
accuracy and linguistic knowledge
 Students inhibited and reluctant to take
chances in using lg for communication
 Learners benefit from opportunities for
commutative practices in contexts
(understanding and expressing meaning)
 Just listen ….. and read
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 Language acquisition takes place when learners are

exposed to comprehensible input through listening
and reading. (Example 3 – p.172)
 Learners do not need to speak at all, except to get
other people to provide input by speaking to them

 Comprehensible-based instruction for children

(Lightbown, 2002)
 Comprehension-based program V.S. regular ESL program
(audiolingual)
 Results: learners in the comprehension-based program
knew as much English as learners in the regular program
(for both comprehension and speaking)
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 Reading for words (Horst, 2005)
 Simplified readers are used in a study of vocabulary
development
 Adult immigrants in an ESL program
 Treatment: six weeks
 Results: reading is valuable for vocabulary growth even in
a short period Great amount of reading!
 Total physical response (Asher, 1972)
 Students simply listen and show their comprehension by
their actions.
 Good for beginners
 But in TPR, the vocabulary and structures are carefully
graded and organized.
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 Input flood (Trahey & White, 1993)

 Whether highly-frequency exposure to a particular
form in the instructional input would lead to better
knowledge and use of that form by students
 Young French-speaking learners (age 10-12)
 Results: the input flood may add something new to
their interlanguage, but did not lead them to get rid of
the errors based on their L1
 Input flood fails to provide negative evidence.
 Explicit information about the grammaticality of L2
may be necessary.
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 Enhanced input (White, 1998)

 Input enhancement – drawing learners’ attention to
features in L2 for increasing the chances that they would
be learned
 French-speaking learners in intensive ESL classes (age
11-12)
 Typographical enhancement of the possessive
determiners (bolded, underlined, italicized, written in
CAPITAL LETTERS)
 Input enhanced vs input not enhanced: There was only
little difference
 Learners made progress when they were given a simple
rule and then worked together to find out the correct form
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 Processing instruction (VanPatten, 2004)

 In processing instruction, learners cannot comprehend
a sentence by solely depending on context or prior
knowledge. They must focus on the language itself.
 Processing instruction group received: explicit
explanations about the target feature, activities,
focused listening and reading exercises
 Result: processing instruction performed better than
production group. Learners attention were drawn to
the relationship of form and meaning.
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 Incidental acquisition (Shintani & Ellis, 2010)

 “learning without intention while attention is focused
on some other aspects of the L2”
 Research focus: Plural and singular forms
 Target: attention on vocabulary (with plurals and
singular forms)
 Three groups: comprehension, production, control
 Result: Learners in both comprehension and
production groups outperformed those in the control
group in receptive and productive knowledge of the
plural-s measured.
 Learners successfully acquired plural-s incidentally.
 Implication
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 Learners can make considerable progress if they

have sustained exposure to language they
understand
 Comprehension-based learning is an excellent
way to begin learning and is a valuable
supplement to other kinds of learning for more
advanced learners.
 Comprehensible input is enough?  challenged
 Comprehensible output hypothesis (Swain,

1985)
 Form-focused instruction (guided learning to

focus on forms in meaning-based activities)

 Let’s talk
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 The access to both comprehensible input and

conversational interaction
 Task-based instruction
 Negotiation of meaning is accomplished through a
variety of modification (ex. Clarification,
confirmation)
 In the mid-1990’s, the effects of interaction on L2
development have been directly investigated.
(interaction hypothesis)
 The updated version of research emphasizes:
integration of learner capacities (ex. attention) and
features of interaction (ex. corrective feedback)
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 Learners talking to learners (Long & Porter, 1985)
 Examining the language produced by adult learners
performing a task in pairs
 Learners talk more with each other
 intermediate-level learners did not make any more errors with
another intermediate-level speaker than they did with an
advanced or native speakers.
 Native-speaking model (necessary?)
 Learner language and proficiency level (Yule &
Macdonald, 1990)
 The impact of role that different-level learners play
 Task: two-way communication (sender & receiver)
 Results: more negotiation when lower-level students were
‘senders’
 Advanced students are suggested to put in less dominant
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 The dynamics of pair work (Storch, 2002)

 Investigating the patterns of pair interaction over time
(longitudinal study) and whether differences in the nature
of interaction led to difference in L2 learning
 Collaborative/dominant – dominant/dominant –
passive/expert – novice
 Collaborative and expert-novice pairs maintained more of
their L2 knowledge over time (supporting Vygosky’s theory)
 Interaction and second language development
(Mackey, 1999)
 Interacting with NS / observing interaction/ interacting with
NS (pre-modified input)
 Learners who engaged in conversational interaction
produced more advanced questions
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 Learner-learner interaction in a Thai

classroom (McDonough, 2004)
 Examining the extent to which students used the
interactional features that are facilitative L2 learning
(ex. Negative feedback, modified output)
 Measuring learners’ production of conditional clauses
 Results: more negative feedback and modified output
 better improvement / students do not perceive
pair work as useful for learning
 Implication
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 Learners can develop fluency and

communication abilities in
conversational interaction with each
other, with teachers, and with other
proficient learners.
 Corrective feedback in conversational
interaction can help learners’ accuracy
and development of language forms.
 Learners cannot always provide each other
with accurate corrective feedback in
conversational interaction
 Discussion question
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 We discussed three different teaching

proposals in class today (Get it right
from the beginning, Just listen…and
read, Let’s talk), please give examples of
L2 pedagogical activities that follow the
above teaching proposal.
 Fillin the blanks with the correct form of the
verb
 In some cases, an activity is compatible with
more than one teaching proposal.
 Discussion question
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 Keeping in mind that individual learner

differences play an important role in L2
learning, do you think a particular
learner profile might be more compatible
with one of the teaching proposals than
another?