Pedagogical Reflections On Learning Languages In Instructed Settings [1 ed.] 9781443808903, 9781847180414

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Pedagogical Reflections on Learning Languages in Instructed Settings

Pedagogical Reflections on Learning Languages in Instructed Settings

Edited by

Esther Usó-Juan and Mª Noelia Ruiz-Madrid

CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARS PUBLISHING

Pedagogical Reflections on Learning Languages in Instructed Settings, edited by Esther Usó-Juan and Mª Noelia Ruiz-Madrid This book first published 2007 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing 15 Angerton Gardens, Newcastle, NE5 2JA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2007 by Esther Usó-Juan and Mª Noelia Ruiz-Madrid and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN 1-84718-041-8

To Gerardo and Rodrigo, for their patience and understanding

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface.................................................................................................................ix SECTION I: From Teaching to Learning Languages in Instructed Settings: A Theoretical Overview Chapter One Eclecticism or Complexity? Concepts of Connections and Differences between Old and New Language Teaching-Learning Paradigms Mª Luisa Villanueva Alfonso................................................................................ 2 Chapter Two The Communicative Approach: New Trends and Perspectives Eva Alcón Soler .................................................................................................. 29 Chapter Three Autonomy, Past and Present Philip Riley and Richard Duda ........................................................................... 48 SECTION II: New Perspectives on Teaching and Learning Languages Chapter Four Integration of the ICT in Language Learning Mª Noelia Ruiz-Madrid and Mercedes Sanz-Gil ................................................ 62 Chapter Five Issues in the Design and Analysis of Learner Language Corpora Viviana Cortes .................................................................................................... 94 Chapter Six The European Framework of Reference: The Portfolio for Languages Carmen Pérez Vidal .......................................................................................... 112 SECTION III: Issues in Teaching and Learning Languages Chapter Seven Pedagogical Implications of Affect for Language Learning Jane Arnold Morgan.......................................................................................... 140 Chapter Eight Pedagogical Implications of Learning Styles: The Case of Field Independence/Dependence in CALL Carol A. Chapelle and Mónica Stella Cárdenas-Claros .................................... 164

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Chapter Nine Language Learning and Language Use Strategies. The Research and its Implications for Instructed Language Learning Rosa M. Manchón ............................................................................................ 179 SECTION IV: The Four Language Skills and Assessment Chapter Ten Research-Oriented Perspectives on Teaching Listening Alicia Martínez-Flor ......................................................................................... 202 Chapter Eleven Research-Oriented Perspectives on Teaching Speaking Patricia Salazar Campillo.................................................................................. 220 Chapter Twelve Research-Oriented Perspectives on Teaching Reading Esther Usó-Juan ................................................................................................ 238 Chapter Thirteen Research-Oriented Perspectives on Teaching Writing Juan Carlos Palmer-Silveira and Miguel F. Ruiz-Garrido ................................. 255 Chapter Fourteen Pedagogical Implications of Language Learning Assessment Ana Bocanegra Valle ........................................................................................ 274 SECTION V: Concluding Remarks Chapter Fifteen Broadening the Scope of Language Teaching and Learning: An Integrated Approach Christine Räisänen ............................................................................................ 298 Contributors .................................................................................................... 315 Index................................................................................................................. 319

PREFACE

Over the last decade, significant progress has been made in our understanding of how languages are likely to be learned and subsequently taught. Such an advance has been prompted by the pedagogical reflections derived from research in a variety of areas within the discipline of language learning. Therefore, language teachers need to be aware of the latest pedagogical reflections if they are to responsibly cater for their students’ needs. It is the aim of this book to provide language teachers with those reflections by reviewing significant research, on the one hand, and by presenting the variety of pedagogical implications that stem from such research, on the other hand. The volume has fifteen chapters that are grouped in five main sections. Section I, “From Teaching to Learning Languages in Instructed Settings: A Theoretical Overview”, includes three chapters which outline past approaches to language learning and highlight advances in our understanding of how languages are likely to be learned and taught. The chapter by Villanueva focuses on the definition of eclecticism, as an approach that allows for the construction of new concepts that act as a link between the socio-constructivist paradigm and communicative approaches, and between the psycho-pragmatic and sociocultural trends that characterise current ideas in the field. Then the chapter by Alcón explains the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) paradigm as a set of changes influenced by research directions in language studies. It goes on to present new directions as part of the paradigm and finally it argues that the CLT paradigm shift is not over; rather, it presents new challenges to the teaching profession. Riley and Duda’s chapter closes this section. This chapter presents an indepth analysis of the term autonomy, paying special attention to the reasons that have brought this concept to the foreground in current pedagogical practices. Educational, philosophical, psychological, political, sociolinguistic and technological contributions to the reformulation of the concept are explored. This introductory section provides the theoretical grounding for the rest of the volume by underlining three core concepts in the field, that is, eclecticism, communication, and learner autonomy. These central tenets motivate the reflections presented in the rest of the chapters included in the volume. Section II, “New Perspectives on Teaching and Learning Languages” contains three chapters which explore new directions in the field that have recently caught the attention of language researchers and practitioners. The major focus of the chapter by Ruiz-Madrid and Sanz-Gil is on the integration of

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Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in language learning, which involves the effective use of the ICT in the L2 learning and teaching process. Pivoting on the concept of learner autonomy, it discusses the new roles language teachers/researchers and learners might play in order to make the most of the new possibilities afforded by the ICT. The introduction of the ICT and the focus on learners’ needs have also made corpus-based approaches central issues in language pedagogy and interlanguage studies in recent years. Cortes’ chapter focuses on this topic by discussing the need to reconsider the very nature of the term corpus. It first reviews the central issues of corpus methods by following two principles, namely appropriateness and usefulness. It concludes by suggesting clear directions in the corpus methodology. This section closes with the chapter by Pérez, which focuses on the use of the portfolio as a new language assessment tool responding to new pedagogical demands based on two central needs in current educational proposals, that is, a learner-centred approach and plurilingualism. It presents the Spanish adaptation of the European Language Portfolio (ELP) project and its connections to the Common European Framework of Reference. After presenting its three main standard functions and parts, it illustrates different ways of implementing an ELP, using the Spanish one designed for the 12 to 18 age group as an example. Section III, “Issues in Teaching and Learning Languages,” looks into the learner-centred approach. It consists of three chapters which discuss the role of a variety of individual variables of learners for understanding the nature of language learning and subsequently improving its teaching practice. The chapter by Arnold focuses on the significance of affect as a key learner variable in language learning. It argues that since the main goal of most second language learning is to promote the ability to communicate in the target language, it is essential to deal with the affective side of speaking the language and with ways of developing willingness to communicate. After discussing these issues, some implications and applications for language classrooms are set forth. The next chapter by Chapelle and Cárdenas-Claros refers to the limited theoretical grounding that exists on learning styles as the reason for the difficulties encountered when attempting to define instructional approaches focused on individualised learning in Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL). It first concentrates on the definition and measurement of one cognitive style, field independence/dependence, and then it presents two studies, in which findings on CALL and the cognitive style of field independence/dependence are described. It concludes with practical examples and suggestions aimed at ultimately defining instructional approaches for learners with different learning styles.

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Finally, Manchón’s chapter focuses on language learning and language use strategies, which are essential in the process of learning a language. The chapter first presents a review of research on the topic approaching the analysis from an epistemological and an applied perspective. It then ascertains some of the instructional implications that derive from research and, finally, it discusses a future research agenda in the field. Section IV, “The Four Language Skills and Assessment” includes five chapters. Each of the first four chapters is devoted to a language skill, that is, the chapter by Martínez-Flor is devoted to listening, the chapter by Salazar to speaking, the chapter by Usó-Juan to reading and the chapter by Palmer-Silveira and Ruiz-Garrido to writing. The aim of these chapters is to provide insights into the advances in understanding the nature of each particular language skill and subsequently its teaching. To that end, each of them first addresses the nature of the particular language skill the chapter is dealing with. They then review exemplary research on each skill and highlight the major pedagogical implications that derive from it. Finally, they draw some conclusions about the topic and suggest directions for future research to gain a more complete picture of the instruction in a particular language skill. The reason the four language skills have been dealt with in different chapters is for the sake of practicality. Nevertheless, the four chapters should be considered as being interrelated with one another, as they are actually used in real life settings. Bocanegra’s chapter closes the section by addressing the issue of assessment with the aim of increasing awareness on the duality teaching/assessing and its pedagogical dimension. In so doing, it first reviews a variety of issues of relevance to language learning classroom-based assessment and testing. Then, attention is drawn to how attainment of language and skills learning is assessed. The last section of this volume, Section V, is entitled “Concluding Remarks” and includes a single chapter written by Räisänen, which pulls all the aforementioned topics together. It situates language teaching and learning in Higher Education by addressing two main questions: How well does the university prepare students for the communicative challenges of their future professional workplaces and how well are language teachers attuned to the complexity of those workplace discourses and practices? An integrated content and language programme serves as an example of how to face these two questions in the practice. If this volume has helped practising language teachers to update their teaching methodology and has made researchers more aware of issues that need to be addressed in order to fully understand language learning and teaching, it will have achieved its aim.

SECTION I: FROM TEACHING TO LEARNING LANGUAGES IN INSTRUCTED SETTINGS: A THEORETICAL OVERVIEW

CHAPTER ONE ECLECTICISM OR COMPLEXITY? CONCEPTS OF CONNECTIONS AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OLD AND NEW LANGUAGE TEACHING-LEARNING PARADIGMS Mª LUISA VILLANUEVA ALFONSO Universitat Jaume I

Principles of strategy should be taught which make it possible for risks, the unexpected and the unknown to be tackled and development to be modified depending on the information acquired along the way. We need to learn to sail in an ocean of uncertainties trough archipelagos of certainties. Edgar Morin1

1. Introduction Pascal said that the last thing you think of when you are writing is the part that needs to go at the beginning. Following his advice, in this introduction I will include some conclusions about the linking concepts which I hope to argue for in the reflection that follows. 1 Morin, Edgar “Confronting uncertainties.” In Seven complex lessons in Education for the future (Paris: UNESCO, 1999). Original version: “Il faudrait enseigner des principes de stratégie, qui permettent d’affronter les aléas, l’inattendu et l’incertain, et de modifier leur développement, en vertu des informations acquises en cours de route. Il faut apprendre à naviguer dans un océan d’incertitudes à travers des archipels de certitude.” [Electronic document available at: http://www.agora21.org/unesco/7savoirs/7savoirs02.html] [cited 16 May 2006].

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The start of the millennium encourages us to take stock in order to detect lines of progress in the different areas of knowledge. In the field of language teaching-learning, to speak of eclecticism when defining the situation is starting to become a commonplace used polysemously depending on the context of the different arguments. In this explanation, I will try not to conceal the fact that any assessment is always made from a particular point of view. So, arguing for eclecticism as the aim of the tendencies dominating the third millennium is a consequence of a certain critical view of cognitivism or the communicative approach, and it is this view which leads us to postulate the degree to which these will survive. Because of this, in this approach, an effort will be made to make the viewpoints involved in the assessment explicit and turn them into linking concepts which help to relate and to connect, but also to separate and distinguish, as stated in complex theory of thought (Morin 1993), whose epistemological paradigm will serve as a reference for us. The linking operators referred to by Edgar Morin are something quite different from some conceptions of eclecticism. It is not a question of making a simple juxtaposition of concepts but rather of constructing links and distinctions, allowing a reconceptualization of problems from an ecological perspective, taking the variation in contexts into account. Today, in the era of the technological revolution, the history of language teaching-learning methodologies offers an experience in reflection which should be used in order to rethink issues such as the relationship between learning and acquisition; the role of and types of previous knowledge; the relevance of communicative approaches; the relationship between languages and cultures, and the role of self-assessment. Attempting to make a historical assessment of these issues, I will try to construct new linking concepts between the socio-constructivist paradigm and communicative approaches, and between the psycho-pragmatic and sociocultural trends that characterize current ideas. These linking concepts, which are the result of the reflection that follows, have been shown to carry a certain duality, which is complementary rather than contradictory: x x x x

personalization and socialization. universal psycho-pragmatic factors and the ecology of learning. inter-subjectivity and interculturality. introspection and mediation.

Finally, I would like to point out that some aspects of this study were presented during the Foreign Language (French and English) Methodology Postgraduate Course that took place at UJI during the 2003-2004 academic year, within the module dealing with a historical-conceptual approach to the language teaching-learning paradigm. However, for this publication I have given priority

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to the conceptual aspect, so references to authors are not intended to be anything like exhaustive, but rather to give certain co-ordinates that help to position those archipelagos of certainties referred to by Morin in the opening quotation.

2. The bottom of the empty bucket When we say we want to learn a language, what we clearly want to do is to be able to take part in a conversation, to be able to establish agreements in order to carry out a common project, or to enjoy reading a novel or a poem in the original version. And this happens in a relatively automatic way, except, of course, when it concerns certain conscious decisions that enable us to avoid making the other person feel offended. In these cases, reflections on the use of certain turns of phrase, courtesy formulas or expressions that could give rise to misunderstandings are involved. For everything else, in general, we would like to be able to use the foreign language without having to concentrate all the time on how things have to be said. Really, it is when we are capable of acting like this that we can say that we have acquired a language. So, according to this approach, the desire we really want to express is that we want to acquire a language. What is learning a language, then? Learning activities are conscious activities carried out in an organized way with the purpose of increasing our knowledge about various aspects of the language, related to the skills we want to possess. However, not all learning leads to acquisition and, still less to full acquisition. Making mistakes does not necessarily mean having learned badly, but rather shows that learning and acquisition are two different things. What is known today about the process of language acquisition means that it can be stated that in order to acquire new knowledge and new skills in a second language, it is necessary to experiment with those we already possess in a sufficient variety of situations, allowing us to tackle various problems in putting our new acquisition to the test, identify our limitations and obtain new information enabling us to reorganize the image we have of the operation of the language we are learning. In fact, these statements are valid not only for the learning and acquisition of languages, but they also serve to characterize human learning in general. The language learning process in particular is neither linear nor cumulative in the sense of simply superimposing knowledge. Instead, it is a process of constructing knowledge and skills during which there are continuous restructurings, advances, retreats and vacillations corresponding to the student’s internal processing of the information obtained. In this process, previous linguistic knowledge plays a fundamental role because learned languages do not work as sealed compartments. Instead, the bilingual or multilingual individual

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is, in fact, a meeting point of all the languages he or she is learning and has acquired (Weinreich 1964). Naturally, these positions mean a negation of the “empty bucket theories”2 (Popper 1972) belonging to Skinner’s behaviourist paradigm and applied for audiolingual and audiovisual approaches conveniently supported by a structuralist conception of language, according to those postulated by Bloomfield. In opposition to the empty bucket theories, constructivism suggests that to learn is to develop an active process of internalization and integration of the linguistic experience. It is in this context that it makes sense to be interested in the ways in which language learners process information, in how they learn, in their cognitive styles and in their strategies. Within the framework of the constructivist paradigm, it is coherent to state that the teacher becomes a researcher studying the learners and a designer of teaching-learning situations that will theoretically favour acquisition. On the other hand, whether or not learning methods are taken into account, all language learners establish more or less conscious hypotheses based on information from their experience, and these hypotheses lead them to develop strategies for practically experimenting with their conclusions on the operation of the language they are learning. These strategies, which are to some degree conscious, are implicit in the hits and miss that mark the learning process. The deductions our brains make based on a situation are not always the right ones; this is why it is so important to have the opportunity to test the hypothesis created in other situations, and the richer and more varied these new experiences the better. In the process of knowledge construction, the instruments language learning uses for capture correspond to previous knowledge internalized as a representation of the operation of languages and as pragmatic outlines which have a role in structuring the capture and processing of the new linguistic experience (Piaget 1969; Schank and Abelson 1977; Kintsch 1982; Bruner 1984; Bronckart 1985; Fayol 1985; Mayer 1985). These pragmatic-cognitive patterns have universal shared features on which mutual comprehension is based, but they are also impregnated by emotional and cultural experience. They are tools, in the active sense of this word, which also act as lenses or filters in methods of capturing linguistic experience. Their universal dimension encourages communication and interaction, but cultural and subjective variation is the source of both creativity and misunderstanding. 2

“The bucket theory of the mind” was a phrase coined by Popper to refer to learning theories considering students as empty buckets that have to be filled with information before they can know anything. Popper, Karl, Objectif knowledge: an evolutionary approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).

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Negotiation, co-operation, elucidation, reformulation strategies and others reflect the tension between these centripetal and centrifugal communication forces. In addition, in a teaching-learning situation it must be borne in mind that previous experiences have an influence on representations of the roles of teacher and student and on the representations the student has constructed about himself/herself and others in the learning and communication process (Rogers 1961, 1992). Researching how students form operational rules, establish analogies and inferences and schematize the linguistic experience allows the teacher to move towards teaching strategies that help to develop the students’ spontaneous knowledge, relaunching it through richer and more complex systematic representations. Research into learning and teaching and support strategies is research in action, and what is valid for the language student’s learning process is equally valid for the researcher’s learning process (Villanueva 2000a; Breen 2001). At the origin of this conception of the teacher’s or adviser’s role is clearly Vygotski and Bruner’s mediation theory (Vygotski 1962, 1979; Bruner 1984). Both authors give great importance to the function of consciousness and reflection, to human beings’ capacity to develop consciousness of what they are doing, to go back to their own plan and to reorganize their knowledge. This capacity is not egocentric, but rather is encouraged by communication and interaction. Today, the relationship between learning, consciousness and communication is shared by many researchers in the field of language learning (John-Steiner 1990; Hickmann 2001) and it could be stated with Bruner that the development of learning consists of “prolonged series of jumps forward, made in cooperation, each of them marked by an increase in socialization and consciousness”3. Significant learning is learning integrated into the students’ pragmatic-cognitive structures and becomes an instrument for capturing new knowledge and creating new representations. Bruner invented the notion of scaffolding to refer to the way teachers and adults structure tasks to foster learning. The production of knowledge is, then, closely linked to reproducing this knowledge, to communicating it. This point of view is, from my understanding, very important in the language learning field because it allows an argument in favour of the close relationship between cognitive learning strategies and social knowledge communication strategies. Making explicit patterns for organizing discourse and texts, enriching representations and comparing and negotiating them with others 3

Bruner, Jerome. Acción, pensamiento y lenguaje (Madrid: Alianza Psicología, 1984), 35-6.

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is a way of constructing significant learning of the language and about the language (Coste 1985). Around the socio-constructivist conception of language learning is a constellation of concepts which today form operations that are necessary for thinking about issues such as the learning of strategies, learning styles or the development of autonomy (Cembalo 1993). In fact, the development of research into language methodology that started in the ’70s is characterized by an increasingly clearly formulated tendency to consider the acquisition of a language as a personal appropriation of knowledge and skills. The slide in the centre of gravity of methodological reflection from the teacher to the student leads to a growing concern to observe the strategies deployed by learners. The notion of learning style describes the cognitive and emotional behaviour reflecting the learner’s characteristics and ways of learning, interacting and responding to the learning context (Wenden and Rubin 1987; Willing 1989; O’Malley and Chamot 1990; Little and Singleton 1990; Wenden, 1991). We might say that the notion of style operates as a heuristic instrument, making possible the analysis of the behaviours observed by the teacher or self-observed by the student. What has been revealed as being important in teaching practice is analysis of how a set of strategies is related to one another in a particular student. From this perspective, it makes more sense to look at what the learning strategies students use are and to wonder if there are strategies whose learning can be made easier (Willing 1989; Widdowson 1990a). The interest in personalizing learning methods must not be identified with individualism, as the construction of knowledge and skills, co-operation and communicative action are concepts that are related in a socio-constructivist paradigm. Personalization does not contradict diversity, interaction and cooperation, it complements them. All these notions in fact make up many other points of attraction for methodological thought in the past few years (Coste and Zarate 1997; Trim 1997, 1998; Hickmann 2001)

3. The current position of Humanism Before taking a general view of communicative approaches in Europe, I would like to take a look at a series of proposals related to cognitivism that developed, particularly in the USA, in the ’70s and ’80s, because in them we can find aspects that were incorporated into the communicative approach itself and which particularly influenced the development of the concept of autonomy. Perhaps I could indicate as an archipelago of certainty left behind by the cognitive revolution the fact that today we cannot speak of language learning without taking into account that the learner has prior knowledge, in declarative, conceptual and procedural terms, as well as cultural representations concerning

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teaching-learning and the social operation of language. This whole baggage of concepts, notions and representations plays a role whose importance is still inescapable in the capture and elaboration of experience. An aspect which undoubtedly undermined certainties about the audiolingual and audiovisual method was Chomsky’s questioning of structuralism and behaviouralism. At the same time, it is usually stated that the Chomskyan revolution had a decisive influence on the development of psycholinguistics. But it must also be borne in mind that, in the ’70s and early ’80s, the ideas of Vygotski and Piaget were being translated and publicized and Carl Rogers’ (1961, 1992) ideas of humanist psychology were spreading. In the US, in the ’70s and ’80s, there was no compact alternative to audiolingualism, but there was a gradual loss of prestige and a change of paradigms that was important in language teaching and learning. Ideas appeared, influenced by the cognitive revolution of the 70s, by psychoanalysis, by constructivism, by humanist psychology etc., that all have in common an emphasis on the learner’s point of view. Ideas appeared like Carroll’s Cognitive Code learning (1966), which introduces reflection as against the creation of habits; Asher’s Total Physical Response (1965) from the state university at San José in California, influenced by Piaget; Curran’s Community Language Learning (1976), developed at Loyola University in Chicago, based on applying psychological counselling techniques to learning (Counselling-Learning) and which redefined the teacher’s role as that of counsellor. This was also the approach of Carl Rogers’ (1951) humanistic psychology, which conceived language learning as a process of integrated development of the subject. Laforge, a follower of Curran, developed his ideas around language learning as a social process, also taking into account the emotional dimension. Remember that the concept of a language as a unit of thought, words and communicative action was the cornerstone of Vygotski’s socio-constructivism and, for Bruner, the teacher’s role as a mediator has a great deal to do with the cultural process of socialization and support for the learner in achieving independence as a person and as a critical citizen. In the wave of cognitive revolution, there were also other ideas like the Suggestopedia and the Silent Way which were applied with many variants. The Suggestopedia, developed by the Bulgarian educator and psychiatrist Lozanov (1978), had many adaptations in which different rituals were used with a certain placebo effect. Gattegno’s Silent Way (1972-1976) influenced by discovery teaching, by Bruner’s ideas and by problem-solving approaches to learning, highlighted the role of consciousness in learning. Nowadays, the development of metacognitive capacity stands at the centre of the development of language learning capacity and autonomy (Oscarson 1978, 1979, 1984). Let us move forward on this subject.

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As we have already indicated, in the US in the ’70s and ’80s there was no notional-functional approach nor, in the strict sense, was there reflection on the communicative approach. Yet there was an interesting initiative which to some degree combined the communicative approach with the cognitive perspective. At the University of Southern California, Tracy Terrell, a Spanish lecturer, and Stephen Krashen, a linguist, suggested an approach called the Natural Approach (1977, 1982).4 It has been said that the Natural Approach, when it was formulated at the end of the ’70s and beginning of the ’80s, was the only American method including both communicative and cognitive aspects. Krashen himself indicated in 1983 that the Natural Approach was similar to other communicative approaches. However, some of its hypotheses, which many studies have provided evidence against, are today in considerable doubt. Some of its most uncertain positions are the following: x x x x

The rejection of explicit grammar: it considers that the existence of a theory of language is not important. Its rigidity in declaring that the mother tongue must not be used. The Input +1 theory, which led to the rather inflexible establishment of the programme (I+1 Input Hypothesis). The idea that the acquisition of grammatical structures occurs in a predictable universal order (Natural Order Hypothesis).

However, it must be recognized that other aspects have now been incorporated into general thought about language teaching. These are the following hypotheses: x x x x x x

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The emotional filter hypothesis. The monitor hypothesis: conscious learning acts as a monitor between the acquired system and production. The acquisition/learning hypothesis. Although today it is presented by different authors in a somewhat watered down form compared to the stricter formulations of the natural method. The importance of comprehension. The acceptance of a latency period. The most adapted aspects of the input information theory: in fact, this theory is related to acquisition and not to learning. In it, there are elements that give greatest importance to meaning and to the learner’s

This must not be confused with the Natural Method, although they both come from the same tradition: use of the language in communicative situations without resorting to the mother tongue.

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comprehension of the input: what is understood can be better comprehended. In addition, input information must always be a little above the current level of competence. In fact, reading some of these proposals it is impossible to avoid recalling Vygotski’s Zone of Potential (or Proximal) Development Theory. Nowadays, the study of the learners’ cognitive and socio-cultural representations covers a growing interest in the multiplication of inter-cultural relations, the modification of textual supports and the appearance of new genres (cybergenres) and generic variants deriving from the use of hypertext and computerised media. The importance of reconceptualizing the culture of learning is also undergoing a new impulse due to a multiplication of the sources of information and the possibility of establishing multiple relationships between learners (Puren 2004; Ruiz-Madrid and Villanueva 2003; Sanz, Villanueva and Ruiz-Madrid 2004). Current proposals on interactive writing and the collaborative learning, which have been relaunched through the introduction of computer technology and by active teaching, take on their full humanist importance if they are put back in the paradigms of socio-constructivism, in the theory of mediation and in humanist psychology. In this context, the concept of autonomy in learning takes on a cultural and educational dimension.

4. Universal psycho-pragmatic factors and the ecology of learning In the functional notional proposals, there is a reaction to the structuralisttype audiolingual method dominant in the US in the ’60s (it was developed at the end of the ’50s and patented by Brooks in 1964). But there are still many structuralist-type influences, above all in its early formulations. From my point of view, the development of the communicative approaches is rightly marked by two aspects: x

x

The gradual overcoming of the structuralist view of language focused on the study of the sentence. And, later, the overcoming of the conception of discourse as a sum of statements. That is: the gradual opening up of discourse and text as units of communication with their own rules of coherence and cohesion and within whose framework it makes sense to talk about strategies. The gradual focus on the learner as an active subject of learning, with specific needs as a foreign user of the language he or she is learning.

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It could be said that the development of the communicative approaches is none other than the development of a basic approach that was already present at the origins of the functional notional method: the conception of the language in pragmatic terms of communicative action. The origins of this pragmatic conception of the language and of learning it should be sought in various sources: x x

x x x

x

x x

European reflections criticizing the rigidity and artificiality of the language suggested by audiolingualism. The functional and communicative theory of language of Widdowson (1978, 1990b) and Candlin (1987), linking with the work of the British functionalist Firth and which would later develop the systemic linguistics of Halliday and Hasan (1987, 1990). The development of socio-linguistics in America: Dell Hymes (1964, 1971), John Gumperz (1982) and William Labov (1970). The development of analytical philosophy and the theory of speech acts (Austin 1962 and Searle 1969). The spread of Piaget’s ideas of constructivism and Vygotski’s and Bruner’s socio-constructivism, particularly in as far as the latter two give a top-level role to the pragmatic communicative dimension in the construction and communication of thought. The spread of the ideas of Ausubel, Novak and Hanesian (1968) concerning specific learning and curriculum renewal. And, in general, the supremacy of constructivist thought in curriculum theory and in the sphere of psychopedagogy. Reflections on autonomy in the theory of education and, in particular, in the area of language learning (Holec 1979, 1996). The changing educational and political situation in Europe and the need to create a committee of the Council of Europe to draw up European frames of reference for language teaching-learning.

It is necessary to take these different factors into account in order to understand: x x x

The origin of notional-functional ideas and the beginning of the communicative approach. The development of the communicative approach and its progressively psycho-pragmatic dimension. The importance of the gradual focus on the learner and on studies of the development of autonomy.

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Perhaps it is a good idea to go back into history a little before answering the question about the validity of the communicative approach and before declaring that today everything is going down the path of an eclecticism with ill-defined borders, under which recalling a few certainties would be a demonstration of old-fashioned dogmatism. Faced with the rigidity of the American approaches (Bloomfield at Yale and Fries at Michigan), European thought was manifested in two ways towards the end of the ’60s which sent audiolingualism and the audiovisual method into crisis. These were two attempts to make the learning of structures less artificial by inserting it into a communicative context. Partly we are referring to the Situational Approach proposed by Firth, who belonged to the London School of African and Oriental Studies, influenced by the studies of Malinowski. Also, in France, the structuro-global audiovisual approach (SGAV) was developed, put forward by the CRÉDIF at St Cloud and by Galisson, among others. In general, in the European approaches5 the idea was to take the situational context of the communication into account. The progressive breaking up of the rigidity of the images of the audiovisual method is shown in methods like the Méthode Orange, in which simulations of genuine documents (letters, advertisements, newspaper cuttings, etc.) appear along with photographed characters, contrasting with the schematic or drawn characters from the audiolingual and audiovisual approaches of the ’50s and ’60s. This interest in authenticity not only reflects a desire to provide the communicative episodes with socio-cultural context, but also offers the opportunity to mobilize language learners’ psychopragmatic and cultural representations and turn them into tools for formulating hypotheses. Authenticity and the development of autonomy begin to appear, above all in teaching-learning practice, as two linked concepts. However, in the theoretical formulations of these European proposals, rigidity was maintained in lesson development phases: presentation, listening and memorizing of the dialogue; staging the dialogue; repetition and practice of the structures from the dialogue (repetition, substitution, reformulation, transformation and transposition exercises, etc.); application; production and appropriation: directed imitative production, free production based on what has been learned (depending on levels). With all this, and although the weight of grammatical structure in the conception of the curriculum and rigidity in the lesson phases in maintained, the progressive questioning of the directivism of audiovisual methodology based on Skinner’s operant conditioning theory, and 5

Perhaps a difference between the French and English proposals is that in the French ones the drills (structuralist approach to the study of sentences inspired by Hockett’s box) were less important. Remember that, just as Bloomfield and Fries proposed the application of structuralism to the learning of English (Army Methods), Saussure always showed skepticism about the possibilities of applying his theory to language learning.

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above all the criticism of the lack of authenticity of the dialogues and situations, began opening the way to new approaches. The effective spread of notional-functional methodology and the communicative approach throughout the ’70s and ’80s is closely related to the formulation of Threshold Levels for European languages (first for adults and then for school contexts) carried out by the Council of Europe’s Living Languages Project Committee. This project, which began in 1971, produced the different ideas for the threshold levels from 1975 down to the end of the ’80s. In the 1975 formulations for English (The Threshold Level, by Van Ek and Alexander) and those of 1976 for French (Un Niveau Seuil, by Cost, Courtillon, Ferenczi and Baltar), the notional-functional approach was initially very much marked by the idea of drill and by the weight of a structuralist conception of language. The first ideas for adapting the Threshold Levels to school contexts appeared in 1977 for English (Van Ek) and in 1979 for French (Porcher, Roulet). The existence of an assessment of the application of the threshold levels for English meant the suggested French syllabus was based on the speech acts notion, which involves a communicative synthesis of notional and functional criteria. It is interesting to consider Galisson’s reflections on the differences between structuralism and functionalism (Galisson 1980). So in the proposal Adaptation d’un Niveau Seuil pour des contextes scolaires, a certain desire to make the notional-functional syllabus more flexible can be seen. In 1982, a very important article appeared by Henri Holec (1982), Council of Europe expert and at the time director of CRAPEL at the Univ. of Nancy: “L’approche communicative, cru 1982”6, appearing in the journal Mélanges Pédagogiques. Holec indicated the risk of reducing speech acts to lists which would be still-lifes. He underlined the need to approach communication as a process and not as a list of pre-designed mechanical moulds. The key features of any communicative act are the notions of context and interactive process, so in every communicative exchange the participants renew and reconstruct the speech acts. From this, the need to develop strategic competence in students is deduced. The article once again takes up a paper by Holec himself, presented at the third GREDIL conference at Laval University, Quebec, which took place from 14 to 16 October 1982: “La classe de langue française face aux recherches en pragmatique” (and which appeared in the Congress papers in 1983). In the article in the journal Mélanges, Holec refers to the document by the Council of Europe’s Living Languages Project group: Rapport de synthèse concernant les études consacrées à l’analyse de l’apprenant comme communicateur et comme 6 Henri, Holec. “L’approche communicative, cru 1982.” Mélanges Pédagogiques 12 (1982): 65-79.

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apprenant, which appeared in the same year, ’82, and which repeated the importance of integrated negotiation strategies into communicative learning that would ensure inter-comprehension and co-operation between the interlocutors in the communication process. It is the very development of reflection on the communicative dimension that led to the discursive consideration of language (Peytard and Moirand 1992) and to interaction strategies and the variety of uses, users and learners being taken into account. Today, the communicative approach cannot be identified with a list of prescriptions, but the interactional paradigm is still valid. Within its framework and since at least the end of the ’80s, the psycho-pragmatic and socio-cultural dimension of learning has been insisted on along with an ecological, contextual and personalized conception of learning plans. Concerning the possibility that there is a new approach which might historically come to replace the communicative approach, Daniel Coste (2000)7 puts the emphasis on the plurality, flexibility and adaptation of communicative methodologies to different contexts and needs, and highlights the integration of the cognitive dimension into the communicative approaches to the teachinglearning of languages. Complexity and diversity would therefore be the features defining communicative methodologies at the beginning of the 21st century: Disappearance of methodologies? This is not so clear. Should it not be valued more highly that the communicative approaches (plural and upholding general orientations rather than imposing specific principles) have gradually spread and cover the whole landscape, covering the rough edges? As a polymorphic doctrine, the communicative approach is, even if only tacitly, the subject of a flexible consensus covering everything and, on the way, even including some contributions from cognitivism.8

5. Inter-subjectivity and interculturality In Canale’s theoretical model from ’83, communicative competence is defined as: grammatical, socio-linguistic, discursive and strategic competence. The approaches by Canale and Swain of 1980, together with the aforementioned 7

Coste, Daniel. “Le déclin des méthodologies: fin de siècle ou ère nouvelle?” Mélanges Pédagogiques 25 (2000): 203. 8 Ibid. French original: «Disparition des méthodologies? Pas si sûr. Ne faut-il pas plutôt estimer que les approches communicatives (plurielles et prônant plus des orientations générales qu’imposant des principes spécifiques) se sont répandues en douceur et recouvrent, en masquant les aspérités, l’ensemble du paysage? Doxa polymorphe, le communicatif fait l’objet, même tacitement, d’un consensus mou et attrape-tout, allant jusqu’à récupérer au passage certains apports cognitivistes.»

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one by Canale in 1983, include the descriptions by Hymes in 1971 and Widdowson in 1978. All of them highlight the consideration of the language student as a “user”, as an active subject of the communicative act in a situation of interaction. The cultural dimension appears in Canale’s and Swain’s model as a socio-linguistic component of communicative competence, while in Sophie Moirand’s 1982 model it appears as a socio-cultural component. It can be concluded that the socio-cultural and strategic component of communicative competence is a constant in the approaches from the ’80s and ’90s. The myth of unilingualism brings with it the false opinion that to understand another person in an intercultural communication situation it is sufficient for one interlocutor to learn the other’s language, as this knowledge in itself opens the way for discourse. The conception of a Lingua Franca that would in itself enable communication in the business world, at meetings between scientists, in political negotiation, etc. is currently very widespread in a more or less implicit way due to the frequent use of the so-called languages of international communication. However, for some time many studies in the communication field have shown that the use of a language in a discursive situation is inseparable from what has been called socio-cultural and strategic competence (Gumperz 1982; Widdowson 1990a). The learning of a language requires, then, competence in three dimensions which need to be integrated: linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic, as communication is a process of permanent negotiation depending on the situations and the actions of the interlocutors. It has been said that to communicate is to dramatize a relationship; it is to update some social and cultural items through verbal and non-verbal behaviour, simultaneously basing oneself on strategies of conformity and transgression of the rules of the social group, as well as on references supposedly shared by the different members of a community. From this derives the fact that, in intercultural communication the use of language and negotiation of social and cultural identities are inseparable aspects, as has been shown by Dolonina and Cecchetto (1998: 167-181) of the University of Ontario among others. Because of this, the linguistic competences of the user/learner of a foreign language must be developed within the framework of the acquisition of other more general competences: declarative knowledge (socio-cultural and intercultural, about the world); practical and intercultural skills and behaviour patterns; existential or attitudinal competence; and learning skills. The methodology for teaching-learning languages has incorporated the teaching of the code, contributions which are not only linguistic but also psychological and ethnographic. As Abdalah-Pretceille (1996)9, indicates, the 9

Abdalah-Pretceille, Martine. “Compétence culturelle, compétence interculturelle. Pour une anthropologie de la communication” FDM Recherches et Applications, (janvier 1996): 30.

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question raised is a complex one: must we learn to get to know other languages and other cultures or rather learn to understand others, particularly through their language and culture (their languages and cultures)? This question leads us to the very heart of multilingualism and interculturalism, as, together with learning the linguistic code, it is a question of developing the cultural skills likely to provide access to the meaning of the communication. It is not a question of acquiring cultural knowledge. Instead we must know how to distinguish, in a given situation, the elements referring to cultural features and those which are an expression of individuality. This is why Abdalah-Pretceille (1996) indicates: “It is not culture that determines linguistic behaviour but rather the way in which an individual uses culture to talk and talk to himself or herself.”10 From the learning point of view, what matters, then, is the complexity of intercultural systems interiorized by individuals and, from the point of view of mediation counselling, it is a question of trying to help to make the cultural references explicit, as in order to communicate in a language other than their own, all individuals construct their own expression not only with reference to the code and culture of the mother tongue but also with reference to their internalized image of other languages they know. And they will do this however varied their experience of the world is. Speakers of two or more languages construct an intermediary or interlanguage system including representations belonging to each language they know. This integrated representation forms a cognitive and linguistic filter acting as a monitor in resolving tasks, problems and discursive conflicts. That is, it forms the source of the psycho-linguistic patterns that allow us to assimilate the data from a communicative experience. Research into the features of intercultural communication allows us to begin to define the new educational challenges in the teaching-learning of foreign languages. Some of the features of what we will call intercultural or complex communicative competence may be described in the following way: x

x

10

The greater the use of lingua franca (the so-called languages of international communication), the greater the need to use courtesy strategies that protect the positive image of the interlocutor or prevent it being damaged. The greater the incidence of international communication, the greater must be the capacity for relating linguistic data to the variety of

Ibid., 36 original version «Ce n’est pas la culture qui détermine les comportements langagiers mais bien la manière dont l’individu utilise la culture pour dire et se dire.»

Eclecticism or Complexity?

x

x

x

x

x

17

possible interpretations according to different cultural assumptions. This involves flexible patterns and the capacity for defocusing (being able to look at things from different points of view). Capacity for intercultural and exolingual communication must bring with it a capacity for situational learning, capturing the subtleties of contextual use of the language and supra-segmental phenomena (intonation, rhythm, gestures). The capacity to build common ground for understanding, based on the elements provided by the communication dynamic means capturing the elements that are being raised in the other’s arguments as important and suggesting their renegotiation in the case of conflict. The capacity to capture the need and degree of explicitness in a sentence in a discursive context means an ability to integrate the dimension of the misunderstanding as a part of communication and not as an exceptional dimension or a breakdown in communication. The capacity to collaborate in the other’s discourse through the joint elaboration of a phrase based on a lexeme comes through being capable of offering possible expansions and reformulations, going around the subject and paraphrasing, etc. It is a case of constructing a common language during a given communicative episode. The capacity to change the form of a speech act: changing the imperative form for the interrogative, changing the affirmative form of a question for the negative form, changing the subjective orientation of a sentence: humour, level of emotional involvement, etc. are some other intercultural competence strategies.

All these skills (Trim 1998) are based on a multilingual representation of communication, even when only one language is used in a particular situation. This multilingual understanding of intercultural communication presupposes: x x

the development of an ethic of negotiation and argument. the development of sensitivity to cultural variation.

According to the Council of Europe11 (1996), there can be various ways of developing multicultural and multilingual competence from the point of view of

11

Council for Cultural Cooperation. Education Committee. Modern languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. A common European framework of reference. Draft 2 of a framework proposal. LANG (95) 5 rev IV (Brussels: Council of Europe): 98-100.

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the multicultural European situation, but all these forms of development must include training in the autonomous learning of languages.

6. Introspection and Mediation It can be said that the development of the communicative approach is gradually adopting a change in viewpoint, putting the learner at the centre of learning, and this involves important consequences for the definition of objectives, the concept of assessment, the definition of competences, the role of error, the handling of diversity and the consideration of communicative competence as a complex strategic and socio-cultural competence. Already at the beginning of the ‘70s, at the time when Trim was publishing the guidelines for learning systems for the learning of living languages in Europe, Holec and Dickinson suggested a transformation in the consideration of the elements making up the learning process. The notion of self-assessment transforms the role of the learner, who becomes an active, free subject, conscious of his or her own learning process. To learn to learn, the language student must integrate self-assessment into all points of the process. One function of self-assessment is the verification of acquisition, but it also has the role of re-mediation, of motivation and acquisition of strategies. In 1977, Oskarson, within the work of the Council of Europe in his work Self-assessment in Foreign Language learning, made the learner the subject for enunciating self-assessment: “I know...”, “I am capable of...”, etc. In 1991, Bachmann presented an empirical model for assessing communicative competence taking into account the learner’s communication skills and metacognitive capacity: Plan, Do, Assess/Monitor. The consideration of the learner as a language user who must develop strategic competence stems from the consideration of the student as a learner who must develop a capacity for self-assessment. Little has referred to the capacity for learning to learn or learning competence as a strategic competence (Little 1998), and Carton has declared that self-assessment is the very heart and driving force of autonomy (Carton 1993). The notion of self-assessment could be useful for us to make a first approach to the European language portfolios whose 1996 and 2001 approaches are attempting to open a new stage in the common orientation for teaching-learning of languages in the European Community. It must be remembered that, since the ’70s, the impulse for the application of methodological innovations in different teaching contexts is closely related to the proposals and projects of the Committees of the Council of Europe proposing a common framework for the teaching and assessment of European languages. In addition, the experts who have taken part and continue to take part

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in these Council of Europe projects have an important and widespread effect on the area of the teaching and learning of languages and cultures. An attempt may be made then to take the pulse of current trends, taking the Council of Europe’s recent proposals as a reference. The Council of Europe’s Rüschlikon Symposium, which took place in 1991, constitutes a historic date because of the opening up to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and because of the conclusions and recommendations that were formulated. There are two important aspects to its resolutions: x x

the recognition of the assessment of learning processes. the need to harmonize international assessment criteria.

In the report from this Symposium drawn up by Richterich (1992), some principles were established that guided the proposals in the 1996 European Portfolio. These are the principles of: x x x x x

coherence. transparency. right of choice. right to information. right to speak.

The proposals in the 1996 European Portfolio (Trim, North, Coste) specify these principles according to a series of parameters that must be used to guide teaching activities: x x x

Negotiation and interactivity: this involves predicting possibilities for negotiation between the participants in the process of language teaching and learning: educational institution, learner, user. Horizontality and verticality: the determination and grading of knowledge, skills (know-how) and knowing how to act must be taken into account. Comparability and flexibility: this involves establishing flexible description and evaluation systems allowing equivalences to be compared, accepted and legitimized.

To take account of the multiplicity and diversity of possible routes, reference is made not only to an assessment on a scale but also to a modular one. Methodological guidelines include aspects of cognitivism (cognitive and metacognitive strategies), constructivism (significant knowledge) and

Chapter One

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interactionism (teaching-learning interaction, interaction between equals and discursive and strategic consideration of communicative competence). If the proposals in the European Portfolios are taken as significant indices of the development of methodological trends it can be concluded that nowadays, rather than a communicative approach conceived as a body of dogmatic declarations, we should speak of a diversification of communicative methodologies which take into account: x x x

the diversification of resources (multimodal and multi-reference learning). the diversification of curricula. the diversity of learners.

Together with this characteristic of diversity and closely connected with it, communicative methodologies nowadays are directed towards considering the learner as a learning subject, with all that this implies: x x

x

developing the capacity to learn to learn (autonomy). capacity for self-assessment and for taking hetero-assessment into account: the criteria by which others are going to assess learning and acquisition (this is where the importance of comprehension and transparency in formulating the assessment criteria comes in). development of strategic competence (strategic learning) and metacognitive competence (methodological competence and capacity for self-assessment).

This set of guidelines brings with it a redefinition of communicative competence as a complex competence taking into account the following parameters: x x x x x

modularity. the strategic component (related to the context, the situation, interactivity, resources...). differentiated teaching. the socio-cultural component of communication. the development of inter-cultural competence linked to mediation competence (capacity to interpret and translate).

This general view can be exemplified using Richterich’s (1985) diagram of systemic teaching (Figure 1-1):

Eclecticism or Complexity?

21

Figure 1-1: Richterich’s (1985) diagram of systemic teaching.

To learn something Double objective

Programme or Strategies

To learn to learn

LEARNER Motivation Representations Learning styles

Assessment Self-assessment

Diversification of resources

The diversity of cultural representations of texts and discourses and the multiplication of combinations in inter-linguistic communication give rise to an adaptation of the concept of mediation. It is no longer pedagogical mediation nor is it mediation between adults and children or between experimenter and subject of an experiment12. It is a dimension of communicative competence close to the skills which good translators and interpreters must make use of. Mediation strategies reflect ways of adapting oneself to the demands of communication using finite resources and establishing equivalent meanings. It is a process of approaching the other involving planning activities taking into consideration the interlocutor’s needs and characteristics, as well as the activity of forecasting various possible interpretations of the same sentence and, finally, monitoring or verification of the coherence of reception, both at a communicative and linguistic level. This verification may include repair activities leading to the redefinition, reformulation or refinement of expression, resorting to dictionaries, thesauruses and diverse documentary sources or consulting experts. So, the development of the linguistic-communicative competence of users/learners in the European Community must be built not only through the 12 Remember that the notion of mediation is related to Leontiev’s double stimulation methods.

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interactive activities of reception and production, but also through both the reception and production aspects of mediation activities. Mediation competence involves a meeting point between two different types of competence, which could even be thought to operate in different directions: on one hand it is a case of capacity for introspection and reflection, and, on the other hand, capacity for defocusing. Perhaps capacity for empathy is the hinge between both competences. A field of research inciting renewed interest is that of the emotional and motivational aspects involved in language learning. Motivation is the result of interlinked pragmatic factors (needs, objectives), emotional factors (representation of oneself and one’s relationship with others) and cognitive factors. Concerning the cognitive dimension of motivation, let us not forget that to be interested in something is to give it importance, to put it in a place of interest on our map of reality as a result of a set of inferences. The role of the teacher or counsellor and, above all, the relationship between equals and the democratic exercise of controversy (culture of debate) can play a comparable role on our “map of reality”, making us give importance to something that previously did not have it (Claxton 1987). To finish this chapter, I would like to point out the fact that the communicative culture in the third millennium is a culture of complexity, with all the etymological charge that this term has (Morin 1993). Complexus originally meant something that was woven together or interwoven and Complector is: i) to embrace, to surround; ii) (fig.) to surround with friendship, care, etc.; iii) to embrace; to capture through intelligence, thought, memory. Actively taking on board diversity through co-operation is a way of enriching capacity for reflection and the perception of one’s own identity.

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Halliday, M.A.K. and Hasan Ruqaiya. Cohesion in English. London: Longman, 1987. Henner-Stanchina, Carolyn and Henri Holec. “Evaluation in an Autonomous Learning Scheme.” Mélanges Pédagogiques 8 (1977): 50-67. Hickmann, Maya. “Language and Cognition in Development: Old Questions, New Directions.” Pragmatics 11, no. 2 (2001):105-26. . “Le Développement de l’Organisation Discursive.”. In Acquisition du Langage. Vol.2: Le Langage en Développement, edited by Michèle Kail and Michel Fayol, 83-115. Collection Psychologie et Sciences de la pensée. Paris: P.U.F, 2000. Holec, Henri. Strategies in Language Learning and Use: Studies towards a Common European Framework of Reference for Language Learning and teaching. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 1996. . Autonomy and Self Directed Learning. Present Fields of Application. Strasbourg: Council for Cultural Cooperation, 1988. . “L’Approche Communicative, Cru 1982. “Mélanges Pédagogiques 13 (1982): 65-79. . Autonomie et apprentissage des langues étrangères. In Conseil de l’Europe (1982). Strasbourg: Hatier, 1979. Holec, Henri, David Little and René Richterich. Stratégies dans l’Apprentissage et l’Usage des Langues. Strasbourg: Conseil de l’Europe, 1996. Hymes, Dell. On Communicative Competence. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, 1971. . Language, Culture and Society. London: Harper International, 1964. John-Steiner, Vera. “Vers la Compétence Linguistique en Pays Étranger: le Bilinguisme dans la Perspective Vygotskyienne.” In L’Acquisition d’une Langue Étrangère. L’Approche Cognitive, edited by Daniel Gaonac’h, 10114. Paris: Hachette, 1990. Kintsch, Walter. La estructura de la memoria. Barcelona: Omega, 1982. Labov, William. “The Study of Language in its Social Context.” Studium Generale 23 (1970): 30-87. Little, David. “La Compétence Stratégique par Rapport a la Maîtrise Stratégique du Processus d’Apprentissage des Langues.” Apprentissage et Usage des Langues dans le Cadre Européen, LFD, Recherches et Applications, juillet, 1998. Little, David and David Singleton. “Cognitive Style and Learning Approach.”In Learning Styles, edited by Richard Duda and Philip Riley, 11-19. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1990. Mayer, Richard E. El Futuro de la Psicología Cognitiva. Madrid: Alianza Psicología, 1985.

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Miller, George A., Eugene, Gallanter and Karl H Pribram. Planes y Estructura de la Conducta. Madrid: Debate, 1983. Moirand, Sophie. Enseigner à Communiquer en Langue Étrangère. Paris: Hachette, 1982. Morin, Edgar. Introduction à la Pensée Complexe. Paris: Seuil, 1993. North, Brian. “The Development of a Common Framework Scale of Descriptors of Language Proficiency based on a Theory of Measurement.” In Current Developments and Alternatives in Language Assessment., edited by Ari Huhta, Viljo Kohonen, Liisa Kurki-Suonio and Sari Luoma, 423-49. Jyvskyl: University of Jyvskyl, 1997. . Scales of Language Proficiency: a Survey of some Existing Systems. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1994. . “Transparency, Coherence and Washback in Language Assessment.” In National Foreign Language Policies: Practices and Prospects, edited by Kairi Sajavaara, Sauli Takala, Dominique Lambert and Christine Morfit, 157-93. Institute for Education Research: University of Jyvskyla, 1993. , ed. Transparency and Coherence in Language Learning in Europe: Objectives, Evaluation, Certification: Report of a Symposium held in Rüschlikon, Switzerland, 10 -16 November 1991. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1992. O’Malley, J. Michael and Anna Uhl Chamot. Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Oscarson, Mats. Approaches to Self-Assessment in Foreign Language Learning. Strasbourg. Council of Europe 1978. Oxford: Pergamon, 1979. . Self-Assessment of Foreign Language Skills: A Survey of Research and Development Work. Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 1984. Peytard, Jean and Sophie Moirand. Discours et Enseignement du Français. Les Lieux d’une Rencontre. Paris, Hachette, ,1992. Piaget, Jean and Barbel Inhelder. “L’Image Mentale.” Traité de Psychologie Experiméntale. Paris: PUF, 1969. Popper, Karl. Objectif Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972. Porcher, Louis et al. Adaptation d´un Niveau Seuil pour des Contextes Scolaires. Conseil d´Europe: Hatier, 1979. Puren, Christian. “Quelques Modèles Didactiques pour la Conception de Dispositifs d’Enseignement/Apprentissage en Environnement Numérique?” Études de Linguistique Appliquée 134 (2004): 235-43. Richterich, René. “La Compétence Stratégique: Acquérir des Stratégies d’Apprentissage et de Communication.” In Stratégies dans l’Apprentissage

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et l’Usage des Langues, edited by Henri Holec, David Little and René Richterich, 41-76. Strasbourg: Conseil de l’Europe, 1996. . Besoins Langagiers et Objectifs d’Apprentissage. Paris: Hachette, Collection F, Recherches/applications, 1985. Richterich, René and Günther Schneider. Transparency and Coherence: Why and for Whom? Council of Europe: (1992) 43-50. Rogers, Carl R. “The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change”. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 60 (1992): 827–32. . On Becoming a Person. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. (Trad. Esp. El proceso de convertirse en persona. Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1979). Roulet, Eddy. “Peut-on Intégrer l’Enseignement-Apprentissage décalé de Plusieurs Langues?” Etudes de linguistique appliquée, Revue de Didactologie des langues-cultures, Didier-Erudition, (1995): 113-18. Ruiz-Madrid, Maria-Noelia and María-Luisa Villanueva Alfonso. “Websites for English Language Learning: a Critical Study from an Autonomous Language Learning Perspective.” In Internet in Language for Specific Purposes and Foreign Language Teaching, edited by Jordi Piqué-Angordans et alii, 285-306. Col•lecció “Estudis Filològics” 15. Castellón: Publicaciones Universitat Jaume I, 2003. Sanz-Gil, Mercedes, María-Luisa Villanueva Alfonso and María-Noelia RuizMadrid, “Un Outil au Service des Besoins d’Apprentissage des Langues en Compréhension et Expression Écrites: le Projet SMAIL.” Études de Linguistique Appliquée134 (2004): 205-19. Schank, Roger C. and Robert P. Abelson. Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlsbaum, 1977. Searle, John. Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969. Trim, John L.M. “Language Policies for a Multilingual and Multicultural Europe.”Modern Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. A Common European Framework of Reference. A General Guide for Users. Strasbourg: Council for Cultural Co-operation, Education Committee, 1997, 1998. . “Préface.” In Autonomy and Self Directed Learning. Present Fields of Application by Henri Holec. Strasbourg: Council for Cultural Cooperation, 1988. Van Ek, Jan A. Objectives for Foreign Language Learning. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1986. . The Threshold Level for Modern Language Learning in Schools. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1976.

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. The Threshold Level in a European Unit/Credit System for Modern Language Learning by Adults. Systems Development in Adult Language Learning. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1975. . The Threshold Level in a European Unit/Credit System for Modern Language Learning by Adults. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1975. Van Ek, Jan A. and John L.M Trim. Threshold Level. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1991. Van Ek, Jan A. and John L.M Trim, eds. Across the Threshold. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1984. Van Ek, Jan A and Louis G Alexander. Waystage. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1977. Villanueva Alfonso, María-Luisa. “Los Estilos de Aprendizaje entre los Retos de la Europa Multilingüe.”In Didáctica del Español como Lengua Extranjera, coordinated by Lourdes Miquel and Neus Sans. 243-63. Madrid: Actilibre, col. Expolingua, 2002. . “La Formation des Enseignants et l’Autonomie au Carrefour des Valeurs et des Savoirs.” Le Français dans le Monde, no. spécial juillet (2000a): 16075. . “Vers une Approche Intégrée de l’Enseignement des Langues en Espagne.”Les Langues Modernes 3 (2000b): 21-31. Vygotski, Lev S. El Desarrollo de los Procesos Psíquicos superiores. Barcelona: Crítica, 1979. . Thought and Language, MIT Press, 1962. (Ed. Orig. Moscú, 1934; Trad. esp.: Pensamiento y Lenguaje. Buenos Aires, La Pléyade, 1977). Weinreich, Uriel. Languages in Contact. New York: Publications of the Linguistic Circle of New York, 1964. Wenden, Anita. Learner Strategies for Learner Autonomy. New York, London: Prentice Hall, 1991. Wenden, Anita and Joan Rubin. Learner Strategies in Language Learning. New York, London: Prentice Hall, 1987. Widdowson, Henry G. Aspects of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990a. . Explorations in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990b. . Teaching Language as Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Willing, Ken. Teaching How to Learn. South Wales, Australia: NCELTR, Curriculum Development Series 4, 1989.

CHAPTER TWO THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH: NEW TRENDS AND PERSPECTIVES EVA ALCÓN SOLER Universitat Jaume I

1. Introduction Similar to the paradigm shifts in humanities, physical or social sciences, in second language (L2) education the call to change seems to have been a constant. These paradigm shifts, also referred to as the pendulum metaphor in the literature on language teaching methodology, can explain the emergence of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach as an alternative to previously accepted methodologies. CLT was proposed as a rejection of the tenets of structural linguistics and behaviourist psychology, it has moved towards a more contextualized view of language and socio-cognitive psychology, and eventually it has been criticised or extended (for a review see Howatt 1984; Richards and Rodgers 1986; Alcaraz et al. 1993; Sánchez 1997; Alcón 2002a). However, as reported by Alcón (2004), in spite of the criticisms, two guiding principles of CLT are widely accepted by the teaching profession: i) the need to develop learners’ communicative competence, and ii) the assumption that communication is both an end and a means towards language learning. Regarding learners’ development of communicative competence, it is widely recognised that communication is important for learners’ needs, and for the processes of language learning (Widdowson 1978, 1989). Following the second guiding principle, and according to the interactive perspective, learning a language is a function of social and meaningful interaction (Long 1985), and the degree of success in language learning depends on the quality of interaction in the educational setting (Long 1983a, 1996). From this perspective, our objective is first to explain the CLT paradigm as a whole of changes influenced by research directions in language studies. Secondly, without questioning the principles of CLT, we present new directions as part of the paradigm, and finally we argue that the CLT paradigm shift is not

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over, but presents new challenges to the teaching profession.

2. CLT and research directions in language studies Most of the language teacher training programmes are based on the belief that applied linguistics focuses on the practical application of linguistic theory. In this sense, language teaching has been explicitly or implicitly informed by the study of language in use in particular contexts. However, although it is true that the analysis of language has provided us with a better understanding on language use in speech and writing, most of the research directions in applied linguistics do not originate in linguistics. In fact, speech act theory (Austin 1962; Searle 1969), which supplied major contributions to the view of language as a social tool, originates in the field of philosophy, and the notion of communicative competence (Hymes 1972) comes from linguistic anthropology. More recently, interlanguage pragmatics has been influenced by cross-cultural studies and sociology, and most research directions during the past decade have adopted different psychological and psycholinguistic frameworks. In this vein, and if we accept Kramsch’s (2000) suggestion to consider research on applied linguistics as a way to help language teachers to translate theory into practice, it might be necessary to examine the scope of research in the field of applied linguistics. First of all, it would be appropriate to relate studies on the communicative code to linguistics, since we can describe language in use and this can help us to identify the content of CLT. Descriptive analysis of language in real settings and the possible application of this analysis in corpus linguistics, register variation, and gender variation is one of the major developments that emerged in the 1990s and that would probably continue to define the content of CLT. This has demonstrated to be an effective approach for the analysis of language data collected in different contexts, and it has also provided criteria for developing teaching materials (McCarthy and Carter 1994, Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000). However, language is also the most important channel of social organization within a dynamic community, as well as a part of human beings’ identity. In this sense, the study of language cannot only be explained from linguistics, but it could also be the focus of interest within the field of anthropology, sociology or educational-psychology. As mentioned above, in order to explain how language teaching and learning are conceived in the CLT paradigm, we should study a number of factors which may influence the way input is processed by learners. To that end, basic research directions on language education and second language acquisition need to be considered. In our opinion, different research traditions have influenced the goals and implementation of CLT. From this

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perspective, it would be wise to either replace the term applied linguistics to language teaching and learning by research on language studies or to make it clear that it is understood as a framework which, apart from the communicative code, takes into account the external and internal factors that might influence language teaching and learning. This might be illustrated by referring to the development of pragmatic competence, an issue that has recently motivated a lot of research and discussion within the framework of CLT (Alcón 2001; Safont 2001; Martínez-Flor et al. 2003). The teaching and learning of pragmatics in a second language has been based on research directions in applied linguistics. More specifically, interlanguage pragmatics studies or linguistic research directions have pointed out cross-cultural differences in performing language functions, as well as it has influenced the different language functions included in the CLT syllabus. In this vein, learners’ pragmatic ability, as part of their communicative competence, has also been the focus of attention in the proposed models of communicative competence. However, linguistic and cross-cultural descriptions are not enough to explain how those who are acquiring an L2 gain mastery over the sociolinguistic and pragmatic rules of the target language. Therefore, psycholinguistic research directions need to be adopted in order to further understand pragmatic teaching and learning in instructed and natural contexts. In other words, empirical evidence provided by Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research is useful here to understand the theoretical conditions for pragmatic learning (exposure to input, opportunities for output and the need for feedback), and finally to propose techniques for developing learners’ pragmatic and sociolinguistic competence. Considering these aspects, our definition of CLT paradigm as a whole of changes influenced by research directions in language studies is useful to explain the origin of CLT and to understand new trends and perspectives. Consequently, although CLT had its origins in a theory of language as communication, by the beginning of the 1960s, British applied linguistics began to consider different theoretical sources which called into question the assumptions underlying the major teaching approach at that time, that is, situational language teaching. These theoretical sources came from the field of philosophy, sociolinguistics, anthropology, linguistics, ethnography and pragmatics, and influenced in turn the origin of discourse analysis. Nowadays, research directions in linguistics continue to influence current tendencies in CLT. In this sense, both CLT and discourse analysis shared the idea of language as a co-operative effort in which interlocutors choose devices to understand and to be understood. Another concern of CLT and research direction in linguistics studies is about language as it is used in the real world (language use in academic and professional settings or in multilingual contexts). Besides, by the

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close of the 1980s, there has been a shift in applied linguistics towards incorporating many subfields (translation, language used and planning, lexicography, multilingualism, language and technology, corpus linguistics) and drawing on many supporting disciplines. Among the supporting disciplines, psychological research direction has shed light on some issues, such as communication strategies, learning strategies, learning styles, task-based learning, and L2 processing, which could be associated with the move from teacher-centred instruction to learning centred instruction in the CLT paradigm. Likewise, current research on language learning suggests that the principles of CLT are still valid, but places new emphasis on issues which impose an interdisciplinary approach. Such is the case of third language acquisition research which challenges the view of communicative competence as involving competence in one (target language) or two (mother tongue and target language), as many learners already possess knowledge of at least two other languages in learning a third one (Edwards 1995; Herdina and Jessner 2002).

3. Principles and trends in CLT As far as the principles are concerned, there seems to be a consensus on focussing on learners’ development of communicative competence, as well as on the principle that communication is both an end and a means towards language learning. Concerning the former principle, and as it has been mentioned above, speech act theory motivated the CLT content, by designing functional-notional syllabi, which in turn influenced Hymes’ (1972) notion of communicative competence. Hymes’ original definition of communicative competence has been taken into account in several pedagogically motivated models (Canale and Swain 1980; Canale 1983; Bachman 1990; Celce-Murcia et al. 1995; Alcón 2000), which have included various dimensions within the notion of communicative competence. In this sense, the focus on pragmatics, discourse, and strategic competence have added new insights which in turn have influenced the selection of the linguistic content of CLT. The problem seems to be that, although attention has been paid to the analysis of spoken and written discourse as well as the devices used to fulfil communicative purposes, the original link between discourse analysis and CLT has become more distant. On the one hand, the tendency to separate research on spoken versus written discourse analysis contrasts with CLT pedagogical suggestions to integrate language skills (Scarcella and Oxford 1992). Even if ethnographic research (Heath 1982) or discourse approaches to spoken and written genres (Biber 1988) fail to find clear linguistic differences, the pedagogical implications of this research are rarely reflected in syllabi or teaching materials. On the other hand, the increasing understanding of language use in speech

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and writing has undoubtedly influenced the teaching of oral and written skills. As far as the teaching of oral skills is concerned, observations of how people behave in spoken discourse, has contributed to increasing our understanding of native/non-native and non-native/non-native communication, although questions remain about how to apply this knowledge in language teaching. Thus, the analysis of the role of instruction in acquiring pragmatic competence (House 1996; Rose and Kasper 2001; Martínez-Flor et al. 2003; Safont 2005) and the study of pragmatic competence and L2 development and teaching present new challenges to the teaching profession. With regard to the teaching of written skills, the analysis of written language has contributed to a better understanding of the texture and structure of texts, and how both texture and structure illustrate the interactive nature of reading and writing. Such analysis of written discourse has also illustrated the different mechanisms we have at our disposal for teaching reading and writing (see Wallace 1992; Hudson 1998 and Grabe 2002 for a review on teaching reading; and Tribble 1996; Cumming 1998; Raimes 1998; Manchón 2001 and Hyland 2002 for a review on teaching writing). However, as we have mentioned in relation to spoken discourse, although the analysis of language in use has provided us with insights into the linguistic resources which show the interactive nature of written discourse, there is also a need for further research into the role of intervention in helping language learners to recognise those resources and to use them in comprehension and production of written texts. The second accepted principle of CLT focuses on the social nature of learning rather than on students as decontextualised individuals. From this assumption, Long’s interactional hypothesis (1980, 1983a, 1985) were empirically tested in studies on the effect of input modifications (Chaudron 1983; Long 1985) and interaction modifications (Pica, Doughty and Young 1990; Pica, Young and Doughty 1987; Pica 1991) on L2 comprehension. The pedagogical implication of this line of research resulted in accepting the concept of communicative tasks as a basic unit to analyse classroom interaction and as an essential component of curriculum design (see the 1993 survey by Crookes and Gass). Consequently, on the one hand, the communicative approach focused on fluency over accuracy and proposed different types of oral exercises to favour transactional and interactional language use (Brown and Yule 1993). However, SLA research illustrates that various kinds of jigsaw or opinion gaptasks with a focus on meaning are not sufficient for language learning. In fact, following Swain’s (1985) comprehensible output hypothesis, it is claimed that learners need to be pushed to output for correct and appropriate use of their production (Swain and Lapkin 1995; Ellis and He 1999; Izumi and Bigelow 2000; Alcón 2002b). In response to the limitations in implementing communicative language

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tasks, new emphasis is given to different issues. Among them, special attention is paid to the need for focus on form, as well as to conceptualize and describe its various manifestations. Theoretical explanations for the need to focus on form can be found by drawing first on the claim that instruction makes a difference in language learning (see Long 1983b; and Norris and Ortega 2001 for a review of research on the effectiveness of L2 instruction published between 1980 and 1998). Secondly, information models posit learners’ limited processing capacity to attend simultaneously to form and meaning. In this sense, and according to Schmidt’s (1990, 1994, 2001) noticing hypothesis, unless learners attend to form in meaning-focused instruction, acquisition will not take place. Following these two theoretical and empirical assumptions, a focus-on form instruction (Long 1991; Doughty 2001) is suggested in CLT methodology. In contrast to focus on forms where there is a focus on grammar teaching, in focus on form the emphasis is on meaning but learners’ attention is briefly shifted to form. This can be illustrated in Example 1-1 where, although the aim is to focus on meaning, the teacher reacts to student’s incorrect utterance by focusing on form. Example 1-1 (Source: Alcón 1993) T What are they doing? S He ate the cake. T Yes, but ate, is that correct?, ate? S Uhmm... eat..are eating a cake because of his birthday

While earlier research on focus on form instruction was concerned on describing the procedures for teaching form in the context of a communicative activity, recent research focuses on how this is accomplished in different educational settings (Williams 1999; Ellis 2001 and García Mayo and Alcón 2002, among others), and the effect of different types of focus on form on L2 acquisition. In relation to the procedures for teaching form in the context of a communicative activity, Ellis (2001) and Ellis et al. (2002) distinguish between planned versus incidental focus on form. Both types of focus on form require the use of communicative tasks. However, the former involves the use of communicative tasks designed to elicit forms which have been pre-selected by the teacher, while the latter tasks are designed to elicit and use language without any specific attention to form. Loschky and Bley-Vroman (1993), Fotos and Ellis (1991), and Fotos (1993, 1994, 1997) claim that planned focused tasks are effective because learners are forced to focus on form while they are communicating, but the problem can be found in the design of the tasks and the type of interaction that these tasks generate. In the case of incidental focus on form the role of participants in performing the task will determine the accomplishing of a focus on form.

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Descriptions on how focus on form is accomplished in educational settings also point out the difference between reactive and incidental focus on form. A reactive focus on form arises when the teacher or another student respond to an error in the context of a communicative activity. As reported by Long and Robinson (1998), this negative evidence can be provided by explicit or implicit feedback. Explicit feedback is performed by giving metalinguistic information, by indicating directly that an error has been committed or by eliciting the correct form (see studies by Lyster 1998 and Williams 1999). If negative feedback is provided by implicit feedback, such as in Doughty and Valera’s (1998) study, the learner’s utterance is recast in the target language form. Besides, instead of adopting a reactive focus on form, the teacher or a student can also choose a proactive focus on form by making a linguistic form the topic of discourse, even though no error has been committed. In this case, an explicit focus on form is achieved either by students’ questions about linguistic forms or by teachers’ display questions and information about the linguistic code. As reported by Ellis et al. (2001), although pro-active focus on form has been little studied to date, researchers and teacher educators should pay attention to it as another discourse device to achieve form-focused instruction. Another key area of concern in CLT is providing language learning conditions in the context of teacher-students and peer interaction. Swain (1995), in explaining SLA from an output perspective, also suggests three functions of learners’ output which relate to accuracy rather than fluency: the noticing function, the hypothesis-testing function and the metalinguistic function. These three functions of learners’ output can be observed in interaction without disturbing the communicative flow of the classroom (Ellis 2001; Ellis et al. 2001). As we have mentioned above, while meaning-focused interaction requires learners to attend only to the content of communication, in formfocused interaction there is an attempt to focus on the linguistic form. However, as reported by Nobuyoshi and Ellis (1993), many instances of classroom interaction are neither entirely form-focused nor meaning-focused. Moreover, it is frequent to find a combination of focus on forms with focus on form in the foreign language classroom. In the first case, the teacher usually pays attention to particular features of language through explicit teaching or input enhancement techniques. In the second case, opportunities to practise the object of instruction are provided through form-focused communicative tasks (Loschky and Bley-Vroman 1993; García Mayo 2001, 2002a, 2002b) or meaning-focused communicative tasks (Nunan 1989). In this case, in performing the tasks, teacher and students explicitly or implicitly notice linguistic problems, draw interlocutors’ attention to them (noticing function), solve these problems through dialogue (hypothesis testing function) and reflect upon language while they are mainly concerned with getting meaning across

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(metalinguistic function). In so doing, teacher-learners and peer interaction helps learners to construct knowledge that they will eventually be able to use individually. From this perspective, L2 learning is viewed as a mediated process where the behaviour of experts (the teacher) and novices (the learner) has given rise to a lot of research. As reported by Lantolf (2000), research on L2 learning as a mediated process considers three general categories: mediation by others in social interaction, mediation by self through private speech and mediation by artefacts. Of the three domains of mediation, CLT has incorporated insights from research on language learning from a sociocultural perspective, which reports that the mediating strategies used and offered by learners are similar to those used by teachers and other experts (Ohta 2000), as well as it has been reported to be as effective for learning as interaction between teacher and learners (Swain 1995; Swain and Lapkin 1995; Alcón 2002b). In spite of the attention paid to mediated learning and the encouragement towards involvement in conversation within the CLT paradigm, teachers know that language teaching must be sensitive to particular groups of learners in particular educational contexts. Besides, a key tenet of CLT refers to the fact that each learner is different, so effective teaching needs to take these differences into account. From this perspective, CLT pays attention to variables such as motivation, cognitive and learning style, or aptitude, which have been shown to be related to language learning in various ways (Arnold 1999; Dörnyei and Skehan 2003). Secondly, results of research on affective and cognitive factors in language learning have been used by teachers to cope with learners’ diversity in the classrooms. By doing so, teachers are also challenged with matters such as learners’ attitude to learning tasks, or the role of strategy instruction and learning styles. These matters, in turn, imply a conscious reflection on language teaching and learning and present new challenges to the teaching profession.

4. New challenges in CLT We have defined CLT as a paradigm influenced by current research on language studies, as well as we have emphasized new issues that have emerged in response to implementing the guiding principles of CLT in language teaching and learning. These insights from research on language teaching and learning have been incorporated in most language teacher educators’ courses whose aim is to develop trainers’ metalinguistic awareness and pedagogical skills. However, the question now is whether CLT as a paradigm presents new challenges to the teaching profession or, following the pendulum metaphor in the literature on language learning, a new paradigm shift is about to emerge. To

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answer this question we will refer to two aspects that have concerned the teaching profession: the content and the methodological options in language teaching and learning. As far as the content is concerned, analysing language from a discourse perspective has influenced the syllabus of CLT. In fact, most language teachers, persuaded by the belief that what they are supposed to teach is the object language, have suffered from an inferiority complex. However, Widdowson (2002), without denying the importance of language use in designing language teaching contents, has recently presented language teachers with a new challenge. According to Widdowson (2002), experience in the object language is not the same as expertise in the language subject. From this point of view, he urges language teachers to study further the nature of language, since although some native speakers may have experience in the object language; they lack knowledge of the language subject. In our opinion, teachers’ new challenge in designing language teaching contents should be focused on both analysing language use and on deciding how it can be managed to make it learned. This is also pointed out by Widdowson (2002), in relation to English as a foreign language: (…) the subject requires that the language is dissociated from the experience of its users, analysed, and then reassembled so that it can be associated with the experience of its learners. And knowing the subject of English as a foreign language means knowing how to do this.1

From this perspective, corpus-based descriptions of language present new challenges in language teaching. Although there is no doubt that corpus descriptions have changed our view about how language is used in context, the problem is to decide when and how it is appropriate to present loads of corpus materials as real examples. To start with, any discourse is created for a community and our learners might not belong to that community for whom the text was created. If that is the case, failure to understand the pragmatic meaning of the discourse is highly expected. Secondly, if discourse is said to lose its authenticity once removed from its original context, do loads of corpus material represent authentic language use? As reported by Mishan (2004), the problem of authenticity of corpora in the learning context can be solved by creating conditions that enable learners to authenticate the corpus data through some sort of engagement with it. This, in turn, means that teachers, as experts in the language subject, can create methodologies which seek learners to engage with the corpus via tasks. Among them, the Data-Driven Learning (DDL) tasks help 1

Widdowson, Henry G. “Language Teaching: Defining the Subject.” In Language in Language Teacher Education. (Amsterdam: Trappes, Ferguson, 2002), 79-80.

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learners to discover (using inductive DDL tasks) or check (by means of deductive DDL tasks) language use. By doing so, the language corpus is used as a research resource. In other words, we are not concerned with the authenticity of the corpus material, but how the learner authenticates it, via the task. Likewise, the methodological options should be further tested and defined in language classrooms. For example, several writers have discussed techniques with the aim to provide students with insights into particular features of the language. Such activities are known as consciousness-raising, collaborative and exploratory tasks, and their common feature is to make learners consciously aware of the target language, both at grammatical (Fotos 1993, 1994, 1997; and García Mayo 2001, 2002a, 2002b) and pragmatic level (Judd 1999). However, in relation to language awareness, the issue is not only whether or not consciousness raising tasks facilitate noticing of the language, but nowadays the debate focuses on learners’ perspectives on the use of deductive and inductive consciousness-raising tasks. As it is the learner who ultimately benefits from instruction, in line with the study carried out by Mohamed (2004), the learner’s preference on tasks might be a priority in the teacher’s agenda. Similarly, as suggested by Wright (2002), a move from considering techniques to foster language awareness towards understanding language awareness as a goal provides language teachers with a wider view toward sensitivity to language. If language awareness is understood as a goal, the teacher might create and spot opportunities to generate discussion and exploration of language in language learning activities, even if they are not designed to evaluate language. Besides, it is important to study in language classrooms two recent trends in curriculum design that conform to CLT principles: task-based instruction and content-based instruction. On the one hand, communicative tasks, which were initially designed to provide comprehensible input and opportunities to engaging that input, point to further development in the future. Taking into account taskbased research, which illustrates that the qualities of tasks and the conditions under which these are implemented influence language performance (Skehan 1998, 2001), there has been considerable classroom research pointing out that planning is associated with more complex and accurate language. As a result of this, the relationship between task-based research findings and actual teaching is a challenge for language teachers who may reconsider the concept of task as a unit of analysis and learning in CLT, and move towards integrating task-linked research in choosing tasks and deciding how to implement them in the classroom. On the other hand, content-based instruction presents another ongoing challenge within CLT. Content-based instruction is understood as a strong form of CLT which tries to maximise learners’ exposure to the L2 by using the subject matter as the content for language learning. Although there are different

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forms of content-based instruction (i.e., immersion programmes, language across the curriculum programmes, or mixed forms including bilingual, trilingual or multilingual schools), all of them share the belief that a content knowledge and increased language proficiency will be achieved through social interaction and engagement with significant texts. In other words, they put into practise the CLT principle which suggests that communication is both an end and a means towards language learning. Besides, the research findings on content-based programmes show positive attitudes and successful language development, but lack one of the aspects that have proved to be problematic in CLT, that is, the need to focus on formal aspects of the code. However, insights from research on language studies seem to point out that attention to formal properties of the language might result in changes in content-based instruction contexts. More specifically, Wesche and Skehan (2002) report on methods to ensure that change. Among them, formulation of specific language objectives for content units, emphasis on accuracy as well as fluency in language production, and implementation of tasks focused on explicit language instruction are those issues that might be incorporated in content-based instruction as a development of the CLT principle. Likewise, these might specially present new challenges in those cases where learners do not have regular contact with peers or exposure to language outside the classroom. Finally, content-based teaching has recently been incorporated in language education, but there seems to be a need to evaluate its outcomes depending on contextual factors and its implementation. To sump up, we believe that teachers should not be concerned with an alternative approach to respond to some of the limitations of CLT. On the contrary, since learners’ development of communicative competence is widely accepted as a goal by the teaching profession, strong emphasis should be placed on analysing language use and on deciding how it can be managed to make it learned. Likewise, recent trends in CLT such as the need to focus on form, taskbased instruction, language awareness, or content-based instruction should be tested in particular contexts to widen the interactionist perspective on language learning. To achieve that, as reported by Alcón (2004), the role of teachers should be extended towards developing a reflective approach towards language teaching and learning, which might be integrated with day to day teaching. This would allow teachers and learners a conscious reflection in the light of learning objectives and tasks demands. In other words, in reflective learning both teachers and learners need to plan, carry out and evaluate their own learning process in an effort to become autonomous learners and professionals.

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5. Conclusion In concluding our comments on CLT, it would be useful to refer to the tension between analytical and experiential approaches to language learning. As reported by Nassaji (2000), throughout the history of language teaching, there seems to be a dilemma over focused analytic versus unfocused experiential language teaching. While the former considers learning as the development of formal rule-based knowledge, the latter conceptualises learning as the result of naturalistic use of language. Experiential approaches have been dominant in language teaching since the appearance of the CLT in 1970 and its spread in the 1980s. However, in the twenty first century, there seems to be a trend towards recognizing that analytic and experiential language teaching can be integrated in a new view of language teaching and learning. This view rejects CLT as a method and understands it as a general approach whose primary goal is to provide learners with conditions for developing their communicative competence. To achieve that, insights are taken from research on language studies and several guiding principles, also referred to as macrostrategies (Kumaravadivelu 1994), are formulated to see how they function in particular contexts. However, these principles are dynamic and might need some sort of reformulation when they are used in specific teaching and learning contexts. In doing so, we will continue to gain a clearer idea of the conditions for success in language learning, as well as we will be provided with new challenges. It is difficult to predict how CLT will develop, but some of the issues we have mentioned are likely to trigger further discussion in the future. Among them, the need to focus on form in CLT, the conditions to successful task-based and content-based instruction or further pedagogical investigation on tasks are likely to enable us to see CLT strengths and weaknesses more clearly.

Acknowledgements This study is part of a research project funded by a grant from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (HUM2004-04435/FILO) and a grant from Fundació Universitat Jaume I and Caixa Castelló-Bancaixa (P1.1B2004-34). Additionally, I would like to thank Alicia Martínez-Flor, and Pilar Safont Jordà for their suggestions and valuable comments in an earlier version of this paper.

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LLedó. Enseñanza y Aprendizaje de las Lenguas Modernas. Madrid, Ediciones Rialp, 1993. Alcón Soler, Eva. “Research on Language and Learning: Implications for Language Teachings.” International Journal of English Studies 4, no. 1 (2004): 173-96. . Bases Lingüísticas y Metodológicas para la Enseñanza de la Lengua Inglesa. Castelló: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I, 2002a. . “The Relationship between Teacher-led versus Learners’ Interaction and the Development of Pragmatics in the EFL Classroom.” International Journal of Educational Research 37, 4 (2002b): 359-77. . “El Desarrollo de la Competencia Pragmática a partir de la Interacción Oral en el Contexto de EFL: Un Estudio sobre la Exposición y el Uso de las Peticiones” in Perspectivas Recientes sobre el Discurso, edited by Ana I. Moreno and Vera Colwell. León: Secretariado de Publicaciones y medios audiovisuales, CD-ROM Publication, 2001. . “Desarrollo de la Competencia Discursiva Oral en el Aula de Lenguas Extranjeras: Perspectivas Metodológicas y de Investigación.” in Segundas Lenguas: Adquisición en el Aula, edited by Carmen Muñoz Lahoz, 259-76. Barcelona: Ariel Lingüística, 2000. . Análisis del Discurso en Contexto Académico: La Interacción como Estrategia de Adquisición de la L2. Col.lecció Tesis Doctorals Microfitxa. Valencia: Servei de Publicacions Universitat de València, 1993. Arnold Morgan, Jane, ed. Affect in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Austin, John Langshaw. How to do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962. Bachman, Lyle F. Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Biber, Douglas. Variation across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Brown, Gillian and George Yule. Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Canale, Michael. “From Communicative Competence to Communicative Language Pedagogy” in Language and Communication, edited by Jack C. Richards and Richard W. Schmidt, 2-27. London: Longman, 1983. Canale, Michael and Merrill Swain. “Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing.” Applied Linguistics 1, no.1 (1980): 1-47. Celce-Murcia, Marianne and Elite Olshtain. Discourse and Context in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

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Fotos, Sandra and Rod Ellis. “Communicating about Grammar: A Task-based Approach.” TESOL Quarterly 25, no. 4, (1991): 605-28. García Mayo, María Pilar. “Focus on Form Tasks in EFL Grammar Pedagogy.” In Language Awareness in the EFL Classroom edited by David Lasagabaster Herrate and Juan Manuel Sierra, 221-36. Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2001. . “The Effectiveness of Two Form-focused Tasks in Advanced EFL Pedagogy.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 12, no.2 (2002a): 156-75. . “Interaction in Advanced EFL Grammar Pedagogy: A Comparison of Form-focused Activities.” International Journal of Educational Research 37, no.3 (2002b): 323-41. García Mayo, María Pilar and Eva Alcón Soler, eds. “International Journal of Educational Research.” Special Issue on the Role of Interaction in Instructed Language Learning 37, no.3 (2002). Grabe, William. Teaching and Researching reading. Edinburgh: Pearson, 2002. Heath, Shirley Brice. “What no Bedtime Story Means: Narrative Skills at Home and School.” Language in Society 11, no. 1 (1982): 49-77. Herdina, Philip and Ulrike Jessner. A Dynamic Model of Multilingualism. Clevedon: Multingual Matters, 2002. House, Juliane. “Developing Pragmatic Fluency in English as a Foreign Language: Routines and Metapragmatic Awareness.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18, no. 2, (1996): 225-52. Howatt, Anthony Philip Reid. A History of English Language Teaching, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. Hudson, Thom. “Theoretical Perspectives on Reading.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18, (1998): 43-60. Hyland, Ken. Teaching and Researching Writing. Edinburgh: Pearson, 2002. Hymes, Dell. “On Communicative Competence.” In Sociolinguistics, edited by John B. Pride and Janet Holmes, 269-293. Harmondworth: Penguin, 1972. Izumi, Shinichi and Martha Bigelow. “Does Output Promote Noticing and Second Language Acquisition?” TESOL Quarterly 34, no. 2 (2000): 239-79. Judd, Elliot. “Some Issues in the Teaching of Pragmatic Competence.” In Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning, edited by Eli Hinkel, 152-166. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999. Kramsch, Claire. “Second Language Acquisition, Applied Linguistics, and the Teaching of Foreign Languages.” The Modern Language Journa, 84, no.3 (2000): 311-26. Kumaravadivelu, Balasubramanian. “The Postmethod Condition: (E)merging Strategies for Second/Foreign Language Teaching.”, TESOL Quarterly 28, no.1, (1994): 27-48.

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McCarthy, Michael and Ronald Carter. Language as Discourse: Perspectives for Language Teaching. London: Longman. 1994. Mishan, Freda. “Authenticating Corpora for Language Learning: A Problem and its Resolution.” ELT Journal 58, no.3 (2004): 219-27. Mohamed, Naashia. “Consciousness-Raising Tasks: A Learner Perspective.”, ELT Journal 58, no. 3 (2004): 228-37. Nassaji, Hossein. “Towards Integrating Form-focused Instruction and Communicative Interaction in the Second Language Classroom: Some Pedagogical Possibilities.” The Modern Language Journal 84, no. 2 (2000): 241-50. Nobuyoshi, Junko and Rod Ellis. “Focused Communication Tasks and Second Language Acquisition”, ELT Journal 47, no. 3 (1993): 203-10. Norris, John M. and Lourdes Ortega. “Does Type of Instruction Make a Difference? Substantive Findings from a Meta-analytic Review.” Language Learning 51, supp. 1 (2001): 157-213. Nunan, David. Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Ohta, Amy Snyder. “Re-thinking Interaction in SLA: Developmentally Appropriate Assistance in the Zone of Proximal Development and the Acquisition of L2 Grammar.” In Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, edited by James P. Lantolf, 51-78. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pica, Teresa. “Classroom Interaction, Participation, and Comprehension: Redefining Relationships.” System 19, no. 4, (1991): 437-52. Pica, Teresa, Catherine Doughty, and Richard Young. “Making Input Comprehensible: Do Interactional Modifications Help?” Penn Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 2, n.1 (1990): 121-45. Pica, Teresa, Richard Young, and Catherine Doughty. “The Impact of Interaction on Comprehension.” TESOL Quarterly 21, no.4 (1987): 737-58. Raimes, Ann. “Teaching Writing.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18, (1998): 142-67. Richards, Jack C. and Theodore S. Rodgers. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Rose, Kenneth R., and Gabriele Kasper, eds. Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Safont Jordà, Maria Pilar. Third Language Learners. Pragmatic Production and Awareness. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2005. . Meta-pragmatic Perspectives on L3 Acquisition: Analysing Requests in the EAP Context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Castellón: Universitat Jaume I, 2001. Sánchez Pérez, Aquilino. Los Métodos en la Enseñanza de Idiomas. Evolución

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CHAPTER THREE AUTONOMY, PAST AND PRESENT PHILIP RILEY RICHARD DUDA Université Nancy 2 - CRAPEL1

1. Introduction Although autonomy and autonomous language learning are often considered as recent developments, they have in fact deep and tangled historical roots and it would require a detailed study of developments over many centuries, in many countries and across many disciplines to give anything like a full and satisfactory account. This is not really surprising, as these notions raise some of the most fundamental issues in the social sciences, including the natures of human agency, language and cognition. Consequently, a wide range of philosophers and anthropologists, linguists and sociologists, psychologists and educationists have all addressed autonomy from a variety of intellectual and methodological standpoints and in their different social and historical contexts. It is also probably the case that the majority of societies around the world have consistently discussed and valued independence of thought and action, so much so, in fact, that the right actually to exercise it has often been limited to a privileged minority. Even if we restrict our attention to developments in the last two centuries, we find ourselves trying to disentangle a delicate and complex web of events and theories, motivations and movements. (For an earlier attempt to do so, see Gremmo and Riley 1995). Exhaustiveness is out of the question, but it is possible to identify some of the most prominent factors which have taken autonomy from being considered a marginal approach to its present position as a serious alternative to more traditional, teacher-centred practices.

1

Centre de Recherches et d’Applications Pédagogiques en Langues.

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2. Factors 2.1 Progressive education From Rousseau onwards there is a clear, though admittedly not always a very straight line through the nineteenth century (Pestalozzi, Froebel) and into the twentieth: Maria Montessori (1870–1952) and John Dewey (1859–1952), in particular. Despite the considerable philosophical differences between them, all of these educationists share a common approach to the development of children, in that they all believed that a child will learn naturally if placed in a suitable environment. By this, they meant one where children develop the moral and intellectual capacities necessary for problem-solving and decision-making by participating in learning games (Maria Montessori), relying on self-motivation and auto-education, free from authoritarian constraints and with teachers only intervening by request and in cases of real need.

2.2 Learner-centred-education After the Second World War, partly as a reaction against behaviourism, partly as a search for alternatives to authoritarianism of every kind, educational philosophers and psychologists shifted the focus from the roles of teachers and institutions to concentrate instead on the learner’s roles and rights and on the nature of the individual’s participation in the learning process. (Neil 1960, 1972; Rogers 1961, 1969; Kelly 1969; Illich 1970, 1973; Châlon 1970; Cembalo and Holec 1973; Barnes 1976; Trim 1978) In this perspective, learning is seen as something learners do, rather than as something other people do to them. This fresh interest in individual experience chimed in with developments in humanistic and cognitive psychology (Bruner 1966; Ausubel 1968; Donaldson 1978), which were similar reactions against the mechanistic anti-mentalism of behaviourism as manifested in the works of Skinner, Hebb and Hull.

2.3 Identity politics and minority-rights movements We will have to leave it to the historians and sociologists to identify the historical and social contingencies which triggered off the ongoing, global reconfiguration of identities: ethnic identities, sexual, linguistic, religious and political identities, and so on. But one thing seems clear: without exception, members of these movements, whether Women’s Libbers, Born-again Christians, Greens, consumers or the deaf were all highly conscious of the role of the school in social reproduction, and so their attitudes and values came to be projected onto the educational arena. Wresting curricular control from

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institutions by demanding that learners’ interests, needs, values and identities should be consulted led to a growing awareness of and insistence on learners’ rights.

2.4 Sociolinguistics and the Communicative Approach From the late 1950s onwards, a diversity of fields of investigation came to be grouped together under the banner of sociolinguistics. This return to the historical concerns of linguistics–language variation and change, language use and the relationship between linguistic and social factors–addressed many of the concerns of people interested in language teaching and learning which fell beyond the limits of the Saussurean approach, which focussed on the decontextualised analysis of the internal units and structures of langue. In speech act theory (Austin 1962; Searle 1969; Apel 1976; discourse analysis (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975), needs analysis (Richterich 1972) ethnomethodology (Garfinkel 1967;) ethnolinguistics and the ethnography of communication (Hymes 1972, 1974; Gumperz and Hymes 1972; Saville-Troike 1982) and the sociology of language (Fishman 1972; Fasold 1984), teachers and educationists found that their questions, if not always answered, were at least taken seriously. Indeed, this interest was reciprocal, and language in education rapidly became one of the most intensive and productive areas of research and attracted the attention of the most eminent scholars (Bourdieu 1965; Labov 1972; Halliday 1973; Sinclair and Coulthard 1975; Habermas 1979). However great the differences between these approaches, they are all predicated on a view of language as a tool which permits individuals to communicate with one another, to enter into intersubjective couplings and construct their social reality whilst negotiating their pragmatic and social outcomes. The acquisition of this capacity—Hymes’s communicative competence—was immediately identified by many foreign language didacticians as the true objective of language learning and teaching (Holec 1973; Widdowson 1978; Brumfit and Johnson 1979), a concept that was adopted with great enthusiasm by the Council of Europe’s Modern Languages Project, established in 1971 (Trim 1978), culminating in the authoritative Common European Framework of Reference (1996). From the very start, autonomy was seen as integral to the Communicative Approach, based as it is on helping individuals to acquire the capacity to meet their personal needs, to express themselves. (At the risk of labouring the obvious, it has to be pointed out that the auto in autonomy means self). Moreover, the presence of first Yves Châlon, the founder of the CRAPEL, and then his successor Henri Holec on the Council’s Committee of Experts meant that there was never any question of this relationship being lost sight of, as they themselves led or inspired numerous

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research projects and schemes in the fields of autonomy and self-directed learning (Holec 1979; Riley 1986 and numerous articles in the CRAPEL’s inhouse journal, the Mélanges Pédagogiques).

2.5 Information Technology (IT) and resource centres The diffusion and development of autonomy and self-directed learning have undoubtedly been facilitated by technological advances: where they are available, tape and video-recorders, the internet and e-mail, photocopiers and faxes are potentially rich resources for materials and for self-directed learning activities of many kinds.2 In many settings, it makes sense to make these available at the institutional level as resource centres (self-access centres, mediatheques, sound libraries, etc.) The first resource centres and self-access systems were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is not possible to be more precise than that because in some cases they evolved directly from existing language laboratories. As dissatisfaction with labs increased, they were sometimes opened in library mode (University of Malta 1970) allowing a modest degree of self-access. Although the differences in lay-out and equipment were minimal, the psychological and educational bases of labs and libraries could hardly have been more different, as labs were associated with a behaviouristic, lock-step approach, whereas libraries were a manifestation—however limited to start with—of the ideas of autonomous and self-directed learning. Perhaps the first tailor-made resource centre was that established by CRAPEL at the University of Nancy (Riley and Zoppis 1976: also in Riley 1986). It contained audio-active comparative equipment for unsupervised oral practice; a listening comprehension section; a video section and a table d’hôte facility, which was a 45 minute recorded anthology, repeated continually and changed every week. Many tertiary institutions and language schools now have resource centres, usually incorporating computers: the CRAPEL alone has been involved in resource centre projects in Mexico, Hong Kong, Russia and Ukraine, Egypt, Finland, New Zealand, Spain and Austria, and no doubt the 2

“However, experience shows that the price of autonomy is eternal vigilance: there is a strong and repeated tendency for the introduction of some new form of technology by enthusiastic technicians to be accompanied by a retrograde and unreflecting pedagogy. A grammar drill on a computer is still a grammar drill and if learners are given little choice (or no training, which comes to the same thing) then it is a travesty to call their programmes self-directed. Those who deride theory are blinded by science. In the words of John Maynard Keynes, ‘Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist’. Mutatis mutandis, the same is true for language teachers.” (Gremmo, Riley 1995: 153)

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same is true of other institutions. (Dickinson 1987; Sheerin 1988; Little 1989; Brookes and Grundy 1988; Gardner and Miller 1994; Esch 1994; Broady and Kenning 1996)

2.6 Advising / Counselling and learner training Self-access systems and autonomous learning schemes (often, though not always, functioning together as part of a larger institutional whole) revealed that in most cases it is necessary for learners to receive some form of guidance, that it is simply not sufficient to say to learners “Right, you are now independent. There is a resource centre. Go and learn in it.” This is mainly because their previous study experience has been limited to being taught and they have not acquired the metacognitive capacities required if they are to make the various decisions and choices constitutive of any learning programme: identifying and prioritising aims and objectives, selecting materials and techniques, establishing criteria for self-assessment, planning and organising, and so on (Dickinson 1987; Holec 1994). The two main forms which guidance for learners can take are advising and learner-training. Much ink has been spilt discussing the choice of a suitable term to describe a person whose role is to help provide other people with the conditions and capacities necessary to become autonomous learners: counsellor, tutor, helper, facilitator, mentor, adviser. More important by far, in our view, is the work which has been done on describing that person’s role and the ways in which it differs from teaching or, indeed, from other forms of knowledge transfer or management. (Régent 1993). Gremmo (1994) identifies three main functions for language advising:

x x x

providing conceptual information which will help learners to develop their representations (i.e., beliefs about language and language learning) and their metalinguistic and metacognitive ability. providing methodological information on topics such as materials, work techniques and planning study programmes. providing psychological support, mostly in helping learners in coming to terms with their successes and failures.

At the present time, the role and functions of language advisers continue to be the subjects of close scrutiny, often taking the shape of detailed analysis of adviser-learner discourse (Crabbe and Cotterall 1999). A generally-accepted theoretical model of the language adviser is far from established, though this is hardly surprising, as even after more than two millennia discussing the role of the teacher, we have never reached a consensus either. A particularly

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controversial issue which has emerged recently is the extent to which advising theory and practices should call on therapeutic models of counselling, as developed in the treatment of psychological, behavioural and relational problems. Opponents to this approach claim that it is based on a false analogy: language learning is not an illness, and language advisers are not competent to deal with problems of this kind, nor should they aim to do so. Its proponents point out that any dyadic relationship inevitably has affective and relational dimensions, and that a declared aim of most language advisers is to change attitudes and beliefs, which is tantamount to therapy. Since this debate is as much about ethics as about didactics, it is unlikely to be resolved in the near future. Our own view is that it would be a pity to throw out the baby with the bathwater: work on therapeutic counselling has produced tools for the discursive and interactional analysis of dyadic communication on metacognitive issues which are detailed and insightful. Borrowing the tools rather than reinventing the wheel seems a sensible thing to do, though admittedly it remains to be seen whether this can be done without taking on the therapeutic overtones. Learner-training or learning-to-learn programmes have developed both outside and inside the autonomous language learning approach. After all, Ken Willing’s seminal contribution to this field is clearly entitled ‘Teaching how to Learn’ (Willing 1989). Many of those who work within the autonomous learning paradigm call, like Willing, on the considerable literature on learning styles or cognitive styles (Pask 1976; Witkin and Goodenough 1981; Kolb 1984; Bickley 1989; Duda and Riley 1991). Another rich source of learning-to-learn activities is the literature on Language Awareness originally inspired by the work of Eric Hawkins (1984) and considerably developed since (Candelier 2003). The main characteristic shared by advising and learning-to-learn activities is that they all aim to develop metalinguistic awareness, which has been shown to be one of, if not the, most important ingredients in successful autonomous language learning.

2.7 Market economics One of the less obvious yet increasingly important factors influencing developments in autonomous learning has been the re-emergence of the market economy, but history clearly shows that educational practices and thinking have always been subject to such economic and social contingencies. Two main strands can be picked out from a complex tapestry: globalisation and the increase in demand for foreign languages, and the commercialisation of language provision. Among the effects of globalisation, as manifested by the rise of political organisations such as the United Nations or of multinational corporations such

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as Shell or IBM, has been a steep increase in the demand for foreign language learning of a non-scholastic kind (to which must be added increases arising from the massive development of tourism and air-travel, as well as the wider access to secondary and tertiary education in many countries.) The necessity of dealing with large numbers of adult learners with domain-specific needs has led didacticians and administrators alike to search for new learning structures and strategies, and many commercial and educational institutions have found a framework for self-directed learning with support and guidance in the shape of resource centres and advising to be helpful. Over the last generation there has been a remarkable change in the ways in which many people working in the business sector formulate their requirements when negotiating with adult educators. Where previously they would demand almost nothing but teacher-led classroom instruction (with attendance lists and an instruction to make them work) they now commonly ask for some kind of autonomous learning scheme. Similarly, publishers of educational materials of all kinds (textbooks, but also magazines, cassettes, CDs, online documents) almost invariably declare, though with highly variable degrees of justification, that their products are suitable for independent study. This privatisation and commodification of language provision has led to a view of the learner as consumer. This is certainly not a model many educationists would wish to espouse, but it seems quite inescapable in the present context, particularly in Anglophone countries where the discourse and practices of Thatcherism dominate, where universities and university departments bid against each other for a larger share of the market, or advertise for clients in newspapers and compete for customers in fairs or salons, where programmes of study are products or offers.

2.8 Sociocultural theory and autonomy One of the most important results of research on autonomy over the last twenty years or so has been the growing realisation that the acquisition of autonomy is an essentially social process. This apparent paradox springs from the duality of human nature and cognition: as ‘political animals’ we are both members of societies and separately incorporated individuals and it is only through the interplay between these different aspects of our persons that any learning or socialisation can take place. Man can only exist in society if society exists in man, if as individuals we have acquired the social competences and skills necessary to act and think appropriately. By definition, social skills and agency can only be acquired through interaction with others. Although these ideas have surfaced at times in the past (Comenius, see Prévot 1981; Mead 1934) and can indeed, be considered as fundamental to

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much modern anthropological thinking (Duranti 1997; Foley 1997, see Riley 2001 for a brief overview), they have come to have particular resonance in recent years. Partly, this has been due to the progressive extension of the notion of competence in the social sciences in general and linguistics in particular: Chomskyan linguistic competence gave way to Hymes’s communicative competence which is now progressively ceding to an anthropological version of sociocultural competence. Partly, though, it is because of the emergence of a convincing explicatory paradigm, sociocultural theory, associated in particular with the work of Lev Vygotsky (1985). According to Vygotsky, any aspect of a child’s socialisation takes place at two different levels: First it appears on the social plane and then on the psychological plane. First it appears between people as an inter-psychological category, and then within the child as an intra psychological category.3 Two further concepts are entailed by this social approach to the nature of the learning process: the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and scaffolding.4 They are related to essential characteristics of the type of interaction most favourable to learning. The ZPD is: the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. 5

It is in this collaboration with more capable peers that scaffolding is to be observed. Pairs or groups of learners pool their resources and provide one another with the linguistic, cognitive and motivational support (the social plane) which enables the individual to learn (the psychological plane). These ideas have been harnessed by researchers and teachers working within autonomous and self-directed paradigms, both because they have clear and powerful explanatory power, but also because they have direct and useful methodological applications and implications. This is true for all autonomous work, but is to be seen particularly clearly in what has come to be known as task-based learning. See Skehan (2003) for an extremely thorough overview.

3

Vygotsky, Lev S. Thought and Language (Cambridge, MA.: The M.I.T. Press, 1985), 163. 4 The term ‘Scaffolding’ does not in fact occur in Vygotsky’s writings, but has become useful shorthand for this aspect of his thinking. (see Caetano, 2004) 5 Vygotsky, Lev S. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1978), 86.

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2.9 Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and autonomy In this section of the article we will address the vexed question of ICTs' potential contributions to helping learners towards autonomy (autonomisation). Some researchers would have us believe that ICTs have an in-built potential for autonomisation when in fact they are confusing independent learning with autonomisation. Arguably ICT based materials or learning set-ups need to conform to a number of theoretical cum practical constructs. Ideally they should: x x x x x x x x

focus on learning rather than on teaching the target language. provide access to authentic language materials. present language skills as specific learning targets and not adopt an integrated approach to them. promote the learner's ability to construct his or her own temporary grammar of the target language. avoid a lockstep approach to language learning: language material and data followed by compulsory exercises followed by extra language material and data followed in turn by more exercises. provide information and help in the learner's first language. contribute to developing the learner's metacognitive awareness and challenge counter-productive beliefs and representations about language and language learning that the learner may harbour. provide scope for free navigation and permanent exit/escape facilities.

The above principles have been applied in CDRoms and DVDs developed by CRAPEL: x

to help speakers of Czech, German, Hungarian and Polish learn to understand spoken French. x to help speakers of French to understand spoken Czech, German, Hungarian and Polish. Supporting websites have also been developed in connection with the DVDs.6 The material was developed with the view of providing easily accessible counselling facilities and was inspired by CRAPEL'S experience in a self-directed learning system (Debaisieux and Régent 1999). It is based on a 6 CRAPEL, University of Nancy, Ecouter pour Comprendre. [Electronic document available at http://www.epc.univ-nancy2.fr/index.html.fr.] [Cited 16 May 2006].

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quasi expert system whereby CRAPEL counsellors/advisers pooled the experience gained in their counselling sessions. An initial paper version was developed by Bowden and Moulden (1989).

3. Conclusion Where does this leave us? On the one hand, it seems quite reasonable to claim that ‘autonomy’ has gone from being an idea on the loony left of didactics, an affront to both common sense and to the status of the teaching profession, to being seen as a theoretically cogent, empirically based optional approach to language learning. A number of important objections have been dealt with: that autonomy cannot work with learners of low academic achievement; that it cannot work with children, for difficult languages or in institutions whose courses are examination-led (Gremmo and Riley 1995), for example. Materials have been developed, resource centres are up and running, advising better understood and practiced. Obviously much remains to be done, but if there is no room for triumphalism at least a little quiet confidence seems in order.

Works Cited Apel, Karl Otto, ed. Sprachpragmatik und Philosophie. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1976. Austin, John Langshaw. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clavendon Press, 1962. Ausubel, David Paul. Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968. Barnes, Douglas. From Communication to Curriculum. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976. Bickley, Verner, ed. Language Teaching and Learning Styles within and across Cultures. Hong Kong: Institute for Language in Education. 1989. Bourdieu, Pierre. Rapport Pédagogique et Communication. The Hague: Mouton, 1965. Bowden Jude and Harvey Moulden. “Listen for Yourself: a Small Handbook for Improving Aural Comprehension of English without a Teacher.” Mélanges Pédagogiques 19 (1989): 19-29. Brookes, Arthur and Peter Grundy. Individualisation and Autonomy in Language Learning. London: Modern English Publications/ British Council, 1988. Broady, Elspeth and Marie-Madeleine Kenning, eds. Promoting Learner Autonomy in University Language Teaching. London: CILT, 1996.

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Brumfit, Christopher and Keith Johnson. The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Bruner, Jerome. Towards a Theory of Instruction. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1976. Bruner, Jerome, Rose Olver and Patricia Greenfield. Studies in Cognitive Growth. New York: Wiley, 1966. Caetano, Francesca. Echafaudage entre les apprenants: l'occasion pour apprendre le portugais langue étrangère en collaboration. Mémoire de DEA, Université Nancy 2, 2005. Candelier, Michel. Janua Linguarum –La Porte des Langues. L'introduction de l'Éveil aux Langues dans le Curriculum. Strasbourg: Conseil de l'Europe, 2003. Cembalo Michel and Henri Holec. “Les Langues Aux Adultes: Pour une Pédagogie de l'Autonomie.” Mélanges Pédagogiques 4 (1973): 10. Châlon, Yves. “Pour une Pédagogie Sauvage. ” Mélanges Pédagogiques 1 (1970): 8. Cotterall Sarah and David Crabbe. Learner Autonomy in Language Learning: Defining the Field and Effecting Chang. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1999. Debaisieux Jeanne-Marie and Odile Régent. “Un outil multimédia pour apprendre à apprendre les langues étrangères. ” Mélanges Pédagogiques 24 (1999): 45-57. Dickinson, Leslie. Self-Instruction in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Donaldson, Margaret. Children’s Minds. London: Flamingo, 1978. Duda, Richard and Philip Riley, eds. Learning Styles. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1991. Duranti, Alessandro. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Esch, Edith, ed. Self-Access and the Adult Language Learner. London: CILT, 1994. Fasold, Ralph. The Sociolinguistics of Society. Oxford: Blackwell, 1984. Fishman, Joshua. The Sociology of Language. Rowley MA.: Newbury House, 1972. Foley, William. Anthropological Linguistics: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. Gardner, David and Lindsay Miller. Topics in Self-access. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1994. Garfinkel, Harold. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1967.

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Gremmo, Marie-José and Philip Riley, “Autonomy, Self-direction and Selfaccess in Language Teaching: The History of an Idea.” System 23, no 2 (1995): 151-64. Gremmo, Marie-José. “Conseiller n’est pas Enseigner: le Role du Conseil dans l’Entretien du Conseil.”Mélanges Pédagogiques 22, (1994): 33-62. Gumperz, John and Del Hymes, eds. Directions in Sociolinguistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972. Habermas, Jürgen. Communication and the Evolution of Society. Boston: Beacon, 1979. Halliday, M.A.K. Learning How to Mean: Explorations in the Development of Language. London: Edward Arnold, 1976. . Explorations in the Functions of Language. London: Edward Arnold, 1973. Hawkins, Eric. Awareness of Language: an Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Holec, Henri. Self-directed learning: An Alternative Form of Training. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1994. . Autonomy and Self-directed Learning. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1988. . Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1979. . “L'illocution: problématique et méthodologie.” Mélanges Pédagogiques 3 (1973): 20. Hymes, Dell. Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1974. . “On Communicative Competence.” In Pride, Sociolinguistics, edited by John .B. Pride and Janet Holmes, 269-93. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. Illich, Yvan. Deschooling Society. New York: Harper and Row, 1970. Illich, Yvan et al. After Deschooling, What? New York: Harper and Row, 1973. Kelly, George and See Maher, B.A. Clinical Psychology and Personality: The Selected Papers of G. Kelly. New York: Wiley, 1969. Kolb, David. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1984. Labov, William. Language in the Inner City. Oxford: Blackwell, 1972. Little, David. Self-access Systems for Language Learning. TCD Dublin: Authentik, 1982. Mead George Herbert. Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1934. Mozzon-McPherson Marina. And Roel Vismans, eds. Beyond Language Teaching towards Language Advising. London: CILT, 2001.

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Pask, Gordon. “Styles and Strategies of Learning.” British Journal of Educational Psychology 46 (1976):128-48. Prévot, Jacques. L'Utopie éducative. Comenius. Paris: Belin, 1981. Régent, Odile. “Communication, Strategy and Language Learning.” In Primeres Jornades Sobre Autoaprenentatge de Llengües, edited by José Luis Otal and Maria-Luisa Villanueva, 101-28. Castelló: Publications de la Universitat Jaume I, 1993. Richterich René. A model for the definition of language needs of adults learning a modern language. Council of Europe, 1972. Riley, Philip. “The Learner: Self-made Man or Man-made Self?” In Beyond Language Teaching towards Advising, edited by Mozzon-McPherson and R. Visman, 173-83. London: CILT, 2002. , ed. Discourse and Learning. London: Longman, 1986. Riley, Philip and Claude Zoppis. “The Sound and Video Library: an Interim Report on an Experiment” Mélanges Pédagogiques 6 (1976): 124-43. Rogers, Carl. Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become. Columbus, OH.: Charles Merrill, 1969. Saville-Troike, Muriel. The Ethnography of Communication: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 1982. Searle, John. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969. Sheerin, Sue. Self-access. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Sinclair, John and Malcolm Coulthard. Towards an Analysis of Discourse, the English Used by Teachers and Pupils. London: OUP, 1975. Skehan, Peter. “Task-based instruction.” Language Teaching 36 (2003): 1-14. Trim, John. Some Possible Lines of Development of an Overall Structure for a European Credit Scheme for Foreign Language Learning. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1978. Vygotsky, Lev Semenovich. Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA.: The M.I.T. Press, 1985. . Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1978. Widdowson, Henry. Teaching Language as Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Willing, Ken. Teaching How to Learn. Sydney: Macquarie, 1981. Witkin, Herman. A. David R. Goodenough. Cognitive Styles: Essence and Origins. New York: International Universities Press, 1981.

SECTION II: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHING AND LEARNING LANGUAGES

CHAPTER FOUR INTEGRATION OF THE ICT IN LANGUAGE LEARNING Mª NOELIA RUIZ-MADRID MERCEDES SANZ-GIL Universitat Jaume I

What should a school look like in the coming century? Understanding, as we do, that experience is the most powerful teacher, how can we create more experiences for students that will enable them to have that first-hand kind of experience? How can we utilize the tools of technology to enrich the learning experience? If we relegate technology to the curriculum list, study it and test it, we will only cause students and teachers to avoid the creative opportunities that await them”1

1. Introduction The technological revolution the world has undergone in recent decades has affected the economic, social, political and cultural dimensions of our society. In fact, technology and, more specifically, computers have burst into our lives so dramatically that in a few years they have become invisible devices wholly integrated within our daily routines. This reality cannot be ignored by educators, who are set to play an important and decisive role in today’s techno-friendly generations. In fact, integrating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the curriculum from an active perspective favours the integration of our 1

Harris, Philip and Michael F. Sullivan. “Colloquium: Using Technology to Create a New Paradigm for a Learner-centered Educational Experience.” Technos Quaterly 9, no.2 (2000). [Electronic Journal available at: http://www.ait.net/technos/tq_09/2harris.php.] [Cited 20 May 2006.]

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students in our current society, that is, the Information and Communication Society (Bricall 2000). Yet, “how can we [as language teachers] utilise the tools of technology to enrich the learning experience?”2 History shows that whenever a new technology has been integrated into education, it has been interpreted as the remedial tool that might mitigate the drawbacks and difficulties present in the pedagogical dimension. However, previous experience in the field shows that this initial hope rapidly turns into pessimism when teachers’ and researchers’ expectations are not fulfilled by the new technology. Later research has pointed out that the main reason for such failure is the lack of pedagogical reflection: instead of adapting technology to pedagogy, it is pedagogy that is adapted to the new resources available at the time. Bearing in mind previous experience, the answer to Harris’ question “How can we utilise the tools of technology to enrich the learning experience?” should be based upon the belief that a successful integration of the ICT in the language teaching-learning process ought to involve a change of perspective, in which pedagogy must be the one leading technology. This chapter explores some of the issues involved in addressing Harris’ question by identifying the pedagogical implications inherent in such a change. Since space restraints do not allow for an exhaustive research review (for recent reviews, see Chapelle 2003; Kern, Ware and Warschauer 2004; Egbert and Petrie 2004; Kern 2006), here we focus on key issues arising from the combination of recent technology, pedagogy and applied linguistics-related literature (mostly from the past 5 years). The second section outlines two issues related to ICT: implications of using the acronym “ICT” instead of ComputerAssisted Language Learning (CALL), and implications of the role technology should play in the field of pedagogy and more specifically in the field of language teaching and learning. The third section presents the theoretical grounding that has led to the definition of a learner-centred pedagogy based on the principles of socio-contructivism (Ausubel 1968; Piaget 1968; Vygotsky 1984; Bruner 1984), which affords an ICT-integrative approach that favours the development of learner autonomy. We will conclude by considering implications for teaching and future research.

2

Ibid.

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2. Issues 2.1 Why using CALL if we mean ICT? For the last decade, the term CALL has been used to describe the introduction of computers into the field of L2 learning and teaching. There have been numerous definitions of this term (Levy 1997; Chapelle 1997; Egbert 2005). Yet, the dramatic evolution of the ICT has produced a change of perspective in the field, as noted by Kern (2006), who discusses the differences existing between Levy’s (1997) and Egbert’s (2005) definitions of CALL. Whereas Levy highlights the technical side of the term, that is, possible applications of computers, Egbert brings the pedagogical dimension to the foreground. It seems that the term CALL has therefore evolved into a more complex and multidimensional term in which the computer is no longer the “outside instrument” but “part of the ecology of language use.” 3 Such an idea of a symbiosis between technology and computers, on the one hand, and language learning, on the other, is also developed by Warschauer: The truly powerful technologies are so integrated as to be invisible. We have no “BALL” (book-assisted language learning), no PALL (pen-assisted language learning). When we have no CALL, computers will have taken their place as a natural and powerful part of the learning process. 4

Bax (2003) goes a step further and states that the “normalisation” of the term CALL depends on its own existence. Accordingly, the success of the integration of CALL will be marked by the disappearance of the term itself. We agree with the fact that CALL needs to be integrated into a broader dimension, which would include all the latest advances and developments within the technological field. However, we still think that it is necessary to name the new complex and multidimensional construct that would derive from such a process of symbiosis. There are several terms used in the field which refer to different aspects related to technology and language learning (i.e., Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (TELL), Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and ICT, etc.). Of these, TELL might be a suitable option (Rüschoff 1994; Bush 1997). This term involves all types of technology without making any explicit reference to computers. In fact, technology is seen as a whole to be applied to language 3

Warschauer, Mark. CALL vs. electronic literacy: Reconceiving technology in the language classroom, 1999. [Electronic document available at: http://www.cilt.org.uk/research/resfor2/warsum1.htm] [Cited 20 May 2006.] 4 Ibid.

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learning in general and L2 in particular and, similarly to what happens in the field of CALL research, TELL is also addressed at showing how technology can benefit language learners. Therefore, can TELL be seen as a step forward in the renaming process or should it be considered just another term related to the field? As we understand it, this question is irrelevant, since neither CALL nor TELL aim at accomplishing the effective integration of computers/technology in the field of language learning. But what about Computer-Mediated Communication? Many studies have been conducted on this topic directly related to language learning (Warschauer and Kern 2000; Warschauer 2001; Blake 2001). This field addresses the pedagogical possibilities afforded by the integration of computers in order to improve students’ communicative skills. Yet, as happened with CALL, CMC no longer seems to be a suitable term, since the emergence of new means of communication such as third generation mobile phones or PDAs, which can also be used for this purpose, makes the use of the word computers a questionable issue. At this point, thus, it might be interesting to explore the term ICT for application to the field of language learning. ICT is an umbrella term that covers any communication device or application, including radio, television, cellular phones, computer and network hardware and software, satellite systems as well as the various services and applications associated with them, such as videoconferencing and distance learning. ICT is often spoken of in a particular context, such as ICT in education, health care, or libraries. The application of all these new devices in the field of language learning is already a fact (Davies 2002; Sanz-Gil 2004; Godwin-Jones 2005; Ruiz-Madrid 2006) and this will increase as time goes by, since the evolution of technology and its application in the field of language learning seems to have no end. Consequently, recent publications, such as Oster et al. (2006), refer to the term ICT in order to cover all the technological advances that are being applied in the field. As we understand it, the use of the term ICT applied to language learning might be a suitable solution to the aforementioned questions, since the invisibility of computers together with the emergence of new devices and technological tools applied to the field of language learning are not included in the term CALL. Thus, a new term may be needed. Such a term ought to reflect the more complex and multidimensional nature involved in the process of applying technology to language learning. This question, however, may also be considered a topic to be noted down on the agenda for discussion. Meanwhile, and following Oster et al. (2006), we will use the term ICT applied to language learning throughout the chapter to avoid neglecting any of the possibilities afforded by technology.

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2.2 What should language teachers expect from the ICT? ICT in language learning should therefore not be seen as one more trend in the field that is supposed to vanish some time in the future. In fact, technology is here to stay and we, as language teachers and researchers, must accept that and act accordingly. Therefore, the first issue to reflect upon refers to the role technology is going to play in our pedagogical proposals. As mentioned in section 2.1, there has been a shift (Warschauer and Kern 2000) in the approach to the introduction of technology within the language learning field from the early structural proposals to more communicative ones. The former were based upon behaviouristic principles, in which the role of technology was focused on developing unlimited drill, practice and tutorial explanation and corrective feedback. The latter (i.e., communicative CALL) were influenced by cognitive research, which proposed communicative exercises performed as a way of practising English. Neither the content of the interaction nor the learners’ own speech or output were seen as important. Rather, the provision of input was seen as essential for learners to develop their mental linguistic systems. In contrast and following Warschauer and Kern (2000), the current paradigm of integrative CALL is based on a socio-cognitive view of language learning in which learning a second or foreign language involves apprenticing into new discourse communities. The purpose of interaction is seen as being an aid to help students enter these new communities and familiarise themselves with new genres and discourses. Table 4-1: Relationship between CALL developmental stages and the psychology of learning (adapted from Warschauer and Kern 2000). Theories within psychology of learning

Behaviourism

CALL approaches

Structural

Role of computers

To provide unlimited drill, practice, tutorial, explanation, and corrective feedback.

Cognitivism

Socioconstructivism Interactional Approach

Cognitive

Sociocognitive

To provide To provide language input alternative contexts and analytical for social interaction: and inferential to facilitate access to tasks existing discourse communities and the creation of the new ones.

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Yet, many of the current proposals (i.e., language learning software packages) (Ruiz-Madrid 2005) do not respond to the pedagogical principles described by these authors. On the contrary, most of them attempt to emulate traditional methods and formats of language instruction, which can be described as follows: the teacher/computer teaches, the student/user learns, the teacher/computer asks questions, the student/user provides an answer, and the teacher/computer provides corrective feedback (Patrikis 1997). At this point, thus, the question that constitutes the heading to this section seems to make no sense, since it is not what teachers expect from technology what matters, but what teachers can do with technology in order to enhance their proposals. In this regard, when teachers think about their pedagogical proposals, they think about their students. Consequently, pedagogy must lead technology, and ultimately learners’ needs must be the ones leading the introduction of technology into our programmes and curricula. In this respect, Jonassen et al. refer to an effective use of technologies only when learners’ needs are taken into account: Technologies support learning when they fulfil a learning need, when interactions with technologies are learner-initiated and learner-controlled, and when interactions with the technologies are conceptually and intellectually engaging.5

To conclude this section, then, we ought to point out the fact that teachers should expect from technology what they want technology to offer their students. That is, teachers’ expectations about learners’ outcomes are the ones that should inform the introduction of the ICT in their courses, these being linguistic, cultural, metalinguistic, cognitive and metacognitive, among a number of other possibilities. Such applications should therefore be aimed at transforming learners’ view of learning so that they become more active and autonomous participants in their own learning process. How to achieve this is a topic for discussion addressed in the following section.

3. Theoretical grounding for an integrative perspective. Learner Autonomy (LA) informing technology Research in the field of autonomy and language teaching and learning has been closely related to Socio-constructivism in the psycholinguistics field and to the Psychopragmatic Approach in learning, since they provide a suitable 5

Jonassen, David. H., Jane Howland, Joi Moore and Rose M: Marra Learning to Solve Problems. A Constructivist Perspective. New Jersey: Pearson Education. (2003), 11.

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background for successful development of LA. For this reason, we will devote the next section to discussing the principles and how they relate to LA.

3.1 The Psychopragmatic Approach: an approach for learner autonomy The Psychopragmatic Approach is built upon theories that derive from pragmatics and cognitivism. In fact, it is one of the approaches that take into account the notion of diversity (i.e., diverse learners’ needs, learning styles and learning objectives) in the field of language learning. Working on the basis of the Vygotskian premises (1984) and their reformulation in Bruner’s socioconstructivist views (1984), this new approach pivots on the concept of effective learning, defining it as a process where the acquisition of new knowledge results from bridging old and new knowledge (i.e., scaffolding). Learning is viewed as an active, creative and socially interactive process. In turn, knowledge is considered as an entity to be constructed and not simply transmitted or transferred. This necessarily implies approaching learning practices from a perspective in which learners’ metacognitive abilities and their awareness of the learning process are central components. We are thus talking about an approach that promotes autonomous learning practices. The whole procedure rests upon a view of learners as active subjects rather than the passive recipients of somebody else’s decision/expertise. It also emphasises the importance of the development of learners’ metacognitive ability related to learning how to learn (Ausubel 1968; Holec 1979, 1996; Bruner 1984; Villanueva 1992). This view of effective learning is intrinsically linked to the personal involvement of learners in the whole process, participating in it in an active and conscious way. In fact, learning is acknowledged as being an act in which a learner plays the role of an active constructor of knowledge. The Psychopragmatic Approach follows the path started by cognitive approaches that had already begun to focus the learning process on learners’ experiences. In this sense, learners are provided with challenging learning tasks, the main goal of which is to construct learners’ intellectual scaffolding in order to help them learn and progress in the different stages of their learning process. The Psychopragmatic Approach clearly defines the teacher’s and the learner’s role according to pedagogical premises that imply adopting: x a flexible method that can be useful and a source of self-esteem for the learner. x a method that caters for the diversity of learners’ cognitive profiles/styles, and their various learning needs and consequent choices.

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x an enjoyable methodology that allows learners and teachers/counsellors to converse in understandable terms. In this respect, this approach takes seriously into account what kind of comprehension processes may be involved in the different interactions. It also considers a diversity of tasks, which are built from clear, workable parameters based upon real language usage. These parameters are designed according to learners’ initial representation of real communicative interaction in order to maximise their learning potential and enhance it. In sum, it is a process-oriented approach focusing on what learners do rather than on their outcomes. Such a process-oriented approach to learning does not simply lead to a better understanding of linguistic facts (e.g., structure and vocabulary) and a more effective acquisition of language proficiency; it also leads to greater learning competence as well as language awareness. Finally, significant knowledge is also taken into consideration. Accordingly, and since it only arises from its integration and enmeshment with individual thinking and previously acquired knowledge, activities are designed to make use of the analogical, inferential and contrastive tendencies of the human mind, as well as those cognitive processes that actually intervene in human conceptualisation and interaction. All these premises that build up the Psychopragmatic Approach are crucial in the development of LA, and for this reason the Psychopragmatic Approach is considered as the approach that embraces LA. The consolidation of this new approach is reflected in the presence of aspects such as cognitive diversity, learning to learn or learning styles in the European Council Guide as well as in the Curricular Project of the Cervantes Institute (1994). Furthermore, it is becoming more usual to find terms such as autonomous work, language learning autonomy or attention to diversity in language learning discourse. However, despite the example mentioned above, it seems that there is still a mismatch between the theoretical discourse and the practical dimension, since these notions are rarely present in practical learning experiences and are even ignored when introducing the ICT in such practices. One reason for this mismatch may be that many teachers understand autonomy as an anarchic independence or utopia that could raise doubts about their own role in the classroom, i.e., teaching-instructing. From all the reflections discussed above, we assume that the Psychopragmatic Approach (see Villanueva this volume) and LA have a common ground that is based upon a specific language and representation of language learning. Bearing in mind such theoretical ground, Language Learning Autonomy (LLA) seems to be a suitable approach for an effective integration of the ICT in the language learning field (Blin 1999; Esch and Zähner 2000; Little 2001;

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Littlemore 2001; The European Directorate General of Education and Culture 2003; Villanueva 2003, 2006; Sanz 2004; Chapelle 2006). As already mentioned in this volume (Riley and Duda), autonomy is a rooted and multifaceted concept which is interrelated with those areas that have affected the evolution of the field of language learning either directly or indirectly. The concept of autonomy, thus, is not originally a language learning concept. In fact, it has been adopted and transformed to respond to the demands of the field. The complexity of the term has fostered disagreement among researchers about a single definition of the notion of autonomy. Therefore, it is necessary to make a clear distinction between the several terms that have been associated to autonomy, such as self-instruction, self-direction, self-directed learning or individualisation. In fact, these different terms have been employed in many different ways to describe the same phenomenon, thus causing serious terminological problems in the field because, although all of them imply distinct degrees of autonomy in learning, they should not be used as synonyms of autonomy as we understand it. For this reason, we deem it necessary to open up a brief discussion on what we understand by the term LA.

3.2 Learner autonomy in language learning: our option In the present chapter, autonomy is understood as a learning process based on learners who not only acquire linguistic competence but who also learn how to learn. In other words, the idea of autonomy in the language learning field is bound to the development of learning awareness and the acquisition of an autonomising competence that allow learners to gradually control their own learning process. This involves taking into account learners in all their dimensions (e.g., cognitive development, learning awareness, learners’ representations), which involves a specific learner’s role, and a specific teacher’s role, the aim of which is to train learners to become independent. It also requires a dialogic approach to the language learning process based upon language learning in a traditional context (directed language learning) and the development of a capacity for autonomous learning in a different setting. This dialogue may favour a progressive change towards a learning-teaching culture that embraces two main aspects: x Making learners’ representations of the learning process (e.g., goals, contents, ways of learning, evaluation criteria, among others) explicit. x Making learners’ previous knowledge about the learning process (e.g., how languages are learnt, the teacher’s and the learner’s roles, teacher’s expectations on a concrete task) explicit.

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This last aspect should be considered carefully, since in a traditional teaching culture (i.e., institutionalised teaching setting) most of the learners’ responses to certain tasks are usually influenced by their assumptions on teachers’ expectations about the task, as well as by their preconception of the institution itself. Additionally, learning to learn a language means developing an active process of internalising and integrating the linguistic experience as well as acquiring instrumental procedures for learning (i.e., learning strategies) (Oxford 1990; Wenden 1991; Dickinson 1987). Their acquisition allows learners to understand, transform, retain, transfer and generalise information, which not only enables them to answer the evaluation questions correctly, but also allows them to use this information effectively in future situations. The skills that constitute LA are those implicitly involved in the capacity to learn, which proves to be inseparable from learning to learn or being aware of the procedures to transform new knowledge into meaningful knowledge. This process involves acquiring i) methodological and metalinguistic competences, as well as the development of ii) cognitive and iii) metacognitive skills: x Methodological skills refer to learners’ capacity to set goals for language acquisition, to elaborate a learning plan and to be able to manage it, (i.e., evaluating the acquired knowledge and being able to reorient the learning plan according to the results). x Cognitive skills are also important for the development of a language learning process based upon autonomous premises. Regarding cognitive strategies, it is important to mention that we consider psycholinguistic knowledge as being integrated within cognitive skills, since both are closely related. We also believe cognitive skills to be based upon: x x x

The mobilisation of learners’ beliefs or attitudes about linguistic acquisition The mobilisation of learners’ attitudes towards different strategies and learning styles The development of cognitive strategies (i.e., inferring, deducing, generalising, making analogies, among others) applied to language learning (Dickinson 1987; Oxford 1990; Wenden 1991)

x Metacognitive skills should help learners to develop critical thinking, organisational skills, and to take responsibility for their learning-skills that are also necessary for most of the different aspects of life.

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Although this perception of learning to learn as a process in which learners acquire instrumental procedures is not usually present in ICT contexts, Felix referred to it some years ago in the following way: Caution is still needed. The conclusion should not be simply to adopt a studentcentred approach which hands over all responsibility to the learner, in the hope that autonomous learning will turn out to be a natural skill and that knowledge will be acquired by osmosis. Students may have the technical skills and the inclination to negotiate hypertext and images, but the acquisition of how-to-learn skills, however individually based, still requires help. A more desirable and more effective approach, therefore, may be to hand over control to the students in an environment where some guidance is provided.6

Felix’s words reflect the lack of deliberation on the training needed in order to make learners use the ICT for their own language learning process (i.e., acquisition and use of learning to learn skills). Although we agree with Felix’s words, we think that lack of training is not the only aspect that should be taken into account when integrating the ICT for language learning purposes. In fact, an integrative approach should be based upon a serious reflection on all the dimensions involved in the process of language teaching and learning. In this sense, the learning (i.e., learning strategies), teacher and learner dimensions must be explored in depth and reformulated following the pedagogical premises discussed above. Bearing in mind these assumptions, we will now focus our attention on two issues: x The change required in the role of learning strategies, teachers and learners in order to foster learner autonomy in language learning. x The necessary reassessment of the three roles taking into consideration the features of ICT.

3.3 Learning strategies and the ICT If learning a language involves developing an inner active process that helps the individual to integrate the linguistic experience, it seems plausible to define 6

Felix, Uschi. “Learning on the Web-Who does it, Why and How?” (1999), 88. [Electronic document available at http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~ufelix/lote.htm] [Cited 20 May 2006.]

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learning training as the acquisition of the instrumental procedures related to content involved in learning. This definition is focused on the acquisition of strategies that enable learners to understand, transform, retain, transfer and generalise information. This acquisition process allows learners not only to answer the evaluation tests successfully but also to use the acquired information effectively in problem-solving situations and relate it to new knowledge. The skills involved in LA are those implicit in the learning competence that is inseparable from the concept learning to learn or knowing how to activate the appropriate inner processes to acquire meaningful knowledge. Therefore, the term learning how to learn is closely related to the concept of the strategic learner, that is, a learner who is aware of the strategies that should be applied in the different learning situations he/she may experience during his/her learning process. Learner autonomy is also related to the term an adaptive learner, in other words, a learner who is able to adapt his/her learning style according to the learning process. In this respect it is important to point out that, although it is true that there is no default learning style directly related to LA, there are some cognitive traits that can be associated to it, such as, for instance, fieldindependent (see Chapelle and Cárdenas this volume). Nevertheless, learner training, when referring to the introduction of the ICT in language learning, should not be restricted only to the acquisition of learning strategies in the pedagogical dimension, since part of learners’ learning experience is going to be assisted by the ICT. Consequently, learners should also be trained in the technological dimension. In the light of these reflections, we will focus this section on both dimensions. On the one hand, we will refer to the pedagogical (i.e., technical7 or methodological) dimension of learner training (i.e., learning strategies) and, on the other hand, we will pay attention to the technological dimension (i.e., computer expertise applied to language learning), since exploring learner learning-strategy use is one of the purposes of this chapter. Yet, this does not mean that we do not regard the psychological aspect of learner training as being as important as the methodological one. For this reason we will restrict this section to the literature dealing exclusively with learning strategies. Learner training in the pedagogical (i.e., technical or methodological) dimension has its origin in the vast number of works on learning strategies and strategic training carried out in the last decades that have already been mentioned above (Wenden and Rubin 1987; O’Malley and Chamot 1990; Oxford 1990; Wenden 1991; McDonough 1999). These studies are based on the premise that learners can be trained and guided during the learning process in order to make them more 7

We use the adjective technical here because we understand learner training at the pedagogical level as the acquisition of strategies or techniques to be employed in learning situation.

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efficient learners. This training consists in promoting the use of certain strategies that, according to different researchers in the field, are the ones most commonly employed by the most competent and efficient learners. The training process also plays a key role in fostering and developing LLA. However, taking into account the premises involved in LA, we cannot refer to learner training as technical training in the strict sense of the word. Learners should be aware of their own strategic knowledge, that is, they should know that there are certain learning strategies that could help them to improve the way they learn. In order to achieve learners’ awareness on strategic knowledge, teachers and, in our case, ICT-based materials designers should reflect seriously on how these strategies are presented to learners. Regarding this issue, McDonough (1999) presented two possible alternatives to achieve an effective presentation of learning strategies. On the one hand, he chose a more technical and practical presentation. In this sense, he suggested intervening in learners’ learning process with feedback about the process itself in order to compensate for the lack of knowledge on learning strategies. The ultimate aim of this alternative would be to make learners aware of the different alternatives that could accelerate their learning process. Moreover, he also suggested allowing learners to choose the learning strategies they were more comfortable with. Obviously, the second alternative seems to be the best choice to develop learner autonomy, since teaching learning strategies in a mechanical way would not help their meaningful integration within learners’ learning. Furthermore, it could also foster ignorance as regards the diversity existing among learners (i.e., different learning styles). For these reasons, McDonough’s second option seems to be the most adequate to develop LA in a language learning context. Nonetheless, it is important to bear in mind that, in order to improve its effectiveness, it would be important to take into account the notion of the adaptive learner, since it would be highly recommendable to train learners to become not only strategic learners but also adaptive learners. Research on learner training has emerged from research on learning strategies, which were directly related to autonomy by Wenden (1991), who defended the need to introduce learning strategies in learner training, if the final aim was to promote an autonomous learner. This direct relationship between learning strategies and LLA has also been reflected in other researchers’ work (Manchón 1994; Villanueva 1997; Cohen 1998). Up to this point, we have introduced the concept of learner training in a pedagogical dimension. However, our main goal in the present section is to see how LLA and learner training (i.e., in its pedagogical and technological dimension) can converge in order to provide a solid reference for the design of ICT-based pedagogical proposals for language learning. In this respect, we

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consider it essential to introduce strategic learning in the learning plans when integrating the ICT, since, following Benson, they can help learners to learn better. Yet, in order to achieve development of LLA, it is necessary to understand the term in the way it is defined by Chamot and Rubin (1994); that is, the effective language learner cannot be defined on the basis of the learning strategies he/she knows, but by the rational use he/she makes of them. Learners’ competence of being in control of their own learning facilitates the development of LLA. Therefore, we may assume that learners’ knowledge about learning strategies and how to apply them to their own learning process is of vital importance in order to foster and develop LLA in an ICT context. In sum, how should learning strategies be addressed when integrating the ICT in language learning and what is to be addressed? Concerning the how, learning strategies could be implemented mainly in two different ways, that is, as independent training packages focused on learning how to learn or as activities that are fully integrated within the proposed linguistic tasks. Regarding the what, in the technological dimension, we consider that any attempt aimed at introducing the ICT should take into account learners’ awareness of strategy use. Accordingly, special attention must be paid to: x Making a wide range of strategic tasks available. x Providing information on the final goal of these tasks to encourage selfreflection and new strategic orientations in learners’ actions. x Providing strategic tasks with communicative goals in order to offer learners not only strategic knowledge but also linguistic knowledge, since we cannot ignore the fact that in most of the cases in which technology is applied, learners are working on a second/foreign language (L2). Furthermore, it is extremely important to develop new strategies when learning takes place in virtual settings, which usually require an exhaustive knowledge of the new technological resources for learners to make the most of them. Yet, as noted by Sanz-Gil, many current ICT proposals do not make the most of the technological possibilities currently available: En efecto, en el aprendizaje mediado por las tecnologías encontramos que muchas veces se confunde el medio con el fin, utilizando éstas como mero recipiente o depósito de la información, descuidando las posibilidades que ofrecen para ser empleadas en los procesos de aprendizaje como herramienta para la creación de soluciones reales, la comunicación, la negociación, y la

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This underestimation of the possibilities offered by the ICT usually responds to a lack of training in certain strategies that are fundamental when using ICT resources or a lack of training at a technological level. In the first case, the lack of training could be overcome by training learners in new strategies that would allow them to cope with the complexity of the medium and acquire a critical view on it. We refer to these new strategies as medium-derived strategies, since they are based upon the search and management of information in the new virtual settings. Learners, thus, should acquire new strategies such as the following: x Planning the search process. It seems essential for learners/users9 to know, for instance, what the Internet is, how information is organised, how to identify an URL, what the characteristics of a site are or what a browser can offer them. All these aspects can help them to plan their search in a more effective way. x Selecting materials according to criteria based on relevance and pertinence. It is not only important to know how to find information, but also to know whether to accept it or reject it depending on the goal pursued. x Globalising and contextualising within the hyperdocument. Learners should know how to find reference points in hyperdocuments by looking at the icons, site maps and guides. x Relating and linking the contents and the findings that result from the hypertextual search. x Managing the information with personal criteria (i.e., organising it and saving it in order to make it available for future requests). x Classifying information in a hierarchical way by categorising and labelling it. This skill involves the development and fostering of metalanguage and the capacity for abstraction. x Developing a critical perspective towards the information found on the Internet (i.e., by asking about the nature of information, making comparisons with other kinds of information, creating different opinions 8

Sanz-Gil, M. Las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación y la Autonomía de Aprendizaje de Lenguas, 2004. [Doctoral Dissertation available on the Web at http://www.tdx.cbuc.es/TDX-0628104-113234] [Cited 20 May 2006], 168. 9 We use here this dualism, since learners are also users when using virtual learning contexts in which they learn but also surf.

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about the credibility and reliability of information by taking into account the contents and the sources). From our point of view, it would also be necessary to develop pragmatic and sociocognitive strategies when using materials or programs that are mostly based on communicative goals using the Web, whether it is to carry out collaborative works or to keep in contact with the tutor. Some of these strategies would be based on aspects like, for instance: x x x x

Asking for cooperation Asking for clarification Asking for repetition Making up words or compensation mechanisms

Regarding the second case, namely, learners’ lack of training at a technological level, fostering learners’ training based upon computer expertise strategies would help to mitigate the situation. Accordingly, working on the acquisition of certain strategies to acquire or improve computer expertise would be crucial in order to overcome learners’ technical limitations and constraints. These strategies should focus on the following goals: x To help learners to familiarise themselves with computer facilities by exploring software and computer applications that could be relevant for them as language learners and as computer users. x To provide learners with the possibility to create and implement solutions for their own technological needs. To conclude this section, we may assume that all the strategies presented and discussed here have a final goal, which is to help learners overcome difficulties that arise when facing the different tasks involved in their own learning process. Accordingly, if one of the aims of any ICT integration should be to develop and foster LA, learners’ training should therefore be based upon a strategic training in both dimensions, namely, the pedagogical and the technological. Such instruction should include the strategies summarised above in Figure 4-1:

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3.4 The teacher’s role and the ICT The centrality of the teacher was the norm in the field of language learning and teaching for a long time. Indeed, today most students still expect the teacher to be the group leader, which involves being responsible for motivation, enlightenment and a sense of purpose (Finkel and Monk 1983). This dominant role of the teacher is reflected in many of L2 teaching methods, from GrammarTranslation to Audiolingualism. However, the advent of educational technology, notably computers (i.e., development of CALL) and the ICT, has helped to create an environment suitable to giving learners more autonomy (Salaberry 1996; Blin 1999; Sanz 2004; Beatty 2003). A tentative reason for this may be the fact that multimedia is a flexible technology that allows learners to construct their own learning process ad-hoc and offers them a wide variety of materials and sources of information that are available at any time and in any place. Teachers are no longer considered to be the only source of information and knowledge, and their role has changed from being the “sage of the stage” to “the guide on the side” (Eastment 1998). Yet, as noted by Little, this change is not easy for many teachers: It is not easy for teachers to stop talking: after all, if they stop talking they stop teaching, and if they stop teaching, their learners may stop learning. And it is not easy for teachers to let learners solve problems for themselves, for that takes

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time, and there is always so much ground to cover. Committing oneself to learner autonomy requires a lot of nerve. 10

In fact, it must be difficult for a teacher rooted in traditional classroom practices to relinquish some of his/her authority in learning management and assume a new role, which in this case involves not only a pedagogical dimension (i.e., learner autonomy premises) but also a technological one, mostly based on what has been called computer expertise (CE). This last concept is something that we will come back to later in this section. In this new setting, the teacher becomes a facilitator of the learning process by playing the role of an assessor and an expert guide through the language learning-teaching process (Villanueva 1992). Consequently, the new role involves a teacher who: x is aware of the individual differences among learners and accordingly takes into account the diversity of learning styles, learning paces and goals (Altman and James 1980; Tumposky 1982). x tries to make learners understand that the teacher’s task is not to “judge and grade” their learning, but to assess and counsel them about how to carry out their learning process in the most effective way. In other words, he or she helps them to learn how to learn and does not limit the learning process to the simple memorisation of the contents of a book. x relies on learners’ capacity to be responsible for their own learning process (Dam 1990). However, one may think that the functions mentioned above that are assigned to the teacher’s new role do not lead to learner-centredness but rather to teacher-centredness in the learning process. This question was also addressed by Strevens (1980) and Holec (1990), who pointed out the controversy of the teacher’s role in developing learner autonomy in language learning, since although such an approach may suggest a secondary role for the teacher throughout the learning process, the situation is in fact radically different. Accordingly, learner autonomy is far from minimising the teacher’s role, since, as shown above, it makes the teacher’s tasks more difficult and relevant to achieving a successful language learning-teaching process. Yet, as the teacher’s role is described as being completely different, we may assume that the concept of teacher-centredness should also be revised. In this sense, teachers are not the ones who decide upon contents and transmit information, but rather those who pay more attention to learners’ needs. As a result, more sensitivity and 10 Little, David. “Autonomy in language learning.” In Autonomy in language learning. (London: CILT, 1990), 11-2.

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understanding are required, together with more developed pedagogical and technical capacities. In conclusion, what is required is a more experienced teacher (Strevens 1980). Consequently, addressing learner autonomy in language learning involves a new definition of the teacher’s role. As far as this new role is concerned, there is agreement on the new functions it embraces and therefore a common definition can be easily outlined: x The teacher as a facilitator (Hammond and Collins 1991; Dickinson 1987; Riley 1986). The teacher’s role is twofold: on the one hand, he/she gives learners psychosocial support and, on the other hand, he/she supports learners technically (Holec 1990). x The teacher as an assessor/counsellor. Although this definition is very similar to the previous one, some authors use it when referring to the teacher’s role in specific learning situations, such as individualised learning in Self-Access Centres (O’Dell 1997). x The teacher as a resource. If we look up the definition of resource in a dictionary, we will realise that there is no significant difference between this definition and the two previous ones, since a teacher should be available for all the aspects involved in the learning process. Applying these new roles to the introduction of the ICT also requires taking into account a new dimension in its characterisation, that is, a technologicallyskilled teacher is needed. The US Department of Education defines the term Computer Expertise (CE) as the computer skills and the ability to use computers and other technology to improve learning, productivity and performance. Additionally, The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) presents standards for instructional technology, in which three major divisions of CE are distinguished: i) basic operations and concepts, ii) personal and professional use, and iii) applications in instruction and learning. The first type includes running software, managing and manipulating data, publishing results, and evaluating the technology. The second one consists in the use of productivity tools, telecommunications, assisting devices for problem solving, collaboration, research and lifelong learning. These definitions of CE provide the basis for our definition of the technological requirements for the teacher’s and the learner’s new roles. The need for computer expertise in language teachers is a topic for discussion nowadays. Beatty hits the nail on the head by stating that:

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Those creating CALL software programs are often experts in computer programming, design or pedagogy, but are seldom experts in all three fields; while one aspect in a finished program may shine, others may be problematical.11

This aspect is also highlighted by Chapelle, who notes: Teachers need to learn to use computer technology for constructing and implementing materials for teaching and assessing English, and they need to engage in innovative teaching and assessments through the use of technology. 12

However, it is important to mention that this new technological dimension is twofold: those teachers whose CE is not high enough and those teachers whose CE is high but who lack ICT pedagogical expertise. That is, they do not know how to introduce the ICT in their classrooms. Regarding the former, language teachers must rise to the challenge of harnessing the potential of such new devices for their own and their learners’ particular needs, since until now studies conducted on this topic have revealed a gloomy situation (Burke 1994; Fernández 2001). This aspect unveils another factor that leads us to the second type of teachers, that is, those who work with computers, do research using the Internet resources, use software packages for their own interests, communicate with other colleagues and their learners through e-mail and use concordances and dictionaries for their own work. Paradoxically, this type of teacher refuses to use these resources in class. One possible answer to this paradox may be their lack of pedagogical experience in the use of ICT-based materials in the classroom. For this reason, we agree with both Fernández and Burke, who called for teacher training in the use and integration of the ICT in the L2 learning classroom. Accordingly, this training should be focused on developing and fostering teachers’ technological skills in order to make them feel confident when using and integrating ICT resources and facilities in their classes. Following this line, it is important to mention that many institutions currently offer courses devoted to integration of the ICT in their teacher-training programmes in the context of language learning and L2 learning-teaching, particularly for ESL and European languages. However, these courses are typically designed to give an overview of CALL, which deals with specific aspects such as the history of CALL, its theoretical framework, research conducted on CALL, courseware evaluation, multimedia technology, and CMC. 11

Beatty, Ken. Teaching and Researching Computer Assisted Language Learning. Applied Linguistics in Action Series .(London: Pearson Education, 2003), 157. 12 Chapelle, Carol. A. English language learning and technology: Lectures on teaching and research in the age of information and communication. (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 2003), 31.

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Additionally, these training programmes also embrace practical issues such as the design and implementation of ICT-based activities and techniques in teachers’ practices (Warschauer and Healey 1998). Some of these practices are based on activities focused on the use of word-processing, spreadsheets, graphics editing and scanning, scanning and handling text, file exchange, emailing, web browsing, basic web authoring, and FTP, among others. Ely and Plomp (1986) suggested several norms for the successful implementation of educational programmes, which we have adopted in order to achieve successful integration of the ICT in the language classroom in general and L2 classroom in particular. They defined the new technological dimension in the role played by the teacher as a teacher who becomes a guide (Willets 1992; Barnett 1993), a resource expert (Willets 1992), a resource provider and a mentor (Pennington 1996). We agree with Ely and Plomp’s (1986) definition of teachers’ tasks (i.e., assessors or counsellors), since it matches our view of the relationship that might be established between learner autonomy and ICT. From our point of view, teachers, as creators of materials, should structure ICT-based materials with variable content responding to learners’ diversity. Teachers and assessors, however, should work with learners to design a course of study that fits their individual preferences. In order to make this process more effective, teachers should learn from learners. That is, they should take into account their strong and weak points, their concerns and other aspects that may influence their way of learning. To do this, the new teachers should be aware of all the possibilities that technological development offers them, such as the use of electronic journals or software packages that track learners’ performance while working. This last device could provide teachers with valuable information in order to know how learners interact with ICT-based materials. Nevertheless, regarding the technological dimension, we should point out a key aspect in the teachers’ new role, that is, attitude. This is crucial because the tasks described above are not easy to perform if teachers do not adopt a positive attitude towards the integration of the ICT in the L2 field. Therefore, if there is a lack of motivation or an unfavourable attitude on the part of teachers, this attitude will be directly transmitted to the student and the system will fail. This leads us to add another task in the teachers’ new role, that is, they should display enthusiasm for what they are doing, and explain the relevance of using the ICT materials when learning (Davies and Crowther 1995). However, it cannot be ignored that teachers’ attitudes should also be affected by different external causes such as understanding of educational technology, model of teaching, the lack of access to resources, and institutional traditions, among others (Cummings 1995, 1996). The teacher’s new role has also been redefined by The European Directorate General of Education and Culture, which refers to it in its Impact of New Information Technologies and Internet on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

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and on the Role of Teachers of a Foreign Language (2003). In fact, the report is mainly focused on the need to integrate ICT competencies in teacher training. According to these competencies, the teacher’s new role is redefined as follows: x The teacher as a facilitator. As facilitators, teachers must be aware of a variety of materials available for improving learners’ skills (materials in all formats). They must be flexible. x The teacher as an integrator. Teachers must not only know and understand the functions of different media available in a media-rich environment, they should also know when best to deploy them. x The teacher as a researcher. To keep abreast of developments, teachers need to know how and where they can access information for their own and for their learners’ use. Familiarity with the use of electronic tools for language analysis (e.g., concordancers) will enable them to further develop their own linguistic and professional competence and increase their confidence in the use of language. x The teacher as a designer of (complex and media-enriched) learning scenarios. x The teacher as a collaborator (with other teachers). x The teacher as an orchestrator (technology, learners, curriculum). x The teacher as a learner. x The teacher as an evaluator: o self-evaluation (teaching) o evaluation of interaction (teaching-learning) o evaluation of learning (process) o evaluation of acquisition (product) One of the main new roles that the European perspective adds to the new teacher is that of mediator, which was first defined by Bruner (1984). This role is not new for language teachers, since it corresponds to the traditional role of intermediary between two cultures that teachers should play when they introduce learners to new linguistic and cultural aspects. However, the introduction of the ICT in teaching practices provides it with a new standpoint. In this sense, access to the real world of the target culture requires new strategies and approaches that need to be learnt and practised. Bearing in mind all these definitions, it seems that we are far from the ideal teacher who can foster a successful introduction of the ICT in the language learning field. Nevertheless, teachers are making progress and nowadays there are countless websites devoted to language teaching and learning or to teaching practices directly related to the implementation of the ICT in the language teaching and learning field. It seems, thus, that a common definition of a

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teacher’s new role can be addressed by describing two different but complementary dimensions: the pedagogical and the technological. The roles defined in both dimensions, namely pedagogical and technological, involve developing and putting into practice all the skills derived from the combination of learner autonomy in language learning and the ICT that we have already seen in the present chapter. Table 4-2 summarises our definition of the teacher’s new role: Table 4-2: New teacher’s role based upon learner autonomy in language learning and ICT requirements (adapted from Ruiz-Madrid 2006, 141). NEW TEACHER’S ROLE PEDAGOGICAL DIMENSION

TECHNOLOGICAL

TEACHER AS A LANGUAGE LEARNING RESEARCHER WHO:

TEACHER AS A ICT RESEARCHER WHO:

x

x

facilitates learning process. x assesses learners. x acts as a resource for them. acts as mediator x evaluates quality of learning conditions.

x

x

x

examines the resources exhaustively, evaluating the quality of learning. takes into account the correct integration of the ICT-based resources and materials in the curriculum. searches for specific information, on the Internet or on software packages. integrates the technology in his/her teaching.

TEACHER AS A DEVELOPER AND CREATOR WHO:

x cares about the correct elaboration of a didactic design of the several tutoring materials that he/she will use. x creates customised software packages and materials. x uses authoring tools. x makes use of the Internet to publish his/her own materials on the Web.

At this stage of the present study, we have paid attention to the teacher’s new role that derives from the combination of learner autonomy and the introduction of the ICT in the language teaching and learning field. Nevertheless, we assume that these implications are very problematic for many teachers. In fact, it requires teachers to assume new roles with different beliefs to those they have

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traditionally pursued. Additionally, there are institutional limitations such as the availability of technology in each institution, as well as the pedagogical predisposition towards these new proposals of the institution itself. Therefore, most teachers will find these implications challenging and in some cases impossible to achieve. Yet, following Tanguay’s words (1997), “Humans are powerful and computers are powerful, and together they are extremely powerful,”13 we think that the results will justify the risks. For this reason, teacher training must be seriously considered by institutions as reflected in the European Report from the International Certificate Conference (ICC) (2002): Teacher training is shown to be the key to the successful introduction and deployment of the new media. Special efforts are required to overcome observed gender and generations divides and to redress the balance by providing specific training programmes which encourage female teachers and older faculty to become acquainted with ICT and its attendant advantages. 14

3.5 The learner’s role and the ICT Just as teachers must assume new roles, which include the mastery of technological skills, learning with technologies also requires learners to take on new roles. This section deals with the new role that should be adopted by learners in the pedagogical (i.e., Learner Autonomy) and technical dimensions (i.e., ICT) described in the present chapter. Concerning the pedagogical dimension, we should say that, just as teachers are supposed to abandon their role as the only producer of knowledge and relinquish some authority in the classroom, learners should also give up their role as passive learners and assume responsibility for their own learning. The problem lies in learners’ attitudes towards the learning process, since, as claimed by Tumposky (1982), “many students are reluctant to assume the responsibility that was once invested in the teacher.”15 Undoubtedly, this new role for learners, as in the case of the teachers, 13

Tanguay, Edward. «English Teachers, Prepare Yourselves for the Digital Age. Berlin, Germany». [Electronic document available at: http://userpage.fuberlin.de/~tanguay/english-teachers.htm] [Cited 20 May 2006] (1997), 3-5. 14 International Certificate Conference, 2002. [Electronic document available at: http://www.icceurope.com/ICT_in_FLT_Final_report_Jan2003/quest_eurocall.pdf.] [Cited 20 May 2006], 4. 15 Tumposky, Nancy. “The Learner on His Own.” In Individualisation. (London: Modern English Publications, 1982), 5.

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is more complex and difficult to play, since it involves a learner who takes part in his/her learning process and makes decisions on all the aspects affecting it. In other words, he/she becomes an active learner who makes decisions, selfevaluates (Tumposky 1982), plans his/her learning and therefore accepts responsibility for his/her own results (Riley 1997; Esch 1997; Little 1990). It is because of this complexity that many learners are not ready or do not feel ready to assume so much responsibility, and in some cases they do not even want the power to manage their own learning. In this sense, it is easier for them to waive responsibility and allow the teacher to take control of the whole process. The technological dimension of the learner’s new role is defined in similar terms to the ones used in the pedagogical dimension. In this sense, the European International Certificate Conference (2002) refers to the new learner as a learner who must take on new responsibilities, since classes will become far more learner-centred and learner’s time and effort will be devoted to authentic reading and writing tasks related to authentic communication with native speakers (e.g., partners in chats, Tandems, etc.). Besides, they must become active participants in the learning process, that is, they must take on the responsibility for choosing and selecting their own learning materials. However, activities might also encourage them to explore and be creators of language rather than passive recipients. Furthermore, learners have the opportunity to select and manipulate language data in multiple media, which provides them with raw material they can use to re-create the language for themselves, using their own organising schemes. The technological dimension is also based upon the new CE required, in the sense that learners should also be ready to employ all the tools and facilities currently offered by the new technologies, such as running word processing software packages, searching for on-line information, preparing a presentation, or participating in discussion forums. Following the definition of the teacher’s new role, we also distinguish between two different but complementary dimensions in the learner’s new role, namely, a pedagogical dimension and a technological one. The former involves a learner who is aware of all the pedagogical aspects underlying his/her own learning process. The latter requires a learner who has the CE needed in order to successfully use and implement the new technological tools and resources in his/her own learning process. Our definition of the learners’ new role is schematised in Table 4-3 below:

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Table 4-3: New learner’s role based upon learner autonomy premises and CALL requirements (adapted from Ruiz-Madrid 2006, 144). NEW LEARNER’S ROLE PEDAGOGICAL DIMENSION

TECHNOLOGICAL

LEARNER AS AN AUTONOMOUS SUBJECT WHO:

LEARNER AS A ICT RESOURCES USER WHO:

x x

accepts responsibility for his/her own learning process. makes decisions on all the aspect related to the language learning process.

x

x x x

has computer expertise (builds knowledge at a technical dimension when exploiting functionality and knows the functionality of different computer tools) uses the Internet on critical and pedagogical basis discriminates ICT-based resources according to his/her learning necessities integrates these resources in his/her own learning plan under pedagogical basis.

As shown in Table 4-3 above, we present two different but inseparable dimensions of the new learner. At the pedagogical level, the learner is expected to become autonomous. This means that the learner is able to accept responsibility for and make decisions about his/her own learning process. At the technological level, the learner is presented as a computer-literate individual, who is able to use ICT-based resources effectively. However, changes in the teacher or in the learner cannot take place overnight. Regarding the learner’s role, the change in the pedagogical dimension requires previous training that should be based on the acquisition of learning (i.e., cognitive and communicative) strategies, which enable learners to learn by doing. In this sense, the cognitive and communicative strategies should be integrated in linguistic, metacognitive and methodological tasks. At the technological level, learner training requires the acquisition of computer skills. Accordingly, specific training packages focused on the development of learners’ CE should be included in the language classrooms so that successful implementation of ICT-based pedagogical proposals can be achieved later on.

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4. Conclusion: Pedagogical implications and future agenda In the light of what has been stated, it seems clear that the ICT can enrich the learning experience provided that there exists a previous pedagogical reflection focused on the transformation of the learning process in general and the learning strategies, as well as the teacher’s and learner’s role in particular. In fact, both learner and teacher training seem to be a key factor in the effective use of the ICT in the field of language learning. Such a change cannot take place if the learner autonomy rationale does not underlie it. Teachers, thus, need to learn how to evaluate and select learning resources and how to solve technical and pedagogical problems linked to the introduction of the ICT in the language classroom. Learners must also confront new challenges. They need skill training so that they become more autonomous by making efficient use of learning strategies, which should go hand-in-hand with effective computer-expertise training. Therefore, teachers who use the ICT with the aim of making learners become more autonomous must commit themselves to this transformational process in order for teachers themselves and learners to gain full benefit from the new tools and procedures at their disposal. The institutional curricula should also pay special attention to this new context and accept that learning to use must give way to using to learn in the profession, as proposed by Chapelle: The way students will learn to do applied linguistics with technology is by learning applied linguistics through technology […] applied linguistics technology cannot be taught separately from applied linguistics. 16

Finally, more research into how to effectively introduce the ICT into language teaching and learning in general and L2 in particular should be conducted to provide further evidence of the important benefits to be gained from using the ICT in instructional language settings. Research in this area could inform language practitioners and educators about the teaching and learning process and also provide them with a pedagogical basis to be applied in more effective proposals.

Works Cited Altman, Howard B. and C. Vaughan James, eds. Foreign Language Teaching: Meeting Individuals Needs. Oxford: Pergamon, 1980. 16

Chapelle, Carol A. English language learning and technology: Lectures on teaching and research in the age of information and communication. (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 2003), 31.

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Ausubel, David P. Educational Psychology. A Cognitive View. New York: Rinehart and Winston, 1968. Bax, Stephen. “CALL—Past, Present, and Future.” System 31, no.1 (2003): 1328. Blake, Robert. “What Language Professionals Need to Know about Technology.” Chairing the Foreign Language and Literature Department, Part 2. ADFL Bulletin, Spring 2001 32, no. 3 (2001): 93-9. Barnett, Lew. “Teacher off: Computer Technology, Guidance and Self Access.” System 21, no. 3 (1993): 295-304. Beatty, Ken. Teaching and Researching Computer Assisted Language Learning. Applied Linguistics in Action Series .London: Pearson Education, 2003. Blin, Françoise. Learner Autonomy and IT strategies. Institute of Technology Carlow, Carlow, International Seminar, 1999. Bricall, Josep .M. Informe Universidad 2000. CRUE, Madrid, 2000. [Electronic document available at http://www.crue.upm.es] [Cited 20 May 2006]. Bruner, Jerome. Acción, Pensamiento y Lenguaje. Madrid: Alianza Psicología, 1984. Burke, Joseph. “Education’s New Challenge and Choice: Instructional Technology. Old Byway or Superhighway?” Leadership Abstracts 7, no. 10 (1994): 22-39. Bush, Michael.”Implementing Technology for Language Learning.” In Michael Bush and Robert M. Terry, 287-349. Technology-Enhanced Language Learning, ACTFL Foreign Language Series. Lincolnwood, Illinois: National Textbook Company, 1997. Cervantes Institute. Plan Curricular del Instituto Cervante. Madrid: Instituto Cervantes, 1994. Chamot, Anna Uhl and Joan Rubin. “Comments On Janie Rees-Miller's ‘A Critical Appraisal of Learner Training: Theoretical Bases And Teaching Implications’Two Readers React.” TESOL Quarterly 28, no. 4 (1994): 77176. Chapelle, Carol. A. English Language Learning And Technology: Lectures on Teaching and Research in the Age of Information and Communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 2003. . “Autonomy Meets Individualization in CALL.” Mélanges Crapel, No. Spécial: TIC Et Autonomie dans L’apprentissage des Langues 28 (2006). [Electronic journal available at http://revues.univnancy2.fr/melangesCrapel/] [Cited 20 May 2006]. . “CALL in the Year 2000: Still in Search of research Paradigms?” Language Learning and Technology 1, no.1 (1997): 19-43. Cohen, Andrew D. Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language. Harlow, England: Longman, 1998.

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Cummings, Leslie E. “Educational Technology- A Faculty Resistance View. Part I: Incentives and Understanding.” Educational Technology Review, Autumn, 4 (1995):13-18. . “Education Technology- A Faculty Resistance View. Part II: Challenges of Resources, Technology, and Tradition.” Educational Technology Review, Winter 5 (1996): 18-20. Dam, Leni “Learner Autonomy in Practice.” In Autonomy in Language Learning, edited by Ian Gathercole, 16-37. London: CILT, 1990. Davies Graham D. “ICT and Modern Foreign Languages: Learning Ppportunities and Training Needs.” In International Journal of English Studies 2, 1: Monograph Issue, New Trends in Computer Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, edited by Pascual Pérez Paredes and Pascual Cantos Gómez. Servicio de Publicaciones, Universidad de Murcia, Spain. 2002. Davies M. L. and Crowther D.E.A. «The Benefits of Using Multimedia in Higher Education: Myths and Realities». Active Learning 3 (1995): 3-6. Dickinson, Leslie. Self-instruction in Language Learning, Cambridge: CUP, 1987. Eastment, David. “Quality Sites on the World Wide Web. Where are the Good Web Pages?” MET Journal 7, no. 2 (1998): 58-82. Egbert, Joy, L. “Conducting Research on CALL.” In Call Research Perspectives, edited by Joy L. Egbert and Gina M. Petrie, 3-8. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005. Egbert, Joy .L. and Gina .M. Petrie, eds. Call Research Perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005. Esch, Edith. “Learner Training for Autonomous Learning.” In Autonomy and Independence in Language Learning, edited by Phil Benson and Peter Voller, 164-175. Harlow: Longman, 1997. Esch, Edith. and Christoff Zähner. “The Contribution of ICTs to Language Learning Environment.” ReCALL12, no. 1 (2000): 5-18. Fernández, M.V. «The EFL Teacher and the Introduction of Multimedia in the Classroom» Computer- Assisted Language Learning 14, no. 1 (2000): 3-14. Finkel, D., Monk, G. S. (1983). “Teachers and Learning Groups. In Case Studies Changing the Instructor's Role.” (1983). [Electronic document available at http://www.biochem.wisc.edu/attie/articles/Atlas_Complex.pdf] [Cited 20 May 2006]. Godwin-Jones, Robert. “Messaging, Gaming, Peer-to-peer Sharing: Language Learning Strategies & Tools for the Millennial Generation.” Language Learning & Technology 9, no. 1 (2005):17-22. Hammond, Merrill Rob Collins R. Self –Directed Learning: Critical practice. London: Kogan Page, 1991.

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Holec, Henry. Autonomie et Apprentissage des Langues Étrangères. Strasbourg, Conseil de l’Europe: Hatier, 1979. Holec, Henry, David Little and Rene Richterich, eds. Strategies in Language Learning and Use: Studies towards a Common European Framework of Reference for Language Learning and Teaching. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 1996. International Certificate Conference,2002. [Electronic document available at http://www.icceurope.com/ICT_in_FLT_Final_report_Jan2003/quest_euroc all.pdf.] [Cited 20 May 2006] Jonassen, David. H., Jane Howland, Joi Moore and Rose M. Marra. Learning to Solve Problems. A Constructivist Perspective. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2003. Kern, Richard. “Perspectives on Technology in Learning and Teaching Languages.” Tesol Quarterly 40, no. March (2006): 183-210. Kern, Richard, Page D. Ware and Mark Warschauer. “Crossing Frontiers: New Directions in Online Pedagogy and Research.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24 (2004): 243-60. Levy, Michael. Computer-Assisted Language Learning: Context and Conceptualization. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1997. Little, David. “Learner Autonomy and the Challenge of Tandem Language via the Internet.” In ICTs and Language Learning. A European Perspective, edited by Angela Chambers and Graham Davies, 29-38. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers, 2001. Little, David. “Autonomy in Language Learning.” In Autonomy in Language Learning, edited by Ian Gathercole. London: CILT, (1990): 7-15. Littlemore, Jeanne. “Learner Autonomy, Self-instruction and New Technologies in Language Learning: Current Theory and Practice in Higher Education in Europe.”In ICTs and Language Learning. A European Perspective, edited by Angela Chambers and Graham Davies, 39-52. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers, 2001. Manchón, Rosa. “Las Estrategias del Aprendiz de una L2: El Estado de la Cuestión.”, en Serie sobre Estrategias de Aprendizaje y Uso del Lenguaje, 717. Universidad de Sevilla, 1994. McDonough, Sam H. “Learner Strategies: State of the Art.” Language Teaching 32, no. 1 (1999): 1-18. Oxford, Rebeca. Language Learning Strategies. What ever Teacher Should Know, Rowley, MA.:Newbury House, 1990. Piaget, Jean. Studies in Genetic Epistemology, Columbia University Press, 1968. Rüschoff, Bernd and Dieter Wolff, eds. Technology-Enhanced Language Learning in Theory and Practice. Proceedings of EUROCALL 94, Szombathely, 1994.

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O’Dell, Felicity. “Confidence Building for Classroom Teachers Working with Self-access Resources.” In Autonomy and Independence in Language Learning, edited by Phil Benson and Peter Voller, 150-63. London: Longman, 1997. O’Malley, J. Michael and Anna Uhl Chamot. Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Oster, Ulrike, Mª Noelia Ruiz-Madrid and Mercedes Sanz-Gil, eds. Towards the Integration of the ICT in Language Learning and Teaching: Reflection and Experience. Castelló: Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I, 2006. Patrikis, Peter. “The Evolution of Computer Technology in Foreign Language Teaching and Learning.” In Language Learning through Social Computing, edited by Robert Debski et ali. Applied Linguistics Association of Australia: Occasional Papers, no. 16 (1997). Riley, Philip. “The Guru and the Conjurer: Aspects of Counselling for Selfaccess.” In Autonomy and Independence in Language Learning, edited by Phil Benson and Peter Voller, 114-131. Harlow: Longman, 1997. , ed. Discourse and Learning, London: Longman, 1986. Ruiz-Madrid, Mª. Noelia. Learner Autonomy in Computer-assisted Language Learning. A Comparative Case Study of Learners’ Behaviour in the English as a Foreign Language Context, 2006. [Doctoral Dissertation available on the Web at http://www.tdx.cbuc.es/TDX-1020105-102726/index.html] [Cited 20 May 2006]. . Language Learning Autonomy and Computer-assisted Language Learning: An Evaluation of Software Packages for EFL/ESL from an Atonomous Language Learning Perspective. Unpublished research project. Castellón: Universitat Jaume I, 2005. Salaberry, M. Rafael. “A Theoretical Foundation for the Development Of Pedagogical Tasks in Computer Mediated Communication.” CALICO Journal 14, no. 1 (1996): 5-34. Sanz-Gil, M. Las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación y la Autonomía de Aprendizaje de Lenguas, 2004. [Doctoral Dissertation available on the Web at http://www.tdx.cbuc.es/TDX-0628104-113234] [Cited 20 May 2006]. Strevens, Peter. Teaching English as an International Language. From Practice to Principle. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1980. Tanguay, Edward. (1997) «English Teachers, Prepare Yourselves for the Digital Age. Berlin, Germany». [Electronic document available at http://userpage.fu- berlin.de/~tanguay/english-teachers.htm] [Cited 20 May 2006].

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The European General Directorate of Education and Culture. Impact of New Information Technologies and Internet on the Teaching of Foreign Languages on the Role of the Teachers of a Foreign Language, 2003 [Electronic document available at http://www.icceurope.com/ICT_in_FLT_Final_report_Jan2003/quest_eurocall.pdf] [Cited 20 May 2006] Tumposky, Nancy. “The Learner on His Own.” In Individualisation, edited by Marion Geddes and Gill Sturtridge, 4-7. London: Modern English Publications, 1982. Villanueva Alfonso, Mª Luisa. “ICT Paradoxes from the Point of View of Autonomy Training and Plurilingualism.” Melanges Crapel 28, (2006) [Electronic journal available at http://revues.univnancy2.fr/melangesCrapel/] [Cited 20 May 2006] . “Les Espaces de la Médiologie et les Nouveaux Enjeux de la Médiation. La Métaphore du Voyage dans le Projet SMAIL.” Premières Assises Meditèrranées des Enseignants de Français Langues Étrangères, Seconde, utilisant le Multimédia. Alexandria, 2003. . Los Estilos de Aprendizaje, Castelló: Pub. Universitat Jaume I, Col. Summa, Filología, no. 6, 1997. . “El Aprendizaje de la Autonomia: Desarrollo de la Conciencia Lingüística.” ICI & LÀ 22 (1992): 37-42.. Vygotsky, Lev. S Infancia y Aprendizaje, Vygotsky, cincuenta años después, Madrid: ed. Aprendizaje S.A, 1984. Warschauer, Mark. “One-line Communication.” In The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, edited by Ronald Cater and David Nunan, 207-12. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. . CALL vs. Electronic Literacy: Reconceiving Technology in the Language Classroom, 1999. [Electronic document available at http://www.cilt.org.uk/research/resfor2/warsum1.htm] [Cited 20 May 2006.] Warschauer Mark and Richard Kern. Network-based Language Teaching: Concepts and Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Warschauer, Mark and Deborah Healey. “Computers and Language Learning: An Overview.” Language Teaching 31 (1998): 57-71. Wenden, Anita. Leaner Strategies for Learner Autonomy, New Cork: Prentice Hall, 1991. Wenden, Anita and Jean Rubin. Learner Strategies in Language Learning, New York: Prentice Hall, 1987. Willets, Karen. Technology and Second Language Learning (Report No. EDOFL 92-07). Washington, DC.: Office of Education Research and Improvement (ERIC Document Reproduction Service NO. ED 350 883), 1992.

CHAPTER FIVE ISSUES IN THE DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF LEARNER LANGUAGE CORPORA VIVIANA CORTES Iowa State University

1. Introduction The use of language corpora in linguistic research and language teaching has become one of the latest trends in the applied linguistics field. Language corpora have been used in most of the branches of linguistics and other related fields such as historical linguistics, lexicography, grammar, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, phraseology, semantics, discourse analysis, forensic linguistics, contrastive analysis and translation, stylistics, phonology, materials design, and language teaching (Kennedy 1998; McEnery et al. 2005) A simple practical example of the upraising popularity of corpus studies was reflected at the last Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, in which ten percent of the presentations held the word corpus or corpora in their titles (Cortes 2004). Most recently, corpus-based approaches have begun to be used in language pedagogy and interlanguage studies. Language pedagogy studies and their relationship to corpus analysis have been explored from different perspectives which cover different aspects of language teaching (Conrad 1999), the teaching of grammar (Conrad 2000), and the use of corpora for curriculum and materials design (Keck 2004), among others. In addition, the study of learners’ interlanguage has been the core element in the design and analysis of learner corpora, or collections of texts produced by non-native speakers of the language. Many interlanguage studies using learner corpora concentrate on Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (Granger 2002), which compares non-native speaker language production with native speaker language production. The comparison between native and non-native speaker language aims to identify language learning issues that have been targeted by the second language acquisition field for decades, such as the underuse or overuse of certain linguistic features and first language interference in the production of non-native speakers (McEnery et al. 2005). Meunier (2002)

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suggested that frequency issues, for example, should be analysed in a corpus of native speakers as well as in non-native speakers’ production in order to inform curriculum and materials design more reliably. The International Corpus of Learner English (Granger 1993, 1998), for example, compares native and non-native varieties of the same language in order to discover quantitative differences in frequency in the use of various linguistic phenomena, such as the use of words and word forms, grammatical structures, and discourse features. The potential value of computer learner corpora for the investigation of learner language rests at least in part on the robustness of the data relative to other types of second/foreign language (L2) data. For any particular corpus, then, the question is what characteristics define a set of learner data as a corpus. If Second Language Acquisition (SLA) researchers, for example, are to place particular value on results obtained through a learner corpus, criteria are needed for defining what a learner corpus is, and for evaluating its utility in a particular setting. Corpus methodologists regularly stress the importance of corpus size, text representativeness, and the frequency of targeted linguistic features (Sinclair 1991; Biber 1993; Kennedy 1998) in the design of language corpora and their further analyses. While on the surface these issues appear to be equally relevant to learner corpora, they have been developed and defined with reference to corpora of native or proficient speakers’ language. Like methods in other areas of linguistics, the central tenets of corpus methods need to be reconsidered to assess their appropriateness and usefulness in the study of learner language. In general, the design of learner corpora will differ from one project to another according to the different aspects of learner language production which are under investigation (Tono 2003).The purpose of this chapter is to address the topics of corpora design and analysis by discussing each of the pillars of corpus linguistics—size, representativeness, and frequency of linguistic features—in view of their applicability for the study of learner corpora in second language acquisition cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Each of these traditional issues will be analysed, separately and in an intertwined fashion, from the native speaker corpus perspective and then will be applied to the learner corpora scenario, in an attempt to provide a better understanding of possible difficulties that may be encountered in the methodology design of studies of both types of corpora.

2. A language corpus or a collection of texts? 2.1 Native speaker corpora Before dealing with corpus size, representativeness, and linguistic feature frequency, it seems to be necessary to create a working definition for a language corpus. From many language corpus definitions presented in the related literature, a

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corpus consists of a collection of texts which can be loaded on a computer. However, the simple action of transferring a collection of texts or a group of texts in paper into machine-readable form does not seem to transform them magically into a corpus. Kennedy (1998) stated that the definition of language corpora provided by certain dictionaries affirms that corpora consist of systematic collections of texts which are compiled for the purpose of linguistic analysis; these corpora are large and attempt to be representative of a language. Kennedy argued, however, that “not all corpora which can be used for linguistic research were originally compiled for that purpose.”1 The purpose of the corpora collection may in turn influence the design, size, and nature of the individual corpus. Kennedy also emphasised the distinction between a corpus and a text archive or a text database. A corpus collection is a systematic, planned, and structured compilation of texts designed for a “representative function”2, while a text archive is a text repository which generally lacks structure. Sinclair (2001) affirmed that “By calling a group of texts or text samples a corpus we are investing it with linguistic status.”3 In addition, a comprehensive explanation of the difference between a text and a corpus (which could be extended to a group of texts and a corpus) was provided by Tognini-Bonelli (2001). TogniniBonelli explained that a text is read as a whole, horizontally, and for content, while a corpus is read fragmented; vertically (from a concordancer, for example), and for formal patterning. Moreover, a text is read as a unique event and as an individual act of will, while a corpus is read for repeated events or patterns and is a sample of the practice of a community. Tognini-Bonelli also explained that “a corpus contains text evidence and therefore, given a different methodological framework of analysis, it yields insights into the specific text as well.”4 A very detailed definition of corpus was provided by Sampson and McCarthy (2004): A corpus, for people who study language and languages, is a collection of specimens of a language as used in real life, in speech or writing, selected as a sizeable ‘fair sample’ of the language as a whole or of some linguistic genre, and hence as a useful source of evidence for research on the language. 5 1

Kennedy, Graeme. An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics. (London and New York: Longman, 1998), 3. 2 Leech, Geoffrey. “The State of the Arts in Corpus Linguistics.” In English Corpus Linguistics: Studies in Honor of Jan Svartvik. (Harlow: Aijmer, Altenberg, 1991), 11. 3 Sinclair, John. “Preface.” In Small Corpus Studies and ELT (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Ghadessy, Henry, Roseberry, 2001), xi. 4 Tognini Bonelli, Elena. Corpus Linguistics at Work. (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001), 3. 5 Sampson, Geoffrey and Diana McCarthy, eds. Corpus Linguistics: Readings in a Widening

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This definition is at first sight crystal clear for language experts and for novices in the modern corpus linguistics field. A careful analysis of this definition, however, brings us back to the problematic issues that were presented in the introduction to this paper, when trying to put them to use as a model for the collection of learner language samples. Sampson and McCarthy stressed the importance of “specimens of a language used in real life,” and “a sizeable ‘fair sample’.”6 Starting with language used in real life, the definition won’t be suitable for language in learner corpora, unless we consider the in-class language production of non-native speakers of a language “real language.” It is also hard to imagine how big a “sizeable fair sample”7 should be in the case of interlanguage and to what extent this sample would be fair enough to produce generalizations in the use of a language as a whole or of a specific genre. Finally, it is also important to pay attention to the kind of treatment that this learner language will be given, that is, the type of evidence that this language could provide for research on the language.

2.2 A leaner language corpus The concept of language corpus has been used in SLA studies to refer to a group of texts produced by language learners since the late 1960's. Corder (1974) suggested the selection of a corpus of language be the first step to be taken in the procedure for error analysis. The second step consists of the identification of the errors in the corpus. According to Corder, selecting a corpus of language involves making decisions on the size of the sample, the medium, and the homogeneity of the sample (regarding the learner’s ages, background, stage of development, and so on). However, these parameters were not thoroughly described in connection to corpora collection in the related literature of those years. The problem of creating a new definition for Computer Learner Corpora is one of the main concerns of linguists using this type of language collections. Granger (2002) explained that although a learner corpus can be defined as the electronic collection of learner language, this type of definition should be avoided because it could be used to label data collections which may not be corpora at all. Granger suggests adopting Sinclair’s definition of learner corpora: Computer learner corpora are electronic collections of authentic FL/SL textual data assembled according to explicit design criteria for a particular SLA/FLT purpose.

Discipline. (London and New York: Continuum, 2004), 1. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid.

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This definition still does not provide a definite solution to the issues of corpus size, sampling and representativeness, and frequency which need to be addressed when collecting any type of corpus. Moreover, Sinclair’s definition adds new variables to be considered in the design of a learner corpus, such as standardization, homogeneity, and language production origin and provenance, which also need to be carefully considered. Drawing on the definitions of language corpora presented above and considering the problems that novice researchers in the corpus linguistics field may have to face, the following sections will analyse the problems that result from trying to apply the parameters previously described to a collection of learner language, and will attempt to introduce new arguments for the new variables that need to be considered when designing a learner corpus.

3. The issue of corpus size Corpus size has been an issue frequently analysed by corpus linguists that needs to be reconsidered for the collection of learner corpora. The discussion of the appropriateness of size of a collection of language has evolved through the years. The corpus linguistics field seems to have come a long way from the days when Sinclair (1991) affirmed that “a corpus should be as large a possible, and should keep on growing.”9 Many scholars explained that what used to be considered a large corpus (about 1,000,000 words) is now considered a rather small corpus and these numbers will surely change in the near future. Collecting a large corpus still seems to be the ultimate objective of many corpus studies, especially of those investigations that focus on a particular language as a whole and attempt to provide relatively absolute generalisations. Ooi (2001) explained that focusing on a large number of texts helps to build systems of probabilities for natural language processing, provides more and different textual examples, and tries to capture the linguistic phenomenon being analysed in a more adequate manner. The main drawback connected to corpus size, even in the case of a large corpus, results from the number of examples of a particular topic that may be found in a 8

Sinclair, John (1996). Cited in Sylviane Granger, (2002) “A Bird’s Eye View of Learner Corpus Research.” In Computer Learner Corpora, Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Teaching. (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins), 7. 9 Sinclair, John. Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 18.

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particular language sample. Greenbaum (1984) stated a corpus cannot be expected to display an adequate number of examples of a certain linguistic phenomenon, no matter how large the corpus may be, especially when this phenomenon does not occur very frequently. This problem is particularly important in the analysis of learner language, when certain peculiarities of learner language production are not easily encountered. This issue deserves further investigation. Studies of small corpora, on the other hand, have become increasingly popular in the last decade. Sinclair (2001) considered that a small corpus presents evidence which is both relevant and reliable. He suggested a small corpus can be analysed manually or by means of a computer, and it can help the scholar interpret the evidence resulting from that analysis in a direct manner. Small corpora studies have also been favoured in the investigation of specific genres, as the numerous studies of specialised English corpora (e.g., academic discourse, disciplinary discourse) that have been conducted in the last five years and that filled up the pages of English language journals which specialise in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) or English for academic writing, for example. In the case of leaner corpora, size varies from mega corpora to the analysis of the production of the students in a language class. The International Corpus of Learner English (Granger 1993, 1998), for example, is a large collection of English language produced by non-native speakers of English of various millions of words (and still growing), organised taking into account a wide variety of variables which help identify the origins of the learners who produced the language samples. For the analysis of this corpus Granger (2002) focused on Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis, comparing native and non-native speaker language production. The importance of small language corpora, on the other hand, seems to be beneficial for the collection of learner corpora conducted by instructors in their own classes. These studies of small corpora were conducted for a variety of purposes and used different methods of data collection and analysis. Ragan (2001) suggested the use of small corpora for the comparison between a large corpus of general discourse and a small corpus of specialised discourse. Nation (2001) investigated learners’ vocabulary needs in a small written corpus produced by language learners. Johansson (cited in Granger 1993) also compared studies of small and large language corpora. He considered studies of small corpora to be based on a small and carefully constructed corpus with samples from different text types, which can be subjected to complete accountability and which can force the researcher to see what might otherwise pass unnoticed. Here, the mentioning of different text types connects the issue of size with the issues of representativeness and sampling, showing there is a degree of interdependency among them, which will be analysed in the next sections.

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4. Issues of sampling and representativeness 4.1 Representativeness in native speaker corpora The way language or a language variety is represented in a corpus is a very important factor to be taken into consideration before designing a corpus. Many studies on representativeness have demonstrated that there is a strong interdependency between the size and the content of a corpus (Gavioli 2004). Representativeness in language corpora collection was defined by Biber (1993) as “the extent to which a sample includes the full range of variability of a population. A corpus must be representative in order to be appropriately used as the basis for generalizations concerning language a whole.”10 In the case of general corpora, large and well represented collections are needed in order to draw reliable generalisations. Biber (1993) maintains that the range of variability has to be considered from a situational and a linguistic perspective. Registers are “situationally defined text categories” (such as news, academic prose, everyday conversation, fiction writing) and text types are “linguistically defined text categories,”11 which can only be identified a posteriori, when the texts are analysed for the different linguistic distributions that they present. Both perspectives are interrelated but when designing a corpus, the initial step is to select the texts on situational parameters (Tognini-Bonelli 2001). 4.1.1 Representativeness in large corpora Biber et al. (1998) argued that “A corpus is not simply a collection of texts. Rather, a corpus seeks to represent a language or some part of a language.”12 They continued to explain that corpus representativeness determines the type of research questions that can be addressed and the level of generalizability of the findings of the investigation. After compiling one of the most important corpora ever collected, the Longman Corpus of Spoken and Written English, Biber et al. (1999) affirmed that “No corpus provides a perfect representation of the language.”13 They named a list of factors 10

Biber, Douglas. “Representativeness in Corpus Design.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 8, no. 4 (1993): 246. 11 Ibid., 380. 12 Biber Douglas, Susan Conrad and Randi Reppen, Corpus linguistics: Investigating Language Structure and Use.(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 246. 13 Biber Douglas, Stig Johanson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad and Edward Finegan. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. (London: Longman, 1999), 27.

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that need to be considered when compiling any corpus, such as the way in which texts are selected, the number of samples of texts to be included and the length of those samples, the size of the entire corpus, register distinctions and selection, language medium (spoken or written), available resources for the compilation of the corpus, and corpus proofreading and editing issues. 4.1.2 Representativeness in small, specialised corpora Specialised corpora generally represent a specialised genre or register and are frequently designed for ESP programs. The issue of representativeness is always on the minds of scholars collecting this type of corpora. Some small ESP corpora have been collected with pedagogical purposes, as the core element in a curriculum. This is the case of the study conducted by Flowerdew (1993), who collected a corpus which consisted of the biology lectures that made up the biology course students had to attend. In another study, Cortes (2006) compiled a medium-size ESP corpus which was the center of a corpus-based writing in the disciplines class. This corpus was made up of research articles from journals which were considered model writing by professors in the specific disciplines that made up the corpus. The issue of representativeness in specialised corpora seems to become extremely important when dealing with the generalization of findings, especially when students are the ones in charge of researching the texts in the corpus. Gavioli (2004) faced the problem of representativeness in small, specialised corpora. She found out that when working with a small, specialised corpus of medical research papers, her students tended to overgeneralise the use of certain frequent features as being samples of medical language s a whole.

4.2 Representativeness in learner corpora The issue of representativeness in studies of learner corpora deserves special consideration. In many studies, when the population of interest is L2 learner language, the examples fail to define the relevant population distinctions. Many of the parameters taken into account for the collection of native speaker corpora, both large and small, seem to be of little use when dealing with the compilation of a corpus of learner language production. Granger (2002) maintained that “a random collection of heterogeneous learner data does not quality as a learner corpus.”14 Following the example of first language (L1) corpus collections, learner corpora must be designed under strict design 14

Granger, Sylviane .“A Bird’s Eye View of Learner Corpus Research.” In Computer Learner Corpora, Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Teaching (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2002), 9.

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criteria and must also take into consideration new parameters that are specific to this type of language production. Granger suggested criteria specific to the design of computer learner corpora divided into learner criteria and task settings. Among the learner criteria, she included the learning context, learners’ L1, other foreign languages mastered by the learners (apart from English), and level of proficiency. The task setting criteria listed time limit for the task, use of reference tools, exam, and audience. In addition, Granger reported that when using learner corpora for Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis, the most important issue is the selection of a suitable corpus of native English, which will enforce the reliability in the comparison between native and non-native production. This text selection can also present difficulties, as the most reliable comparison would call for both native and non-native language users to complete exactly the same task, which is rarely possible. Tono (2003) divided the considerations for learner corpora design into three groups. The first group contained language related features such as language mode (written or spoken), genre (such as letter, diary, fiction, essay, etc.), style (narration, argumentation), and topic (general, leisure, etc.). The second group included taskrelated features such as data collection, elicitation (whether the production was spontaneous or prepared), use of references (dictionaries, cues, source text), and time limitation (no time limit, fixed time, or homework, for example). Finally, the third group focused on leaner related features such as internal cognitive features (age, style), internal affective features (motivation and attitude), L1 background, L2 environment (English as a Second Language (ESL)/ English as a Foreign Language (EFL) level), and L2 proficiency (by means of a standard test score). Tono (2003) also expressed his concern about researchers who are collecting a learner corpus for the first time, stressing the fact that several projects have not paid enough attention to design considerations. “If data is gathered in an opportunistic way without proper control and documentation of learner and task variables, the resulting corpus will be unlikely to be of much use.”15 Analysing these new criteria for the design a well represented corpus of learner language presents some difficulties that need to be carefully considered. The learners’ first language, the proficiency level of the learners at the time the sample was collected, and the tasks that triggered the sample with linguistic errors, are some of the parameters that might be used to define relevant populations for generalization. The first parameter to be discussed in this section is that of the learners’ first 15

Tono, Yukio. “Learner Corpora: Design, Development and Application.” In Proceedings from the Corpus Linguistics 2003 Conference, Lancaster University, UK [Electronic publication available at http://gandalf.hit.uib.no/~knut/cl2003/papers/tono.pdf] [cited 16 May 2006], 801.

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language. In the process of collecting a corpus of learner English from learners in EFL or ESL situations, the learners’ first language needs to be given serious consideration. In EFL situations, learners in an English class or an English program may share the same regional and social variety of a language. In an ESL situation, on the other hand, as in the case of adult learners who come to an English speaking country and learn English or continue their English studies there, learners may share their first language but the varieties of that first language that they master may differ broadly. The production of this group of learners could be used as the source for Error Analysis, for example, for the identification of transfer errors. Some of those transfer errors are better analysed and sometimes even predicted by identifying the differences between the target language and the learners’ first language (Lee 1968). If those errors are to be the foundation of some sort of generalization from these learner corpora, the regional and social varieties of the learners’ first languages need to be carefully analysed. The second parameter to be considered is homogeneity in the proficiency level of the learners at the time the sample is collected. It is widely known that there are not completely reliable measures that can account for heterogeneity in the proficiency level of second language or foreign language users. An example of this fact is the case of groups of university students who take standardised examinations and some other more personalised tests to assess their language proficiency before entering educational institutions that use the target language as language of instruction and still fail to help to build a solid homogeneous group when placed in remedial language classes. The language production of such a group would present a very diverse sample of learner language, even when those learners share the same native language. Tono (2003) affirms that the selection of learners which is based on certain external criteria (e.g., school year or age), does not ensure that the proficiency of the selected subjects is comparable. There is a wide variety of factors that may influence interlanguage variability. The same learners could be using a target language-like form some of the time, and some other times they could be using non-target language-like forms, showing different levels of interlanguage proficiency. Ellis (1987) maintained that interlanguage variability could be divided into contextual variability, which is determined by situational and linguistic contexts, and free variability, which is haphazard. This variation can be detected through the analysis of the form-andfunction relationships in language production. These form-function relationships can sometimes be difficult to analyse from a corpus of learner language, particularly when that corpus does not contain information (paralinguistic data, pragmatic data, etc.) that helps to investigate different meanings which may be represented by certain forms, even when the corpus was processed for some kind of annotation. The final factor to be analysed is that of language task. L2 learners make varied

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use of their interlanguage system in different tasks (Gass 1997). SLA research presents sufficient evidence to show that the nature of the linguistic task that learners complete influences the type of language that can be observed. In addition, the cognitive complexity of the activity that the learner is asked to complete may be regarded as another factor that might influence learners’ performance. This factor can have a strong impact on learner corpora collection. If the corpus collection is intended to represent interlanguage as a variable system, then it will call for the compilations of samples from a wide variety of tasks. The identification of errors for analysis from a corpus should be closely tied to the type of task that may have triggered those errors. As inferred from the discussed topics, representativeness is tied not only to the design of the corpora but also to the research methodology that will be used to analyse the language in those corpora. All types of corpora, (i.e., large corpora, small corpora, learner corpora) need to take special care when defining the language they want to represent, taking into consideration as many variables as possible for a given investigation.

5. The issue of frequency of linguistic features Kennedy (1998) affirmed that corpus linguistics has facilitated the task of many linguists by introducing data and tools that help to provide empirical evidence in the analysis of words, structures, and uses possible in a language and also to mark probabilities or tendencies in language use. The evidence that derives from corpusbased investigations is different from that of other sources of evidences (such as introspection or elicitation) in that this is rich evidence which emanates certain confidence in the generalizability of the findings and the validity and reliability of those generalizations. Kennedy also explained that when a collection of text is machine-readable, “it is easy to find, sort and count items either as a basis for linguistic description or for addressing language-related issues and problems.”16 The identification of frequent linguistic features presents different problems to the different types of corpora discussed in this article. The following sections will analyse the relationship of large, small, and learner corpora and frequency.

5.1 Frequency in large corpora Large corpora present many advantages at the time of identifying frequent linguistic features. Sinclair (1991) stated that “the relationship between words and

16 Kennedy, Graeme. An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics. (London and New York: Longman, 1998), 11.

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their frequency is regular.”17 He also emphasised that to study the way in which words are used in a text, it is necessary to have many examples of their use. Moreover, for the analysis of functions and meanings, he considered a large corpus a better sample for linguistic analysis. The identification of linguistic features in a corpus can be made by means of a simple concordancer, which generally uses plain text, or by the use of more specialized computer programs. In addition, the identification and the statistical analysis of frequency of linguistic features in large corpora frequently require the use of some sort of annotation or tagging (Biber 1988). Several tagging programs have been designed to automatically annotate the form of words. These programs tend to be highly reliable, many of them reaching more than 90 percent accuracy. Grammatically tagged corpora, for example, allow quick searches for frequency of forms and grammatical structures by means of commercially available or specially designed software. Biber et al. (1998) reported that, when trying to calculate frequencies automatically by means of this type of software, certain structures can be more prone to errors. This problem can be solved by using certain interactive programs specifically designed for checking tags. Many studies based on the analysis of large corpora make use of multidimensional analysis for the description of language variation, which is done by means of a statistical procedure called factor analysis (Biber 1988; Biber and Conrad 2001). This procedure is used to group grammatical features that co-occur into different dimensions. The basic idea of Multi-Dimensional analysis is that, while certain grammatical features can be found more regularly in some registers than others, the real description only appears when groups of features are considered together rather than each feature being analysed separately.

5.2 Frequency in small corpora The issue of frequency in small corpora is mainly related to two topics. One of these topics is the comparison between corpora of different sizes. The other topic is connected to the generalization of findings that result from small collections of language. In order to overcome the difficulties that may come from these problems, corpus designers suggest careful consideration of the corpus design criteria and of the research methodology selected for the investigation of the linguistic features. The comparison of small and large corpora needs to be carefully reviewed in certain studies that call for the normalization of absolute frequencies. Biber et al. (1998) explained that when examining the frequency of linguistic features across 17

Sinclair, John. Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 18.

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texts and registers, it is important to ensure the reliability of the comparison. This is the case of studies that compare corpora which are not the same length. Normalisation is a procedure that allows for the adjustment of raw frequency counts of texts or corpora of different sizes to provide an accurate comparison. The procedure consists of dividing the raw frequency count by the number of words in the text or corpus, and then multiplying the result by a number chosen for norming. This simple procedure can present some difficulties in studies that compare large and small corpora, particularly when the linguistic features are defined by a fixed cut-off frequency. When analysing frequently occurring formulaic sequences, for example, comparing corpora of very different sizes can turn out to be problematic. In her study of lexical bundles in published and disciplinary academic writing, Cortes (2002) explained that the empirical identification of these expressions (which are defined by frequency at a cut-off point of 20 occurrences in a million words) resulted completely unreliable in small corpora, because in a corpus of 100,000, for example, any word combination repeating more than once, would become a lexical bundles (which should occur over 20 times in a million words) when normalised to a million words. This fact forced her to turn her study of lexical bundles in student writing into a more qualitative analysis, as identifying such word combinations in a very small corpus would have resulted in an unreliable comparison. An important matter which also concerns frequency in studies of small corpora derives from the issue of generalization. Gavioli (2002) found out that the design of small specialised corpora can affect the data in terms of register and represented topics. In her study, in which a group of students used a small corpus of medical research articles to analyse the writing of that specialised domain, Gavioli (2002) discovered that words that presented high frequencies in a corpus of general English were unexpectedly common in the small corpora while words that are not frequently found in a large general corpus occurred with unexpected high frequency in the medical research articles corpus. This finding turned out to be problematic because even though the analyses of certain linguistic features and their frequencies allowed students to notice different characteristics of that type of writing, students tended to generalise those characteristics as belonging to a wider register, such medical language. Gavioli (2002) suggested allowing students to use corpora of different types and sizes, in order to help them avoid the overgeneralization of the observations they make from specialised corpora, particularly on frequency issues.

5.3 Frequency in learner corpora Frequency in the use of linguistic features takes on additional complexity in learner corpora because of the variability of learner language, and the desire of the researchers to identify frequently-occurring non-target forms. Factors such as what

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percentage of errors for a particular error type is produced by a learner must be considered when making judgments about learners’ language production. Granger (2002) emphasised this last aspect when she reported that many learner corpora are not fully exploited and those corpora simply end up resembling a collection of errors. Many studies of learner corpora, for example, focus exclusively on error frequency, when, in fact, they could draw more conclusions on the production of the error. In many cases, those studies could possibly profit more from a different research design, one closely connected with classroom-based research, an analysis of the learner text itself, which could interpret meaningful information from verbal and non-verbal actions in the context in which the text is produced and also the consequences of those actions. A classroom-based error analysis could provide a more complete description of the context of culture and the context of situation that surround the production of such a text (Halliday 1978). The interaction of these two contexts can supply most of the information related to the students, their personal and linguistic background, and the type of task that triggered that linguistic production and that may have contributed to some extent to the production of those errors, the intended audience for that production, to mention only a few variables. These data are generally available to class instructors on a daily basis and could directly inform the design of materials for remedial work to overcome those production errors. Frequency is closely connected to the replicability of a study. If a given frequency count is stable across different samples, or sub-samples, then it is worth reporting that result as a frequent phenomenon. However, there is an important issue that emerges when dealing with frequency of errors and it is connected to a basis for comparison. Many studies on error analysis report frequencies by themselves, which does not seem to make much sense. It would be much more profitable to report a frequency relative to the frequencies of other forms that can provide a gauge of the strength of those frequencies. Biber et al. (1998) suggest the use of a variety of other measures in addition to simple frequency counts, in order to complete the study of learner errors, such as error distribution across students, and examination of the errors in context. The replicability of studies of learner corpora also seems to present certain obstacles, due to the large number of variables that need to be considered when collecting the sample in order to have a reliable comparison. In view of the number of variables that need to be taken into consideration when analyzing frequency of non-target language forms in learner corpora, it is difficult to advocate for generalizations drawn from studies of small learner corpora, particularly those resulting from the collection of language production from a single classroom. The extreme position is that corpus data from a classroom can only represent themselves and therefore provide specific information concerning the language being produced by a small number of students (Ragan 2001).

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Finally, the relationship between error identification and inter-rater reliability needs to be discussed. The first drawback results from the difficulty that error identification and analysis has shown in the history of error analysis. Tono (2003) affirmed that the way in which errors are identified and classified depends on the research interests and the theories involved, which in several cases results in the fact that the validity of the classification extends only to the theory in which it is founded. The second difficulty arises from the definition of errors: many people hold different views on error types, which would yield very low inter-rater reliability measures. Tono (2003) suggested a “generic error tagset”18 in order to standardise error annotations as a possible solution, but again, the question of rater perspective on errors is an obstacle which can be difficult to overcome.

6. Final remarks The present chapter tried to review topics which for many years have been considered “old” issues in corpus design in the light of the new trend of using learner corpora in studies of second language acquisition. Atkins and Clear (1992) defined a corpus as “a body of text assembled according to explicit design criteria for a specific purpose.”19 Corpora design and the selection of research methodology for the analysis of the corpora are the foundations of any corpus-based study. A corpus should be collected having in mind issues of necessary size and representativeness. Most of the times, size and representativeness are determined by the purpose of the research proposed and the frequency of the features to be analysed. In many cases these issues do not have absolute answers, that is, there is no perfect pattern to follow in the planning of new studies. The use of the term corpus implies some intentionality and it implies that some conscious choices regarding the collection of texts have been made. So far, many studies use the term corpus very loosely mainly because currently talking about corpus has a certain prestige while talking about texts, text analysis, or error analysis in class production, for example, may sound dated. The design and analysis of corpora of all types have to be carefully planned, in order to preserve the solidness and future development of the corpus linguistics field.

18

Tono, Yukio. “Learner Corpora: Design, Development and Application.” In Proceedings from the Corpus Linguistics 2003 Conference, Lancaster University, UK [Electronic publication available at http://gandalf.hit.uib.no/~knut/cl2003/papers/tono.pdf] [cited 16 May 2006], 801. 19 Atkins, Sue and Jeremy Clear. “Corpus Design Criteria.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 7, no. 1 (1992): 5.

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Works Cited Atkins, Sue and Jeremy Clear. “Corpus Design Criteria.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 7, no.1 (1992):1-16. Biber, Douglas. “Representativeness in Corpus Design.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 8, 4 (1993): 243-57. . Variation Across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Biber, Douglas and Susan Conrad, eds. Variation in English: Multi-Dimensional Studies. Harlow: Longman, 2001. Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, and Edward Finegan. The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman, 1999. Biber, Douglas, Susan Conrad, and Randi Reppen. Corpus linguistics: Investigating Language Structure and Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Conrad, Susan. “Will Corpus Linguistics Revolutionize Grammar Teaching in the 21st Century?” TESOL Quarterly 34, (2000): 548-60. . “The Importance of Corpus-based Research for Language Teachers.” System 27, no. 1 (1999):1-18. Corder, S. Pit. “Error Analysis.” In The Edinburgh Course in Applied Linguistics, edited by J. Allen and S. Pit Corder, 3, 122-54.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974. Cortes, Viviana. Using Computers and Corpora in the English for Academic Writing Class. Manuscript submitted for publication, 2006. . “Key Issues in Corpus-based Research for Learner Language.” Paper presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Annual Conference. Portland, Oregon, 2004. . Lexical Bundles in Academic Writing in History and Biology. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University, 2002. Ellis, Rod. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Flowerdew, John. “Concordancing as a Tool in Course Design.” System 21, no. 2 (1993): 213-29. Gass, Susan. Input, Interaction, and the Second Language Learner. Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997. Gavioli, Laura. “Some Thoughts on the Problem of Representing ESP through Small Corpora.” Language and Computers 42, 1 (2002): 293-303. Granger, Sylviane. “A Bird’s Eye View of Learner Corpus Research.” In Computer Learner Corpora, Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language

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Teaching, edited by Susan Granger, Joseph Hung, and Stephanie Petch-Tyson, 3-33. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2002. . Learner English on Computer. London: Addison-Wesley Longman, 1998. . “The International Corpus of Learner English.” In English Language Corpora: Design, Analysis and Exploitation, edited by Jan Aarts, Peter de Haan and Nelleke Oostdijk, 57-69. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1993. Greenbaum, Sidney. “Corpus Analysis and Elicitation Tests.” In Corpus linguistics: Recent Developments in the Use of Computer Corpora in English Language Research, edited by Jan Aarts and Willem Mijs, 193-201. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1984. Halliday, M.A.K. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold, 1978. Kennedy, Graeme. An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics. London and New York: Longman, 1998. Lee, W. R. “Thoughts on Contrastive Linguistics in the Context of Language Teaching.” In Contrastive Linguistics and its Pedagogical Implications, edited by James Alatis, 185-94. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 1968. Leech, Geoffrey. “The State of the Arts in Corpus Linguistics.” In English Corpus Linguistics: Studies in Honor of Jan Svartvik, edited by Krin Aijmer and Bengt Altenberg, 8-29. Harlow: Longman, 1991. McEnery, Anthony, Richard Xiao and Yukio Tono. Corpus Based Language Studies: An Advanced Resource Book. London: Routledge, 2005. Meunier, Fanny. ”The Pedagogical Value of Native and Learner Corpora in EFL Grammar Teaching.” In Computer Learner Corpora, Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Teaching, edited by Sylviane Granger, Joseph Hung, and Stephanie Petch-Tyson, 119-41. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2002. Ooi, Vincent. “Investigating and Teaching Genres Using the World Wide Web.” In Small Corpus Studies and ELT, edited by Mohsen Ghadessy, Alex Henry and Robert Roseberry, 175-203. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001. Ragan, Peter. “Classroom Use of a Systemic Functional Small Learner Corpus. In Small Corpus Studies and ELT, edited by Mohsen Ghadessy, Alex Henry, and Robert Roseberry, 207-36. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001. Sampson, Geoffrey and Diana McCarthy, eds. Corpus Linguistics: Readings in a Widening Discipline. London and New York: Continuum, 2004. Sinclair, John. “Preface.” In Small Corpus Studies and ELT, edited by Mohsen Ghadessy, Alex Henry, and Robert Roseberry, vii-xvi. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001.

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. Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Tognini Bonelli, Elena. Corpus Linguistics at Work. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001. Tono, Yukio. “Learner Corpora: Design, Development and Application.”: In Proceedings from the Corpus Linguistics 2003 Conference, Lancaster University, UK, edited by Dawn Archer, Paul Rayson, Andrew Wilson and Anthony McEnery, 800-09. [Electronic document available at http://gandalf.hit.uib.no/~knut/cl2003/papers/tono.pdf] [Cited 16 May 2006].

CHAPTER SIX THE EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK OF REFERENCE: THE PORTFOLIO FOR LANGUAGES CARMEN PÉREZ VIDAL Universitat Pompeu Fabra

1. Introduction In September 2004, the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science hosted the third intergovernmental European Language Portfolio Seminar organised by the Council of Europe, with participants from the different Spanish regions and other European countries. Having developed four portfolios, between the years 2001 and 2004, as one of the ways of implementing European language policies, and with 2005 on the horizonʊthe European Year of Education for Democracyʊthe Spanish authority declared language learning to be a means of promoting understanding, tolerance and respect for diversity. As the Seminar report reads: “Between them [the 4 portfolios], they supported language learning from the beginning to the end of schooling, and a good support system had been put in place for teachers. The Spanish European Language Portfolio (ELP) for learners between 3 to 7 was the first model to be validated for that age group.”1 The present chapter aims at presenting the ELP and its connections to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEF), both from a theoretical and a practical perspective. Following this first section, section 2 is devoted to the presentation of the European socio-political and educational policies within which the ELP has been envisaged as a tool for innovation by the Council of Europe, the institution which led to its creation. Section 3 presents and describes the CEF, its basic tenets vis-à-vis assessment, plurilingualism and language competence. Section 4 tackles the core topic of the chapter, the ELP. It presents the project envisaged by the Council of Europe, and its effects both as a process and a product. Then the three main functions of the ELP are explained, the 1

Little, David. European Language Portfolio. Council of Europe Seminar Sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Spain. Unpublished report (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2004), 1.

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standard version is presented and the accumulated experience reported by the experts working in the different countries where ELPs have been used so far is briefly summarised. Section 5 presents the ELP project developed in Spain. The general process followed by the different working groups is described, and the ELP designed for the 12 to 18 age group is used as an illustrative example of the different ways of using an ELP. Some final remarks and conclusions close the chapter.

2. The European agenda on languages: united in diversity In 1995, the European Union, through its White Book on Education and Training, put forward the recommendation that each European citizen should know their own language plus two others, with the socio-political objective of constructing a united Europe (see Pérez-Vidal 2005) in which mobility of students and workers must be ensured, along with plurilingualism and respect for cultural diversity. With such goals in perspective, it recommended an integrated policy towards plurilingualism consisting of the early introduction of the first foreign language in primary school, first extensively and then intensively, and the introduction of a second one in secondary school, with an emphasis on developing autonomous learning to pave the way for long-life learning. It is here that the Council of Europe has had a vital role. The Council is an intergovernmental organisation involving 41 countries, whose primary goal is to promote the unity of the continent and to develop mutual understanding among people of different cultures. The Council of Europe is particularly interested in preserving European linguistic and cultural diversity, which it sees as an asset in the construction of a united Europe, contrasting with the monolingual and mono-cultural American model. For that purpose, and respecting the goals of the European Union, the Council of Europe has put forward two key instruments to ensure transparency of language accreditations throughout Europe, which should facilitate mobility of European citizens. These instruments are CEF and the ELP, both intended as practical tools towards such a goal, as will be made clear in this chapter.

2.1 New approaches, new innovative tools This is not the first time that the Council of Europe has taken an initiative of this kind. At the end of the 70’s, the Council of Europe gave birth to a radical renovation in the field of language syllabus design and ultimately language teaching/learning: the notional-functional approach to syllabus design, which became closely related to the communicative approach to language teaching. At

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that moment, it was the innovative view from sociolinguistics and discourse analysis that changed the approach to language teaching held by applied linguistics up to then. What has spurred change this time is a number of interrelated social developments, at a time when a united Europe is being formed: i) increasing innovation in the field of ICT; ii) the role given to autonomous learning in the process of life-long learning; and, iii) the increasing trend towards multicultural societies. These three factors have changed the way we perceive language teaching, which is now understood as essentially the responsibility of learners. These must learn to advance along their personal learning path, while at the same time learning to manage and use different types of resources, accessed either in the presence and with the assistance of a teacher, or independently. In our view, the communicative approach represented a significant advance in the field of language teaching, and the ELP represents a step forward within that paradigm, as section 4 below explains. The following section presents an overview of the basic tenets of the CEF together with an appraisal of its contribution to the field of language teaching and learning.

3. The Common European Framework of Reference The CEF was issued in 2001 in book form. As indicated in the inside cover of the printed edition, it is the result of more than 10 years of European research on applied linguistics and pedagogy.2 The CEF is addressed to professionals in the field of languages, as it seeks to offer a basic framework for curriculum development, assessment and evaluation, and materials development. It includes clear and specific orientations concerning language learning, teaching methodologies, task-based approaches, and a presentation of the different assessment scales nowadays used by different institutions or projects such as ALTE or DIALANG. It can therefore be seen as a flexible instrument with multiple uses, and its objective is to provide an updated language teaching/learning approach while fostering the debate around language teaching objectives and methodologies (Little 2004). It is here argued that where the CEF has been groundbreaking is in its new view on assessment. It is in this 2

The English version of the CEF can be found on the Council of Europe’s website: hhttp://culture2.coe.int/portfolio/inc.asp?L=E&M=$t/208-1-01/main_pages/welcome.html [Cited 16 May 2006]. The Spanish version entitled Marco de referencia europeo para el aprendizaje, la enseñanza y la evaluación de lenguas: http;/cvc.Cervantes.es/obref/marco/. More recently, in 2001, a Catalan version was published with the title: Llengües modernes. Aprenentatge, ensenyament, avaluació. Un marc europeu comú de referència per a llengües. Generalitat de Catalunya. 2001.

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domain where its most relevant contribution lies, particularly as regards language teaching. The CEF seeks to encourage a movement towards a new assessment culture that embraces self-assessment. The usefulness of such an emphasis is the fact that it provides a new, comprehensive and detailed description of language use and the different types of skills and abilities it rests upon. Its novelty is based on the importance it attaches to learner development through self-assessment as one of the pillars of language learning. Ultimately, the challenge it represents for teachers is in that marks and grades give way to qualitative descriptors of language competence for the different language skills. The following section presents the CEF’s assessment scales.

3.1 The CEF’s assessment proposal As has already been explained, one of the key contributions of the CEF is in the domain of assessment, which is based on language use. The CEF establishes 3 basic stages of language competence: Basic user, Independent user and Proficient user, which are in turn divided in two sublevels, as shown in Figure 6-1 below. Level A1, Breakthrough, reflects a basic level of competence at which language is used and generated. Level A2, Waystage, reflects the competence of a speaker who can handle the daily social functions of language, which allow him or her to operate in the country where the language is spoken. Level B1, Threshold, reflects the capacity to interact in a variety of contexts with the adequate flexibility that allows us to face different types of problems, albeit rather slowly and having to think before speaking. Level B2, Vantage, reflects the capacity to use argumentative language in specific social contexts and to use meta-linguistic knowledge. At its highest stages, it involves coherent and cohesive discourse as well as strategic competence, and the ability to use metaphor, nuances and colloquialisms. Level C1, Effective, adds the ability to be fully fluent. Finally, the last level, C2 Mastery, corresponds to the highest levels of competence of a non-native speaker. Figure 6-1: The CEF levels. A Basic user

A1 Breakthrough A2 Waystage

B Independent user

B1 Threshold B2 Vantage

C Proficiency user

C1 Effective C2 Mastery

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Such a detailed classification proposed by the CEF is accompanied by an equally detailed qualitative description of what language competence can be expected at each level for the different skills and domains of language, as Figure 6-2 illustrates for the skill of reading with an example taken from the Spanish ELP for the ages 12-18. This description is intended to operate as a reference point allowing for the different European language certificates to establish levels and stages following a common external criterion and, therefore, to be mutually equivalent and transparent. Figure 6-2: The Spanish ELP for Secondary Education. Self-evaluation grid (source: Cassany et al. 2004, 19).

3.2 The CEF’s view on plurilingualism The perspective taken by the CEF is that plurilingual competence consists of a set of abilities in a speaker’s different languages, which allow him or her to communicate and do things with words. Hence, the CEF follows a communicative approach to language learning, linking with the prevailing methodological trend in Europe, referred to in section 2.1. Another outstanding feature of the CEF is that it adds a fifth ability or skill to the four conventional ones in language teaching/learning: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. The CEF differentiates between two different speaking abilities: spoken interaction and spoken production, that is, delivering a speech. Within a psycholinguistic approach, the CEF’s view is that these five abilities are interrelated and connected to each other for a speaker’s different languages. Hence, plurilingual communicative competence is a global integrated capacity which speakers possess, and which grows from their first language(s). Such a plurilingual competence enables them to use different languages according to the communicative needs inherent in specific interactive situations,

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within a particular community and a specific culture. Individuals are more proficient in one language or another, but there are common competences to all languages they possess. Within the field of pedagogy, a final feature in the CEF is that it adopts a socio-constructivist approach to language learning, according to which these common competences are built on the basis of prior knowledge.

3.3 The CEF’s view on language competence The CEF systematises ideas on the different types of competences that come into play when using and learning languages. It establishes two different categorizations. On the one hand, it distinguishes between general competence and linguistic competence. On the other hand, it draws a crucial distinction between degrees and domains of competence by establishing three different categories: global, modular and partial competence. With respect to the first categorisation, general learning competence shapes a speaker’s profile as a learner and it builds a particular learning style. It is the result of combining the 3 different types of knowledge, as has been proposed: x x x

Savoir faire: procedural knowledge. Savoir être: a combination of personality and attitudes which affects the image we have of ourselves. Savoir apprendre: an ability to link all other types of knowledge besides language knowledge, to use learning tools, to be aware of cultural identities and to use emotional intelligence and creativity.

As regards linguistic competence, this involves sociolinguistic, pragmatic, and grammatical competence in one or several languages. With respect to the second categorisation, global competence in a language reflects ability and progress in all dimensions and skills. Modular competence in a language reflects ability and progress in specific areas and with a specific objective. Partial competence in a language is the result of the ability to use it for certain activities and in specific skills. The following section presents the Council of Europe’s Portfolio both as a project and with a description of its main features and parts. It finally points at its main benefits and challenges.

4. The ELP: a project for the future The Council of Europe is committed to the ELP project on the basis that it does make a difference with respect to language learning. For that purpose, it is

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particularly interested in the following areas: development, piloting, implementation, training of trainers, research and language policy (Little 2004).

4.1 The Council of Europe’s institutional agenda. Process and product The ELP was conceived in the years leading up to 1997, when the CEP was being developed. The Council of Europe then developed the Principles and Guidelines for the development of ELPs. The three subsequent years were devoted to piloting and the first ELP models were issued, under the auspices of the Council’s Validation Committee. The Council of Europe set itself a tight agenda whereby during the four years from 2001 to 2004 the implementation stage would take place. After that, a second stage of consolidation was planned with all member countries having their own ELP (Barroso 2002). From 2008 onwards it is hoped that widespread use and international recognition will take place (Little 2004).3 Teacher training schemes and research on the effects and values of the ELP are also needed to refine the models and the recommendations for implementation. At an administrative level, the responsibility for the development of the ELPs for the different age groups targeted is in the hands of each member country. The Council of Europe controls the quality of the models produced through a strict pan-European accreditation which is granted by the Council’s Validation Committeeʊand sealed by the Council’s official logo. In this sense the Council recommends that the development of the ELPs in the different European countries be accompanied by an experimentation phase whose results should be collected, analysed and disseminated both locally and by the Council. The information included in subsection 4.2.3 summarises the cumulative experience so far. Three interesting points arise from the above. The first is related to the necessary balance between ELPs specific to particular contexts, and the proliferation of ELPs, which may otherwise undermine the long-term project. A case in point is that of Germany, where, as each länder has its own educational system, it has developed its own ELP. 4 As a consequence of this, for the Council it is a priority in the coming years that the common core of the ELP be preserved, while ensuring its widespread use (see Little 2004 for more details on this issue).

3

See note number 1 for the Council’s website address where different ELP models can be found. 4 It must be noted that nevertheless there exists a national German project trying to bring together efforts and experience.

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A second point is the fact that never before had such an ambitious and wideranging proposal dealing with languages been put forward to the educational community. With the ELP, a teacher in Hungary and a teacher in Spain will be working with the same guidelines and with similar materials that have a common European core but also a local element in them.5 A third points is that the process of developing the ELP in each member state involves the principle of subsidiarity: first a group of experts who writes, together with a group of teachers who pilots; subsequently, once the final ELP has been validated, the dissemination stage takes place, together with a teacher training scheme, etc. This is in itself as valuable as the actual product, the ELP customised model(s) generated, and should ensure its future success, provided the administration is committed to the project.

4.2 The ELP’s standard version It must be remembered that portfolios have a long-standing consolidated tradition in language pedagogy in general, and in courses on writing in particular. The idea of the portfolio is derived from that which professional artists use to display their work, and has subsequently been adapted to didactic purposes. In this domain, and mainly in the USA, the portfolio has been used for some time now as an alternative instrument for the evaluation of learners’ development in writing in their first or their second languages, with much higher validity than conventional exams (Murphy and Smith 1992; Cassany 1999) as it allows for both summative and formative evaluation. In addition, it has been used to assess other language skills as well as other disciplines (Calfee and Perfumo 1993; Valencia 1993). 4.2.1 The ELP’s three main functions The ELP is a sort of notebook in which European citizens of all ages can write down information concerning the languages they know, their level of competence in them, their personal experiences or activities with languages, the certifications they have, etc. It has three key functions: an informative function, a formative function and a personal function. All parts in the ELP are geared towards the three functions in an integrated fashion, but some may be more representative of a particular one than the others.

5

This is what in European jargon is labelled following the principles of subsidiarity.

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4.2.1.1 The informative standardising function The informative function allows all European citizens to be identified as plurilingual speakers with a specific degree of competence in their different languages, and a set of intercultural and personal experiences in relation to languages (trips, exchanges, stay abroad schemes, etc.), on the basis of the information contained in the ELP. This is done through standard information in specific parts of all ELPs in Europe, which is going to be equally valid in all European countries and will allow the certification of levels of language competence and the inclusion of general linguistic/cultural profiles and experiences. This information is intended to increase transparency, foster exchanges and allow for mutual understanding, that is, pave the way for mobility of students and workers, as one of the tenets of unified Europe. 4.2.1.2 The formative function The formative function has three objectives: x x

x

Training learners in a self-evaluative approach to language learning. Teaching learners to learn. Raising their language awareness, their selfawareness and their responsibility for their own learning. In sum, enabling them to become autonomous learners, able to decide on their own learning objectives. Training them for life-long language learning. Developing learners’ respect for different languages, different dialects of the same language and the different cultures behind them.

In sum, there are 3 main strands to the ELP’s formative function: selfevaluation, learner autonomy and intercultural awareness. 4.2.1.3 The personal function The personal function stems from the fact that the ELP belongs to each European citizen, not to the educational institution where he or she happens to be studying, although it is true that the ELP will probably be used in school, particularly at very young ages. In this sense, the ELP transforms language learning into an asset of each person’s personal/educational biography, or more specifically, of his or her linguistic profile. By that token, not only academic information has a place in it, but also personal information related to languages, which is in many cases relevant to the shaping of one’s own personality profile (experiences with different cultures, self-awareness with respect to communication in different languages, learning style, fun or relevant learning

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experiences, etc.). Moreover, the ELP will accompany each of us all our lives, even after leaving school and, hence, it is like the living memory of our past experiences with languages. We fill it in, record whatever information we may deem interesting and keep it updated, perhaps with the help of teachers initially, but, not necessarily so later in life. 4.2.2 The ELP’s three main parts Following the Council’s regulations, the design of the ELP includes three independent interconnected parts: The Passport, the Biography and the Dossier. They are generally physically part of the same notebook, or box (in the case of younger learners’ ELPs). 4.2.2.1 The Passport The Passport is a booklet and looks like a large passport in size and shape. It is the most informative of the three parts, as it is also the most standardised one. It starts with a first page common to all passports in Europe, with an institutional text issued by the Council of Europe in English and the local language. This first page also includes an empty box for the learner’s name and photograph. The Passport presents in a graphic manner the level of competence its holder has, in relation with the skills and the levels in the CEF. In order to help the learner fill in these grids, it includes the detailed descriptors of each skill per level, in English and another language. There are also tables where the different official certifications held by the learner can be included and where detailed information about them can be added. Finally, there is space for relevant personal intercultural experiences understood as part of the learner’s profile. In a sense, the Passport summarises what will appear in greater detail in the Biography. 4.2.2.2 The Biography This is the central part of the ELP and is therefore generally larger than the passport. It contains more detailed accounts of the learners’ learning processes, evaluation, and planning, given through grids, tables, questionnaires and selfanalysis activities. Self-evaluation is organised by means of much more detailed descriptors than those found in the passport. Self-awareness activities lead learners to analyse the languages they know, those they hear in their environment, and the differences between cultures. Knowing their level allows them to identify and set their own learning objectives. Learners also reflect on how they have learnt, the intercultural experiences which have been most relevant for their learning development, and how they learn best through several

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activities. Pair work and group work is proposed, particularly as a means of contrasting individual views on one’s own level of competence in the different domains. Finally, more objective matters such as the importance of languages and the value of linguistic and cultural differences are also dealt with. In sum, the biography is clearly the part expressing the formative function of the ELP, given its flexibility and its promotion of individual and class discussion around important social issues related to languages. It also seeks to foster changes in attitudes, beliefs and motivation and, in general, build on the ideas concerning European citizenship. 4.2.2.3 The Dossier This third part of the ELP is somewhat different as it is the learners’ archive of their best pieces of work, in line with the conventional meaning of a portfolio. Both oral and written work must be kept in it as being representative of competence in a language. Thus, the Dossier stores the physical proof of the data from which the information given in the Passport and the Biography is drawn. Other information such as interesting realia that the learner may want to keep can also be placed in the Dossier. Several questions should be clarified at this point. Firstly, we would like to restate that although there are 3 main functions and 3 main parts in the ELP, there is no isomorphic equivalence between each of them, but rather that the 3 parts all contribute to the 3 functions although to different degrees, as was mentioned above. Secondly, the general Principles and Guidelines for the ELPs have been delivered to the Council of Europe member states as a common basis from which each state can diverge in order to meet the particular needs of its sociolinguistic, cultural and linguistic communities. Hence, each of the different ELPs developed and validated so far is different from the rest and significant variation can be found among them with respect to issues in focus, emphasis and types of activities proposed.

4.2.3 The ELP experience so far As was already mentioned, no new model of ELP has been validated without it having been piloted with a specific community of language learners. The interest of the Council of Europe is to further investigate the benefits of the ELP. So far there are 19 countries with a validated ELP, and about one million learners using it at different levels of the educational system. Although the Council of Europe has set research as one of the main points on the agenda, as was mentioned in 4.1, the accumulated experience with the CEF approach

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which the ELP represents has so far been already extremely rich and allows us to confirm how both at the school and personal levels, despite those problems which may be encountered, using the ELP does make a difference. 4.2.3.1 At the school level Experience so far indicates that using the ELP generates new attitudes and beliefs among the educational community at the following levels: x x x x x x

x x

the ELP tends to become a school project involving the teachers, the parents, the head teacher and the learners; the ELP involves a ‘language across the curriculum’ perspective which conditions the school’s decisions at the level of curriculum development; the ELP involves a challenging change of culture vis-à-vis assessment and evaluation; the ELP has generated new roles in the organising structure of a school, such as the role of a school language tutor, who coordinates the project and is seen as a reference figure; the ELP fosters cooperation among teachers; the ELP creates the need to generate a bank of materials to be shared by teachers within one school or within networks of ELP school projectsʊas explained in the following sections, these materials are needed as lead-ins to the activities included in the ELP; the ELP Teacher’s Book represents a model for complementary materials design for teachers and it, hence, will benefit from new views and ideas deriving from its use in the classroom; the ELP generates new teaching practices, which in turn may require new teacher training schemes. 4.2.3.2 At a personal level

Using the ELP from early on in life, undoubtedly within the school system at that stage, has the following potential benefits: x x

the ELP places Europe in the learners’ personal, social and academic perspective; the ELP dignifies all languages, and dialects, and so helps accept differences; furthermore, it presents differences as an asset rather than a hindrance;

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x x x x x x x

the ELP values general linguistic knowledge as well as partial linguistic knowledge; the ELP helps destroy prejudices, language barriers and cultural barriers; the ELP helps learners grow as a result of becoming aware of their own linguistic profile, learning style, strengths and weaknesses; the ELP empowers learners as they learn to set their own learning targets and, in sum, helps them become autonomous learners; the ELP motivates learners to learn languages; the ELP contributes to the development of intercultural experiences and exchanges, and helps learners value them; and, finally, the ELP helps integrate different languages and cultures in the classroom.

Thus, the ELP emphasises learning as a process, not only as a product, it promotes both individual but mainly collaborative work in the classroom and it emphasises intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic (external rewards and prizes) (Cassany 2004b). However, there are certain difficulties with using the ELP in the classroom. They seem to be shared by most countries where it has been used, but where different pedagogic options have been explored the problems have resulted in imaginative solutions. x x

x

Reportedly, the ELP takes up an excessive amount of time otherwise devoted to completing the year’s curriculum. As a solution, teachers have used ‘class tutorial’ time for the ELP. The ELP adds an extra element to the teaching load. However networking and collaborative work among teachers, along with the additional motivation of working towards a common project, as emphasised above, has helped to dissipate this burden. There seems to be a generalised difficulty when dealing with those parts related to self-evaluation through descriptors. Nevertheless, teachers have in return experienced the intellectual pleasure of being able to make teaching/learning objectives explicit, visualise their work, and co-construct with learners meta-linguistic knowledge which is not shared in traditional conventional teaching.

At the learners’ level, problems do not emerge except if careful collection of field notes and questionnaires is carried out (see Cassany et al. 2003c). They tend to vary according to the learners’ age.

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In sum, having the immediate goal of promoting transparency of accreditations, plurilingualism and life-long learning, the ELP is an initiative of the Council of Europe geared towards increasing the interest for language learning, and improving intercultural communication and democracy. The ELP approach to language learning has been drawn from the CEF. Since 1977 the Council of Europe has validated 69 Portfolios, reflecting the richness and diversity of educational contexts in Europe. The following section starts with a summary of both the development of the ELP project in Spain and its distinctive features. Subsequently it uses the Spanish ELP for secondary education as a case in point to present a specific rationale to use it in the classroom, as well as a choice of different foci and practical information to plan and use an ELP with a group of students on the basis of the experimentation carried out with 5 schools, 9 teachers and about 500 learners at different levels of compulsory and post-compulsory education (Cassany 2004b).

5. The ELP project in Spain As explained in the introduction, in 2001 the Spanish Ministry of Education launched the ELP project in Spain by sponsoring and organising four working groups of teachers and applied linguists devoted to designing, piloting and writing specific prototypes for the following age groups: x x x x

Pre-school: 3-8 years of age. Primary Education: 8-12 years of age. Secondary Education: 12-18 years of age. Adult Education: 18+ years of age.

As is clear, the objective is that learners will be able to start using the ELP in pre-school, basically by gaining awareness of language use. In primary school, they will move on to their first questionnaires and simple self-assessment grids and in secondary school they will progress to the portfolio, which involves more refined analytical and metalinguistic discussion concerning the learner’s own languages or the environmental languagesʊspoken in the environment. Finally they will use the adult learners’ ELP, which most closely follows the European format and will allow learners to move freely throughout the continent. The generating process was an elaborate one, lasting nearly 3 years and the four Spanish ELPs (PELs in Spanish as for Portfolio Europeo de Lenguas) were validated between September 2003 and April 2004. As indicated in section 1, the 3-8 model was the first covering this age range to be validated by the Council of Europe.

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5.1 The process The work undertaken by the working groups went through a number of different phases. The groups consisted in a Coordinator appointed by the Ministry of Education, who organised a working team of conceptualisers 6. In addition, and in order to pilot the materials designed and written by the team, a second group of teachers from the educational level corresponding to the age band of each group worked hand in hand with the conceptualisers. In what follows the different phases of this process appear as a list organised following the chronological order in which each phase took place. The group dealing with the 12-18 age period is used as an illustrative example, it must be noted that the same may not necessarily have been the case for the rest of the groups.7 5.1.1 Generating and experimenting the Spanish Portfolios. A classroom research experience As has been said, the project was launched in June 2001, and the models were validated between September 2003 and March 2004. The first year 20012002 was devoted to table work. The second year 2002-2003 was devoted to the piloting work carried out in the schools devoted to use and experiment with the ELP in the classroom.8 The interest of the experimentation phase was double. On the one hand, in the process of experimenting it would be possible to gather feedback in order to refine the ELP prototype; on the other hand it would be possible, both for the teachers and the experimenters, to gather data on the effects of using a portfolio in the classroom on the attitudes, beliefs and motivation of learners, and this would be of great interest to the general project, as mentioned above. Consequently, the result was also a double one: a final refined, piloted version of the ELP and field data of a classroom research project on the effects of the ELP pedagogic approach to languages and education. 6

This is the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture’s label. Each group of ‘conceptualisers’ was led by a Coordinator. Coordinators held regular meetings under the auspices of the Ministry. Carmen Alarios coordinated the 3-8 ELP, Azucena Corredera and later Elisa Vázquez coordinated the 8-12 ELP, Daniel Cassany coordinated the 12-18 ELP, and Virginia Fernández coordinated the 18+ ELP. 7 The group of linguists working with Daniel Cassany, a Catalan specialist, consisted of: Olga Esteve, a German specialist, Ernesto Martin, a Spanish specialist, Carmen Pérez Vidal, an English specialist. 8 I would like to thank the following teacher/experimenters for their invaluable contribution to the development of the 12-18 ELP: Margarita Caballero, Anna Coll, Cristina Escobar, Ester Grifol, Cristina HolmSova, Glòria Olivella, Piedi Reglero, Adelaida Minguez.

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The following phases were covered during those two years: x

x

x x x

x

x x

9

Phase 1) A needs analysis survey was carried out, with a particular focus on Spain’s multilingual multicultural identity, including both historical but also newly arrived specific linguistic/cultural communities. The benefits and challenges of such a state of affairs was dealt with, with a view to finding ways to promote the former while seeking positive outcomes for the latter. Phase 2) Working objectives were set up in order for the prototypes to meet the standards of the Council of Europe, which would ultimately have to validate themʊthat is, the Principles and Guidelines were studied, other existing ELPs were analysed, external piloting and internal evaluations were set up. Phase 3) A methodology was devised geared towards managing and coordinating the experimental groups in the schools which were going to pilot the prototypes from scratch. Phase 4) The experimentation was designed to cover teachers of different educational levels, modalities (regular and evening courses) and languages (French, English, Catalan, Galician, Spanish). Phase 4) The initial year of monthly workshop meetings with the future teacher/experimenters involved them in the initial decisions concerning both the general guidelines and lay-out that the prototypes would have and the experimentation model to be followed. Phase 5) The different parts and activities of the ELP, the descriptors, and the instructions in the students’ prototype models were designed and written. Photocopied material was prepared for the experimentation year with the piloting groups. Phase 6) An accompanying Teacher’s Book with explanations and activities for each section of the Spanish ELP was also issued and handed over to the experimenters. 9 Phase 7) A detailed protocol of the experimentation with the data collection tools previously designed was prepared to collect data from both the learners and the teachers/(experimenters). 10

Both an electronic version of these ELPs and their teachers’ guides can be found on the Council’s website. An experimentation report can be found on the Ministry of Education’s website. [Electronic document available at: http://aplicaciones.mec.es/programas europeos/jsp/plantillap.jsp?id=pr1] [Cited 16 May 2006] 10 For a full report on the experimentation phase, refer to the Ministry of Education and Culture’s website (Cassany et al. 2004c).

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x

Phase 8) The final versions were written, printed and sent for validation, following the teachers/experimenters’ feedback after their implementation in the classrooms, both on the actual learners’ portfolios and the Teacher’s Book.

Once the validation of the prototypes had been granted, each autonomous community in Spain developed its own teacher training scheme, usually designed and implemented in the Teachers’ Centres, but also universitiesʊas the case of the Seminar which this book reports on. For the following year an experimentation phase was organised, using the copies of the validated ELPs granted by the Ministry, with volunteer groups of teachers and schools. The team of conceptualisers was expected to fulfil the role of teacher trainers during the year subsequent to the validation and so their involvement in the project lasted an extra school year. This had the additional benefit of allowing them to witness the great interest shown by the teaching community in Spain. This chapter reflects the views gathered by this author in dozens of meetings with teachers from all over the country.

5.2 The product As the coordinator of the portfolio for secondary education has emphasisedʊand the Council of Europe confirmedʊthe Spanish project can be praised for several different features (Cassany 2004a): x

x

It includes all those languages that learners know: the official languages in each community, those studied in the school curriculum, the languages of newly arrived communities, those spoken in the streets, etc. It is thus expected that this will increase common understanding and ultimately tolerance to linguistic and cultural diversity among the different people living in Spain. This should in turn improve attitudes and prejudices against linguistic differences, regarding both languages or dialects, and also help the integration of minority communities. It includes practical ideas to develop a strategy for the success of the PEL at the classroom and the school level, particularly where two languages may be present in a community. The purpose is not to start from scratch but to anchor the ELP project to already existing initiatives and developments within the educational system, such as either the School’s curricular project (Proyecto curricular de Centro– PEC), or its Linguistic project (Proyecto lingüístico de Centro–PLC) or the Languages Across the Curriculum project.

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It emphasises the formative function of the portfolio, as is explained in greater detail below, both for the learner and the teacher. This formative function is carried out throughout the whole educational system, with the corresponding necessary adaptation as reflected in the differences among the ELPs for each different age group.

5.3 How to use the ELP: the case of the 12-18 Spanish PEL This section introduces the 12-18 ELP written in Spain as a case in point for the presentation of an approach to its practical use in the classroom. Three clarifications are needed at this point. In the first place, most of what is explained here is very similar to what can be said in relation to the ELPs for the rest of the age periods, but not all. In the second place, undoubtedly, the ideal situation is one where the 12 year-old using the ELP has already been using it since age 3. However, we are not going to assume that this is the case for now, and indications given in the following lines assume that both teachers and learners are using the ELP for the first time. In the third place, the ELP is essentially a flexible tool, which allows their holders to use it either individually or with the help of expert/teachers. This is certainly going to be the case of all age bands prior to adulthood; hence the indications given in the following lines refer to how to use the ELP in the school system. Let us not forget though that the ELP belongs to each European citizen and must ultimately be used for its informative value which ensures transparency of certification and helps mobility throughout Europe. 5.3.1 The 12-18 ELP: contents A summary of the different activities in the 12-18 ELP follows in order to help familiarise the reader with its contents. As already referred to, the first page in the Passport is entirely standard to all ELPs, consisting of the institutional text from the Council of Europe and the local logos, in which in addition ELP holders write their names and include their picture. After that, the Passport includes the three parts described in Table 6-1.

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Table 6.1: The Passport. Its differentiated parts and tasks. TASK HEADING

TASK INSTRUCTION

Part 1

MY LINGUISTIC PROFILE

Learners must mark where they situate themselves on a scale from A1 to C1 in a grid, for the CEF 5 skills, by colouring boxes in a grid.

Part 2

MY LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL EXPERIENCES

Learners must fill in a grid stating:

(both formal: subjects, courses, projects, etc. and informal exchanges, visits and trips, contacts, etc.)

Part 3

CERTIFICATES AND DIPLOMAS

Language: Activity, Date, Location of the experiences.

Learners can insert information concerning certifications possessed in a grid, under the headings: Language: Issued by, Qualifications, Year and Age.

The second part of the ELP, the Biography, is its core: it is placed centrally and has more pages than both the Passport or the Dossier. It includes the parts described in Table 6-2:

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Table 6-2: The Biography. Its differentiated parts and tasks. TASK HEADING Part 1

MY LANGUAGES: WHAT CAN I DO WITH THEM? MY FOREIGN LANGUAGES: WHAT CAN I DO WITH THEM?

TASK INSTRUCTION Learners must describe language competence and skills abilities, by filling a grid with the headings: Language: Where do I use it? What can I do? Where did I learn it? What am I able to do with each different language skill?

MY ENVIRONMENTAL LANGUAGES: WHAT CAN I DO WITH THEM?

Part 2

A) HOW OTHER PEOPLE SPEAK MY LANGUAGES

B) OTHER LANGUAGES

Part 3

MY LEARNING STYLE

Part 4

WHAT HAVE I LEARNT AND HOW DID I LEARN IT?

HOW DO I LEARN OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM?

Part 5

MY LEARNING PLANS

Learners must look for examples of different dialects and accents in their own language(s) they hear, and fill in a grid with the headings: Who? Which language? What attracts your attention? Learners state what other languages they hear around them by filling a grid under the headings: Language: Who uses it? Where do I hear it? What do I know about it? Learners read about how some people go about learning and describe their own experience skill by skill. Fill in the box: As far as I am concerned… Learners describe how they learn by filling in the boxes in the table: What have I learnt? How did I learn it? What helped me learn? Learners fill in the questionnaire by answering one of the columns (I do it, I’d like to do it) Activities: I correspond with English speakers. I listen to music and read the lyrics. I watch films. I do the homework. I go on summer camps. I go on exchanges. Learners explain what they want to know by filling in the grid with the following headings: Language: Target. How to reach it. Time needed.

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Finally the Dossier, consists of a page where a record can be kept of the documents (the data) the learner has selected for either their quality value, or sentimental value, as Table 6-3 presents. They are then kept in a bag. Table 6-3: The Dossier (parts and tasks). TASK HEADING Part 1

CONTENTS PAGE: PIECES OF WORK AND DOCUMENTS

TASK INSTRUCTION Filling in the grid with the headings: Title, language, Date, Criterion for selection.

ENVELOPE 1: SELECTED WORK ENVELOPE 2: DOCUMENTS AND SOUVENIRS

5.3.2 The ELP methodology and foci As the following lines explain, there is a methodology or rationale for using the ELP in the classroom as well as a choice of objectives or foci with which it can be used. 5.3.2.1 The methodology in the 12-18 ELP The methodology underlying the 12-18 ELP is task-based. A series of preliminary lead-ins and facilitating tasks are presented in the Teacher’s Book, which prepare for the final tasks appearing in the ELPs. This on the understanding that it is not possible to cover ground in the ELP without those preparatory lead-in tasks (Casssany et al. 2004b). It cannot be overstressed that actually filling in the ELP is in fact the final task carried out either on an individual basis, or after a series of generally collaborative tasks have been done, leading the students to be able to complete the activity in the ELP. These preliminary steps will entail interaction among peers and with the teacher, in the language chosen as the medium of oral communication when working with the ELP. The language for the written final task might be a different one. In relation with these lead-in activities, it goes without saying that new tasks are constantly developed by teachers in classrooms, and that the idea is for networked material design projects to emerge locally, as was mentioned in 4.2.3.1.

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5.3.2.2 Foci in the ELP The Teacher’s Book (Cassany et ali 2004b) identifies 4 possible formative goals or foci in the ELP, each one covered by a set of final tasks included in it. These are: x x x x

Organising the year’s syllabus. Identifying the learner’s linguistic profile. Developing learners’ autonomy. Developing plurilingual and pluricultural awareness.

Each focus is presented in the Teacher’s Book together with an account of the activities needed to complete the work through working paths or itineraries. Work with a particular focus can be organised as an itinerary throughout the different parts and subparts of the ELP. By way of illustration, the itinerary for the focus on the learners’ linguistic profile (itinerary ii.) is described with some suggestions on techniques to organise lead-in activities. Focus: Identifying the learner’s personal linguistic profile There is a logic to starting with the identification of a learner’s linguistic repertoire in terms of the CEF levels, when beginning work with the ELP. This itinerary or learning path emphasises the summative function of the ELP which identifies a learner’s position in relation with the CEF levels and yet is rooted in a clear understanding of his or her own abilities, a preliminary stage for the development of learner autonomy. The different stages, parts of the ELP and activities used with this itinerary are as follows: x x x x x x

Step 1. Biography: ‘My languages.’ Step 2: Dossier: ‘My best pieces of written and oral work. ‘ Step 3: Biography: ‘What can I do with my languages? ‘ Step 4: Passport: ‘My linguistic profile. ‘ Step 5: Dossier: ‘An appraisal of the certifications and diplomas.’ Step 6: Passport: ‘A statement of relevant intercultural and linguistic experiences.’

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The following are examples of how to deal and prepare activities in the ELP. Teaching Tips: Dealing with some activities x Using grids such as that shown in Figure 6-3 for reading will help students diagnose their level for each skill. As it takes longer than an academic year to progress from one of the CEF level to the next, it will be necessary to use either the same grid several times, or mark the same grid with different colours or stripes periodically, in order to show some kind of progress within the same level. The 3 columns in Figure 2 above can be used in at least 2 ways: a) one for self-evaluation, the second for peerevaluation, the third for a target to be reached within that academic year; b) each one for a different language the learner may be assessing: My language. An environmental language. A foreign language. x A lead-in preparatory task for the final task ‘MY LANGUAGES’ which has given interesting results during the experimentation is the linguistic fan. Learners must draw a diagram with the shape of a truncated inverted pyramid. On the horizontal axis language use is reflected by colouring the different languages one knows. On the vertical axis age is reflected by starting the colouring at the level when the language started to be used. Figure 6-1: The linguistic fan (source: Cassany et al. 2004b, 65).

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The exercise can be done individually as a drawing, then reported to either a peer or a group, then summarised in writing in one or several languages. Different fans can then be displayed on the classroom walls, or published in a school magazine, etc. The activity then subsequently takes learners to fill in the final task MY LANGUAGES individually on the ELP. 5.3.3 Organisational issues Finally, this section spells out the main organisational issues teachers will ask themselves when deciding to use the ELP. Most generally learners will start using the ELP as a consequence of a decision made in their school. In this sense, the following Diary Log is intended as a strategy to concentrate the essential information related to how to use the ELP by way of a series of chronological instructions given to an imaginary teacher who may decide to use the ELP in her or his class next year. 5.3.3.1 Deciding on the ELP students. Is there a better age? The results of the experimentation point to the following temporary conclusions: i) the age band when learners seem to benefit most from using the ELP in class is that between 13 and 14 years of age; ii) once learners reach the level of post-compulsory education (16-18) they seem more reluctant to spend time dealing with matters not related to their preparation for the university entrance exam (Pérez-Vidal 2005). 5.3.3.2 Deciding on the time, the course and the language The results of the experimentation indicate that using the ELP for one hour every week or every two weeks is enough to achieve some positive results. Language teachers will need to use it during class time. Teachers with a tutorial role may be able to introduce it as a year project to be carried out throughout the whole year during tutorial sessions. These two questions will determine the language of the ELP in situations where there may be a choice. Is it possible to use a second or foreign language or will it be necessary to use a first language given the sophistication of some of the discussions involved in the tasks? Even if used in an English or a French foreign language course, it may be the case that the language of the ELP, the language in which students will write, be an L1.

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5.3.3.3 Deciding on the ELP function to have in focus From what has been explained, of the three functions of the ELP, the informative, the formative and the personal, it is the formative which is the core one. Section 4.2.1.2 identified the three objectives integrated in the formative function: training for self-evaluation, building learner autonomy and raising intercultural awareness. Teachers may decide to devote their time and energy to one of them in every year of secondary education, possibly starting in year 2, when learners are fully confident in their new school setting. This will entail disregarding some parts of the ELP and using others. 5.3.3.4 Deciding on how to combine the ELP with the general course curriculum and book Given that the implicit approach of the ELP is a communicative one in that we learn languages to use them in specific contexts and to construct specific types of text, the ELP can act as a bridge to clarify objectives and contents to be covered in class. At any rate, the ELP is not an intruder in the general course plan, but a facilitator, coexisting with the coursebook and the conventional work carried out throughout the school year. 5.3.3.5 Deciding on how to organise the work with the ELP Little and Perclovà (2002) have two different propositions: x Start with the Dossier, then deal with the Biography and finally fill in the Passport. x Start with the Passport, justify what you have stated there by means of the Biography, on the basis of analysing the materials in the Dossier, and verify that the information in the Passport is true. If we remember that the Passport is more informative and the Biography definitely formative, it would seem rather more interesting to use the first approach with younger learners. 5.3.3.6 Deciding on the scope of the ELP project As has been previously emphasised, the ELP may become a school project, which might involve not only individual teachers but rather a group of teachers, and not only language teachers, but also content teachers. Naturally the head teachers and the administration along with parents may also be involved in the

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process. An approach with a comprehensive scheme may be put in place when a combination of bottom-up and top-down forces are in operation. The extent to which this may be the case will certainly affect the degree of impact that the ELP may achieve.

6. Summary and final remark The previous sections have presented the ELP as a European instrument dealing with languages and cultures, for social, educational, pedagogical and personal development. Moreover, the ELP can help mobility among European citizens become a reality. Its roots in communicative approaches to language teaching in its most updated forms have been stressed. Its networking and formative power has also been emphasised. Its interest in terms of process and product, in connection with the benefits which have already been revealed have been summarised. One last point must be further stressed, and that is the adaptability of the ELP to different contexts and needs, in spite of the tight regulations given by the Council of Europe for the development of new models. Teachers and learners using the ELP have given sufficient proof of its flexibility. This chapter seeks to contribute to disseminating the idea and encouraging research on the effects of the ELP approach in different educational contexts in order to find out what difference the ELP makes. If the European recommendations in relation to plurilingualism given to the member states are to be followed, the ELP projects must be part of the objectives of administrators in the field of education on whom the responsibility for raising the standards of language teaching/learning ultimately rests.

Acknowledgements I am indebted to Dr. Daniel Cassany for inviting me to contribute to the project Spanish Portfolio (12-18) organised by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, under the auspices of the Council of Europe. The project was coordinated and led by Daniel Cassany. Many of the ideas contained in this chapter are the result of the excellent team work developed throughout 2 years with Dr. Olga Esteve and Dr. Ernesto Martín.

Works Cited Calfee, Robert C. and Pam Perfumo. “Carpetas de Estudiante: Oportunidades para una Revolución en la Evaluación”, CLE 19-20 (1993): 87-96. Cassany, Daniel. “El Portfolio Europeo de Lenguas”, Barcelona, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2004a.

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. “Usando el portfolio europeo de las lenguas (PEL) en el aula”, Barcelona, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2004b. . Construir l’escriptura. Barcelona: Empúries. Spanish version: Construir la Escritura. Barcelona: Empúries, 1999. Cassany, Daniel et al. Portfolio Europeo de Lenguas 12-18 años. Porfolio Europeu de les LLengües. Hizkuntzen Europar Portfolioa. European Language Portfolio. Porfolio Européen des Langues. (12-18 años). (Validation number 52.2003). Madrid: Secretaría General Técnica del Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, 2003a. . GUÍA DIDÁCTICA Del Portfolio Europeo de Lenguas para Enseñanza secundaria, Madrid, Secretaría General Técnica del Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, 2003b. . La Experimentación del Portfolio Europeo de Secundaria – [Electronic document available at: http://culture2.coe.int/portfolio/inc.asp?L=E&M=$t/208-1-0 1/main_pages/welcome.html], 2003c [Cited 16 May 2006]. Council of Europe. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching Assessment, Modern Languages Division, Strasbourg: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Escobar Urmeneta, Cristina. El Portafolio Oral como Instrumento de Evaluación Formativa en el Aula de Lengua Extranjera. PhD thesis. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2002. Little, David. European Language Portfolio. Council of Europe Seminar sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Spain, Unpublished report, Council of Europe, 2004. Litlle, David. and Radka Perclová. The European Language Portfolio: a Guide for Teachers and Teacher Trainers. Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 2002. Murphy, Sandra and Mary Ann Smith. Writing Portfolios. A bridge from Teaching to Assessment, Markham, Ontario: Pippin, 1992. Pérez-Vidal, Carmen. “Lectures and Talks Given on Content and Language Integrated Learning: A European Approach to Education” in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): Teaching materials for use in the secondary school classroom, edited by Carmen Pérez-Vidal, 15-36. Campanale Grilloni: Nancy, 2005. Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2005. Valencia, Sheila W. “Método de Carpeta para la Evaluación de la Lectura en Clase: los Porqué, los Qué y los Cómo.” CLE 19-20 (1993): 69-75.

SECTION III: ISSUES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING LANGUAGES

CHAPTER SEVEN PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF AFFECT FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING JANE ARNOLD MORGAN Universidad de Sevilla

1. Introduction When we talk about affect, we are referring to the feelings, beliefs, moods, attitudes which influence our behaviour. Oatley and Jenkins affirm that “emotions are not extras. They are the very center of human mental life... [they] link what is important for us to the world of people, things, and happenings.”1 Affect pervades all aspects of our life, not excluding the classroom experience. In this chapter we will be exploring the reasons why affective factors related to language learning are important and looking at some of the pedagogical applications for language teaching. Affect covers a large area of concern in the field of language learning/teaching, perhaps most easily understood if we refer to a key statement by Stevick: “success [in language learning] depends less on materials, techniques and linguistic analyses, and more on what goes on inside and between the people in the classroom.”2 In other words, success depends less on things and more on people. What goes on inside people refers to the individual factors such as self-esteem, anxiety, inhibition, willingness to take risks, tolerance of ambiguity, learning styles, introversion/extraversion, self-efficacy and motivation. What goes on between people, the relational aspects, has to do both with cross-cultural processes and with classroom transactions, where an attitude of facilitation and a concern with group dynamics are extremely important.

1

Oatley, Keith and Jennifer M. Jenkins. Understanding Emotions. (Cambridge, MA.: Blackwell, 1996), 122. 2 Stevick, Earl. Teaching Languages: A Way and Ways. (Rowley, MA.: Newbury House, 1980), 4.

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Affect is often contrasted with cognition as if the two were unconnected and as if affect were merely a frill that can easily be dispensed with. Yet, this vision is very unscientific. Schumann has worked extensively on the implications for language learning of current findings of neuroscience, and he points out that “the brain stem, limbic and frontolimbic areas, which comprise the stimulus appraisal system, emotionally modulate cognition so that, in the brain, emotion and cognition are distinguishable but inseparable. Therefore, from a neural perspective, affect is an integral part of cognition.”3 There are very convincing reasons why we as language teachers might want to be concerned with affect in the classroom. Many language teaching professionals have written about the importance of different aspects of the affective domain in language learning (Moskowitz 1978; Stevick 1980, 1996, 1998; Underhill 1989, 1999; Schumann 1997; Williams and Burden 1997; Arnold 1999; Rinvolucri 1999; Dörnyei 2001a, Dörnyei 2001b; Fonseca 2002; Dörnyei and Murphey 2003, among others). Furthermore, research has shown the significance of affect for improving language learning. Some of the areas which have been dealt with are self-esteem (de Andrés 1999); self-efficacy (Boza 2002); cooperative learning (Casal 2001); motivation (Clément et al. 1994; Dörnyei 2001a, 2001b; Lorenzo 2004); personality and attitudes (MacIntyre and Charos 1996); individual differences (Oxford and Ehrman 1993; Reid 1987; Fonseca 2005); anxiety (Rubio 2000, 2004). However, what is often in the end most convincing for language teachers is their own experience. When we explore the options for adding affect to our classes, we inevitably find that for all participantsʊstudents and teacherʊthe classroom becomes a place where more effective learning occurs. Speaking of the affective side of language learning, Scovel states that “we are still struggling to come to grips with it. The great irony is that [emotions] could very well end up being the most influential force in language acquisition, but affective variables are the area that SLA researchers understand the least.”4 The explanations for this state of things are diverse. The affective domain is very large and not neatly defined. Affect in language learning is closely connected with theory from psychology, and not all language teachers or researchers recognise the importance of theory from educational psychology for understanding the language acquisition process. Furthermore, much of the research in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is of a quantitative nature and 3

Schumann, John H. “Where is Cognition? Emotion and Cognition in Second Language Acquisition.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16, no. 2 (1994): 232. 4 Scovel, Tom. Learning New Languages: A Guide to Second Language Acquisition. (Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 2000), 140.

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affective aspects of language learning may not always be easy to deal with in a quantitative research frame. Scovel (personal communication) also points out that emotions are indeed many and disparate and so, as cognitive psychologist Ulrich Neisser noted, research in psychology tends to study what is easy to quantify and not necessarily what is important to quantify.

2. Communication, affect and language learning Undoubtedly, the main function of language is communication. Quite rightly, the concept of communicative competence (Hymes 1971; Canale and Swain 1980; Bachman 1990; Alcón 2000) has had a strong influence on most language learning programs today. In a language classroom communication is both an end and a means, both a goal and an instrument to reach the goal. Engaging in communication requires active participation on the part of learners. Input has been shown to be insufficient to produce language acquisition, and thus the role of output (Swain 1995) has acquired great significance for the development of both fluency and accuracy in the second language (L2). As language teachers one of our main aims, then, is to promote communication, but this is generally easier said than done. We may have communicative goals built into our syllabus, we may design activities for communication but often, despite our efforts, our students do not develop communicative competence. One explanation for this situation can be found in the area of affect. In the field of communication studies, McCroskey and his colleagues have developed a useful model of Willingness To Communicate (WTC), which refers to the disposition to communicate if given the opportunity (McCroskey and Richmond 1990). The concept has also generated productive research in SLA studies (MacIntyre et al. 1998; MacIntyre et al. 2002; Yashima 2002). MacIntyre et al. consider L2 WTC as “a readiness to enter into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons, using a L2”5 and go so far as to argue that The ultimate goal of the learning process should be to engender in language students the willingness to seek out communication opportunities and the willingness actually to communicate in them. That is, a proper objective for L2 education is to create WTC. A program that fails to produce students who are willing to use the language is simply a failed program.6

5

MacIntyre, Peter D., Zoltan Dörnyei, Richard Clément, and Kim Noels. “Conceptualizing Willingness to Communicate in L2: A situational Model of L2 Confidence and Affiliation.” The Modern Language Journal 82, no. 4 (1998): 547. 6 Ibid, 547.

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In their model of WTC (MacIntyre et al. 1998), communicative behaviour, that is, the actual use of the L2 for communicative purposes, is at the top of a pyramid, resting directly on the learner’s willingness to communicate in the language. However, what is especially important for the classroom context is understanding the ten components that make up the four lower layers of the pyramid. Two of them, communicative competence and social situation, could be seen as basically cognitive elements, but all the others have a strong affective nature: desire to communicate with a specific person, state communicative selfconfidence, interpersonal motivation, intergroup motivation, L2 self-confidence, intergroup attitudes, intergroup climate and personality. Thus, if we want our students to communicate, to be willing to use the language they are learning, we do indeed need to take into account the many ways that affect will facilitate or undermine this goal. We will consider now a few of the specific factors involved in affect7 and some of the implications for the classroom.

3. Anxiety Neville (1989) has stated very forcefully that an anxious classroom is toxic. If an undue amount of anxiety is present, learning simply will not occur. This is nothing new. Writing in the 5th Century, St. Augustine referred to his unhappy experiences learning Greek as a foreign language and explained: For I did not understand a word of the language, and yet I was driven with threats and cruel punishments to learn it. There was also a time when, as an infant, I knew no Latin; but this I acquired without any fear or tormenting, but merely by being alert to the blandishments of my nurses, the jests of those who smiled on me, and the supportiveness of those who played with me. I learned all this, indeed, without being urged by any pressure of punishment, for my own heart urged me to bring forth its own fashioning, which I could not do except by learning words: not from those who taught me but those who talked to me, into whose ears I could pour forth whatever I could fashion. From this it is sufficiently clear that a free curiosity is more effective in learning than a discipline based on fear.8

Even though today cruel “punishments” are no longer the norm, language learning is recognised as one of the areas of the curriculum that generates most 7

For further information on aspects of affect see Ehrman (1996), Williams and Burden (1997); Ehrman and Dörnyei (1998), Arnold (1999), Dörnyei (2001a, 2001b, 2005), Dörnyei and Murphey (2003). 8 St. Augustine. Confessions, Book 1, Chapter XIII.

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anxiety. MacIntyre and Gardner (1991) point out that it may interfere with language learning at different stages, but they note that a main source of foreign language anxiety is communication anxiety, coming from attempts to speak the language, and that this, in a vicious circle, can interfere with performance and create worse performance and further anxiety. If we look further into the reasons for anxiety in a classroom where oral communication in the target language is stressed, a main factor to take into account is the public nature of communication. When learning a language, we are asked to speak in a linguistic vehicle that is imperfect; we must express our ideas in a language which may seem hesitant and childish, totally inadequate for expressing of our real self. In any classroom setting, there exists one level of difficulty in having to produce a correct answer to a teacher’s question, but in a foreign language class, there is the added difficulty of being able to express that answer well in a language we have not yet mastered. Language learning is a process which is very closely connected to our sense of identity and in which this sense of identity can be easily threatened in different ways. On the one hand, when speaking the language, the mistakes students make are open to public scrutiny and especially (but not only) if they are adolescents, peer approval can be extremely important, thus creating a situation of serious risk for many. In work with speaking, teaching pronunciation adequately is not always given the consideration it deserves, not only in and of itself but also for the relationship it has with anxiety. Pronunciation is very closely related to our identity; Beebe has affirmed that “the very act of pronouncing, not just the words we transmit, is an essential part of what we communicate about ourselves as people.”9 If mistakes are made, they are obvious to others immediately. Moreover, a new language is a foreign language, and frequently students do not feel comfortable sounding foreign. Many teachers have examples of students who are able to pronounce the target language very well but may mispronounce in class on purpose so as not to stand out by sounding different. In some cases, there may be a further complication if the person strongly resents or rejects the culture of the language. Stevick refers to the case of an Aztec woman in a Spanish-speaking village who could speak Spanish nearly perfectly but only did so when drunk; this was “at the same time a part of playing her social role of ‘dumb Indian’ and one way of expressing her resentment and her refusal to identify with the dominant culture.”10 9

Beebe, Leslie M. “Teaching Pronunciation: Why we Should Be.” IDIOM 9, no. 2 (1978): 3. 10 Stevick, Earl. Memory, Meaning and Method. (Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1996), 153.

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Anxiety in language learning can be greatly reduced through the attitude of the teacher and the atmosphere that is created in the classroom. In the field of humanistic educational psychology Rogers (1983) stressed the importance of an accepting, empathic attitude on the part of the teacher, similar to what Ellis (2000) refers to as teacher confirmation, which has to do with the verbal and non-verbal messages that students receive from the teacher to make them feel accepted and valued. Her study “revealed a large, significant, indirect effect of teacher confirmation on cognitive learning, suggesting that affective learning serves as a mediating variable between teacher confirmation and cognitive learning.”11 Confirming behaviour on the part of teachers can create a safe zone where learners do not feel so afraid to take the risks involved in learning to speak in a foreign language. In a study in Hungary (Dörnyei and Csizér 1998) the most important tool in establishing learner motivation was the teacher’s behaviour and the second one was the atmosphere established in the classroom. Both connect directly to reducing anxiety. Though it is unlikely that all anxiety can be eliminated from the language learning process, there are many options12 open to teachers for reducing it significantly. One way is to give learners the possibility to express their feelings of insecurity, of worry. When they find that they are not alone, that their peers have similar reactions, these feelings may seem less frightening. A starting point might be a simple questionnaire designed to find out what aspects of the class and of language learning in general produce anxiety; these can then be discussed. If appropriate, some of the problematic situations could be roleplayed by students and solutions suggested. In general a classroom which promotes cooperation rather than competition between students will be more conducive to learning. Except in some game situations in which no real importance is attached to winning or losing, competition tends to be anxiety-provoking. Referring to a climate of competition, Covington and Teel explain, “whenever students are busy avoiding the feelings of failure, or attempting to make others fail, there is little room for true involvement in learning.”13 From the cooperative learning approach to teaching (Kagan 1994) comes an extremely useful classroom technique called think-pair-share. The teacher presents the class with a question, topic to be discussed, etc. and gives a short time to think about it individually, with students 11

Ellis, Kathy. “Perceived Teacher Confirmation. The Development and Validation of an Instrument and Two Studies of the Relationship to Cognitive and Affective Learning.” Human Communication Research 26, no. 2 (2000): 264. 12 For additional suggestions see Oxford 1999 and Rubio 2004. 13 Covington, Martin V. and Karen M. Teel. Overcoming Student Failure: Changing Motives and Incentives for Learning. (Washington, DC.: American Psychological Association, 1996), 108.

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perhaps taking a few notes. Next they are asked to share ideas with a partner. Only then do they have to share, to go public and speak or give a specific answer in front of the whole class. This leads to responses which are more sophisticated conceptually and more correctly expressed and also to less anxiety on the part of students than when the teacher surprises them with a question out of the blue. One of areas of main concern in reducing anxiety is error correction. Studies have shown that learners often may need and want corrective feedback (Abello 1994) but error correction must be done in a non-threatening manner. It is important that the students realise that, while their answer may not be OK, they are OK. First of all, teachers need to make it clear that errors are a natural part of learning, that in order to learn a language we need to try out possibilities which may or may not be exactly in accordance with the target language norm. When learning a foreign language, our interlanguage is made up of a series of constantly changing approximations to the target language which will not be error-free but which will enable us to communicate and learn. In this respect the wise teacher will not demand perfection of students but rather encourage them as they try their wings with the target language, working within what Vygotsky terms their zone of proximal development, “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.”14 If a climate of trust has been established, learners will see correction as help, not as a threat. It is generally accepted that not all errors need be corrected. If a form has been introduced recently without time to practice and assimilate it, it would not be helpful to correct it. Too much correction, even thoughtful correction, can be discouraging. With written work, the corrections should given back as soon as possible, and some experts advise against correcting in red ink. With spoken language practice, if the message is comprehensible, it is often best to correct any important errors after the student speaks, rather than interrupting the communication. There are many affectively positive ways of correcting speaking errors in the classroom. One that is generally well-received is for the teacher to write down mistakes made which need to be dealt with, especially if they come up repeatedly in the class, and at the end of the class take a few moments to write them on the board and discuss them. In this way, no one is singled out and put on the spot, and all students can benefit from the teacher’s comments.

14 Vygotsky, Lev. Mind in Society. (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 86.

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4. Self-concept One of the pioneers in the study of self-esteem, Coopersmith, defined it as “the evaluation which the individual makes and customarily maintains with regard to himself [or herself]... In short, self-esteem is a personal judgement of worthiness that is expressed in the attitudes that the individual holds towards himself [or herself].”15 As human beings, we inevitably form images of ourselves, and how we feel about our image will determine our self-esteem. In most cases, that feeling is not caused by objective facts but rather by beliefs. Puchta stresses the importance of beliefs in the learning contexts because they are “strong perceptual filters. They serve as explanations for what has happened and they give us a basis for future behaviour.”16 The negative beliefs about oneself which are part of low self-esteem make it hard for a learner to be fully on task, as energy is split between the task and excessive concern with one’s lack of ability or worth. This is not unimportant for the classroom. Referring to motivation theory, Ehrman and Dörnyei point out that “the highest human priority is the need for self-acceptance.”17 Thus, in any activity as motivationdependent as language learning, we cannot ignore this factor. Since our self-concept is being formed in childhood, self-esteem work in the classroom intuitively seems especially important with younger children. In a two year action research study carried out in Argentina, de Andrés (1999) developed a program for primary learners of English designed to enhance what Reasoner (1982) considers the main aspects of self-esteemʊsecurity, identity and belongingʊat the same time as the language skills are developed. She summarises some of her observations upon completing the project: I learned that, as has been said, ‘Children don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care’.... I learned how powerful it is, both socially and linguistically, to work with children’s needs and feelings on a systematic basis. I learned that all classrooms should be places built on care, respect and mutual

15 Coopersmith, Stanley. The Antecedents of Self-Esteem. (San Francisco: Freeman & Co, 1967), 4-5. 16 Puchta, Herbert. “Beyond Materials, Techniques and Linguistic Analyses: The Role of Motivation, Beliefs and Identity.” In Proceedings IATEFL Conference, 1999), 66. 17 Ehrman, Madeline and Zoltan Dörnyei. Interpersonal Dynamics in Second Language Education. The Visible and Invisible Classroom. (Thousand Oaks, CA.: Sage, 1998), 257.

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It is not only the primary classroom, however, that benefits from a concern with self-concept. The self-esteem of adolescents is often very much affected by what goes on in the classroom. Whereas children derive much of their idea of self-worth from parents and teachers, Williams and Burden report that “during adolescence, peers begin to take on a more central role with regard to one’s selfimage.”19 Thus, in secondary language classrooms it can be useful for teachers to provide opportunities for learners to get to know each other better so that the relationships established there can provide a positive mirror in which to see themselves. For example, for group and pair work, students can often be put with different students so that they become better acquainted with everyone in the class. They can be divided according to the last letter of their surname, by numbering them off, by their ideal holiday destination, by their zodiac sign, and so forth. The possibilities are unlimited. Murphey finds that when students are allowed and encouraged to make friends quickly and effectively with as many of their classmates as possible, this forms a positive sub-identity and provides them with an essential base of self-esteem without which learning can be extremely difficult... When classroom structures facilitate socialization and connect it to subject matter teaching, we have a powerful formula for learning.20

A concern with self-esteem in the language classroom is not to be confused with simply making students feel good. As Reasoner says, “programs and efforts limited to making students feel good are apt to have little lasting effect, because they fail to strengthen the internal sources of self-esteem related to integrity, responsibility and achievement.”21 In the end competence leads to confidence and helping students acquire greater competence in the target language can be a highly important factor in increasing their feelings of self-worth. Not only are there benefits for learners from creating an atmosphere which provides support for students’ self-concept. Teachers will also find the classroom experience more rewarding when students have healthy levels of self18

de Andrés, Verónica. “Self-Esteem in the Classroom or the Metomorphosis of Butterflies.” In Affect in Language Learning. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 99-100. 19 Williams, Marion and Robert Burden. Psychology for Language Teachers. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 98. 20 Murphey, Tim. “Friends and Classroom Identity Formation.” IATEFL Issues 145 (1998): 15-16. 21 Reasoner, Robert W. “You can Bring Hope to Failing Students. School Administrator 92 (1992): 24.

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esteem. These students feel more at ease in the classroom, they do not waste valuable cognitive energy trying to overcome feelings of inadequacy, and they will show more enthusiasm in the classroom, factors which contribute to a more positive environment for all members of the class community. Some negative aspects of teacher behaviour that would inhibit learners’ sense of self-worth would be ignoring students, putting them down, embarrassing them, using sarcasm, and comparing them to other students. Fortunately, there are many positive suggestions for ways to contribute to students’ self-concept in the classroom. Some of these are the following:22 x Consider students as worthwhile people and let them know this. Get to know them as persons, be genuinely interested in them. If you accept and value them, this will facilitate their self-acceptance. x Remember that unacceptable behaviour is often rooted in low self-esteem. Try to focus on the root, not on the surface manifestation. x Start from where the students are at and listen to them as they are, nonjudgementally and empathically. x Ask yourself: If you were a student in your class, would you feel safe and supported? How easy would it be for you to take the risks inherent in language learning?

5. Emotional engagement The learners sitting in our classrooms are exposed to many thousands of stimuli every day. The brain cannot handle all of these, so it actively processes only that which gets its attention in some way. When we are teaching the third conditional tense, the stimulus we provide may well be much less attentiongetting than a lot of others present in our learners’ lives. If the teacher requests that they pay attention, according to Jensen, “this request is entirely reasonable when the learning is relevant, engaging and chosen by the learner” but when this is not the case “classroom attention is a statistical improbability.”23 This is not to say that a good deal of learning is not going on unconsciously,24 nor does it mean that the teacher needs to create a circus in the classroom so students will pay attention. Rather it implies that classroom learning will be maximised when students are actively participating in making meaning. 22

Adapted from Jane Arnold (2000). Jensen, Eric. Teaching with the Brain in Mind. (Alexandria, VA.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998), 42. 24 Suggestopedia makes great use of peripheral learning, and Caine and Caine (1994) explain its importance from the perspective of brain-based learning. 23

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One of the most reliable ways to engage students in the process of learning is by involving them emotionally. As Wolfe and Brandt have pointed out, “Emotion plays... a positive role in that the stronger the emotion connected with an experience, the stronger the memory of that experience; chemicals in the brain send a message to the rest of the brain: ‘This information is important. Remember it.’”25 If the language learning experience has an emotional component, it is more likely that the language input will become intake. Activities of a mechanical nature such as the typical textbook activity with one student buying a train ticket to Manchester, where learners have no choice, where there is little or no personal meaning and no emotional involvement, are less likely to lead to successful language learning. Two examples of activities which are more emotionally engaging are the following (adapted from Avila 2002). In “At Home” learners imagine their home, seeing it in their mind and then draw a plan of their home. Then they mentally hide an object somewhere, writing the hiding place down on a piece of paper. In pairs they look at each others’ plans try to guess where their partner “hid” the object. This can be done with lower level students and it has the advantage of being personally meaningful for them. With “Magic Ring” the teacher has a script for a visualisation exercise where students imagine themselves at night walking down a street in an old part of a city where they find a ring. They put it on and find it is magic, giving them the power to make any wish come true. They then decide what things they would do, taking into account the situation of the world, their own lives, the lives of others they know. After writing about these things, they work in pairs and negotiate three things between them and share with the class. Tomlinson recommends increasing learner involvement and thus deeper learning by using multifaceted activities which make analytic, creative, evaluative and rehearsal demands on processing capacity… In order for this deeper learning to be facilitated it is very important that the content of the materials is not trivial or banal and that it stimulates thoughts and feelings in the learners. It is also important that the activities are not too simple and that they cannot be too easily achieved without the learners making use of their previous experience and their brains.26

The humanistic approaches in English language teaching methodology are “concerned with treating the learner as a whole person, and with whole-person 25

Wolfe, Pat and Ron Brandt. “What do we Know from Brain Research?” Educational Leadership 56, no. 3 (1998): 13. 26 Tomlinson, Brian, ed. Materials Development in Language Teaching. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998a), 20.

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involvement in the learning process.”27 Whether or not one subscribes to any specific methodological option, a holistic paradigm where all aspects of the personʊcognitive, emotional and physicalʊare taken into account can provide a highly effective organising principle for a language program, although unfortunately the emotional and physical needs of learners are often ignored both by textbook writers and by teachers. Having written extensively on memory and L2 learning, Stevick concludes that the “relationship between affect and memory is intimate and complex.”28 He summarises an early study by Rapaport (1971) on the connection between emotion and memory: “Emotions do not merely expedite or inhibit memory... They actually provide the principle on which memories are organized.”29 Emotional connections with what we are studying can lead to greater depth of processing, a requirement for learning that lasts. If learners can respond to a text or a task for language learning both cognitively and affectively, if they are actively involved in both thinking and feeling, the language they hear or read has a better chance of making it into long-term memory. If learners do a task out of duty, even if they are actually giving it their attention, quite probably it will only stay in short-term memory. However, if they are truly involved, connecting their emotions and their experience of the world and themselves to the task at hand, it is much more likely that they will invest the time and energy necessary for successful language learning. Students who are already highly motivated towards learning English may be willing to make this investment but much can be done in the classroom to increase the emotional engagement of all students. One of the greatest enemies of success in classroom language learning is boredom. Presumably no teacher sets out to be boring,30 but we do not always acknowledge that our students’ level of achievement may depend as much or more on our ability to make what we are teaching interesting as on our knowledge of our subject. Csikszentmihalyi (1990) has developed the concept of flow, the ideal psychological state for learning, where we are totally involved in what we are doing, a state which is created when there exists the optimum level of challenge in proportion to our abilities. Flow has been studied in the context of foreign language learning, and “findings suggest that flow does exist in the foreign language classroom and that Flow Theory offers an interesting and useful framework for conceptualizing and

27

Williams, Marion and Robert Burden. Psychology for Language Teachers. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 37. 28 Stevick, Earl. Memory, Meaning and Method. (Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1996), 14. 29 Ibid., 135. 30 Prodromou (1999) jokingly develops the concept of BTM, Boring Teacher Methodology.

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evaluating language learning activity.”31 Some things related to flow in language learning that have been pointed out are: clear interesting, achievable tasks..., [students] deeply involved in the communication of an idea..., intensely absorbed in reading an interesting passage..., when the language is serving a purpose that learners perceive to be authentic..., opportunities to exercise autonomy and self-expression..., the maintenance of self-esteem as a person through involvement in decisionmaking..., a degree of freedom to use preferred language strategies..., a deep sense of enjoyment and ‘playfulness’...32

Related to the concept of intrinsic motivation, the flow experience is the opposite of boredom. Goleman states that flow represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performance and learning. In flow the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized and aligned with the task at hand... It is a state in which people become utterly absorbed in what they are doing, paying undivided attention to the task, their awareness merged with their actions.33

Two possible sources for engaging learners emotions are teachers and task/texts. First of all, teachers can involve learners affectively by expressing their own emotions in the classroom. Teacher enthusiasm for the subject, the activities, the classroom experience in general, can be contagious, just as apathy and disinterest can spread from teacher to student. Dörnyei points out that this does not mean that we must be theatrically emotional in the classroom but rather that, “we clearly identify our reasons for being interested in the topic and then share these with the students.”34 In his discussion of why even in contemporary learner-centred classrooms, the role of the teacher is essential, Stevick lists two functions directly related to affect: the interpersonal function where the teacher establishes an atmosphere in which “the students’ nonlinguistic, emotional needs are met, or are denied, during their time in the language classroom” and the function of providing “enthusiasm for the task at hand... [which is] not so

31 Egbert, Joy. “A Study of Flow Theory in the Foreign Language Classroom.” Modern Language Journal 87, no. 4 (2003): 499. 32 Ibid., 505. 33 Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence. (New York: Bantam Books, 1995), 90-91. 34 Dörnyei, Zoltan. Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001a), 33.

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much about what the teacher says explicitly as about what the students infer from the teacher’s manner.”35 Besides their attitude and presence in the classroom, teachers can also further their students’ emotional engagement by the thoughtful selection of texts and tasks for language study. However, if all class work is based only on the use of a global coursebook, this involvement is not likely to take place. Despite the fact that coursebooks have improved in many ways in recent decades, they are produced by writers who often have little or no connection with all the contexts in which they are used and who are under publishers’ constraints to make them acceptable in a wide variety of sociocultural situations. This makes the world of the typical English as a foreign language textbook “safe, clean, harmonious, benevolent, undisturbed, and PG-rated,”36 and so working only with materials of this nature “can reduce the learner from an individual human being with views, attitudes and emotions to a language learner whose brain is focused narrowly on the low-level linguistic de-coding... which denies the learner the valuable learning resource which can be proved by affect.”37 To avoid this state of things which can be brought about when a class is straight-jacketed into this clichétype textbook, teachers can try to be sure that they use more materials connected to their students’ reality and that both they and their students can react affectively to them. Evidently, if teachers are really concerned with involving their students, with bringing them into the flow zone where some of the most effective learning will occur, they will probably have to develop some of their own materials. In order to add the affective appeal lacking in coursebooks, Tomlinson suggests the following options for teachers: they can get learners to look for extra texts, they can invite learners to respond affectively to reading and listening texts before doing the exercises in the book, they can offer choice of activities, they can encourage the linking of texts and topics in the coursebook to issues of local interest, they can help learners to develop their own tasks and they can invite them to express what it is that interests and concerns them. They can also add occasional units by using a text driven approach which involves first of all finding a text which is likely to engage their learners affectively and then developing activities for exploiting this engagement.38

35 Stevick, Earl. Working with Teaching Methods. What’s at Stake? (Pacific Grove: Heinle & Heinle, 1998), 31. 36 Wajnryb, Ruth. “Death, Taxes and Jeopardy: Systematic Omissions in EFL Texts, or Life was Never Meant to Be an Adjacency Pair.” (Paper presented at the 9th ELICOS Conference, Sydney: Australia, 1996), 291. 37 Tomlinson, Brian. “Affect and the Coursebook.” IATEFL Issues 145 (1998b): 20. 38 Ibid., 21.

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6. Learning styles If we are to take the affective side of learners into account, we will inevitably need to consider their different preferred learning styles. Kinsella defines learning styles as “individuals’ natural, habitual, preferred ways of absorbing, processing, and retaining information and skills which persist regardless of teaching methods or content area.”39 Reid (1995) has presented research that has demonstrated that there are important individual differences in the ways learners face the language learning process. She lists some of the benefits of increasing learners’ awareness of their own learning styles: “higher interest and motivation in the learning process, increased student responsibility for their own learning, and greater classroom community. These are affective changes, and the changes have resulted in more effective learning.”40 When teachers recognise these differences, they are recognising the student’s person, his or her individuality, and this can have strong motivational effects. Among the many categories of learning styles that have been applied to language learning is that of the sensory modalitiesʊvisual, auditory and tactilekinaestheticʊreferring to the channels through which we tend to process stimuli (Revell and Norman 1999). Learners with a visual preference may find it useful to see instructions written on the blackboard or to have language material presented in tables, diagrams, pictures, etc. Learners with an auditory preference benefit by hearing explanations or by discussing class material with peers. Tactile-kinaesthetic learners need to involve themselves physically in their learning activities. Another way of looking at different ways of learning is Harvard professor Howard Gardner’s (1993, 1999) theory of Multiple Intelligences. In his studies on human intelligence he noted that the forms of intelligence that Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests traditionally measure, linguistic and mathematical and some spatial, could not account for the achievements of many highly successful people; and so he has developed an influential theory of intelligence in which there are not just two but several intelligencesʊbodily-kinaesthetic, musical, visual-spatial, linguistic, logical-mathematical, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalist41ʊwhich educators have dealt with in many curricular areas, 39 Kinsella, Kate (1995). “Understanding and Empowering Diverse Learners in the ESL Classroom”. In Learning Styles in the ESL/EFL Classroom. (Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1995), 171. 40 Reid, Joy. “Affect in the Classroom: Problems, Politics, and Pragmatics”. In Affect in Language Learning. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 300. 41 Gardner also includes existential intelligence but this has not been dealt with extensively in education.

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including foreign language teaching (Fonseca 2002; Arnold and Fonseca 2004). Multiple Intelligences Theory (MIT) is, as Richards and Rodgers have stated, “an increasingly popular approach to characterizing the ways in which learners are unique and to developing instruction to respond to this uniqueness.”42 Gardner’s theory provides a much more optimistic view of learning than some previous models. Whereas IQ tests imply that intelligence is something predetermined and measurable by a test, “Gardner’s model of multiple intelligences is a reaction against a conservative and totally biologically driven view which would encourage students to see intelligence as fixed and which could therefore make putting out special effort to achieve academic goals seem not worthwhile.”43 As has been said, in Gardner’s theory the important thing is not how intelligent a learner is, but rather how a learner is intelligent. With MIT and other formulations of learning styles, we accept that learners have areas of greater strength and try to take advantage of these in the classroom. However, at the same time, we can try to help them stretch their preferred ways of learning. In language teaching, varying the ways that language is presented and practiced to include several intelligence frames can give learners more opportunities to work in ways that are comfortable and productive for them and encourage them to develop new ways of learning at the same time: The MIT instructional perspective proposes that language learning, that is to say, developing learners’ verbal linguistic intelligence in a foreign/second language, can be favoured by using a variety of learning tasks which call upon diverse intelligences. The teacher offers a choice of tasks, not to teach to specific intelligences but to give learners the opportunity of apprehending information in their preferred way, as well as to promote the development of their other intelligences44

For learning to be effective it must have personal meaning. In their study of implications from neuroscience for learning, Caine and Caine stress the importance of meaning. They point out how memory research from Craik and his associates indicates that “one of the most important elements in learning is meaning... and that meaning is related to depth of information processing,” and they add that “many problems in education stem from the fact that 42

Richards, Jack and Theodore Rodgers. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 123. 43 Arnold, Jane and Carmen Fonseca. “Multiple Intelligence Theory and Foreign Language Learning: A Brain-Based Perspective.” International Journal of English Studies 4, no. 1 (2004): 122. 44 Ibid., 126.

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meaningfulness is disregarded or misunderstood.”45 They explain meaningfulness as “what we have when we perceive a pattern or make the connections that matter to us. That felt sense is at the heart of genuine expertise in every domain, and it must be incorporated into the teaching of every subject.”46 With a focus on learning styles in the language classroom, “teachers are better able to tap into the areas of personal meaningfulness of their students since they are recognizing the differences inherent in the students and putting individuals with their different ways of learning where they belong, back at the centre of the learning process.”47 Teachers do not need to try to address all learners’ styles all the time, which would be an impossibility in a typical classroom. What is important is that teachers use a wide variety of language presentations and tasks so that at some point all students will have the opportunity to work in the way that is most effective, most successful for them. This has the additional benefit of ensuring that the language class is not monotonous. Language learners in today’s classrooms have little tolerance for boring lectures and non-participatory mechanical exercises. If we want our students to be involved in language learning rather than in wasting their time and causing problems, we would do well to get them involved by teaching in ways that honor the way the brain works best. We need to challenge the brain. If all we do is provide a constant stream of similar one size fits all input, the brain becomes overloaded and uninterested, and it shuts down. Changing the types of language activities to take into account different learner strengths can provide a useful organising principle for lesson planning and more motivating classrooms for students. If, for example, students have read an article on Nelson Mandela, they might then do group projects, each group choosing their own project. Some possibilities they might find are: to present a role-play of Mandela’s life when he was in prison (interpersonal and bodily-kinaesthetic intelligences), to write and perform a song about his life and the importance of freedom (musical intelligence), to create a collage of photos or drawings of important events in his life with captions explaining each (visual-spatial intelligence), present a round table or write a cooperative journal where each student explains what Mandela and his life mean to him/her (interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences). In each case there is development of linguistic intelligence but carried out in different ways according to the students’ multiple inclinations and interests. 45

Caine, Renata. and Geoffrey Caine. Making Connections: Teaching and the Human Brain. (Menlo Park, CA.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994), 99. 46 Ibid., 100. 47 Arnold, Jane and Carmen Fonseca. “Multiple Intelligence Theory and Foreign Language Learning: A Brain-Based Perspective.” International Journal of English Studies 4, no. 1 (2004): 125.

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7. A broader view We have dealt with the pedagogical implications for language teaching of only a few areas of the affective domain; there is a great need for incorporating these and others into the language classroom. Arguably, one of the challenges of education in the present century is to provide more ways to educate all aspects of the student, including greater attention to the affective aspects as well as the cognitive. There is an ever-increasing list of options for enriching educational programs: arts in education, character education, education in values, cooperative learning, emotional intelligence, thinking skills, environmental education, learning styles, multiple intelligence teaching, multicultural education, teaching for understanding, to name only a few. As an example, one proposal which seems particularly interesting in the current world situation is that of Eisner (2000), the partnership model. Based on her multi-disciplinary research on human societies, she has identified two main systems: the domination model with its rigid hierarchical control of all aspects of life (including rule of men over women, exploitation of the environment, etc.), leading to socially accepted violence, and the partnership model, which involves a “democratic and egalitarian social structure, partnership between women and men, and no institutionalisation or idealization of violence. The guiding principle for partnership relations is linking based on mutual respect and caring.”48 Reflecting on this model, Bortoluzzi affirms that “educational settings have the weighty responsibility of establishing patterns of communication and behaviour that will influence people and their relationships with others throughout their life,” and she points out that “Eisner believes in the real possibility of creating a new, more efficient, respectful and creative educational environment for today’s and tomorrow’s children and young people.”49 Bortoluzzi goes on to explain that in language teaching and learning the humanistic approaches and communicative language learning tie in closely with the Eisner’s partnership model. Both of these focus in different ways on affect. Many language professionals are calling for the incorporation of options such as these within language teaching programs, and by doing so, they are proposing a broadening of what we can achieve in the language classroom. It is not unusual to find that academic performance is as good or better in classrooms that also focus on these broader concerns as well as on language learning. In one study (Arnold 2001) gains in language competence were superior for the 48 Eisner, Riane. “Education for a Culture of Peace: Human Possibilities”. In The Art of Partnership. (Undine: Forum Editrice Universitaria, 2002), 28. 49 Bortoluzzi, Maria. “Language Learning Approaches and some Aspects of the Partnership Model.” In The Art of Partnership. (Undine: Forum Editrice Universitaria, 2002), 162.

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experimental group, which had participated during the course in language activities specifically designed to take into account self-esteem, feelings and the body, personal meaning, real communication and the group dynamic. Goleman has affirmed the urgent need to have a more emotionally competent citizenry, given the current “emotional illiteracy” where “the fabric of society seems to unravel at ever-greater speed;” he has stressed the central role of education, proposing “a new vision of what schools can do to educate the whole student, bringing together mind and heart in the classroom.”50 However, just as it is important to educate in affect, so, as we have seen, can affect facilitate education. Chomsky has said, “The truth of the matter is that about 99 percent of teaching is making the students feel interested in the material.”51 If this is true, in a sense, affective issues are what a very significant part of teaching is about.

Acknowledgements The author would like to express her thanks to Dr. Mª Carmen Fonseca Mora for her comments on an early version of this chapter.

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Hymes, Dell. On Communicative Competence. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971. Kagan, Stanley. Cooperative Learning. San Clemente, CA.: Kagan Cooperative Learning, 1994. Kinsella, Kate (1995). “Understanding and Empowering Diverse Learners in the ESL Classroom”. In Learning Styles in the ESL/EFL Classroom, edited by Joy M. Reid, 170-94. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1995. Lorenzo, Francisco. "La Motivación y el Aprendizaje de una L2/LE" In Vademecum para la Formación de Profesores. Enseñar Español como Segunda Lengua /Lengua Extranjera, edited by Jesús Sánchez Lobato and Isabel Santos Gargallo, 305-29. Madrid: SGEL, 2004. Jensen, Eric. Teaching with the Brain in Mind. Alexandria, VA.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998. MacIntyre, Peter D. and Catherine Charos “Personality, Attitudes and Affect as Predictors of Second Language Communication.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 15, no. 1 (1996): 3-26. MacIntyre, Peter D., Susan C. Baker, Richard Clément, and Leslie A. Donovan. “Sex and Age Effects on Willingness to Communicate, Anxiety, Perceived Competence and L2 Motivation among Junior High School French Immersion Students.” Language Learning 52, no. 3 (2002): 537-64. MacIntyre, Peter D., Zoltan Dörnyei, Richard Clément, and Kim Noels. “Conceptualizing Willingness to Communicate in L2: A Situational Model of L2 Confidence and Affiliation.” The Modern Language Journal 82, no. 4 (1998): 545-62. MacIntyre, Peter D. and Robert Gardner. “Investigating Language Class Anxiety Using the Focused Essay Technique.” Modern Language Journal 75, no. 3 (1991): 296-304. McCroskey, James and Virginia P. Richmond. “Willingness to Communicate: A Cognitive View.” Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 5, no. 2 (1990):19-37. Moskowitz, Gertrude. Caring and Sharing in the Foreign Language Classroom. A Sourcebook on Humanistic Techniques. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1978. Murphey, Tim. “Friends and Classroom Identity Formation.” IATEFL Issues 145 (1998): 15-16. Neville, Bernie. Educating Psyche: Emotion, Imagination and the Unconscious in Learning. Victoria: Collins Dove, 1989. Oatley, Keith and Jennifer M. Jenkins. Understanding Emotions. Cambridge, MA.: Blackwell, 1996. Oxford, Rebecca L. “Anxiety and the Language Learner: New Insights.” In Affect in Language Learning, edited by Jane Arnold, 58-67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

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Oxford, Rebecca L. and Madeline Ehrman. “Second Language Research on Individual Differences.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 13 (1993): 188-205. Prodromou, Luke. “How to Be a Boring Teacher.” English Teaching Professional 12 (1999): 16-18. Puchta, Herbert. “Beyond Materials, Techniques and Linguistic Analyses: The Role of Motivation, Beliefs and Identity.” In Proceedings IATEFL Conference, edited by Peter Grundy, 1999. Rapaport, David. Emotions and Memory, 5th edition. New York: International Universities Press, 1971. Reasoner, Robert W. “You can Bring Hope to Failing Students. School Administrator 92 (1992): 22-24. . Building Self-esteem: A Comprehensive Program for Schools. Palo Alto, CA.: Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc, 1982. Revell, Jane and Susan Norman. Handing Over. NLP-based Activities for Language Learning. London: Saffire Press, 1999. Reid, Joy. “Affect in the Classroom: Problems, Politics, and Pragmatics”. In Affect in Language Learning, edited by Jane Arnold, 297-306. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. . Learning Styles in the ESL/EFL Classroom. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1995. . “The Perceptual Learning Style Preferences of ESL Students.” TESOL Quarterly 21, no. 1 (1987): 87-111. Richards, Jack and Theodore Rodgers. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Rinvolucri, Mario. “The Humanistic Exercise.” In Affect in Language Learning, edited by Jane Arnold, 194-210. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Rogers, Carl. Freedom to Learn for the 80s. Columbus, OH.: Charles Merrill. 1983. Rubio, Fernando D. La Ansiedad en el Aprendizaje de Idiomas. Huelva: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Huelva, 2004. . “La Ansiedad en el Aprendizaje del Inglés. Uso de un Enfoque Integral en un Estudio de Casos Particulares.” PhD diss., University of Seville, 2000. Schumann, John H. The Neurobiology of Affect in Language. Boston: Blackwell, 1997. . “Where is Cognition? Emotion and Cognition in Second Language Acquisition.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16, no. 2 (1994): 23142.

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Scovel, Tom. Learning New Languages: A Guide to Second Language Acquisition. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 2000. Stevick, Earl. Working with Teaching Methods. What’s at Stake? Pacific Grove: Heinle & Heinle, 1998 . Memory, Meaning and Method. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1996. . Teaching Languages: A Way and Ways. Rowley, MA.: Newbury House, 1980. Swain, Merrill. “Three Functions of Output in Second Language Learning.” In Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics: Studies in Honour of H.G. Widdowson, edited by Guy Cook and Barbara Seidlhofer, 129-44. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Tomlinson, Brian, ed. Materials Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998a. . “Affect and the Coursebook.” IATEFL Issues 145 (1998b) 20-21. Underhill, Adrian. “Facilitation in Language Teaching”. In Affect in Language Learning, edited by Jane Arnold, 125-41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. . “Process in Humanistic Education.” ELT Journal 43, no. 4 (1989): 25060. Vygotsky, Lev. Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. Wajnryb, Ruth. “Death, Taxes and Jeopardy: Systematic Omissions in EFL Texts, or Life was Never Meant to Be an Adjacency Pair.” paper presented at the 9th ELICOS Conference, Sydney: Australia, 1996. Williams, Marion and Robert Burden. Psychology for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Wolfe, Pat and Ron Brandt. “What do we Know from Brain Research?” Educational Leadership 56, no. 3 (1998): 8-13. Yashima, Tomoko. “Willingness to Communicate in a Second Language: The Japanese EFL Context.” Modern Language Journal 86, no. 1 (2002): 54-66.

CHAPTER EIGHT PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF LEARNING STYLES: THE CASE OF FIELD INDEPENDENCE /DEPENDENCE IN CALL CAROL A. CHAPELLE MÓNICA STELLA CÁRDENAS-CLAROS Iowa State University

1. Introduction Teachers and researchers recognise that learners differ from one another in their learning styles and preferences for language learning. However, in the classroom, a teacher’s ability to accommodate for different styles is limited because typically the teacher works with students as a group. The advice given for accommodating learning styles in the classroom typically ends up being that teachers should vary their activities and modes of presentation to be sensitive to individual differences. The use of technology for language learning, however, presents an opportunity for individualising learning for students with different styles. Although the opportunity in principle exists, it would be difficult to identify specific individualizing practices in place in today’s Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL). One reason for the lack of style-specific instructional strategies in practice is the limited theoretical understanding of how specific styles might best be served by instructional approaches. Such an understanding needs to be developed through research that aims to better understand cognitive style in CALL, and such research necessarily depends on how cognitive style is defined and measured. This paper therefore explores these issues of definition and measurement of one cognitive style as a means of clarifying a research agenda aimed at ultimately defining instructional approaches for learners with different learning styles. In the first part, we describe two studies conducted over 20 years ago that made suggestive findings about CALL and the cognitive style Field Independence (FI)/Dependence (FD). One found that learners with a FI

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cognitive style learned grammar better through a deductive (rule presentation) approach and those with a FD style learned it better through an inductive approach. A second study found that learners with a FI cognitive style tended to have more negative attitudes toward carefully structured CALL materials than did those with a FD style. We summarise the value of these findings for the study of learning style and critique the problems they raised about the measurement of cognitive style. We then explain how current conceptions of cognitive style suggest new forms of measurement, and provide examples of such measures.

2. Cognitive style and CALL Following research in the 1970s attempting to identify characteristics of the good language learner, a number of studies sought evidence for correlations between certain learner characteristics and success in Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Although some researchers’ sights were set on theoreticallyinteresting results of relevance to Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory, others hoped to begin to explain why some learners were better than others in order to help the many learners who simply seemed to be unsuccessful language learners. One of the learner variables found to correlate with success in an early study was the cognitive style FI/FD. The FI learner has been defined cognitively as having an analytic style which tends to create structure relying on his or her own frame of reference, and socially as individualistic rather than engaging in interpersonal deliberations. The FD learner is the opposite, cognitively with a holistic style that tends to accept the structure provided by others and socially collaborative (e.g., Jonassen and Grabowski 1993). This variable has been included in many subsequent studies looking at individual differences in SLA. Two such studies examined how learners’ FI/FD was related to success and satisfaction with learning through CALL.

2.1 Success in grammar learning One study investigated whether or not any interaction could be demonstrated empirically for the hypothesis that FI learners would do better at learning grammar through examples whereas FD learners would perform better if they were provided rule-based instruction. Abraham (1985) designed two sets of CALL lessons intending to teach ESL (English as a Second language) learners the use of participle phrases. Examples of sentences containing such participle phrases are the following: “Sitting behind a woman with a big hat, Mary could not see the speaker,” and “Although finished yesterday, the report will not be

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mailed until next Monday.”1 One set of lessons introduced the rules for forming and using participle phrases, and the other set covered the same grammatical structure through the presentation of examples. Sixty-one high-intermediate learners of English attending an intensive English program at Iowa State University participated in this study. The students were exposed to two weeks and a half of instruction in which they practiced grammar-based exercises through CALL and were then tested on their ability to form sentences using this form. The Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) was used to classify students as FI or FD. Findings showed a significant interaction between FI/FD and lesson type. FI learners performed better with the deductive lessons, and D students with the example lessons. Abraham noted that the findings that FD students perform better with example-oriented lessons suggest a useful alternative different from the deductive approach to teaching grammar that was used at the time of the research. The study provided “insights into how students along one continuum of individual differences internalize knowledge about one grammatical item in the second language.”2 The findings in this study have been used by scholars researching the cognitive style-CALL relationship and it offers a starting point for CALL designers interested in accommodating a wider variety of cognitive styles through lessons and activities.

2.2 Attitudes toward CALL A second study at about the same time included FI/FD in research looking at a number of individual factors and CALL use in predicting improvement over the course of a semester of language learning. Chapelle and Jamieson (1986) investigated the progress of 48 Japanese, Arabic and Spanish speaking students enrolled in an English intensive program at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Among the findings was the result that FI/FD and motivational intensity were significantly related to the time spent by students using CALL and their attitude towards this vehicle of instruction. The fact that motivation would be related to time and attitude was expected, but the relatively strong negative correlation of the FI style with attitude toward and time spent on CALL was cause for some reflection. Could the way in which the CALL materials were designed be good for some learners but not for others depending on their cognitive style? In this study, PLATO courseware, “primarily a drill and practice curriculum of lessons in three skills areas: grammar, reading, and 1

Abraham, Roberta. “Field independence-dependence and the teaching of grammar.” TESOL Quarterly 19, no. 4 (1985): 693. 2 Ibid., 700.

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listening”3 was used. It was the relatively FD learners who spent significantly more time working with the courseware and showed significant preference for using it. These findings can be interpreted in view of the definition of the FI/D traits, which portrays FI learners as analytic, capable of organizing information and deciding their own path of learning. Did the CALL materials offer too much structure to these learners? The findings of these two studies together suggest the value of continuing to examine the connection between FI/FD and CALL materials. Whereas teachers are limited in their ability to offer individualised attention to learners, CALL provides a mechanism for doing just that. The rules vs. examples format for teaching grammar used in Abraham’s (1985) study, for example, might realistically be offered to learners studying grammar online. The CALL materials used in Chapelle and Jamieson’s (1986) study might be made available to the FD learners, and a parallel set might be developed for the FI learners who were less fond of the instructional design. But what would a good instructional design look like for the FI learners? They performed well with the deductive (rule presentation) design, but the CALL materials in the second study contained many lessons with such rule presentation. Perhaps the instructional design that the students like is not the same one as what is good for their learning. Perhaps there were other features of the CALL materials that the learners were responding to. If we attempt to extend beyond these studies to make recommendations for practice, it is immediately apparent that much more research in needed if conclusions are to be drawn. In the interest of moving forward with such research, methodological issues in the study of FI/FD need to be clarified.

3. Defining the FI/FD construct Methodological concerns about research on FI/FD have to begin with precisely how the construct is defined from a theoretical perspective, which in turn provides a means of defining how it can be measured in both a research and instructional setting.

3

Chapelle, Carol and Joan Jamieson. “Computer-Assisted Language Learning as a Predictor of Success in Acquiring English as a Second Language” TESOL Quarterly 20, no. 1 (1986): 30.

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3.1 Theoretical definition The FI/FD cognitive style has been defined as a trait of an individual characterised by a particular way of thinking, solving problems and relating to others (Witkin and Goodenough 1977). The FI person is defined as a conceptually oriented, analytic problem solver who relies on his or her own hypotheses and structure rather than relying on others. Terms used to describe the FI person are individualistic, philosophical, impersonal and insensitive to social undercurrents (Jonassen and Grabowski 1993). The FD person, in contrast is more factually or concretely oriented, a holistic problem solver, who is influenced by external cues and structure rather than building his or her own frames of reference. Terms used to describe the FD person are social, fact oriented, affiliation oriented, and sensitive to others. As one can see from the way this construct is defined, cognitive styles have been portrayed as pervasive dimensions of individual functioning (Witkin et al. 1971) that can be defined and measured without reference to specific situations. What about the person who is very individualistic while studying for a math test in the library, but transforms into a social butterfly when meeting his or her friends at the French club dinner that same evening? The idea of a stable, pervasive cognitive style does not take into account these situation-specific shifts in style.

3.2 Measurement of FI/FD The measurement of FI/FD reflects the context-independent construct definition because the measures that have been used in the laboratory and in classrooms are intended to be relevant across situations. In other words, researchers have not developed different measures for FI/FD while studying vs. FI/FD at dinner parties. Instead, the interpretations about a person’s FI/FD from a single measure have been thought to be relevant across different situations. Although not the only method for assessing FI/FD, the test most frequently used in second language studies is the Group Embedded Figures Test (Witkin et al. 1971). The test requires students to find and trace a simple figure that is embedded into a more complex figure. There are 18 items in total and students are given 20 minutes to complete the test. Although many researchers have used the GEFT in both in SLA (Chapelle and Jamieson 1986; Jamieson and Chapelle 1987; Chapelle 1988; Jamieson 1992; Chapelle and Green 1992, ViolandSanchez 1995; Skehan 1998) and in CALL (Liu and Reed 1994; Liu and Reed 1995; Meng and Patty 1991; Lin and Davidson-Shivers 1996), concerns are regularly expressed about the validity of the use of the GEFT in second language studies and in other areas as well (Brown 1987; Chapelle 1995).

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Concerns about the validity of interpretations and uses of the GEFT stem from two sources. One is to do with the nature of the test tasks that the test takers are asked to complete on the GEFT. Given the complexity of the theoretical FI/FD definition one can question the extent to which the GEFT tasks fully sample from all aspects of the construct with only one type of task. Chapelle and Green (1992) noted that the GEFT only measures one of the components of the cognitive styles definition proposed by Witkin (1981): “It is apparent that the GEFT measures only the restructuring ability component.”4 Moreover, the aspect of the construct assessed resembles an ability more than a style. Brown (1987) also points to this issue and suggests that the GEFT fails in assessing how individuals work, because people are scored on the number of correct responses they get. As a result, the higher learners score in the GEFT, the higher the degree of FI the learner is interpreted to have, but “a low score does not necessarily imply relatively high dependence.”5 Much discussion has arisen around this topic and research findings regarding the characteristics of FD people have not been completely accepted, “the principal reason for the dearth of evidence about the success of [field dependent persons in learning the communicative aspects of L2] is the absence of a true test of field dependence.”6 Chapelle (1995) emphasises that an instrument that measures learning styles should consist of items or tasks that assesses “how individuals work, not how well they work.”7 The second concern arises in part from the recent perspectives in measurement that question the utility of a context-independent construct definition. Today researchers want constructs that make sense in the specific contexts of interest, and therefore if FI/FD is to continue to be studied, such research needs to be reconceptualised in a way that is directly relevant to CALL.

4. Defining FI/FD in CALL To define FI/FD in a manner that is relevant to CALL, we framed the construct according to Witkin and Goodenough’s (1981) perspective that identifies three interrelated parts of the construct: i) reliance on internal vs. 4

Witkin, Henry and Donald Goodenough. “Cognitive Styles: Essence and Origins-Field Dependence and Field Independence.” Psychological Issues Monograph: Pedagogical Implications of Learning Styles 51 (1981): 51. 5 Ibid., 81. 6 Ibid., 86. 7 Chapelle, Carol. “Field Independence/Dependence in the L2 Classroom.” In Learning Styles in the ESL/EFL Classroom, edited by Joy Reid. (Boston: Heinle and Heinle, 1995), 167.

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external referents, ii) cognitive restructuring skills, and iii) interpersonal competencies. We developed each of these areas by hypothesising specific strategies within the CALL environment that would be relevant. In CALL, the external referents on which learners can base their decisions may be seen if students make use of help aids. The variety of help aids in today’s CALL-based activities may range from commonly found features such as transcripts, grammar explanations, and sample sentences to more technologically demanding features such as subtitles, captions, dictionaries etc. Including these help aids depends on the level of expertise of the materials designer, the task to be developed, the pedagogical rational behind the design, and the expected user. Although research findings reporting the use of help functions is available (Liou 1997; Sussex 1992; Pujola 2002) and current research is exploring their use (Cárdenas-Claros 2005; Grgurovic 2005) much research that provides evidence on the type of learners that make use of the help functions is needed. It may be hypothesised that FD learners would be more likely to use the help aids given the tendency these learners rely on external clues. In contrast, FI learners in virtue of their risk-taking nature, may trust their own knowledge and not use help aids. Second language proficiency and/or the type of task may be also factors to be considered before any conclusions can be drawn about the use of help. The cognitive restructuring skills in CALL may be assessed by the preference students show to work in particular types of CALL-based tasks over others and by the sequence students follow when working in CALL-based activities. Higher involvement may be expected from FI learners in tasks such as simulations, problem-solving type exercises, and web search projects. Students’ preference for guided exercises and materials, such as the one on PLATO (Chapelle and Jamieson 1986) may be more preferred by FD learners. As for the assessment of the restructuring skills through the analysis of the sequences students follow, it may be expected that FD learners work on a task following the sequence that has been previously determined by the materials designer, while FI learners may choose what they consider they need to complete the task. That FD students enjoy working with more structured CALL-based activities may be explained by the difficulty this type of learners experience to impose structure (Ford 2000). The interpersonal competencies of the FD learners may be exhibited by the students’ tendency to work in CALL-based tasks in which information exchange among peers is required. The interaction with the tools provided by the computer and by the task might be seen as an indication of the consistent trait displayed by FD learners. Requiring constant guidance from the instructor, interacting frequently with classmates, and making regular use of the help aids may be considered as trait displayed by FD learners. In contrast, the tendency

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displayed by FI learners to work on their own making little or no use of the help aids is consistent with their self reliance. Obviously use of the help options included in a CALL-based tasks and the sequence followed by learners may provide evidence of the students’ patterns of behavior from the perspective of more that one of the parts of the FD/FI definition.

4.1 Two new measures of FI/FD in CALL The definition of FI/FD in CALL provides a starting point for attempting to assess learners FI/FD in a way that is directly relevant to their use of CALL. In our current research, FI/FD in CALL is assessed in two complementary ways: through the use of self-report questionnaires and through tracking of learners’ actual behavior during CALL use.

4.2 FI/FD in CALL questionnaire Although researchers working with individual differences in SLA tend to agree that a new instrument is needed for assessing FI/FD in SLA (Brown 1987; Chapelle 1995) and new instruments have been proposed (Riding 1991), a measure for FI/FD in CALL has not been developed. Such a questionnaire might be developed based on the three-part construct definition of FI/FD as it connects with particular types of CALL environments. The design of the questions in the questionnaire we developed was guided by three suggestions about the design of such a questionnaire from Chapelle (1995). The first characteristic of this questionnaire is that there are no right or wrong responses, just different responses. This design choice was made in response to the primary problem with the GEFT: the respondent’s answers are marked as right or wrong, so the total score reflects ability to do the test tasks rather than style. In contrast, the questions on the new questionnaire (CárdenasClaros 2004), ask the respondent to make a choice reflecting how they do something rather than indicating how well they do something, as illustrated in Question 1 in Example 8-1: Example 8-1: Question 1 1. Using computers to learn a language seems more attractive if a. You decide on the type of exercises you want to work on. b. The computer guides you and suggests what exercises to do.

This item assesses the degree to which learners rely on their own internal referents by inquiring about the student’s preference for learner control while

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working on CALL. If a student chooses option “a”, the choice favors the FI end of the FI/FD continuum, but if a student chooses “b” the choice is inclined towards the FD end. Having items that are not labeled as correct or incorrect help make learners aware that there are not good or bad styles, just different ways to approach and interact with a task or with the tools provided by the computer. The second characteristic of the FI/FD in CALL questionnaire is that it contains items or tasks that are interpretable with reference to CALL. This addresses the problem of the GEFT that its scores are intended to be interpretable with respect to any situation. The FI/FD in CALL questionnaire, in contrast contains items that specifically refer to the learners preferences in CALL tasks, as illustrated in Example 8-2. Example 8-2: Question 2 2. If the computer shows that a sentence you wrote is grammatically incorrect, it is most likely that you would a. Use the grammar check tool. b. Not use the grammar check tool.

In this question, a common situation that second language learners experience when working with computers is described. This situation is provided so that questionnaire takers have an immediate referent they can base their answers on. Providing context-based items may eliminate the confusion some students may experience when asked to complete a test that requires them to do certain tasks that they cannot relate to tasks they normally do in the language classroom. The third characteristic of the questionnaire is that it is intended to be used as a positive, consciousness raising-tool that learners can easily take and interpret. This addresses the concern that assessments should also have positive impact on the learners who take them. As the tasks are interpretable with reference to the tasks developed in the classroom, teachers can use the results to make students reflect on the way they learn and the strategies that may work better for them as seen in Example 8-3. Example 8-3: Question 3 3. When reading an on-line text, if you encounter a word that you are not familiar with, you most likely would a. Stop reading and look it up in the dictionary or in any other help provided by the computer. b. Keep on reading and get the meaning from the context.

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When students use this questionnaire, it is apparent that they do indeed reflect on the processes they normally use when working with computers. This questionnaire was piloted with a group of international students at Iowa State University. The general perception is that when taking the questionnaire students have a hard time trying to remember what they would normally do when learning English through computers. Some of them argue, that they “have never been asked to think about that”, or they just provide a general or a vague idea. “(…) it is difficult to remember what I do (...) umm, what I did with the computer, I guess (…) it has to do with the exercise (…) or the activity you have to do (…)” Answers such as, “it depends”, “I am not sure” “I don’t know” and “I guess” are commonly heard among students while taking the questionnaire (Cárdenas-Claros 2005). However, the results remain to be seen. A number of people may benefit from the results obtained after the questionnaire is administered to CALL users. Students for instance may become aware of their learning style; it may lead them towards the basic steps that need to be taken to reach autonomy. Teachers may understand better how students learn. Kinsella (1995) noted that instructors should spend sufficient time explaining the guidelines of the assessment instrument, and in doing so they will learn about learning styles. Students should be familiar with the topic of cognitive styles, before any attempt to administer questionnaires is made. Teacher should find different ways to approach this topic and make sure the students really understand what the benefits of language learning awareness are.

4.3 On-line assessment of behavior Researchers would agree that the validity of interpretations can be strengthened through the use of more than one measure of any construct. Online assessment of behavior should ideally provide a second approach to assessment of FI/FD through the collection and interpretation of working style data, consistent behavior displayed by learners as they work with L2 tasks when using computers (Jamieson and Chapelle 1987). Working style data can be obtained through direct observation, screen capturing in which mouse movements and events are recorded and saved, and modern tracking systems in which a number of events can be tracked. Such process-oriented research analyses how learners acquire knowledge while they “react to learning conditions.”8 For cognitive styles assessment, a process-oriented approach offers an alternative that ins appropriate for the 8

Collentine, Josephine. “Insights into the Construction of Grammatical Knowledge provided by User-Behavior Tracking Technologies.” Language Learning and Technology 3, no. 2 (2000): 47.

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cognitive styles definition specifying that what matters is how students learn, no how well or what they learn (Witkin and Goodenough 1981; Brown 1987; Chapelle 1995). For example, Hegelheimer and Chapelle (2000) suggest that the use of learners’ data recorded on mouse clicks can provide insightful evidence from which the strategies used by the learners to accomplish a vocabulary lesson can be identified. The logs obtained after tracking can be quantified and patterns can emerge from this analysis. To determine the patterns of behavior, it is necessary to identify the activities and the steps relevant and inherent to the specific learning tasks assessed. These interpretations in turn can be used as the basis to the design of instructional materials that can be used to assess different cognitive styles. The new problem posed for CALL researchers is the need to interpret the data accurately as noted by Chapelle: when inferences are being attempted in research on learners’ use of CALL and to theorize such extensions beyond description of the data in such a way they can be understood and justified 9

In order to make such inferences about FI/FD in CALL-based listening activities (Cárdenas-Claros 2005), some behavior patterns assumed for FI/FD students have been hypothesised as illustrated in Table 8-1. Based on the definition of FD learners in CALL it may be expected that they follow patterns 5, 6, 7, and 8. In these patterns emphasis is put on the use of help aids, hence the use of transcripts, dictionary, audio and/or video files have been combined. This in our view provides the additional context and the interactional component required by FD to get a task done. In contrast, FI learners are more likely to follow patterns 1, 2, 3, and 4. In these patterns, learners are expected to rely on internal referents and the use of help aids would not be expected. We are aware that other variables such as language proficiency, background knowledge and level of comfort when working with computers may influence the students´ decision to follow certain patterns and not others; more research is needed to provide evidence about this question.

9 Chapelle, Carol. English Language Learning and Technology. (John Benjamins B.V., 2003), 112.

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Table 8-1: Suggested patterns of behavior in CALL-based listening exercise. Field Independent Learners Pattern 1 1. 2.

Pattern 5 Play the complete video Answer the questions

Pattern 2 1. 2.

Play the complete audio file Answer the questions

Play the complete audio file View and read the transcripts Click on words glossed Answer the questions

1. 2. 3. 4.

Play the complete video View and read transcripts Click on words glossed Answer the questions

Pattern 7 Answer the questions while playing the video

Pattern 4 1.

1. 2. 3. 4. Pattern 6

Pattern 3 1.

Field Dependent Learners

1. 2.

Read the transcripts Answer the questions

Pattern 8 Answer the questions while playing the audio file

1. 2. 3.

Read the transcripts Gloss the words Answer the questions

The use of tracking systems as a data collection tool in process-oriented research provides researchers with detailed accounts of the steps learners follow when accomplishing a learning task. One of the perceived disadvantages is that the data collected by the computer does not “include any students explanations of their processes.”10 (Jamieson and Chapelle 1987). As part of the validation of these interpretations, then, we also gather data from think alouds and face-toface interviews in which the learners are queried about the processes they follow to complete a task. 10 Jamieson, Joan and Carol Chapelle. “Working Styles on Computers as Evidence of Second Language Learning Strategies.” Language Learning 37, no. 4 (1987): 529.

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5. Conclusion In this chapter we have illustrated current issues in the study of learning styles by explaining a new perspective from which FI/D can be defined in and assessed in a manner intended to be relevant for CALL. The assumption is that each individual’s cognitive style has an impact on how the individual internally represents and processes information (Webster 2002). This could be an important factor to take into account when designing courseware intended for language learning. The new measures of cognitive styles proposed here may offer data that if appropriately interpreted, will result in a better understanding of how students learn languages when computers are integrated as a learning tool. However, not all the responsibility should be placed to courseware designers. The limitation of design may be overcome by appropriate and efficient classroom activities that compensate the lack of flexibility of some available courseware. Keefe suggests that “an understanding of the way students learn is the door to educational improvement. And learning styles diagnosis is the key to understanding of student learning.”11 Future teachers have the responsibility of helping students become capable of deciding what the best path for learning is. They should be ready to assist and guide students through the process of reflecting on how they learn best and cognitive style diagnosis is the first step to achieve this. “Teachers should make learners aware of the need for strategic, autonomous learning and should train them in the effective use of those strategies.”12 Students in turn should be able to identify the strategies they draw on when learning; they should be aware of how they learn best and the type of materials and activities that best fit their learning style. The idea is that students do not have wrong or right styles. The teacher must “stress that no style is better than another”13 and with appropriate research, perhaps this will be true if CALL materials are designed for learners with a variety of different styles.

Works Cited Abraham, Roberta. “Field Independence-Dependence and the Teaching of Grammar.” TESOL Quarterly 19, no. 4 (1985): 689-702.

11

Keefe, James. Learning Style: Theory and Practice. (National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1987), 32. 12 Chapelle, Carol. “Field Independence/Dependence in the L2 Classroom.” In Learning Styles in the ESL/EFL Classroom.(Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1995), 161. 13 Kinsella, Kate. “Understanding and empowering diverse learners in ESL classroom.” In Learning styles in the ESL/EFL classroom. (Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1995), 188.

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Brown, H. Douglas. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall (2nd ed.), 1987. Cárdenas-Claros, Monica Stella. “CALL-Based Learning Styles Questionnaires: A First Step to Enhance and Enrich Learning Styles in Language Settings.” Melanges Pedagogiques 28 (2005): 135-48. ——. How does FD/FI Relate to Performance in CALL-based Listening Activities, Unpublished M.A TESL thesis at Iowa State University, 2005. Chapelle, Carol. English Language Learning and Technology. John Benjamins B.V., 2003. ——. “Field Independence/Dependence in the L2 Classroom.” In Learning Styles in the ESL/EFL Classroom, edited by Joy Reid, 158-68. Boston: Heinle and Heinle, 1995. Chapelle, Carol and Pat Green. “Field Independence/Dependence in Second Language Acquisition Research.” Language Learning 42, no 1, (1992): 4783. Chapelle, Carol and Joan Jamieson. “Computer-Assisted Language Learning as a Predictor of Success in Acquiring English as A Second Language.” TESOL Quarterly 20, no. 1 (1986): 27-46. Collentine, Josephine. “Insights into the Construction of Grammatical Knowledge Provided by User-Behavior Tracking Technologies.” Language Learning and Technology 3, no. 2 (2000): 44-57. Ford, Nigel. “Cognitive Styles and Virtual Environments.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science 51, no. 16 (2000): 543-57. Grgurovic, Maja. Listening Comprehension Activity- a Multimedia Unit on Astronomy. Unpublished M.A TESL program at Iowa State University, 2005. Hegelheimer, Volker and Carol Chapelle. “Methodological Issues in Research on Learner-Computer Interactions in CALL.” Language Learning Technology 4, no. 1 (2000): 41-59. Jamieson, Joan. “The Cognitive Styles of Reflection/Impulsivity and Field Dependence/Independence and ESL Success” The Modern Language Journal 76, no. 3 (1992): 491-501. Jamieson, Joan and Carol Chapelle. “Working Styles on Computers as Evidence of Second Language Learning Strategies.” Language Learning 37, no. 4 (1987): 523-44. Jonassen, Donald. H. and Barbara. L. Grabowski. Handbook of Individual Differences, Learning, and Instruction. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993. Keefe, James. Learning Style: Theory and Practice. National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1987.

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Kinsella, Kate. Understanding and Empowering Diverse Learners in ESL Classroom. In Learning Styles in the ESL/EFL Classroom, edited by Joy Reid, 170-94. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1995. Lin, Chi-Hui and Gayle V Davidson-Shivers. “Effects of Linking Structure and Cognitive Style on Student’s Performance and Attitude in a Computer-based Hypertext Environment.” Journal of Educational Computing Research. 15, no. 4 (1996): 317-29. Liou, Hsien-Chin. “Research on On-Line Help as Learner Strategies for Multimedia CALL Evaluation”. CALICO Journal 14, no. 2-4 (1997): 81-96. Liu, Ming W and Michael Reed. “The Effect of Hypermedia Assisted Instruction on Second Language Learning.” Journal of Educational Computing Research 12, no. 2 (1995): 159-75. Liu, Ming W and Michael Reed. “The Relationship between the Learning Strategies and Learning Styles in a Hypermedia Environment.” Computers in Human Behavior 10, no. 4 (1994): 419-34. Meng, Karen and Patty Del. “Field Dependence and Contextual Organizers.” Journal of Educational Research 84, no. 3 (1991):183-89. Pujola, Joan Tomas. “CALLing for help: Researching Language Learning Strategies Using Help Facilities in a Web-Based Multimedia Program.” ReCALL 14, no. 2 (2002): 253-62. Riding, Richard J. “Cognitive Style Analysis.” International Journal of Training and Development 1, no. 3 (1997): 199-208. Skehan, Peter. A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Violand-Sanchez, Emma. “Cognitive and Learning Styles of High School Students: Implications for ESL Curriculum Development.” In Learning Styles in the ESL/EFL Classroom, edited by Joy Reid, 48-62. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1995. Witkin, Henry and Donald Goodenough. “Cognitive styles: Essence and Origins: Field Dependence and Field Independence.” Psychological Issues Monograph 51 (1981): 1-141. Witkin, Henry, C. Moore , Donald Goodenough and Patricia Cox. “FieldDependent and Field-Independent Cognitive Styles and their Educational Implications.” Review of Educational Research 47, no. 1 (1977): 1-64. Witkin, Henry; Philip Oltman; Evelin Raskin and Stephen Karp. A Manual for the Embedded Figures Test. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1971.

CHAPTER NINE LANGUAGE LEARNING AND LANGUAGE USE STRATEGIES. THE RESEARCH AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR INSTRUCTED LANGUAGE LEARNING ROSA M. MANCHÓN Universidad de Murcia

1. Introduction Language learning and language use strategies have featured prominently in the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research agenda since the 1980s. This scholarly work has paid attention to issues integral to theory, research and pedagogy. From the point of view of theory, many pages have been devoted to questions of definition and classification (O´Malley and Chamot 1990; Oxford 1990; Oxford and Cohen 1992; Chamot and O´Malley 1994a; McDonough 1995; Manchón 1997, 2001; Cohen and Dörnyei 2002; Hsiao and Oxford 2002; Dörnyei and Skehan 2003; Dörnyei 2005). Another issue of theoretical interest, and one which has prompted heated debates, concerns the framework(s) which could or should inform research in the field. As an illustration, just in the field of oral communication strategies these theoretical perspectives range from psycholinguistic frameworksʊsuch as models of speech production (Faerch and Kasper 1983, 1984; Poulisse 1990, 1993) or theories of cognitive processing (Bialystok 1990; Kellerman and Bialystok 1997)ʊto language-as-interaction (Tarone 1981; Yule and Tarone, 1991; Wagner and Firth 1997; Wilkes-Gibbs 1997; Williams et al. 1997); sociolinguistics (e.g., Rampton 1997); or pragmatics (e.g., Kasper 1997). Similarly, in the strategy research at large, claims have been made regarding the potential benefits derived from complementing the psycholinguistic paradigm informing research in the field with the insights and principles of more sociocognitive and sociocultural theories (see Donato and McCormick 1994; Parks and Raymond 2004).

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From the perspective of research, featuring prominently in the research agenda are descriptive investigations of second and foreign language (L2) learners’ strategy use which report the strategies deployed by different groups of learners (as reviewed in McDonough 1999) and/or the variables influencing strategy use, be it gender (see review in Jiménez Catalán 2003); proficiency (Wharton 2000; Goh 2002; Vandergrift 2003; Gan et al. 2004); beliefs and attitudes (Yang 1999; Gan 2004); or cognitive style (Littlemore 2001, 2003). Another important strand of research corresponds to interventionist studies set out to investigate the purported beneficial effects of strategy training (see Chamot 2001 for a recent account). Finally, some works have been published on research methodology issues, including general overviews of the research methods used in the field (Cohen 1998), as well as analyses of the psychometric qualities of research instruments (for an illustration, see Oxford and Burry-Stock 1995; Petric and Czárl 2003). Regarding pedagogy, apart from the implications for teaching presented in most empirical studies, a number of proposals have been advanced regarding both why strategy instruction should be part of language teaching programs, and how it should be implemented (see Wenden 1991; Chamot and O´Malley 1994b; Cohen 1998 for comprehensive accounts). The publication of a wealth of strategy training teaching materials for both students and teachers (Ellis and Sinclair 1989; Willing 1989; Wenden 1991; Mendelsohn 1994; Rubin and Thompson 1994; Weaver and Cohen 1997) should also be mentioned within this pedagogically-oriented research trend. As stated in the title of this chapter, my aim is not to offer a comprehensive review of this abundant research, but rather to ascertain some of the instructional implications that derive from it, a formidable endeavour given the amount of data to be accounted for. To make this task manageable, I will approach the analysis from two different perspectives. For ease and convenience these will be called epistemological and applied, respectively. From the first angle, I will synthesise the rationale behind the inclusion of strategy instruction in L2 language pedagogy, as well as elaborating on issues related to the empirical evidence supporting the purported benefits of strategy instruction for the L2 learner’s development. From the applied perspective, I will account for some research findings that shed light on the nature and implementation of strategy instruction programmes. This applied perspective is perhaps more strongly linked to how strategy research can actually help classroom practitioners.

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2. An epistemological perspective: the rationale behind the inclusion of strategy instruction in L2 pedagogy As recently suggested by Tudor “methodological choices are never neutral, and they all rest upon a certain set of assumptions.”1 I feel it would safe to assume that the inclusion of strategy training in instructed L2 learning is based on two main assumptions, one related to general educational matters, and the other one pertaining to L2 learning and use.

2.1 Learning to learn as an educational aim The first assumption on which the strategy instruction movement rests is the belief that language teaching, as any other type of teaching, should include what we may call an educational dimension, by which it is implied that schools must empower people with the tools and means to become independent and successful life-long learners (Kitajima 1997; Benson and Lor 1999; Bolhuis and Voeten 2001; Bolhuis 2003; Dreyer and Nel 2003). This dimension of teaching is usually referred to as learning-to-learn, a construct that in its application to instructed language learning would be equated with learning to become a successful language learner/user who can work independently of the teacher. In the words of Cohen: The strategy training movement is predicated on the assumption that if learners are conscious about and become responsible for the selection, use, and evaluation of their learning strategies, they will become more successful language learners by [...] taking more responsibility for their own language learning, and enhancing their use of the target language out of class. In other words, the ultimate goal of strategy training is to empower students by allowing them to take control of the language learning process.2

Quoting other sources, Waeytens et al. (2002) distinguish three different functions of learning-to-learn, a classification that can be useful in the field of language pedagogy: learning-to-learn can have a supportive, remedial, and/or developmental function. Learning-to-learn has a supportive function when its ultimate goal is to help students improve their results on exams and texts. In its 1

Tudor, Ian. “Exploring Context: Localness and the Role of Ethnography.” Humanising Language Teaching 4, no. 2 (2002): 6 [Electronic journal available at http://www.hltmag.co.uk/mar02/mart1.htm.] [Cited 20 May 2006]. 2 Cohen, Andrew D. Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language. (Harlow, UK.: Longman, 1998), 70.

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application to language teaching, L2 teachers may, for instance, decide to train their students in certain reading strategies in an attempt to help them with the foreign language part of the Spanish university entrance examination (Selectividad), an important component of which is a reading comprehension task. The remedial function of learning to learn, as its name implies, aims at helping students remedy their learning problems. For instance, students may be trained in the use of certain communication strategies in order to overcome lexical problems in face-to-face communication (see Manchón 2000 for a review). Finally, the developmental function is more encompassing in nature. In this case “teachers try to make their students familiar with informationprocessing or problem-solving strategies, so that they can solve new problems or process new information.”3 This developmental function is usually made synonymous with learning-to-learn in the SLA field, as expressed in Cohen’s quotation above. Strategy instruction is thus part of an approach in the field of education known as process teaching, which stands in contrast to the more traditional approach of “teaching as transmission of knowledge from an external source”. The latter rests on the assumption that learning is basically a “passive, knowledge-consuming and externally directed process,”4 whereas process teaching is based on a set of totally different premises on what learning and teaching mean. In this approach, learning is conceived of as an active, constructive, self-directed and self-regulated (although socially-mediated) process of knowledge construction. Accordingly, teaching is viewed as support and guide of the student’s active and self-regulated learning process (Vermunt and Verloop 1999; Bolhuis and Voeter 2001; Bolhuis 2003) by “facilitating independent learning, supporting students to become proficient learners in the field concerned and preparing them for lifelong learning.”5 In this context, fostering learning-to-learn becomes crucial in the process of empowering students with the ownership of their own learning. It follows that, using the words of Graham (1997), L2 teachers become teachers of learning in addition to being language teachers. A clear instructional implication of the educational dimension of L2 teaching just summarized is that it would be unrealistic (and perhaps also unethical) to expect the average language teacher to be able to do the following without guidance, professional training, and support: 3

Waeytens, Kim,Willy Lens and Roland Vandenberghe. “Learning to Learn: Teachers’ Conceptions of their Supporting Role.” Learning and Instruction 12, no. 3 (2002): 308-9. 4 Vermunt, Jan and Nico Verloop. “Congruence and Friction between Learning and Teaching.” Learning and Instruction 9, no. 3 (1999): 258. 5 Bolhuis, Sanneke and Marious Voeten. “Toward Self-Directed Learning in Secondary Schools: What Do Teachers Do? Teaching and Teacher Education 17, no. 7 (2001): 838.

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a) Adapt the principles of process-teaching to their own learning-teaching context (this obviously being the case only when the application of process teaching principles is either mandatory or the teacher’s own choice).6 b) Engage in principled pedagogical decision making regarding which function(s) of learning-to-learn is/are going to be the focus of instruction, this given the practical impossibility of implementing all of the functions of learning to learn at once (although a statement of the obvious, it should be remembered that learning-to-learn is just one dimension of the language learning-teaching process). c) Once decisions regarding (a) and (b) have been taken, come up with a complete, sound and well-founded training programme to be implemented in the classroom, as well as be able to evaluate both the programme and its actual implementation.7 The implication would be that if L2 teachers are expected to make strategy instruction part of their pedagogical practice, they need to be strategy-trained themselves in the first place, a commonsensical position for which there is now ample empirical evidence. For instance, Chamot and O’Malley, commenting on the research being carried out at Georgetown University on strategy instruction in different educational and geographical contexts (see also summary in Chamot 2001), conclude that “the amount and type of teacher staff development has emerged as a critical component for successful strategies instruction”8 (Emphasis mine).9 Given the crucial role played by the teacher’s own training in the implementation of strategy instruction programmes, Chamot aptly contends that the research agenda for the future must pursue “an understanding of the professional support teachers need for developing effective learning strategy instruction.”10 I would add that this search must be contextually oriented, i.e.,

6

The ecological perspective of language teaching proposed by Tudor (2001, 2003) offers a sound rationale behind the “adapting” (rather than “adopting”) principle in language teaching. 7 See Chamot and O’Malley’s strategies instruction framework (1994b) for an account of the formidable list of responsibilities assigned to teachers. 8 Chamot, Anna and J. Michael O´Malley. “Language Learner and Learning Strategies.” In Implicit and Explicit Learning of Languages. (London: Academic Press, 1994a), 385. 9 For suggestions as how to train teachers, see Chamot (2001) and Cohen (1998). 10 Chamot, Anna. “The Role of Strategies in Second Language Acquisition.” In Learner Contributions to Language Learning. (Harlow, England: Longman, 2001), 40.

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the research agenda must acknowledge and pay attention to the situated nature of learning and teaching processes (Tudor 2001, 2003; Atkinson 2002).

2.2 Strategy training and L2 development Closely related to the educational arguments just presented, the second assumption on which the strategy instruction movement rests is the belief that there is a close connection (and, for some, a cause-effect relationship) between strategy instruction and L2 development. As examples, Chamot and O’Malley conclude that “instruction in learning strategies is effective in […] enhancing learning,”11 and MacIntyre and Noels state that “there appears to be little doubt that the use of learning strategies tends to facilitate language learning.”12 In fact, the myriad benefits that supposedly stem from strategy instruction are so much taken for granted by proponents of the strategy movement, that these benefits are considered criterial to the actual definition of strategies. Thus, in their recent summary review of conceptualizations of strategies, Hsiao and Oxford conclude that “strategies are the L2 learner’s tool kit for active, conscious, purposeful, and attentive learning and they pave the way toward greater proficiency, learner autonomy and self-regulation”13 (Emphasis mine). For the assumption that strategy use leads to some sort of learner development to be an empirical fact (rather than a well-intended or a theoretically/pedagogically convincing untested assumption), one would expect it to be based on, at least, two types of empirical evidence: i) data showing that L2 learners experience some sort of development after having received strategy training (pre-/post-instruction studies); and/or ii) results indicating a significant impact of strategy training on a group of L2 learner’s achievement in SLA, as compared to another group of learners (comparable to the former on a number of crucial variables) who have proceeded in their SLA process without the help of strategy training (quasi- or true-experimental design studies). Indeed, as shown in Table 9-1, there exists a reasonable number of investigations that have used the two research designs mentioned, have 11 Chamot Anna and J. Michael O´Malley. The CALLA Handbook: Implementing the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach. (White Plains, NY.: Addison-Wesley Longman, 1994b), 59. 12 MacIntyre, Peter and Kimberly Noels. “Using Social-Psychological Variables to Predict the Use of Language Learning Strategies.” Foreign Language Annals 29, no.3 (1996): 374. 13 Hsiao, Tsung-Yuan and Rebecca L. Oxford. “Comparing Theories of Language Learning Strategies: A confirmatory Factor Analysis.” The Modern Language Journal 86, no. 3 (2002): 372.

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investigated the acquisition of different languages (i.e., English, French, Norwegian, Japanese, Russian), in L2 contexts, by students with different nationalities (i.e., Iranian, Turkish, American, Russian, South African) and educational levels (university and high school), and whose results can be interpreted as evidence of a positive effect of strategy instruction. Table 9-1: Empirical studies showing positive results of strategy instruction.14 Study

Strategies positively influenced by instruction

Research design

Cohen and Aphek (1981)

Vocabulary learning through mnemonic associations Speaking strategies Speaking and listening strategies Reading strategies Reading strategies Reading/writing strategies Reading strategies Communication strategies Speaking strategies Speaking strategies Listening cognitive and metacognitive strategies Reading strategies Speaking strategies Writing strategies Writing strategies (revision) Reading strategies Sociocultural strategies for intercultural communication Reading metacognitive strategies Reading strategies Vocabulary learning strategies

Experimental

O’Malley et al. (1985) O’Malley (1987) Barnett (1988) Carrell et al. (1989) Bermudez and Prater (1990) Raymond (1993) Dörnyei (1995) Dadour and Robins (1996) Nunan (1996) Thompson and Rubin (1996) Kitajima (1997) Cohen et al. (1998) Sasaki (2000) Sengupta (2000) Sengupta (2002) Savignon and Sysoyev (2002) Dhieb-Henia (2003) Dreyer and Nel (2003) Marefat and Shirazi (2003)

Pre-/post instruction Experimental Experimental Experimental Experimental Experimental Experimental Experimental Experimental Experimental Experimental Experimental Pre-/post instruction Experimental Pre-/post instruction Pre-/post instruction Pre-/post instruction Experimental Pre-/post instruction

14 The term “pre-/post instruction” has been chosen instead of “pre-/post test” to better capture the true methodological differences between the two types of study given that many of the experimental studies mentioned in this table do use a pre-/post-test design. Some of the studies mentioned in this table have been studied here via McDonough (1995), Cohen (1998) and Chamot (2001).

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However, it is necessary to clarify that what the results of most of the studies in Table 9-1 in effect show is that the positive outcomes of strategy instruction are associated with i) a better/more extensive use of the strategies that were the focus of instruction (say, reading strategies); and/or ii) better performance in the task for which the use of these strategies was deemed to be beneficial (say, reading comprehension). In other words, the observed effects are related to the remedial and supportive function of learning-to-learn mentioned in a preceding section. The reported positive outcomes of strategy instruction, however, should not be interpreted to mean that a cause-effect relationship can be established between strategy use and general L2 development. It would be equally premature to interpret the results of this empirical research as suggesting that class time spent on strategy instruction is more profitable than, for instance, time spent on language work (Rees-Miller 1993. But see Chamot and Rubin 1995) or just on oral or written communicative practice (see Ridgway 2000a, for arguments in connection with listening and counterarguments in Field 2000). It follows that it would be pedagogically advisable to come up with an agreed-upon “operational definition of what constitutes effective learning strategy instruction.”15 In this respect, McDonough offers the following list of alternatives:16 x the use of particular strategies as taught; x the adoption of a strategic approach involving personal development of strategies; x the use of increasingly more efficient and higher-level strategies in place of less powerful ones; or x increased proficiency attributable to greater strategy use. These four options could be divided into two groups: the first three alternatives would entail an equation between success in strategy instruction and (more effective/ sophisticated and/or personal) use of strategies, whereas the last option in the list would establish a causal relationship between this strategy use and increased L2 proficiency. My own view is that the key empirical question worth investigating in the future is whether or not a causal relationship can be established between strategy use and language learning. It is also my view that undertaking such an investigation necessarily entails the adoption of a given conception of learning 15

Chamot, Anna. “The Role of Strategies in Second Language Acquisition.” In Learner Contributions to Language Learning. (Harlow, England: Longman, 2001), 43. 16 McDonough, H. Steven. “Learner Strategies. State of the Art Article” Language Teaching 32, no. 1 (1999): 12.

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that is amenable to empirical test. Perhaps Pintrich’s (1994) components of learning can be a useful starting point for both making sense of the research already conducted, and as a framework guiding future research in the field. Pintrich suggests 4 components of learning: the student’s knowledge base, his/her procedural skills, his/her self-regulation and, finally, his/her motivation and affect. In its application to language learning, the first two principles would mean respectively i) the acquisition of implicit and/or explicit knowledge about the L2; and ii) the ability to use such knowledge successfully and appropriately in the reception and production of oral messages in real time, as well as the successful production and reception of written messages. As shown in Figure 9-1, success in learning training could be investigated in terms of the possible beneficial influence of strategy use (fostered via strategy training) on one or more of the components of L2 learning. Figure 9-1: A framework for investigating the relationship between strategy use and L2 learning. Strategy Instruction

Greater use of (more effective/sophisticated) strategies.

L2 learner’s knowledge base

L2 learner’s procedural skills

L2 learner’s selfregulation

L2 learner’s affect and motivation

The lack of an agreed-upon operational definition of success in strategy instruction is not the only theoretical issue in the field with clear pedagogical implications. Although it may seem rather surprising, another important concern is the absence of an agreed-upon operational definition of the very concept of strategy. One could agree with Field that “differences of interpretation and

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terminology do not invalidate a theory.”17 However, my own view is that in the case of strategy research, differences of interpretation severely restrict its instructional implications. The argument would be similar to the one used by Cohen and Dörnyei with respect to research on motivation. These researchers suggest that the most obvious way in which motivation research can help language pedagogy is by “providing a list of practical motivational techniques that teachers can apply,”18 and then they add something crucial: this list of motivational techniques can only be comprehensive and valid if it is “based on a solid underlying theoretical framework.”19 If the same argument is applied to strategy research,20 the contention would be that classroom implications of strategy research presuppose a solid theoretical framework behind the very concept of strategy in its application to language learning/use. This, unfortunately, does not seem to be possible at present given the lack of theoretical debate that has characterized research on strategies, as recently denounced by researchers in the field (McDonough 1999; Ridgway 2000a, 2000b; Manchón 2001; Dörnyei and Skehan 2003; Dörnyei, 2005). In short, one instructional implication of strategy research is the need to come up with an operational definition of success of strategy intervention. I have suggested that a way to clarify this issue could be the investigation of the connection between strategy use and the different components of learning suggested in the literature. It could be added that, ideally, this research should be carried out in such a manner that it also makes possible to determine whether or not strategy instruction provides more functional benefits than other instructional procedures in the development of the different components of L2 learning, and if so, why, in what contexts and for whom. In addition, I am firmly convinced that there are both theoretical and practical reasons for coming to some consensus about what exactly is entailed by strategies when the concept is applied to L2 learning and use.

17

Field, John. “`Not Waving but Drowning´: A reply to Tony Ridgway.” ELT Journal 54, no. 2 (2000): 188. 18 Cohen, Andrew and Zoltan Dörnyei. “Focus on the Language Learner: Motivation, Styles and Strategies.” In An Introduction to Applied Linguistics. (London: Arnold, 2002), 124. 19 Ibid., 124. 20 It should be remembered that Rees Miller contended more than ten years ago that “strategies in order to be teachable [...] must be defined in terms of specific behaviours” (Rees-Miller 1993, 681).

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3. The practical perspective: lessons from research regarding guidelines for successful strategy instruction. Regardless of what future research may uncover concerning the precise relationship between strategy instruction and L2 learning, the scholarly knowledge accumulated in the course of the last 25 years contains messages of pedagogical relevance for the actual implementation of strategy instruction programmes. In what follows I will account for just one of these messages. As an instance of the principle that teaching does not automatically lead to learning (Vermunt and Verloop 1999), a clear lesson emerging from some of the empirical research on strategy training is that the efficacy of strategy instruction is mediated by the way the strategy programme is put into practice. I have already mentioned the relevance of the teacher’s own training as a good predictor of success. In addition, research has provided evidence for the role played by two other crucial variables: i) duration of the programme (longer programmesʊat least between 10 and 15 weeksʊseem to produce better outcomes than shorter ones); and ii) the inclusion of a metacognitive component. In a comprehensive review article on reading strategies,21 Carrell categorically concludes that “the difference between successful and unsuccessful reading strategy training can be due to the inclusion (or lack of inclusion) of metacognition in the strategy training.”22 Along the same lines, Wenden argues that learner training should give “equal recognition to both strategies of learning and the knowledge that is essential to their operation.”23 This knowledge Wenden refers to was operationalised by Jones et al. (1987) as a three-fold distinction: successful strategy users must acquire declarative knowledge about strategies (i.e., knowing what the strategy is), procedural knowledge (knowing how to apply a certain strategy) and conditional knowledge (knowing when and where to use the strategy). To this list, Winograd and Hare (1988) added two further dimensions: knowledge about the potential benefits associated with the strategy in question, and knowledge about how to evaluate the use of the strategy.

21 See also Brantmeier (2002) for a comprehensive review of empirical research on reading strategies conducted in the last 25 years. 22 Carrell, Patricia. “Can Reading Strategies Be Successfully Taught?” The Language Teacher Online (1998): 3 [Electronic monthly publication available at http://langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp./jalt/pub/tlt/98/mar/carrell.html] [Cited 20 May 2006]. 23 Wenden, Anita. “Learner Training in Context: A Knowledge-Based Approach.” System 23, no. 2 (1995): 192.

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In addition to the evidence provided in the studies on reading strategies reviewed by Carrell (1998), more recent investigations further confirm the benefits associated with the inclusion of a metacognitive component in strategy instruction programmes, in the field of reading (Dhieb-Henia 2003; Dreyer and Nel 2003), speaking (Cohen et al. 1998), writing (Sengupta 2000, 2002; Spack 1997), and in the development of strategies related to the learner’s sociocultural competence (Savignon and Sysoyev 2002). Dreyer and Nel (2003) is a study of a reading strategy training programme with English as a foreign language university students in South Africa. The instructional programme (which extended over a period of 13 weeks) used with the experimental group included two main components: a study guide and a number of contact sessions with the students. The major focus of the guide was on both declarative knowledge about reading strategies, and potential benefits of their use. As a minor focus, the study guide made reference to procedural and conditional knowledge of strategies, as well as to evaluation of strategy use. The contact sessions encompassed modelling, explanation and practice and, as could be expected, the major focus was on procedural and conditional knowledge, together with evaluation of strategy use. One finding of the study is that the experimental group outperformed the control group in reading comprehension scores. Also interesting is the finding that less able readers in the experimental group (who clearly lacked metacognitive knowledge about reading strategies before the instructional intervention) benefited from the strategy programme not only in their comprehension scores, but also in the fact that they had started to pay attention to the metacognitive aspects of their reading. This effect of strategy instruction in changing the student’s approach to learning tasks is also evident in a study on reading strategies conducted by Sengupta (2002) in an university context, and is, I believe, a very important outcome of strategy instruction that deserves further investigation on account of the important pedagogical implications that may derive from it. In another recent study on reading strategies, Dhieb-Henia (2003) investigated two groups of Tunisian undergraduate biology students. The instructional programme used with the experimental group (which lasted for 10 weeks with a total of 30 hours) included two main parts: an awareness raising of the features of research articles, and a strategy training part with a clear metacognitive component in the terms specified above. The results pointed in the direction of a clear positive result of the training in terms of the changes experienced by the subjects in their use of reading strategies: these were readjusted or changed and, most importantly, made transferable to new texts and situations. Similar results were obtained in Kitajima’s study (1997) of a reading strategy programme with American university students enrolled in a Japanese course, a program that also included some metacognitive components.

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Productive skills have also been reported to benefit from strategy instructional programmes that include a metacogntive component. Thus Cohen et al. conclude from their findings on the training of university students in the use of speaking strategies that “explicitly describing, discussing and reinforcing strategies in the classroom can have a direct payoff on student outcome.”24 In the field of writing, Spack (1997) is a longitudinal (3 years) case study of a Japanese university student learning and performing academic writing in the United Stated. In my previous review of this work (Manchón 2001), I noted that the participant became a more able L2 writer through two means: the practice she engaged in, and her process of self- reflection on her own learning. This self-reflection was in part an outcome of the research itself, given that the researcher and the participant engaged in an interactive dialogue that served a metacognitive training function. In addition, Spack’s detailed description makes clear that the participant in the study acquired declarative, procedural and conditional knowledge about strategies. In a study conducted with 15 and 17 year old Iranian English as a foreign language learners (Marefat and Shirazi 2003), the participants were trained in the use of vocabulary strategies. The training was explicit and incorporated a metacognitive component related to the what, when and how of vocabulary strategies. Interestingly, the researcher noted that the training affected shortterm retention of vocabulary, although the effect clearly diminished when the participants were tested again two weeks later. It must be noted, however, that, in contrast to the studies reviewed above, the training in Marefat and Shirazi’s investigation lasted just over half an hour. This short duration might explain why the metacognitive strategy training did not produce the expected results. The length of the training programme is also the reason that Thompson and Rubin (1996) adduce to explain the cases in which there were no statistically significant differences between their experimental and control groups’ performance in some listening comprehension measures. In this case, however, the training did not include a metacognitive component. Taken together, these research findings can be interpreted to mean that L2 learners benefit more from strategy instruction when they are made aware of the different dimensions of strategy use: what the strategies are, why, how, when and where to use them, and how to evaluate their implementation. What is more, the long-term retention of these benefits seems to depend on the duration of the strategy instructional programme.

24

Cohen, Andrew, Susan J. Weaver and Tao-Yuann Li. “The Impact of Strategies-Based Instruction on Speaking a Foreign Language.” In Strategies in Learning and Using a Language. (London: Longman, 1998), 151.

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4. Conclusion My aim in this chapter has been to elaborate on the pedagogical implications of the research on L2 learner’s strategies conducted in the last 25 years. This review first leads me to acknowledge the abundant body of knowledge that has accumulated in this period of time. This outburst of research inquiry must necessarily be taken as a good starting point to move forward in theory, research and pedagogy. The second conclusion to be drawn is precisely the interconnections and links that exist among these three dimensions: pedagogical implications must derive form research, and this research should be guided by and framed in a sound theoretical framework. As I have argued in the preceding pages, this theoretical framework needs to be refined and developed, at least regarding the concepts of i) strategies and ii) success in strategy instruction. This development in theory will hopefully lead to advancement in research, which, ideally, should have an impact on pedagogy. From the educational perspective, two further conclusions emerge. The first one is that a substantial literature on strategies now exists that details the diverse factors that contribute to the positive outcomes of strategy training programmes. I have accounted for those factors that relate to the teacher (who needs training before he/she can train his/her students) and the actual strategy instructional programmes (their success seems to depend at least on their length in time and the inclusion of a metacognitive component). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, empirical research has shed light of the positive benefits of strategy training associated with the remedial and supporting functions of learning-to-learn. What our present state of knowledge does not allow us to ascertain is whether or not strategy instruction renders better and/or more enduring benefits (as compared to other instructional procedures) with respect to achievement in the two basic tasks that L2 learners face: i) processing L2 input and converting it to (explicit/implicit) L2 knowledge; and ii) becoming proficient at a) using automatically and in an efficient communicative way the knowledge acquired in the production and reception of messages; and b) engaging in successful problem-solving as a result of the imbalance between ends and means that characterises L2 use. To conclude, there is scope for further research and I hope that some of the suggestions made in this chapter can become part of the future research agenda in the field.

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Acknowledgements This study is part of a research programme financed by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, Research Grant SEJ2005-04266. I would like to thank Alicia Martínez and Eva Alcón for greatly facilitating me the access to many of the journal articles on which this chapter is based. I would also like to thank Chris Mayhew, Liz Murphy and Julio Roca for their always useful comments and editing suggestions.

Works Cited Atkinson, Dwight. “Toward a Sociocognitive Approach to Second Language Acquisition.” The Modern Language Journal 86, no. 4 (2002): 525-45. Barnett, Marna. “Reading through Context: How Real and Perceived Strategy Use Affects L2 Comprehension.” The Modern Language Journal 75 no. 2 (1988): 150-60. Benson, Phill and Winnie Lor. “Conceptions of Language and Language Learning.” System 27, no. 4 (1999): 459-72. Bermudez, Andrea B. and Doris L. Prater. “Using brainstorming and clustering with LEP Writers to Develop Elaboration Skills.” TESOL Quarterly 24, no. 3 (1990): 523-28. Bialystok, Ellen. Communication Strategies: A Psychological Analysis of Second-Language Use. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Bolhuis, Sanneke. “Towards Process-Oriented Teaching for Self-Directed Lifelong Learning: A Multidimensional Perspective.” Learning and Instruction 13, no. 3 (2003): 327-47. Bolhuis, Sanneke and Marious Voeten. “Toward Self-Directed Learning in Secondary Schools: What Do Teachers Do? Teaching and Teacher Education 17, no. 7 (2001): 837-55. Brantmeier, Cindy. “Second Language Reading Strategy Research at the Secondary and University Levels: Variations, Disparities, and Generalizability.” The Reading Matrix 2, no. 3 (2002) [Electronic journal available at http:// www.readingmatrix.com/articles/brantmeier/article.pdf] [Cited 20 May 2006]. Carrell, Patricia. “Can Reading Strategies Be Successfully Taught?” The Language Teacher Online (1998) [Electronic monthly publication available at http://langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp./jalt/pub/tlt/98/mar/carrell.html] [Cited 20 May 2006]. Carrell, Patricia, Becky G Pharis and Joseph C. Liberto. “Metacognitve Strategy Training for ESL Reading.” TESOL Quarterly 23, no. 4 (1989): 647-78. Chamot, Anna. “The Role of Strategies in Second Language Acquisition.” In Learner Contributions to Language Learning, edited by Michael P. Breen, 25-43. Harlow, England: Longman, 2001.

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Chamot, Anna and J. Michael O´Malley. “Language Learner and Learning Strategies.” In Implicit and Explicit Learning of Languages, edited by Nick Ellis, 371-92. London: Academic Press, 1994a. Chamot, Anna and J. Michael O´Malley. The CALLA Handbook: Implementing the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach. White Plains, NY.: Addison-Wesley Longman, 1994b. Chamot, Anna and Joan Rubin. “Comments on Janie Rees-Miller's ‘A critical appraisal of learner training: Theoretical bases and teaching implications’ ” TESOL Quarterly 29, no. 3 (1995): 771-76. Cohen, Andrew D. Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language. Harlow, UK.: Longman, 1998. Cohen, Andrew and Zoltan Dörnyei. “Focus on the Language Learner: Motivation, Styles and Strategies.” In An Introduction to Applied Linguistics, edited by Norbert Schmitt, 170-90. London: Arnold, 2002. Cohen, Andrew, Susan J. Weaver and Tao-Yuann Li. “The Impact of StrategiesBased Instruction on Speaking a Foreign Language.” In Strategies in Learning and Using a Language, edited by Andrew D. Cohen, 107-56. London: Longman, 1998. Cohen, Andrew and Edna Aphek. “Easifying Second Language Learning.” Studies in Second Language Learning 3, no. 2 (1981): 221-36. Dadour, El Sayed and Jill Robins. “University-Level Studies Using Strategy Instruction to Improve Speaking Ability in Egypt and Japan.” In Language Learning Strategies around the World: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, edited by Rebecca L. Oxford, 157-66. Honolulu, Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center: University of Hawaii Press, 1996. Dhieb-Henia, Nebila. “Evaluating the Effect of Metacognitive Strategy Training for Reading Research Articles in an ESP Context.” English for Specific Purposes 22, no. 4 (2003): 387-17. Donato, Richard and Dawn E. McCormick “A Sociocultural Perspective on Language Learning Strategies: The Role of Mediation.” The Modern Language Journal 78, no.4 (1994): 453-64. Dörnyei, Zoltan. The Psychology of the Language Learner. Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005. . “On the Teachability of Communication Strategies.” TESOL Quarterly 29, no. 1 (1995): 55-85. Dörnyei, Zoltan and Peter Skehan. “Individual Differences in Second Language Learning.” In The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, edited by Catherine J. Doughty and Michael H. Long, 589-30. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.

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Dreyer, Carisma and Charl Nel. “Teaching Reading Strategies and Reading Comprehension within a Technology-Enhanced Learning Environment.” System 31, no. 3 (2003): 349-65. Ellis, Gail and Barbara Sinclair. Learning to Learn English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Faerch, Claus and Gabriele Kasper. “Two Ways of Defining Communication Strategies.” Language Learning 34, no. 1 (1984): 45-63. Faerch, Claus and Gabriele Kasper. “Plans and Strategies in Foreign Language Communication.” In Strategies in Interlanguage Communication, edited by Claus Faerch and Gabriele Kasper, 20-60. London: Longman, 1983. Field, John. “ ‘Not Waving but Drowning’: A reply to Tony Ridgway.” ELT Journal 54, no. 2 (2000): 186-95. Gan, Zhengdong. “Attitudes and Strategies as Predictors of Self-Directed Language Learning in an EFL Context.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 14, no. 3 (2004): 389-411. Gan, Zhengdong, Gillian Humphreys and Liz Hamp-Lyons (2004) “Understanding Successful and Unsuccessful EFL Students in Chinese Universities.” The Modern Language Journal 88, no. 2 (2004): 229-44. Goh, Christine. “Exploring Listening Comprehension Tactics and their Interaction Patterns.” System 30, no. 2 (2002): 185-206. Graham, Suzanne. Effective Language Learning. Clevedon, UK.: Multilingual Matters, 1997. Hsiao, Tsung-Yuan and Rebecca L. Oxford. “Comparing Theories of Language Learning Strategies: A confirmatory Factor Analysis.” The Modern Language Journal 86, no. 3 (2002): 368-83. Jimenez Catalán, Rosa Mª. “Sex Differences in L2 Vocabulary Learning Strategies.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 13, no. 1 (2003): 54-77. Jones, Beau Fly, Annemarie Sullivan Palinscar, Donna Sederburg Ogle and Eileen Glynn Carr. “Strategic Teaching: A Cognitive Focus.” In Strategic Teaching and Learning. Cognitive Instruction in the Content Areas, edited by Beau Fly Jones, Annemarie Sullivan Palinscar, Donna Sederburg Ogle and Eileen Glynn Carr, 33-63. Alexandria, VA.: ASCD, 1987. Kasper, Gabriele. “Beyond Reference.” In Communication Strategies. Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, edited by Gabriele Kasper and Eric Kellerman, 145-60. London: Longman, 1997. Kellerman, Eric and Ellen Bialystok. “On Psychological Plausibility in the Study of Communication Strategies.” In Communication Strategies. Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, edited by Gabriele Kasper and Eric Kellerman, 31-48. London: Longman, 1997.

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Kitajima, Ryu. “Referential Strategy Training for Second Language Reading Comprehension of Japanese Texts.” Foreign Language Annals 30, no.1 (1997): 84-97. Littlemore, Jeannette. “The Communicative Effectiveness of Different Types of Communication Strategies.” System 31, no. 3 (2003): 331-47. . “An Empirical Study of the Relationship between Cognitive Style and the Use of Communication Strategies.” Applied Linguistics 22, no. 2 (2001): 241-65. MacIntyre, Peter and Kimberly Noels. “Using Social-Psychological Variables to Predict the Use of Language Learning Strategies.” Foreign Language Annals 29, no.3 (1996): 372-86. Manchón, Rosa M. “Trends in the Conceptualizations of Second Language Composing Strategies: A Critical Analysis.” In Writing in the L2 Classroom: Issues in Research and Pedagogy, edited by Rosa M. Manchón. International Journal of English Studies 1, no. 2 (2001): 47-70. . “Fostering the Autonomous Use of Communication Strategies in the Foreign Language Classroom.” Links & Letters 7 (2000): 13-27. . “Learners’ Strategies in L2 Composing.” Communication & Cognition 30, no. 1-2 (1997): 91-114. Marefat, Hamideth and Massoomeh Almadi Shirazi. “The Impact of Teaching Direct Learning Strategies on the Retention of Vocabulary by EFL Learners.” The Reading Matrix 3, no. 2 (2003): 47-62. McDonough, H. Steven. “Learner Strategies. State of the Art Article.” Language Teaching 32, no. 1 (1999): 1-18. . Strategy, Process and Skill in Learning a Foreign Language. London: Edward Arnold, 1995. Mendelsohn, David John. Learning to Listen. A Strategy-Based Approach for the Second-Language Learner. San Diego: Dominie Press, 1994. Nunan, David. The Effect of Strategy Training on Student Motivation, Strategy Knowledge, Perceived Utility and Deployment. The English Center: University of Hong Kong, 1996. Nykos, Martha and Rebecca L. Oxford. “A Factor Analytic Study of LanguageLearning Strategy Use: Interpretation from Information-Processing Theory and Social Psychology.” The Modern Language Journal 77, no. 1 (1993): 11-22. O'Malley, John Michael. “The Effects of Training in the Use of Learning Strategies on Acquiring English as Second Language.” In Learner Strategies in Language Learning, edited by Anita Wenden and Joan Rubin, 133-44. London: Prentice-Hall International, 1987. O’Malley, John Michael and Anna Uhl Chamot. Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

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O’Malley, John Michael and Anna Uhl Chamot. Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. O’Malley, John Michael, Anna Uhl Chamot, Gloria Stewner-Mazanares, Rocco P. Russo and Lisa. Kupper. “Learning Strategy Applications with Students of English as a Second Language.” TESOL Quarterly 19, no. 2 (1985): 28596. Oxford, Rebecca L. Language Learning Strategies. What Every Teacher Should Know. New York: Newbury House, 1990. Oxford, Rebecca and Judith Burry-Stock. “Assessing The Use of Language Learning Strategies Worldwide with the ESL/EFL Version of the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL).” System 23, no.1 (1995): 1-23. Oxford, Rebecca and Andrew Cohen. “Language Learning Strategies: Crucial Issues of Concept and Classification.” Applied Language Learning 3, no. 1-2 (1992): 1-35. Parks, Susan and Patricia Raymond. “Strategy Use by Nonnative-EnglishSpeaking Students in an MBA Program: Not Business as Usual.” The Modern Language Journal 88, no. 3 (2004): 374-89. Petric, Bojana and Bernardett Czárl. “Validating a Writing Strategy Questionnaire.” System 31, no. 2 (2003): 187-215. Pintrich, Paul. “Continuities and Discontinuities: Future Directions for Research in Educational Psychology.” Educational Psychologist 29, no. 3 (1994): 137-48. Poulisse, Nanda. “A Theoretical Account of Lexical Communication Strategies.” In The Bilingual Lexicon, edited by Robert Schreuder and Bert Weltens, 157-89. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1993. . The Use of Compensatory Strategies by Dutch Learners of English. Dordrecht: Foris, 1990. Rampton, Ben. “A Socilinguistic Perspective on L2 Communication Strategies.” In Communication Strategies. Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, edited by Gabriela Kasper and Eric Kellerman, 279-303. London: Longman, 1997. Raymond, Patricia Mary. “The Effects of Structure Strategy Training on the Recall of Expository Prose for University Students Reading French as a Second Language.” The Modern Language Journal 77, no. 4 (1993): 445-58. Rees-Miller, Jamie. A Critical Appraisal of Learner Training: Theoretical Bases and Teaching Implications.” TESOL Quarterly 27, no. 4 (1993): 679-89. Ridgway, Tony. “Listening Strategies –I Beg your Pardon?” ELT Journal 54, no. 2 (2000a): 179-85. . “Hang on a Minute! A Reply to John Field.” ELT Journal 54, no. 2 (2000b): 196-97.

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Rubin, Joan and Irene Thompson. How to be a More Successful Language Learner. Boston: Heinle and Heinle, 1994. Savignon, Sandra and Pavel Sysoyev. “Sociocultural Strategies for a Dialogue of Cultures.” The Modern Language Journal 86, no. 4 (2002): 508-24. Sasaki, Miyuki. “Toward an Empirical Model of EFL Writing Processes: An Exploratory Study.” Journal of Second Language Writing 9, no. 3 (2000): 259-91. Sengupta, Sima. “Developing Academic Reading at Tertiary Level: A Longitudinal Study Tracing Conceptual Change.” The Reading Matrix 2, no. 1 (2002) [Electronic journal available at: http://www.readingmatrix.com/articles/sengupta/article.pdf] [Cited 20 May 2006]. . “An Investigation into the Effects of Revision Strategy Instruction on L2 Secondary School Learners.” System 28, no. 1 (2000): 97-113. Spack, Ruth. “The Acquisition of Academic Literacy in a Second Language. A Longitudinal Case Study.” Written Communication 14, no. 1 (1997): 3-62. Tarone, Elaine. “Some Thoughts on the Notion of Communication Strategies.” TESOL Quarterly 15, no. 3 (1981): 285-95. Thompson, Irene and Joan Rubin. “Can Strategy Instruction Improve Listening Comprehension?” Foreign Language Annals 29, no. 3 (1996): 331-42. Tudor, Ian. “Learning to Live with Complexity: Towards an Ecological Perspective on Language Teaching.” System 31, no. 1 (2003): 1-12. . “Exploring Context: Localness and the Role of Ethnography.” Humanising Language Teaching 4, no. 2 (2002) [Electronic journal available at http://www.hltmag.co.uk/mar02/mart1.htm.] [Cited 20 May 2006]. . The Dynamics of the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Vandergrift, Larry. “Orchestrating Strategy Use: Toward a Model of the Skilled Second Language Listener.” Language Learning 53, no. 3 (2003): 463-96. Vermunt, Jan and Nico Verloop. “Congruence and Friction between Learning and Teaching.” Learning and Instruction 9, no. 3 (1999): 257-80. Waeytens, Kim,Willy Lens and Roland Vandenberghe. “Learning to Learn: Teachers’ Conceptions of their Supporting Role.” Learning and Instruction 12, no. 3 (2002): 305-22. Wagner, Johannes and Andrew Firth. “Communication Strategies at Work.” In Communication Strategies. Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, edited by Gabriele Kasper and Eric Kellerman, 323-44. London: Longman, 1997.

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Weaver, Susan and Andrew Cohen. Strategies-Based Instruction: A TeacherTraining Manual. Minneapolis, MN., Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition: University of Minnesota, 1997. Wenden, Anita. “Learner Training in Context: A Knowledge-Based Approach.” System 23, no. 2 (1995): 183-94. . Learner Strategies for Learner Autonomy. Planning and Implementing Learner Training for Language Learners. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall International, 1991. Wharton, Glen. “Language Learning Strategy Use of Bilingual Foreign Language Learners in Singapore.” Language Learning 50, no.2 (2000): 20343. Wilkes-Gibbs, Deanna. “Studying Language Use as Collaboration.” In Communication Strategies. Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, edited by Gabrielle Kasper and Eric Kellerman, 238-74. London: Longman, 1997. Williams, Jessica, Rebecca Inscoe and Thomas Tasker. “Communication Strategies in an Interactional Context: The Mutual Achievement of Comprehension.” In Communication Strategies. Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, edited by Gabrielle Kasper and Eric Kellerman, 304-22. London: Longman, 1997. Willing, Ken. Teaching How to Learn. Learning Strategies in ESL. Macquarie University, Sydney: National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research, 1989. Winograd, Peter and Hare, Victoria Chou. “Direct Instruction of Reading Comprehension Strategies: The Nature of Teacher Explanation.” In Learning and Study Strategies: Issues in Assessment Instruction and Evaluation, edited by Claire E Weinstein, Ernest T Goetz and Patricia A. Alexander, 121-39. San Diego: Academic Press, 1988. Yang, Nae-Dong. “The Relationship between EFL Learners’ Beliefs and Learning Strategy Use.” System 27, no. 4 (1999): 515-35. Yule, George and Elaine Tarone. “The Other Side of the Page: Integrating the Study of Communication Strategies and Negotiated Input in SLA.” In Foreign/Second Language Pedagogy, edited by Robert Phillipson and Claus Færch, 162-71. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters, 1991.

SECTION IV: THE FOUR LANGUAGE SKILLS AND ASSESSMENT

CHAPTER TEN RESEARCH-ORIENTED PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHING LISTENING ALICIA MARTÍNEZ-FLOR Universitat Jaume I

1. Introduction Listening to a second/foreign language (L2) has been considered as the most widely used language skill in normal daily life (Morley 2001; Rost 2001). In fact, as Celce-Murcia and Olshtain point out, research done on this particular skill has demonstrated that “we listen to twice as much language as we speak, four times as much as we read, and five times as much as we write.”1 Nevertheless, its status in both language learning and teaching fields has been one of neglect throughout the years, since listening, together with reading (see Usó-Juan this volume), was regarded as a mere passive or secondary skill which “was simply taken for granted.”2 Thus, for a long time listening has been treated as the Cinderella skill (Nunan 2002; Flowerdew and Miller 2005), although the complex, dynamic and interactive nature involved in the listening comprehension process has recently made researchers and language practitioners consider listening as a language skill in its own right (Mendelsohn 1998; Vandergrift 2004). Bearing this assumption in mind, the role of listening in the language classroom is of paramount importance and lots of studies as well as whole volumes have been devoted to examining the best ways to improve L2 listening instruction in order to help learners in their listening comprehension process (Mendelsohn 1998, 2006; Rost 2001, 2002; Lynch and Mendelsohn

1

Celce-Murcia, Marianne and Elite Olshtain. Discourse and Context in Language Teaching. A Guide for Language Teachers. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 102. 2 Morley, Joan. “Aural Comprehension Instruction: Principles and Practices.” In Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. (Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 2001), 71.

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2002; Lynch 2004, 2006; Vandergrift 2004; Flowerdew and Miller 2005; UsóJuan and Martínez-Flor 2006a; White 2006). Considering the importance of paying particular attention to the role of listening in L2 teaching, the purpose of the present chapter aims to first describe the nature of this skill by highlighting its unique features and defining characteristics. It will then address some research conducted on the development of this skill by focusing on those factors that affect its comprehension, the processes that are involved in the listening act as well as the key role that learning strategies play in order to aid the listening comprehension process. Finally, some concluding remarks and ideas for future research on the development of the listening skill in the language classroom will be suggested.

2. The nature of listening comprehension Listening has been defined as a complex process that allows us to make sense of spoken messages in real time by making use of a variety of sources, such as phonetic, phonological, prosodic, lexical, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic (Lynch 1998). Put in another way, listeners do not only need to master the L2 at the purely linguistic level, but they also need the help of relevant prior knowledge as well as the context in which they are listening to in order to understand spoken language (Lynch and Mendelsohn 2002). Therefore, the traditional view that considered listening as a mere passive process in which all the listener had to do was passively register the message has substantially changed. Nowadays, listening is claimed to be an active process in which the listener’s ability to receive and decode the message that the speaker is delivering would lead to his/her comprehension and understanding of such a piece of oral communication. In this sense, researchers and language practitioners point out that listening should not be regarded as only a mere skill area in language performance, but rather a critical means of acquiring an L2 (Morley 2001; Rost 2001). Taking this consideration into account, listening has been recognised today as a primary vehicle for language learning and, consequently, it has achieved a status of significant and central importance in both language learning and teaching fields. In order to understand which particular processes are involved in the complex and active listening comprehension event, the information processing view has highlighted that listening is a dynamic and interactive process of meaning creation in which comprehension of a given message occurs when such a message is internally reproduced in the listeners’ mind. This view includes two comprehension models that follow a sequential order of input, perception, recognition, and understanding stages (Lynch 1998). The models are: i) the Perception, Parsing and Utilization model (Anderson 1985); and ii) the Identify,

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Search, File and Use model (Brown 1995). On the one hand, in the three-stage comprehension model developed by Anderson (1985), listeners must use first their knowledge of the language to recognise sounds and identify words (i.e., perception phase). Then, they have to decode such words to form meaningful units (i.e., parsing phase), and finally they have to look for ideas in their longterm memory that relate to the new information being heard (i.e., utilization phase). On the other hand, a similar process is adopted in the model proposed by Brown (1995), since listeners have to first recognise the information expressed by the speaker (i.e., identify stage), then they have to relate such new information with that already stored in their memory (i.e., search stage), keep that new information (i.e., file stage), and finally utilise such new information when necessary (i.e., use stage). Additionally, apart from considering all these stages in which the listener needs to get involved in order to understand spoken language, active listening has also been regarded as an interpretive process (Lynch and Mendelsohn 2002). To this respect, the constructivist view of listening has emphasised the fact that listeners do not merely receive and process meaning, but rather construct such meaning according to their own purposes for listening as well as their prior knowledge on what they hear. In other words, listeners’ ability to comprehend a particular oral message may vary depending on the reasons they have for listening and their own store of background knowledge (Morley 2001). Thus, important features that also define the listening act involve those of meaningful intent and communicative function, since “in normal life we have reasons for listening, and interests and purposes which our listening serves.”3 This aspect, that is, the fact that we have a purpose for listening, has made researchers claim that listening serves two types of functions considering Brown and Yule’s (1983) distinction between transactional and interactional functions of spoken language (see Salazar this volume). The focus of a transactional language function is that of conveying information and ideas, such as giving instructions, requesting information or explaining particular aspects. Consequently, this type of function is “message oriented”, and the clarity and precision of such as message facilitates listening comprehension. In contrast, the interactional language function aims at establishing and maintaining cordial social relationships as for example, being nice to the other person or identifying with the other person’s interests. Therefore, rather than focusing on the message being delivered, this function is person oriented since the main objective is to converse and establish a type of social talk between the speaker and the listener. 3

Brown, Gillian. Listening to Spoken English. (London and New York: Longman, 1990), 147.

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Considering these functions of spoken language, Lynch and Mendelsohn (2002) point out that most communicative situations usually involve elements of both functions, although there are cases in which only one of the two functions, or purposes, is dominant. On the basis of this assumption, two main types of listening have been identified, namely those of one-way listening and two-way listening. On the one hand, one-way listening is directly linked to the transactional function of language and it is mainly based on the use of monologue for listening practice. This type of listening is typical of academic settings, such as lectures and school lessons, where the main purpose is to receive and understand information. Therefore, it has also been called listening in order to learn with particular characteristics, such as density of cognitive content, use of formal language (similar to writing, see Palmer-Silveira and Ruiz-Garrido this volume) and the need to perform a task with what has been heard, as for example take notes on the content or write a short summary with the main ideas (Lynch and Mendelsohn 2002). On the other hand, two-way listening is related to the interactional function of language, since it involves dialogue or discussion between the speaker and the listener participating in a given communicative situation. This type of listening has, therefore, being termed listening-and-speaking (Lynch and Mendelsohn 2002), and presents more challenges than the one-way listening type since both interlocutors need to master communicative competencies so that their interaction progresses smoothly. Among the main characteristics underlying this type of listening, it can be claimed that a lower density of cognitive content and the opportunity to request clarification or repetition make two-way listening an easier task than one-way listening. However, there are other factors which make it harder, such as time pressure in the processing of what is being heard or the risk of misinterpreting what the speaker has said. After describing the particular characteristics that define the listening skill, it can be claimed that this skill may be characterised as a complex, social and interactive process in which “the listener is actively engaged in constructing meaning from a variety of contexts and input sources.”4 Given all these aspects, listening can be viewed as a communicative event in which listeners need to be taught a variety of communicative competencies that would allow them to behave appropriately in a given situation (for a detailed description of this issue see Martínez-Flor and Usó-Juan 2006). Additionally, it is important to bear in mind a series of factors that affect the listening comprehension process and how to handle with those in order to successfully understand and interpret spoken 4

Vandergrift, Larry. Developing Metacognition in L2 Listening Comprehension in Grades 4-8. Paper presented at AAAL , Stamford, CT., 1999a. Cited in Carrier, Karen A. “Improving High School English Language Learners’ Second Language Listening Through Strategy Instruction.” Bilingual Research Journal 27, no. 3 (2003): 384.

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language. The research conducted on those factors and a detailed description of the processes that are involved in the listening act as well as the key role that learning strategies play in order to aid the listening comprehension process are the focus of the next section.

3. Implications from research into listening instruction Three important aspects related to areas of research conducted on listening comprehension will be examined in this section: factors affecting listening comprehension, processes involved in such a comprehension event, and learning strategies aimed to facilitate the listening comprehension process.

3.1 Factors affecting listening comprehension In her review of L2 listening comprehension research, Rubin identified five major aspects that affect listening: “text characteristics” (i.e., variation in a listening passage or text); “interlocutor characteristics” (i.e., variation in the speaker’s personal characteristics, such as native vs. non-native accent); “task characteristics” (i.e., variation in the purpose for listening and associated responses); “listener characteristics” (i.e., variation in the listener’s personal characteristics, such as motivation towards a particular topic); and “process characteristics”5 (i.e., variation in the listener’s cognitive activities and in the nature of the interaction between speaker and listener). Among these five factors, the interlocutor and listener ones are related to the personal characteristics that identify the members of a given interactional situation. Regarding the interlocutor characteristics, it has been claimed that gender bias and perceived speaker expertness may exert an influence on learners’ listening recall (Markham 1988). Similarly, listener characteristics such as language proficiency level, memory, affect, age, gender, learning disabilities in the first language (L1) as well as aptitude, processing skills, background biases, motivation, and confidence level also appear to have a considerable effect on an individual’s listening comprehension (Rubin 1994). The other two factors that have been well-researched are those of text and task characteristics. Concerning text characteristics, it has been stated that the type of text and the difficulty implied in it is an important factor that affects listening comprehension (Rubin 1994). For this reason, it is possible to grade listening comprehension material in terms of text factors by considering three main criteria: the level of difficulty of vocabulary, the complexity of syntax and 5 Rubin, Joan “A Review of Second Language Listening Comprehension Research.” The Modern Language Journal 78, no. 2 (1994): 199.

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the duration of the recordings (Anderson and Lynch 1988). First, it seems that including vocabulary similar to learners’ L1 and making them familiar with the topic covered in the listening passage facilitates their comprehension to a great extent. Second, modifying the text in terms of grammatical complexity also appears to help learners understand the content of the text and, third, the length of the text has also to be taken into account since the more input learners are exposed to, the more information they have to process. Therefore, it has been claimed that a short text may simplify the task of comprehension. However, this idea of simplifying the text in terms of vocabulary, grammar or length to help learners in their listening comprehension process has been seriously questioned since it affects the issue of authenticity (Field 2002; Rost 2002, 2006). In fact, it has been pointed out that the use of simplified texts may actually prevent learners from L2 acquisition since they are exposed to unnatural language which lacks important elements such as markers of logical relationships among referents and propositions as well as cultural references which are necessary for activation of appropriate schemata (Rost 2006). The importance of naturalness of language has also been highlighted by Field (2002) who claims that learners need to be exposed to the rhythms of natural everyday English. Additionally, Field (2002) points out that facing learners with a text that has not been graded to reflect their particular level of English will involve them in a listening experience much closer to a real-life one. Given these two reasons, namely those of naturalness of language and real-life listening experience, authors have proposed different alternatives that can facilitate learners’ L2 comprehension while still being exposed to authentic listening passages. One alternative is the use of elaboration rather than simplification (Rost 2006). This implies elaborating the original text by means of adding redundancy (i.e., repetition), transparency (i.e., topic saliency) as well as slowing down the rate of delivery (i.e., increasing the length of natural pauses). A second alternative is that of using focused tasks that allow learners to work on selected aspects of a particular authentic text. In fact, Field (2002) insists on this alternative claiming that instead of simplifying the language of the text, what is important is to simplify the task that is demanded of the student. This is, therefore, the fourth factor that has been claimed to affect listening comprehension, that is task characteristics (Rubin 1994). While preparing the different tasks that learners are asked to do with a given listening text, authors can grade them in order to facilitate learners’ listening comprehension. According to Anderson and Lynch (1988), tasks can be graded on the basis of three important criteria: the listening purpose, the response required and the support material employed with the task. Regarding the first criterion, tasks can include pre-listening steps that help learners understand which the purpose of a particular listening text is. In this way, the focus is not

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related to text factors dealing with modifying the form of the language but rather with the social and communicative function that the language involves. The second criterion that can be considered when grading tasks concerns the type of response elicited by a particular task, since what learners have to do after a listening passage can be more or less demanding. The third aspect is also important given the fact that the use of pictures, graphs and other non-verbal support material can help learners pay attention to relevant information in the recorded text rather than distracting their attention with confusing printed information. Finally, after having examined some of the main factors that affect L2 listening comprehension research (i.e., interlocutor, listener, text and task characteristics), Rubin (1994) claims that the fifth factor, that of process characteristics, is probably the most difficult to research since it consists of learners’ necessary internal operations to interpret what is said as well as what kind of signals they use to be able to make this interpretation. The importance of analysing the process characteristics involved in listening comprehension has been regarded as a major research focus over the last decades (Rubin 1994; Lynch 1998, 2002, 2006; Mendelsohn 1998; Rost 2002, 2006; Vandergrift 2004). Within this factor, three different processes have been examined: bottomup, top-down and parallel processing. The next subsection pays attention to each of them in detail.

3.2 Processes involved in listening comprehension The main processes available to the listener in order to be able to comprehend spoken language are those of bottom-up and top-down processes. The interaction of both of them is referred to as parallel processing or interactive listening and, it has been claimed that when parallel processing occurs, successful listening takes place. In fact, according to Lynch and Mendelsohn (2002), listeners’ ability to integrate information gathered from the two types of processes is a key factor in achieving full listening comprehension. Given the importance that these two processing models of listening have occupied in L2 research over the last twenty years and the need to marry them, in Lynch’s (2006) words, a detailed description of them is in turn. The bottom-up model was developed by researchers working in the 1940s and 1950s, and it is associated with a traditional view of communication focused on the transmission of information (Flowerdew and Miller 2005). Therefore, this model of listening is associated with the transactional function of language explained in the previous section in which the focus lies on listeners’ understanding of the message being delivered. According to this bottom-up processing view, listeners construct meaning by applying different types of

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knowledge (i.e., phonological, lexical and grammatical) in a linear and hierarchical way (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000; Nunan 2002; Vandergrift 2004). First, knowledge of the phonological system allows listeners to start by decoding the smallest meaningful units of the acoustic message (i.e., phonemes). Then, these units or individual sounds are combined into words, which, in turn, are linked together to form phrases thanks to listeners’ knowledge of vocabulary. Finally, knowledge of grammar enables listeners to create ideas and relationships between these phrases or isolated sentences in order to form complete meaningful texts. This bottom-up sequential model based on piecing together the elements of what is being heard in a serial fashion has been seen for a long time as the description of successful listening (Lynch and Mendelsohn 2002). In fact, Anderson and Lynch (1988) called this view of listening listener as taperecorder since the process listeners follow is that of taking in and storing messages one by one, in sequence, similar to a tape-recorder. Thus, according to this processing view, listening comprehension can take place without any reference to the context in which a particular situation occurs or the participants that interact in such a communicative event. However, paying close attention to these aspects has been regarded as essential in facilitating listeners’ full understanding of spoken language, a task that has been tackled in the top-down view of listening. The top-down model was developed by researchers who claimed that experimental subjects are unable to recognise sounds in isolation from the words they belong to, whereas they are able to identify those words if they are presented within a wider context (Flowerdew and Miller 2005). Therefore, this model is in some way the opposite of the bottom-up view of listening since it goes from the whole to the parts and pays attention to using previous knowledge in order to interpret meaning rather than just relying on the recognition of individual sounds, words and sentences (Lynch and Mendelsohn 2002). According to this top-down processing view, listeners construct the original meaning of the speaker by activating two types of knowledge: schematic knowledge and contextual knowledge (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000). On the one hand, the schematic knowledge involves two types of schemata or prior knowledge, namely those of content schemata (i.e., background information on the topic), and formal schemata (i.e., knowledge of the structure of discourse genres). On the other hand, the contextual knowledge refers to listeners’ understanding of a particular situation by assessing the setting, the participants, the topic and the purpose involved in such a situation. As can be implied from this top-down model, listeners play an active role since they have to rely on what they already know about the context and situation within which the listening takes place to make sense of what they hear

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(Nunan 2002). That is why Anderson and Lynch (1988) called this view of listening listener as active model-builder. Additionally, it involves listeners’ ability to make predictions about what the original message of the speaker is intended to be at any point, and how the individual parts that form such a message fit together into a coherent and cohesive whole piece of discourse. Thus, according to this processing view, listening comprehension is purposedriven since listeners only activate that knowledge they consider to be relevant to understand the message they need to process. After describing both processing views, it can be claimed that on the one hand, the bottom-up model is necessary since listeners always have to do some bottom-up processing of what they hear at the acoustic level, such as for example discriminating between different but similar sounds (Lynch and Mendelsohn 2002). On the other hand, aspects considered by the top-down processing view of listening such as reference to the context in which a particular situation takes place, the participants that interact in such a communicative event or the topic and purpose involved in it, are also important in aiding listeners’ full comprehension process. Consequently, marrying top and bottom seems to be the ideal solution to help learners develop effective and successful listening comprehension (Lynch 2006). This assumption has been regarded by the interactive model or parallel processing view of listening which highlights the importance of considering both models or approaches as essentially complementary rather than mutually exclusive when facilitating listeners’ task of understanding what a speaker is saying (Flowerdew and Miller 2005; Lynch 2006). According to this view, both bottom-up and top-down processes interact simultaneously at different levels of cognitive organisation (i.e., phonological, syntactic, lexical, and pragmatic), and listeners’ representations at these various levels create activation at other levels (Rost 2001). Thus, during listeners’ mental representation of what they hear, these two types of processes interact in a complex parallel fashion. However, the degree to which listeners use one process more than another may depend on their purpose for listening (Vandergrift 2004). For this reason, it has been claimed that L2 listeners need to be taught how to use both types of processes in the same way so that they can activate one over the other depending on their purpose for listening. In order to achieve that aim, the use of different learning strategies in general, and specific listening strategies in particular can be an effective tool that helps listeners to learn how to use both processes to their advantage.

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3.3 Learning strategies aiding the listening comprehension process The term language learning strategies (i.e., specific actions, behaviours, tactics, or techniques) has been defined in a number of different ways in the literature as a way to facilitate learners’ L2 acquisition (Chamot 1987; Wenden and Rubin 1987; O’Malley and Chamot 1990; Oxford 1990; Richards and Platt 1992; Stern 1992). Among these authors, Chamot proposed a good basic definition of learning strategies as “techniques, approaches, or deliberate actions that students take in order to facilitate the learning and recall of both linguistic and content area information.”6 Thus, it has been claimed that all language learners employ this type of learning strategies, either consciously or unconsciously, when processing new information in order to improve their progress in apprehending, internalising, and using the L2 (Oxford 1990). Additionally, making use of these strategies contributes to the development of learners’ overall communicative competence in the L2 since they are the tools for active and self-directed involvement in a particular communicative situation (O’Malley and Chamot 1990). In fact, different models of communicative competence (Canale and Swain 1980; Bachman 1990; Celce-Murcia et al. 1995; Alcón 2000; Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor 2006b) have noted the importance of the strategic competence as the ability to use language competence, including the knowledge of how to use a range of strategies to make up for deficiencies in language competence as well as handle breakdowns in communication. Becoming communicatively competent in a language must, therefore, be the final goal to achieve in the process of language learning, and this goal includes the ability to comprehend oral input. Consequently, in order to facilitate this comprehension process and be able to successfully construct meaning from L2 oral input, listeners need to actively choose, use, and continually evaluate the effectiveness of their listening strategies (Carrier 2003). Bearing this fact in mind, it has been claimed that strategies and the ability to use them effectively are particularly important in L2 listening. So, within the general use of language learning strategies, it is essential to pay attention to those particular listening strategies exclusively devoted to helping listeners’ ability to comprehend and understand spoken language. The term listening strategies refers to conscious plans or mental processes that are under listeners’ conscious control and can be activated when they need to compensate for incomplete input or partial misunderstanding (Rost 2001). On the basis of different taxonomies that have been proposed to classify language learning strategies for L2 use in general (Rubin 1987; Oxford 1990; Stern 1992; Chamot 1995), specific strategies to listening comprehension have been 6 Chamot, Anna U. “The Learning Strategies of ESL Students.” In Learning Strategies in Language Learning. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1987), 71.

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elaborated. These are based on Chamot’s (1995) classification of learning strategies into three main types: metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies. Metacognitive strategies refer to those mental activities related to monitoring and evaluating how well one understands L2 oral input. They include strategies of planning, regulating and managing. Cognitive strategies concern those mental activities related to facilitating comprehension and remembering input. They include strategies of elaborating, inferencing, predicting, summarising or making use of prior knowledge. Social/affective strategies refer to those mental activities related to enhancing oral comprehension and encouraging one to continue listening. Although this third type of strategies has been less studied than both metacognitive and cognitive strategies, they are considered to be particularly important in two-way listening tasks (i.e., having a normal conversation), since they involve the negotiation of meaning between speaker and listener. Thus, strategies such as cooperative learning or questioning for clarification are included within this type of strategies and are particularly important in interactive listening. That is why they have also been termed interactive listening strategies (Lynch 1995), since they involve the ways in which listeners can resolve comprehension problems by seeking help from the speaker and, therefore, are the point of contact with the speaking skill. A detailed analysis of these three types of language learning strategies applied to listening is provided by Flowerdew and Miller (2005), who present a list of listening strategies based on the work conducted by Vandergrift (1997) and illustrate how each strategy can be implemented in the controlled environment of the classroom. Among this wide range of strategies, and also relying on previous studies conducted by Vandergrift (1996, 1998, 1999b) and Rost (1999), Rost (2002) highlights specifically those five strategies that are most commonly associated with successful listening: i) predicting speakers’ intentions and activating ideas prior to listening; ii) monitoring one’s own comprehension and relative success while listening; iii) asking for clarification (with increasingly focused informational requests); iv) making inferences from incomplete information based on prior knowledge, and v) providing personal responses about the content of what one has understood. However, in spite of developing opportunities for learners to practise these five specific strategies, it has been stated that skilful listeners are those who use the three general types of metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies in combination, varying their use according to the needs of the specific situation (Lynch and Mendelsohn 2002). Thus, learners need to be provided with the whole range of strategies that they can use to facilitate their listening comprehension process and make them listen effectively in different situations.

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This assertion has already been corroborated by research which points out that the conscious, tailored and effective use of strategies increases the chances of success in L2 listening (Thompson and Rubin 1996; Goh 1997, 2000, 2002; Harley 2000; Hasan 2000; Vandergrift 1997, 1999, 2002, 2003; Field 2003; Berne 2004). Bearing in mind results obtained from these studies, it seems that the task of language teachers is to teach students how to listen by using strategies that will lead to better comprehension, rather than merely give students an opportunity to listen (Mendelsohn 1995, 1998). To that end, Mendelsohn (1995, 1998, 2006) advocates for a strategy-based type of instruction based on raising learners’ awareness of how language functions and teaching them which strategies may facilitate their listening task and enhance their success in L2 listening comprehension. More specifically, Mendelsohn (1998) highlights several important principles for the structure of a unit in a strategy-based listening course: i) attend to learners’ awareness of the power and value of using strategies; ii) use pre-listening activities to activate learners’ background knowledge; iii) focus the listening by making clear to learners what they are going to listen to and why; iv) provide guided activities designed to provide a lot of practice in using a particular strategy (i.e., listening for names or dates) using simplified data initially, if needed; v) practice the strategy using real data with focus on content and meaning; vi) use what has been comprehended: take notes on a lecture to prepare a summary, fill in a form to gather data, etc. Flowerdew and Miller also highlight the importance of adopting a strategybased approach to teaching listening in the classroom and point out that teachers can introduce learners to listening strategies in two ways: “by specific learning training programs or by integrating learning skill objectives into their regular teaching programs.”7 Consequently, the teachers’ role in strategy training is essential since they can arrange opportunities to show and teach learners the wide range of strategies they can use depending on their purpose for listening. In order to do that, teachers should also pay attention to their learners’ particular learning styles, motivations or strategy preferences so that teachers’ training could be more effective and meet their group of learners’ needs and expectations of the L2 listening comprehension process.

7 Flowerdew, John and Lindsay Miller. Second Language Listening. Theory and Practice. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 81.

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4. Conclusion and research agenda In conclusion, and in line with Rost (2001), it can be claimed that L2 listening has rightly assumed a central role in language learning and teaching over the last few decades. Given the increasing attention paid to this skill, in this chapter I have dealt with some of the theoretical and practical aspects of listening comprehension. Specifically, I have started by describing the nature of this skill highlighting the unique and defining characteristics that make listening to be a complex, social and interactive process of meaning creation. Then, I have reviewed the main factors that are claimed to affect listening comprehension focusing particularly on the possibility of grading either the text or the task learners are engaged in to facilitate the act of understanding L2 oral input. I have pointed out the need to develop both bottom-up and top-down listening skills in learners since both processes interact during the task of comprehending a piece of spoken discourse and, finally, I have also emphasised the importance of integrating a strategy-based approach to the teaching of listening. However, despite examining in this chapter the advances achieved in understanding the nature and factors that influence the complexity involved in the listening comprehension act, more research is needed that focuses on ways of improving the arduous task of teaching the listening skill. To that end, White (2006) proposes interesting ways in which the methodology for teaching listening can be improved and presents a series of activities that incorporate, according to her, basic principles, such as the need of making listening practice to be more task-based, the use of authentic listening materials, and the fact of encouraging L2 listeners to take more responsibility for developing their listening ability. Nevertheless, it would be very interesting to put into practice and ascertain to what extent those proposals do indeed enhance learners’ listening comprehension process in the L2 learning classroom. Also in relation to future research aimed at improving listening instruction, more studies are needed that account for the role that some visual resources (i.e., videotape, DVDs) and the development of computer-assisted multimedia programs may have in listening comprehension. Additionally, in her review of the literature on listening comprehension strategies, Berne (2004) also presents some directions for future research among which the listening comprehension strategies are highlighted as a very fruitful area for researchers to explore. More specifically, given the fact that most of the research into listening strategy instruction has been descriptive in nature rather than based on empirical findings, studies that address the generalisability and effectiveness of a strategy-based approach to listening instruction at different proficiency levels are needed. Moreover, apart from focusing on the variable of

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proficiency level, other factors that can also influence learners’ selection of strategies, such as learning style, personality type, previous educational experience, task constraints or text type, should also be investigated (Peterson 2001). Similarly, it has been recognised that learners are aware of what they do when listening and that they are able to identify the obstacles they encounter during the listening task. However, since most of these listening difficulties have been found to occur at low levels of processing, future research would be appreciated into developing new ways of how to help learners overcome these problems and adopt more sophisticated strategies to overcome them (Berne 2004). To conclude, and in line with Vandergrift (2004), I believe that by addressing some of the issues proposed here in future research, learners could be made aware of the fact that it is not only important to learn how to listen to the L2, that is learning to listen, but also that the overall process of learning an L2 can be developed through the listening skill, that is listening to learn.

Works Cited Alcón, Eva. “Desarrollo de la Competencia Discursiva Oral en el Aula de Lenguas Extranjeras: Perspectivas Metodológicas y de Investigación.” In Segundas lenguas. Adquisición en el Aula, edited by Carmen Muñoz, 25976. Barcelona: Ariel Lingüística, 2000. Anderson, John R. Cognitive Psychology and its Implications. New York: Freeman, 1985. Anderson, Anne and Tony Lynch. Listening. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Bachman, Lyle F. Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Berne, Jane E. “Listening Comprehension Strategies: A Review of the Literature.” Foreign Language Annals 37, no. 4 (2004): 521-33. Brown, Gillian “Dimensions of Difficulty in Listening Comprehension.” In A Guide for the Teaching of Second Language Listening, edited by David J. Mendelsohn and Joan Rubin, 59-73. San Diego: Dominie Press, 1995. . Listening to Spoken English. London and New York: Longman, 1990. Brown, Gillian and George Yule. Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Canale, Michael and Merrill Swain. “Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing.” Applied Linguistics 1, no. 1 (1980): 1-47.

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Carrier, Karen A. “Improving High School English Language Learners’ Second Language Listening Through Strategy Instruction.” Bilingual Research Journal 27, no. 3 (2003): 383-408. Celce-Murcia, Marianne and Elite Olshtain. Discourse and Context in Language Teaching. A Guide for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Celce-Murcia, Marianne, Zoltan Dörnyei and Sarah Thurrell. “Communicative Competence: A Pedagogically Motivated Model with Content Specifications.” Issues in Applied Linguistics 6, no. 2 (1995): 5-35. Chamot, Anna U. “Learning Strategies and Listening Comprehension.” In A Guide for the Teaching of Second Language Listening, edited by David J. Mendelsohn and Joan Rubin, 13-30. San Diego: Dominie Press, 1995. . “The Learning Strategies of ESL Students.” In Learning Strategies in Language Learning, edited by Anita L. Wenden and Joan Rubin, 71-83. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1987. Field, John. “Promoting Perception: Lexical Segmentation in Second Language Listening.” ELT Journal 57, no. 4 (2003): 325-34. . “The Changing Face of Listening.” In Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice, edited by Jack C. Richards and Willy A. Renandya, 242-47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Flowerdew, John and Lindsay Miller. Second Language Listening. Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Goh, Christine. “Exploring Listening Comprehension Tactics and their Interaction Patterns.” System 30, no. 2 (2002): 185-206. . “A Cognitive Perspective on Language Learners’ Listening Comprehension Problems.” System 28, no. 1 (2000): 55-75. . “Metacognitive Awareness and Second Language Listeners.” ELT Journal 51, no. 4 (1997): 361-69. Harley, Birgit. “Listening Strategies in ESL: Do Age and L1 Make a Difference?” TESOL Quarterly 34, no. 4 (2000): 769-76. Hasan, Ali S. “Learners’ Perceptions of Listening Comprehension Problems.” Language, Culture and Curriculum 13, no. 2 (2000): 137-53. Lynch, Tony. “Academic Listening: Marrying Top and Bottom.” In Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills, edited by Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor, 91-110. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. . Study listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. . “Listening: Questions of level”. In The Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics, edited by Robert B. Kaplan, 39-48. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

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. “Theoretical Perspectives on Listening.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18 (1998): 3-19. . “The Development of Interactive Listening Strategies in Second Language Academic Settings.” In A guide for the teaching of second language listening, edited by David J. Mendelsohn and Joan Rubin, 166-85. San Diego: Dominie Press, 1995. Lynch, Tony and David Mendelsohn. “Listening.” In An introduction to Applied Linguistics, edited by Norbert Schmitt, 193-210. London: Arnold, 2002. Markham, Paul L. “Gender Differences and the Perceived Expertness of the Speaker as Factors in ESL Listening Recall.” TESOL Quarterly 22, no. 3 (1988): 397-406. Martínez-Flor, Alicia and Esther Usó-Juan. “Towards acquiring communicative competence through listening.” In Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills, edited by Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor, 29-46. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. Mendelsohn, David J. “Learning how to Listen Using Learning Strategies.” In Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills, edited by Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor, 75-89. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. . “Teaching Listening.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18, (1998): 81-101. . “Applying Listening Strategies in the Second/Foreign Language Listening Comprehension Lesson.” In A Guide for the Teaching of Second Language Listening, edited by David J. Mendelsohn and Joan Rubin, 132-50. San Diego: Dominie Press, 1995. Morley, Joan. “Aural Comprehension Instruction: Principles and Practices.” In Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, edited by Marianne Celce-Murcia, 69-85. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 2001. Nunan, David. “Listening in Language Learning.” In Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice, edited by Jack C. Richards and Willy A. Renandya, 238-41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. O’Malley, Joan M. and Anna U. Chamot. Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Oxford, Rebecca L. Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1990. Peterson, Pat W. “Skills and Strategies for Proficient Listening.” In Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, edited by Marianne CelceMurcia, 87-100. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 2001. Richards, Jack C. and Heidi Platt. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. Essex: Longman, 1992.

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Rost, Michael. “Areas of Research that Influence L2 Listening Instruction.” In Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills, edited by Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor, 47-74. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. . Teaching and Researching Listening. Harlow: Longman, 2002. . “Listening.” In The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, edited by Ronald Carter and David Nunan, 7-13. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. . “Developing Listening Tasks for Language Learning.” In Odense Working Papers in Linguistics, edited by Teresa Cadierno, 49-60. Odense, Denmark: University of Odense, 1999. Rubin, Joan “A Review of Second Language Listening Comprehension Research.” The Modern Language Journal 78, no. 2 (1994): 199-221. Stern, Henry H. Issues and Options in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Thompson, Irene and Joan Rubin. “Can Strategy Instruction Improve Listening Comprehension?” Foreign Language Annals 29, no. 3 (1996): 331-42. Usó-Juan, Esther and Alicia Martínez-Flor, eds. Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006a. . “Approaches to Language Learning and Teaching: Towards Acquiring Communicative Competence through the Four Skills.” In Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills, edited by Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor, 3-25. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006b. Vandergrift, Larry. “Listening to Learn or Learning to Listen?” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24, (2004): 3-25. . “Orchestrating Strategy Use: Toward a Model of the Skilled Second Language Listener.” Language Learning 53, no. 3 (2003): 463-96. . “It was Nice to See that our Predictions Were Right: Developing Metacognition in L2 Listening Comprehension.” Canadian Modern Language Review 58, no. 4 (2002): 555-75. . Developing Metacognition in L2 Listening Comprehension in Grades 4-8. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Stamford, CT., 1999a. . “Facilitating Second Language Listening Comprehension: Acquiring Successful Strategies.” ELT Journal 53, no. 3 (1999b): 73-78. . “Successful and less Successful Listeners in French: What are the Differences?” French Review 71, no. 4 (1998): 370-95. . “The Comprehension Strategies of Second Language (French) Listeners: A Descriptive Study.” Foreign Language Annals 30, no. 3 (1997): 387-409.

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. “The Listening Comprehension Strategies of Core French High School Students.” Canadian Modern Language Review 52, no. 2 (1996): 200-23. Wenden, Anita L. and Joan Rubin. Learner Strategies in Language Learning. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1987. White, Goodith. “Teaching listening: Time for a change in methodology.” In Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills, edited by Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor, 111-35. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006.

CHAPTER ELEVEN RESEARCH-ORIENTED PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHING SPEAKING PATRICIA SALAZAR CAMPILLO Universitat Jaume I

1. Introduction .

The present chapter is centred on spoken language production, on communication. Communication is one of the most important features of human beings, and it plays an indispensable role in our lives. Bearing this idea in mind, we shall first focus on the nature of communication and the difficulties that are likely to arise due to a lack of understanding of the message between interlocutors in a conversation. In this sense, and according to Ellis (1985), we will be dealing with communication strategies, a kind of learner strategies which result from initial failure to implement a communicative goal. Apart from communication strategies, Ellis suggested two other types of strategies that have to be taken into account when considering the skill of speaking: learning strategies and production strategies. The former include simplification strategies, inferencing, hypothesis-testing strategies and practice. In turn, production strategies are divided into planning and correcting strategies. Ellis’ (1985) typology of learner strategies will be referred to when discussing the different factors and processes that intervene in the skill of speaking. As mentioned before, we will start with communication problems learners may face, which can be reduced by means of providing the learner with comprehensible input, a factor that is claimed (Krashen 1985) to facilitate acquisition of a second/foreign language (L2). Comprehensible input is an issue we will review along with the notion of output (White 1987). Indeed, if we want our learners to acquire an L2, they need not only incoming information (input), but they also need to produce language (output). Output sets the scene for hypothesis-testing and correcting strategies to take place, as learners test hypotheses about the Target Language (TL) in order to corroborate or disconfirm them.

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As a reaction against the big emphasis on input stated by Krashen, Long (1983a) suggested that it is the linguistic adjustments participants in conversation engage in that aid acquisition. For this reason, several studies which compared different types of input, such as premodified and interactionally modified input will be considered next. The most important finding of these studies is the claim that linguistic modifications on the flow of conversation result in comprehensible input, a fact that may promote language acquisition. In this chapter we will also deal with several tasks which have been developed in order to foster communication in the classroom (Brown and Yule 1983): one- and two-way tasks. Both types of tasks foster production strategies, since learners may correct their interlanguage and practise their existing TL knowledge. Over the last three decades there has been a tension between the value of communicative use of the L2 in the classroom, on the one hand, and the need for a linguistic focus in language learning, on the other. As Long (1997) claims, a focus on meaning is, first, insufficient to achieve full native-like competence, and second, this competence can be improved by periodic attention to language as object. In classroom settings, this could be achieved by a return to discretepoint grammar teaching, i.e., Focus on Forms (FonFormS), where classes spend most of their time working on isolated linguistic structures. However, during a meaning-focused lesson, learners’ attention can also be briefly shifted to linguistic features in context when students experience problems as they work on communicative tasks, i.e., Focus on Form (FonF). We will thus discuss first the controversy between focus on meaning and FonF and finally we will centre on the differences between FonF and FonFormS. Communicating in an appropriate and accurate way is highly important for non-native speakers (NNSs) if they do not want to sound rude or foreign. For this reason, it is essential to know what learning strategies and processes intervene in the teaching and learning of the skill of speaking in the classroom setting.

2. The nature of communication According to Brown and Yule, “few speakers produce language which is not to some extent ‘recipient-designed’, that is carefully produced so that the listener can understand it, taking account of the listener’s state of knowledge.”1 The authors distinguish between primarily transactional language, which is message-oriented, and primarily interactional language, which is listeneroriented. Brown and Yule claim that when the message is the reason for 1

Brown, Gillian and George Yule. Teaching the Spoken Language. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 13.

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speaking, it must be understood. In this sense, if the main function of spoken language is transactional, then what is of paramount importance is the transference of information. Indeed, when learners of English as an L2 use it transactionally, it is essential that they are able to express what they really want to say. However, there are cases in which conversation does not progress smoothly, and nobody can deny having experienced problems in conversations, both in the mother tongue or in the second or third languages. These problems are directly observable when the participants do not share common ground, that is to say, when they come from different cultures or have different first languages. As a result, communication problems are more likely to appear during a conversation between a native speaker (NS) and a non-native speaker (NNS) or between NNSs. Yet if the problems are dealt with by the interlocutors, the flow of conversation will go on smoothly. Some possible reasons for the lack of communication between a NS and a NNS could be: on the NS’s part, his/her accent, pronunciation and speed. On the other hand, the NNS’s low proficiency is a major factor for problematic communication. Gass and Varonis (1991) identified problematic communication as composed of two broad types: non-engagement and miscommunication. In the former, also known as talk avoidance, no communicative event takes place. Non-engagement is subdivided into non-communication, which is an avoidance of communication, and communication breakoff, which occurs when a conversation is abruptly finished when one participant realises that continuing with the conversation is not in his/her best interest (see Figure 11-1). In miscommunication, an attempt is made to carry out a conversation, although problems arise in the transmission and/or reception of the message. It is composed of misunderstanding and incomplete understanding. The former occurs when other than the intended message is understood, that is, when there is a mismatch between the speaker’s intention and the hearer’s interpretation. Incomplete understanding takes place when one participant perceives that something has gone wrong in the conversation. The major difference between misunderstanding and incomplete understanding is whether or not the participants overtly recognise a problem and try to repair it. In the case of misunderstanding no recognition takes place, whereas in incomplete understanding the participants try to solve the problems. Example 11-1 illustrates a misunderstanding: Example 11-1 (source: Selinker and Gass 1984) NS: When I get to Paris, I’m going to sleep for one whole day. I’m so tired. NNS: What? NS: I’m going to sleep for one whole day. NNS: One hour a day?

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NS: Yes NNS: Why? NS: Because I’m so tired. Figure 11-1: Problematic communication types (source: Gass and Varonis 1991, 124). Problematic communication

Non-engagement

Non-communication

Communication breakoff

Miscommunication

Misunderstanding

Nonunderstanding

Incomplete understanding

Partial understanding

In problematic communication, a kind of strategiesʊachievement strategiesʊare at issue, in the sense that when faced with problems, learners have to work collaboratively to get the message through. In other words, they have to compensate for gaps in order to make the conversation successful.

3. Implications from research into speaking instruction In this section we will review three essential lines of research (i.e., comprehensible input, linguistic modifications and focus on form) that have an impact on the skill of speaking, both in natural and classroom contexts.

3.1 The input hypothesis In 1985, Krashen put forward his Input Hypothesis by claiming that if we want our learners to acquire language, the input they receive has to be a little beyond their current level of competence, or as he called it “i+1”. Here, “i” is the present level of knowledge, and “1” is the next step of development. However, this hypothesis poses the following question: How can learners understand input that does not fit their current level? Krashen argues that by means of extralinguistic and contextual information. Furthermore, Krashen

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proposed that input did not need to be finely-tuned but roughly-tuned (that is, there is no need to deliberately expose learners to samples of a specific structure). Therefore, optimal input for acquisition was characterised by several features, which Krashen summarised as follows: x Optimal input is comprehensible. This is a fundamental and necessary requirement for Second Language Acquisition (SLA). It amounts to saying that if the learners do not understand the message, there will be no acquisition. x Optimal input is interesting and/or relevant. The best input should focus the learner on the message, not on form. x Optimal input is not grammatically sequenced. This means that there is no need to deliberately include i+1, as it will occur naturally, assuming there is enough input. x Optimal input must be in sufficient quantity. Natural input will supply i+1 if there is sufficient amount of comprehensible input. The Input Hypothesis has been criticised in a number of ways. The emergence of the terms output (White 1987) and pushed output (Swain 1985) is evidence of this. Indeed, the input learners are exposed to and the interactional modifications they engage in are just as important as learners’ production of the TL. According to Swain (1985), input alone is not sufficient for acquisition; in fact, one can hear TL input and interpret the meaning without resorting to grammar. On the contrary, in the case of production, one is forced to put his/her output into some syntactic structure. Production then “may force the learner to move from semantic processing to syntactic processing.”2 The motivation for Swain’s claim was the lack of L2 development by immersion children even after years of academic study in the L2. She found that the lack of proficiency of children learning French in an immersion context coupled with their apparent lack of productive use of French. This finding led her to hypothesise the crucial role of output in the development of an L2. Although it seems obvious to state that one of the best ways to test one’s knowledge is to have to use it in some productive way, output had generally been considered as a way of practising already-existing knowledge. The idea that output could be part of the learning mechanism had not been seriously contemplated prior to Swain’s (1985) important paper, in which she introduced the comprehensible output hypothesis. It states that learners need opportunities 2

Swain, Merrill. “Communicative Competence: Some Rules of Comprehensible Input and Comprehensible Output in its Development.” In Input in Second Language Acquisition. (Rowley, MA.: Newbury House, 1985), 249.

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for pushed output (i.e., speech or writing that makes demands on them for correct and appropriate use of the L2) in order to develop certain grammatical features that do not appear to be acquired purely on the basis of comprehending input. As we have just mentioned, an early view of the function of output was either to practise what had previously been learned or to generate more input for the learner. However, it appears that there is a more central role for output, that is to say, by producing an L2, learners will notice a linguistic problem (Swain and Lapkin 1995). This means that learners modify their original message toward greater comprehensibility through more precise, coherent and appropriate output. In Swain’s words: Output may stimulate learners to move from the semantic, open-ended, nondeterministic, strategic processing prevalent in comprehension to the complete grammatical processing needed for an accurate production. Output, thus, would seem to have a potentially significant role in the development of syntax and morphology. 3

The logical question that follows those words is: how can output function as a central role in the learning process? According to Shehadeh (2002), there is still a dearth of evidence on the effect of output on L2 learning, mainly because research on output has been mostly descriptive. Despite this claim, Swain (1995) proposed four possible ways in which output may provide learners with a forum for important language learning functions: i) testing hypotheses about the structures of the TL; ii) receiving feedback to verify those hypotheses; iii) developing automaticity in interlanguage production, and iv) forcing a shift to a more grammatically based processing of the L2. We briefly turn to consider these functions. Hypothesis testing: the concept of hypothesis testing has been central to research in SLA for a number of years. It is argued that learners’ output represents their best prediction about how the TL works. When these predictions (i.e., hypotheses) are tested, they can either be confirmed and the message is successfully transmitted, or they can be rejected because the message does not communicate the intended meaning successfully and needs to be modified. Although it has not yet been directly shown that the modified output is maintained in a learner’s interlanguage, the assumption is that this process of modification contributes to SLA. As suggested by Pica et al. learners, in 3

Swain, Merrill. “Three Functions of Output in Second Language Learning.” In Principles and Practice in Applied Linguistics. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 128.

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modifying their output, “test hypotheses about the second language, experiment with new structures and forms, and expand and exploit their interlanguage resources in creative ways.”4 Learners may thus use their output in order to check what works and what does not work. Receiving feedback: when learners produce output, they can obtain feedback for the verification of their hypotheses, that is to say, feedback may enable the learner to change the incorrect hypotheses about the TL structures for the correct ones. Developing automaticity: a third function of output is the development of fluency and automaticity of processing. There exist certain processes which are deliberate and require a significant amount of time; in contrast, other processes are routine and automatic and occupy less time. McLaughlin claimed that automatisation involved “a learned response that has been built up through the consistent mapping of the same input to the same pattern of activation over many trials.”5 This notion can be extended to output: the consistent and successful mapping (i.e., practice) of grammar to output might result in automatic processing. Forcing a shift to grammatically-based processing: Swain’s hypothesis stated that output “may force the learner to move from semantic processing to syntactic processing.”6 Output provides learners with opportunities to focus their attention on certain aspects of their speech, a fact that may lead them to notice either a mismatch between their speech and that of an interlocutor or a deficiency in their output. Noticing this mismatch leads to reassessment, which may be immediate or longer term complex thinking about the issue. These functions of output are directly related to the skill of speaking. Another aspect which has to be taken into account in the development of oral skills, apart from input and output, is the conversational adjustments to the structure of oral discourse. These adjustments are discussed next.

4 Pica, Teresa, L. Holliday, N. Lewis and L. Morganthaler. “Comprehensible Output as an Outcome of Linguistic Demands on the Learner.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11, no. 1 (1989): 64. 5 McLaughlin, Barry. Theories of Second Language Learning. (London: Edward Arnold, 1987), 34. 6 Swain, Merrill. “Communicative Competence: Some Rules of Comprehensible Input and Comprehensible Output in its Development.” In Input in Second Language Acquisition. (Rowley, MA.: Newbury House, 1985), 249.

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3.2 Linguistic adjustments In the last decade, researchers have become interested in the relationship between different types of input, comprehension and acquisition. Therefore, terms such as premodified input and interactionally modified input have emerged. By premodified input we mean input which has been linguistically modified before it is offered to the learner. On the other hand, interactionally modified input is made comprehensible due to the interactional modifications participants in conversation engage in. A number of studies have tackled these different versions of input, among which we can mention the study by Loschky (1994) and Ellis et al. (1994). Loschky (1994) suggested that premodification of input would facilitate comprehension relative to non-modification of input and interaction. To test the validity of his hypothesis, he used three experimental groups: the first one received non-modified input, the second group obtained premodified input and the third received non-modified input with the opportunity to negotiate meaning. The outcomes of the study disconfirmed the hypothesis that premodification of input would facilitate comprehension relative to non-modification and interaction. Therefore, premodified input failed to improve learners’ comprehension. In turn, Ellis et al. (1994) obtained similar findings to Loschky’s. In an attempt to investigate the effects of modified interaction on comprehension and vocabulary acquisition, these researchers modified the input which was to be offered to their students in two ways: it contained many repetitions of the items to be identified and placed correctly, and it was delivered more slowly. Seventynine high-school students were assigned to three different groups: the first group was designated baseline group, which received directions of the kind native speakers (NSs) address to NSs; the second group was the premodified group, with directions that had been modified by increasing redundancy and decreasing syntactical complexity, and the third group was the interactionally modified group. This last group received the same directions as the baseline group, but with the opportunity to negotiate for comprehensible input. The findings of this study suggested that although premodification of input facilitated comprehension, it did not work as well as negotiated input. These two studies we have reviewed show that the possibility to modify input through interaction produces better student comprehension, and more importantly, better acquisition. They are also consonant with Long’s (1983a) claim that NSs and NNSs get involved in interactional modifications in order to make input comprehensible due to the communicative difficulties which may arise as a result of the NNS’s limited L2 knowledge. These interactional adjustments are known as negotiation of meaning, which is used to reach two objectives: i) to avoid conversational trouble and, ii) to repair discourse when trouble occurs.

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There are three main adjustments in NS/NNS conversations: clarification requests, confirmation checks and comprehension checks. Clarification requests are moves to seek help in understanding the other speaker’s preceding utterance through questions (including wh, yes-no, rising intonation) or statements such as “I don’t understand” or “Please, repeat”. Example 11-2 illustrates one: Example 11-2 (source: Pica et al. 1986) NS: ok the one mushroom is below NNS: b’low? NS: below not: it’s below NNS: what’s b’low NS: this is above, and this is below NNS: below, mhm NS: yes

Confirmation checks are moves to seek confirmation of the other’s preceding message through repetition, with rising intonation, of all or part of the message. Example 11-3 illustrates one: Example 11-3 (source: Pica et al. 1986) NS: in the center of the crossroads right where the three meet place the dog in the carriage NNS: the dog? NS: mhm NNS: in the carriage? NS: in the carriage

Comprehension checks are moves through which one speaker tries to determine whether the other speaker has understood a preceding message. Example 11-4 illustrates one: Example 11-4 (source: Pica et al. 1986) NS: the bumble bee in the girl’s hair know which one the bumble bee is? NNS: bumble bees? NS: mhm it’s a bug, it’s a little yellow bug it goes zzz, that one

Gass and Varonis (1994) suggest the potential effects of interaction on the incorporation of forms, although these authors claim that they are not yet in a position to talk about actual acquisition of new forms. Furthermore, they state that the effects of interaction are not necessarily immediate, that is, they may affect subsequent conversations. In this line, interactional input provides a

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forum for learners to readily detect a discrepancy between their learner language and the TL, and consequently, the awareness of the mismatch serves the function of triggering a modification of existing L2 knowledge, the results of which may show up at some later point in time. Therefore, destabilisation is crucial if learning is to progress to higher levels, and awareness, as suggested by Alcón (1994, 1996), is a prerequisite for the restructuring of a learner’s linguistic knowledge. As noted earlier, the effect of interaction on acquisition remains controversial. It has been claimed that comprehension does not lead to acquisition, as Loschky states, “positing a simple linear relationship between comprehension and intake is not warranted.”7 Likewise, Pica (1994) and Alcón (1996) consider it difficult to find a direct relationship between the comprehension of L2 input and the internalisation of L2 forms. There is, however, an indirect relationship between negotiation and acquisition, that is to say, through interaction learners detect differences between their interlanguage and the TL, and this awareness of the differences may make them modify their output. This claim is in line with Long (1980), who suggested that negotiated interaction indirectly promoted SLA, as illustrated in Figure 11-2: Figure 11-2: Relationship between negotiated interaction, comprehensible input and language acquisition (source: Allwright and Bailey 1991).

c o m p r e h e n s ib le in p u t n e g o t ia t e d in t e r a c t io n

la n g u a g e a c q u is it io n

Some researchers (e.g., Aston 1986; Foster 1998) have raised claims against the beneficial effects of the negotiation of meaning on SLA. Specifically, Foster (1998) pointed out that some tasks designed to maximise negotiation may end up demotivating and discouraging students by making them feel unsuccessful and ineffective. Pica also acknowledged that “too many clarification requests

7 Loschky, Lester. “Comprehensible Input and Second Language Acquisition. What is the Relationship?” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16, no. 3 (1994): 320.

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can be downright annoying.”8 In an attempt to find out why so many students in Foster’s study were unwilling to start negotiation, she provided some explanations for that behaviour. First, Foster argued that tasks were made too slow every time there was a communicative problem and an attempt at remediation occurred. Second, students may have felt incompetent by indicating to others each time they did not understand meaning. These two reasons were then put forward to support Foster’s claim that negotiation of meaning is not always a strategy language learners are inclined to use when gaps in their understanding take place. Nevertheless, and despite the potential drawbacks of negotiation of meaning, it is our belief that no one can deny the impact of the interactional adjustments on L2 comprehension. Moreover, by means of negotiating meaning, both learning and production strategies may be fostered, as the strategies of transfer and overgeneralisation may be avoided or corrected when the learner is speaking in the TL. Negotiation of meaning is a common feature in tasks where there is an exchange of information. The literature distinguishes two types of tasks: oneand two-way tasks. In one-way tasks, only one participant holds the information the other needs, whereas in two-way tasks “each participant has some knowledge not shared by any other participant. The participants are then set for a task or a problem which can only be solved if they pool their information.”9 Two-way tasks foster communication in that they may help in genuine communicative interaction outside the classroom. The following are examples of one-way tasks: x Reasoning-gap activity: it involves deriving some new information from given information through processes of inference, deduction, etc. x Opinion-gap activity: it involves giving a personal feeling or attitude in response to a given situation. Examples of two-way tasks, most of which are found in Brown and Yule (1983), include: x Information-gap activity: pair work in which each member of the pair has a part of the total information.

8 Pica, Teresa. “Review Article. Research on Negotiation: What does it Reveal about Second Language Learning Conditions, Processes and Outcomes?” Language Learning 44, no. 3 (1994): 519. 9 Nunan, David. Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 64.

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x Description: pair work in which participants have to identify in what way their pictures, photographs, etc., differ from the one the speaker is describing. A related task is story-telling, in which the listener has to identify which scenes or characters fit the account he/she hears. x Eye-witness account: the listener has to identify the pictures which fit the crash just occurred, or has to produce a diagram of the location and movement of the cars involved in the crash. Obviously, it is two-way tasks that promote more interaction, as both participants are directly engaged in the activity. Long (1983b) graphically illustrated the way in which this type of task could aid language acquisition (see Figure 11-3): Figure 11-3: Long’s model of the relationship between type of task and language acquisition (source: Long 1983b, 214).

V erbal c o m m u n ic a t io n t a s k in v o lv in g a t w o - w a y exchange o f in fo r m a t io n

O p p o r t u n it y fo r t h e le s s co m p etent sp eak er to p r o v id e fe e d b a c k o f h is / h e r la c k o f c o m p r e h e n s io n

N e g o t ia t e d m o d ific a t io n o f t h e c o n v e r s a t io n

C o m p r e h e n s ib le in p u t

L anguage a c q u is it io n

Some tasks may create a context in which a learner feels more comfortable in producing what he/she has to say, and a context in which he/she feels less comfortable. According to Brown and Yule (1983), the student is more likely to produce the best he/she is capable of in an L2 under conditions which provide less communicative stress. The authors suggested three broad categories which relate to this notion: a) Features of the context: it is easier for the speaker if the listener is one of his/her peers. In the same way, it is easier to talk to one listener than to many. The situation is another feature included in this category, in that it is easier for the speaker to talk in a familiar environment. b) State of knowledge of the listener: it is helpful for the speaker if the listener knows as much of the TL as the speaker does. Also, it is helpful

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for the speaker if he/she has the information which the listener does not have but which the listener needs, as this puts the speaker in control of the information. c) Type of task: it is helpful if the speaker is familiar with the L2 vocabulary which is essential for the completion of the task. In the same line, it is easier for any speaker if the information in the task provides its own structure so that the language is supported by the requirements of the task. Ideally, tasks should keep communicative stress to a minimum by means of grading the tasks the students have to carry out according to their level. Therefore, it would be worthwhile, pedagogically speaking, to add some of the conditions mentioned above so as to increase the stress; for example, addressing a big audience, talking about a topic the student has limited knowledge of, etc.

3.3 FonF in L2 learning 3.3.1 From focus on meaning to FonF The current interest in FonF is motivated by the findings of interaction studies and by immersion studies. According to Long (1983a, 1983b), a crucial site for language development is interaction between learners and other speakers. Particularly important is the negotiation of meaning (see Section 3.2), which implies the modifications to the interactional structure of conversation that result from negotiation work. Moreover, by means of negotiation, feedback is elicited, a fact that may draw learners’ attention to mismatches between input and output, causing them to focus on form. A second motivation for FonF is based on immersion studies, the results of which suggest that when classroom learning is entirely meaning-focused, some linguistic features do not develop to target-like levels. This is so despite years of meaningful input and opportunities for interaction. Therefore, in contrast to first language acquisition, L2 acquisition is variably successful. As findings of classroom research have begun to indicate, pedagogical interventions embedded in primarily communicative activities can be effective in overcoming classroom limitations on acquisition. This research has shown that meaning-centred instruction led to low levels of linguistic accuracy, due to the fact that by focusing exclusively on negotiation of meaning and successful communication, the issue of form was overlooked. Recent studies (Doughty and Varela 1998; Mackey and Philp 1998; Muranoi 2000) coincide that there is a need to include a FonF approach in the classroom. In this line, by means of FonF, correcting strategies could take place in the instructional setting, as learners could detect

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the discrepancy between their oral production and the correct, target-like counterpart. 3.3.2 The difference between FonF and FonFormS Most research currently investigating the role of attention to form may be due to Long’s (1991) work. This author distinguished between a FonFormS, which characterises synthetic approaches to language teaching that have as their primary organising principle the accumulation of individual language elements from what he called FonF. FonFormS is today considered the traditional approach. Course design starts with the language to be taught, with the L2 divided into segments of different kinds. The items in the resulting list are then sequenced for presentation as model to learners in linear, additive fashion according to such criteria as frequency or difficulty. This procedure results in FonFormS lessons that consist mainly of work on the linguistic items, which the students are expected to master one at a time, with little communicative L2 use. However, the main drawback of FonFormS is that learners rarely go through fixed developmental sequences in grammatical domains. Bearing this idea in mind, Long (1991) suggested a viable option: FonF. He has provided two definitions of FonF: the first one is more theoretical: “Focus on form […] overtly draws students’ attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaning or communication.”10 The second definition (Long and Robinson 1998), which is more operational, offers teachers greater direction for practical implementation: “Focus on form often consists of an occasional shift of attention to linguistic code features –by the teacher and/or one or more students- triggered by perceived problems with comprehension or production.”11 As we can see, and unlike FonFormS in which forms are targeted, FonF respects the learner’s internal syllabus, since it occurs when the learner has a communication problem. Taking into account research findings, two conclusions are drawn: first, instruction built around a FonFormS is counterproductive; and secondly, instruction which encourages a non-interfering FonF produces higher levels of ultimate L2 attainment than instruction with no FonF. If this last assumption were correct, FonF would be a desirable design feature of L2 instruction. 10

Long, Michael. “Focus on Form: A Design Feature in Language Teaching Methodology.” In Foreign Language Research in Cross-Cultural Perspective. (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1991), 45-46. 11 Long, Michael and Peter Robinson. “Focus on Form. Theory, Research and Practice” In Focus on Form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 23.

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4. Conclusion and research agenda In this chapter we have focused on oral production by reviewing key factors and processes present when addressing the skill of speaking. Specifically, we have started with the nature of communication and the potential problems learners may confront when they speak in an L2. We have then considered the notion of comprehensible input and its effect on acquisition. Since input is not enough to acquire the TL, it has been argued that the production of language (i.e., output) is a necessary condition for learning. Indeed, as argued by Swain (1985), learners need pushed output so as to become aware of grammatical aspects that may go unnoticed if learners only receive input. Obviously, both input and output are key issues in the development of the skill of speaking. Learners’ oral production may be peppered with linguistic adjustments in order to help them understand input. We have reviewed research on these linguistic modifications, along with some activities which foster speaking in the classroom context. Finally, we have considered the concept of FonF and its relationship with speaking, as it is argued that when learners’ attention is briefly focused on form in the context of oral production, changes to more target-like models may occur. However, further research should be carried out in order to shed light on this claim, since it has been argued (García Mayo and Pica 2000) that the amount and quality of interaction in the L2 setting, particularly in the foreign language setting is limited. For this reason, if we want to observe what happens when our learners use the L2 in the classroom, quantitative but also qualitative research should be conducted, a fact that may bring us closer to the dynamics of actual classrooms. Future research should also focus on the type of feedback (implicit vs explicit) that can be more positive for learners when they use the TL productively. Moreover, it would be worthwhile to consider cases in which feedback is not provided by the teacher but by a peer or even by the student himself/herself. This implies that the learner notices his/her own linguistic error, both initiating and completing the erroneous utterance. Finally, research might centre on examining learners’ participation in classroom interaction and its potential influence on acquisition. In fact, there are learners who are more active (or in Seliger’s (1983) terms high input generators) than others, but there exists evidence suggesting that learners may profit from the oral production by their classmates (Williams 2001). This is particularly important in the English-as-aforeign language context, where the teacher faces large classes and learners may benefit from the oral input both the teacher and the rest of the class offer.

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Works Cited Alcón, Eva. “Interaction, Foreign Language Production and Development.” Miscelánea 17 (1996): 1-16. . “Practise Opportunities and Learning Outcomes in the Foreign English Classroom.” Communication and Cognition 27, no. 4 (1994): 429-39. Allwright, Dick and Kathleen M. Bailey. Focus on the Classroom: An Introduction to Classroom Research for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Aston, Guy. “Trouble-Shooting in Interaction with Learners: The More the Merrier?” Applied Linguistics 7, no. 2 (1986): 128-43. Brown, Gillian and George Yule. Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Doughty, Catherine and Elizabeth Varela. “Communicative Focus on Form.” In Focus on Form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition, edited by Catherine Doughty and Jessica Williams, 114-38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Ellis, Rod. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Ellis, Rod, Yoshihiro Tanaka and Atsuko Yamazaki. “Classroom Interaction, Comprehension and L2 Vocabulary Acquisition.” Language Learning 44, no. 3 (1994): 449-91. Foster, Pauline. “A Classroom Perspective on the Negotiation of Meaning.” Applied Linguistics 19, no. 1 (1998): 1-23. García Mayo, María Pilar and Teresa Pica. “L2 Learner Interaction in a Foreign Language Setting: Are Learning Needs Addressed?” IRAL: International Review of Applied Linguistics 38, no. 1 (2000): 35-58. Gass, Susan and Evangeline M. Varonis. “Input, Interaction and Second Language Production.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16, no. 3 (1994): 283-302. . “Miscommunication in Nonnative Speaker Discourse” in “Miscommunication” and Problematic Talk, edited by Nikolas Coupland, Howard Giles and John M. Wiemann, 121-45. Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1991. Krashen, Stephen. The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. London: Longman, 1985. Long, Michael. “Authenticity and Learning Potential in L2 Classroom Discourse.” In Language Classrooms of Tomorrow: Issues and Responses, edited by George M. Jacobs, 148-69. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, 1997.

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Long, Michael. “Focus on Form: A Design Feature in Language Teaching Methodology.” In Foreign Language Research in Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Kees de Bot, Ralph Ginsberg and Claire Kramsch, 3952. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1991. . “Linguistic and Conversational Adjustments to Non-Native Speakers.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 5, no. 2 (1983a): 177-93. . “Native Speaker/Nonnative Speaker Conversation in the Second Language Classroom.” In On TESOL’82, Pacific Perspectives on Language Learning and Teaching, edited by Mark A. Clarke and Jean Handscombe, 207-25. Washington DC.: TESOL, 1983b. . “Input, Interaction, and Second Language Acquisition.” PhD diss., University of California: Los Angeles, 1980. Long, Michael and Peter Robinson. “Focus on Form. Theory, Research and Practice” In Focus on Form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition, edited by Catherine Doughty and Jessica Williams, 15-41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Loschky, Lester. “Comprehensible Input and Second Language Acquisition. What is the Relationship?” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16, no. 3 (1994): 303-23. Mackey, Alison and Jenefer Philp. “Conversational Interaction and Second Language Development: Recasts, Responses, and Red Herrings?” The Modern Language Journal 82, no. 3 (1998): 338-56. McLaughlin, Barry. Theories of Second Language Learning. London: Edward Arnold, 1987. Muranoi, Hitoshi. “Focus on Form through Interaction Enhancement: Integrating Formal Instruction into a Communicative Task in EFL Classrooms” Language Learning 50, no. 4 (2000): 617-73. Nunan, David. Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pica, Teresa. “Review Article. Research on Negotiation: What does it Reveal about Second Language Learning Conditions, Processes and Outcomes?” Language Learning 44, no. 3 (1994): 493-527. Pica, Teresa, Lloyd Holliday, Nora Lewis and L. Morganthaler. “Comprehensible Output as an Outcome of Linguistic Demands on the Learner.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11, no. 1 (1989): 63-90. Pica, Teresa, Catherine Doughty and Richard Young. “Making Input Comprehensible: Do Interactional Modifications Help?” ITL Review of Applied Linguistics 72 (1986): 1-25. Seliger, Herbert W. “Learner Interaction in the Classroom and its Effects on Language Acquisition.” In Classroom Oriented Research in Second

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Language Acquisition, edited by Herbert W. Seliger and Michael Long, 24666. Rowley, MA.: Newbury House, 1983. Selinker, Larry and Susan Gass. Workbook in Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, MA.: Newbury House, 1984. Shehadeh, Ali. “Comprehensible Output, from Occurrence to Acquisition: An Agenda for Acquisitional Research.” Language Learning 52, no. 3 (2002): 597-647. Swain, Merrill. “Three Functions of Output in Second Language Learning.” In Principles and Practice in Applied Linguistics, edited by Guy Cook and Barbara Seidlhofer, 125-44. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. . “Communicative Competence: Some Rules of Comprehensible Input and Comprehensible Output in its Development.” In Input in Second Language Acquisition, edited by Susan Gass and Carolyn Madden, 235-53. Rowley, MA.: Newbury House, 1985. Swain, Merrill and Sharon Lapkin. “Problems in Output and the Cognitive Processes they Generate: A Step Towards Second Language Learning.” Applied Linguistics 16, no. 3 (1995): 371-91. White, Lydia. “Against Comprehensible Input: The Input Hypothesis and the Development of Second Language Competence.” Applied Linguistics 8, no. 2 (1987): 95-110. Williams, Jessica. “The Effectiveness of Spontaneous Attention to Form.” System 29, no. 3 (2001): 325-40.

CHAPTER TWELVE RESEARCH-ORIENTED PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHING READING ESTHER USÓ-JUAN Universitat Jaume I

1. Introduction Up to the end of the 1960s, language practitioners thought that reading comprehension was something that could not be taught. The cause of this belief was the dominating influence of behaviourist ideas that avoided speculations about the workings of the human mind and concentrated only on observable facts outside the person. Reading was viewed as a perceptual process, that is, readers were decoders of printed symbols on a page and translated these symbols into the corresponding word sounds. Comprehension of printed material was achieved when pronunciation was correct and natural (Venezky 2002). Most language programmes, therefore, tackled reading comprehension by focusing on the development of decoding skills, and their major instructional task was to teach readers to discriminate among the visual symbols they encountered on a printed page before they could translate them into word sounds (Pearson and Stephens 1994). By the beginning of the 1970s, however, this early role of reading in language programmes was soon challenged by the emerging sciences of linguistics, cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, which began to identify comprehension skills. Work in these disciplines helped experts to consider reading as an interactive, constructive and contextualised process that was key in developing learners’ communicative competence (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000; Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor 2006). Given the central role that this skill plays in language teaching, the main purpose of this chapter is to describe how reading can be developed in instructional settings. To that end, it opens with a brief explanation of the nature of reading by addressing how this ability is likely to work for expert readers. This explanation, which stems from first language (L1) reading theory,

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represents the theoretical framework upon which second/foreign language (L2) reading theory is based on. It, then, reviews reading research in L2 contexts and highlights the major pedagogical implications that derive from it. Finally, it draws some conclusions about the topic and suggests directions for future research to gain a more complete picture of L2 reading instruction.

2. The nature of reading comprehension Several reading models have emerged as attempts to explain the nature of reading comprehension. These models are commonly categorised on the basis of whether the information flow in text processing is seen as being bottom-up, topdown or interactive. Bottom-up processing models are those which view the act of reading as beginning with the printed page and then proceed in a linear fashion from the visual data to meaning through a series of processing stages. Generally, there is an assumption that the information flows from the text to the reader in a rather passive way and that processing is very fast and little affected by the information being processed and stored in memory. These models (e.g., Gough 1972) attribute a major role to lower-level textual components such as letters and word recognition. In this approach, reading is described as a mere perceptual process in which the reader mechanically, and without the activation of any cognitive process, translates the written symbols into the corresponding word sounds. Top-down processing models, in contrast, see the act of reading as beginning with the reader’s hypothesis or predictions about the text and the subsequent verification of these predictions against the visual data. In particular, there is the assumption that the information flows from the reader to the text in an active manner, since the reader is actively engaged in hypothesis testing when processing the text and that processing is slower than in the bottom-up approach because of the effect memory capacity has on the speed that information can be stored. In these approaches, the reader’s background knowledge over the incoming text becomes crucial, as it is this background knowledge which helps him to make sense of the written text. These models (e.g., Goodman 1967, 1973) place higher value on what is known as higher-level processing and downplay to a large extent the importance of lower-level word recognition processes. In Goodman’s (1967) model, reading is described as a cyclical process of i) sampling the text to select the most useful and necessary graphic cues; ii) predicting grammatical (syntactic) structures to get to the deep structure of meaning; iii) testing the predictions; and iv) confirming or modifying them. Reading, in this approach, is viewed as a cognitive process. Nowadays, however, interactive processing models are considered to be the best approaches that explain the reading process. They view reading as an

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interactive process, in which lower-level and higher-level processes operate either alternately or at the same time, with information from each processing direction complementing the other. In these models, the reading act is at once a perceptual and a cognitive process. The first pure interactive model was credited to Rumelhart (1977), who acknowledged the reciprocal influence of different levels of knowledge held by the reader, and modelled these levels as operating in interaction with each other in the reading process. Stanovich (1980, 1984), another well-known name associated with interactive models, proposed the interactive-compensatory model. As its name indicates, in this model, the readers process texts by utilising information provided simultaneously from different knowledge sources and a deficit in one area of knowledge can be compensated for by strength in another area. Thus, if there is a poor reading skill at the grapheme or word levels, other sources of knowledge, such as syntactic or semantic knowledge, can compensate for the deficit. Similarly, if the topic is unfamiliar, the application of bottom-up processes may be easier for the reader. This model, although based on the one put forward by Rumelhart (1977), takes into account individual differences during the process of reading. Interactive models of reading draw strongly on Schema Theory (Rumelhart 1980; Anderson and Pearson 1984), a theory of knowledge representation which attempts to explain the crucial role played by background knowledge in language comprehension. According to this theory, knowledge is packed into units. These units, which are called schemata (Rumelhart and Ortony 1977; Rumelhart 1980; Rumelhart and Norman 1985), have the following defining features: i) schemata have specific sets of variables, some of which are fixed (i.e., the schema for the concept buy includes the variables of the purchaser, the seller, the money, the merchandise and the bargaining); ii) schemata are hierarchically organised (i.e., the schema for a face would consists of a configuration of subschemata, each representing a constituent of a faceʊthe mouth, the nose, the ear and the eyesʊand these subschemata would, in turn, consist of other constituents); iii) schemata vary in their levels of abstraction and represent all sorts of knowledge such as ideologies, grammatical rules, objects and so forth; iv) schemata represent knowledge rather than definitions, so they are symbolic rather than language-based representations of knowledge, which are used to understand language; v) schemata are not static processes but rather active processes whose function is to determine their goodness of fit to the input being processed. In schema theory terms, comprehension and, in turn, learning are a matter of relating new information to the knowledge stored in the schemata, rather than piling up pieces of random information in the mind. Accordingly, schemata provide the basis for comprehension.

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Throughout this section, we have observed that scientific investigation into reading has helped us to better understand its nature. It is now widely accepted that reading ability depends not just on the written text but also on the reader’s background knowledge, which is rooted mainly in previous experiences in life. Therefore, the reading process is an interaction between lower- and higher-level procedures. A central component in lower-level procedures is that of word recognition which, researchers now agree, takes place very quickly and with minimal cognitive effort (Grabe 1999). As words are recognised and information is activated, the readers bring a set of knowledge to the process of reading that has to do with lexical, syntactic and semantic knowledge, all of which are affected by sociocultural factors and individual differences. This view of reading reveals the complexities inherent in this skill. In an attempt to facilitate its instruction in L2 contexts, it is the purpose of the next section to present some pedagogical implications which directly stem from reading research.

3. Implications from research into reading instruction Based on findings from L2 reading research, effective reading instruction should address the following areas: i) automaticity development; ii) vocabulary development; iii) background knowledge development; iv) development of strategic readers, and v) extensive reading development (Day and Bamford 1997; Aebersold and Field 1998; Anderson 1999; Grabe and Stoller 2001, 2002; Eskey 2005).

3.1 Automaticity development Automaticity in word recognition is regarded as a crucial indicator for fluent L2 reading (Birch 2002). As defined by Eskey, it involves “the ability to convert most written language into meaningful information so automatically that the reader does not have to think about the language and can concentrate on combining the information obtained with background knowledge to construct a meaning for the text.”1 To read effectively (with speed and comprehension), then, most words have to be processed rapidly and with a minimal conscious effort. Native speakers foster this skill naturally through experience in L1 reading. However, as noted by Koda (1996), for L2 readers the mastery of this skill is obviously more complex as a result of limited L2 orthographic 1

Eskey, David E. “Reading in a Second Language.” In Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning. (Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005), 568.

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processing experience, L1-L2 orthographic distance and L1-L2 orthographic knowledge interaction. Segalowitz and Segalowitz’s (1993) research with highand low-efficiency French learners of English demonstrated that word recognition automaticity was a factor that distinguished these two groups of learners, high-efficiency learners being faster and more stable in their responses. In a subsequent study with English-speaking learners of French, Segalowitz et al. (1998) corroborated that word recognition automaticity is a factor that distinguished fluent readers from less fluent ones. In addition, they showed that training over the course of two semesters resulted in gains in L2 word recognition automaticity for less fluent readers. However, it is important to note that the extent to which such instruction in itself improves reading comprehension remains somewhat uncertain. Because automaticity in word recognition is a prerequisite for L2 reading, recommendations have been set forth to incorporate this skill in L2 reading instruction. Anderson (1999), for example, suggests the following three reading rate activities to develop learners’ automaticity. The first activity may involve making learners read in 60 seconds as much material as they can. Once the time is up, learners are to start reading again from the very beginning and are given an additional sixty seconds. The activity is repeated three or four times and its main aim is to encourage readers to read faster each time they go over the material, which is now more familiar to them. The second activity may ask learners to read a short passage as many times as needed until they achieve criterion levels of reading rate and comprehension (i.e., 150 wpm at 80% comprehension). The third and final activity can include the establishment of either a class goal or learners’ own goal for minimal reading rate and push learners to read at that specified pace. Aside from these reading rate activities, practice in word recognition under time pressure, flashcard practice, and teacher read-alouds while learners follow along in silence are other ways to develop learners’ automaticity (Grabe and Stoller 2001). All in all, fluency activities have to meet the following four conditions: i) learners’ familiarity with text features and vocabulary; ii) a focus on the text message; iii) pressure to read at a higher speed than the usual one; and iv) quantity of such practice (Nation 2005).

3.2 Vocabulary development Studies on the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in L2 contexts support the contention that vocabulary development is a critical component of reading comprehension. The studies conducted by Laufer (1992) and Quian (2002), for instance, reported fairly strong correlations between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Of course, such correlational evidence does not mean that knowledge of word

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meanings is the cause of comprehension, but it does suggest that the two factors are closely interwoven. Other studies have attempted to estimate the percentage of text vocabulary that learners need to read fluently. Laufer’s (1989) research indicated that readers need 95% coverage of the words in the text to comprehend and guess the unknown words from context. Hu and Nation (2000) compared effects of text coverages ranging from 80% to 100% on story comprehension and found that the text-word coverage required to gain an adequate understanding in such texts was roughly 98%. This percentage represented about 5000 word families, that is, base forms and their derived forms (Carrell and Grabe 2002; Hinkel 2006). Unfortunately, this situation is quite unlikely in L2 instructional contexts, where L2 learners are frequently asked to read material which includes a far greater number of unknown words than the minimal 95%-98% criterion, and reading is reduced to a kind of learners’ struggle against a heavy vocabulary load. Thus, the need to tackle vocabulary instruction in reading courses is beyond dispute. Regarding the best way to acquire vocabulary, it has been argued that a large portion of words are probably learned incidentally through extensive reading (Zimmerman 1997). However, researchers have voiced caution that incidental learning is a gradual process and requires multiple exposures to a word in a variety of contexts (Hunt and Beglar 2002, 2005). In addition to this practice, explicit vocabulary instruction may also be of help to learners at all proficiency levels and particularly those low-level learners who have little exposure and practice in extensive reading. In this regard, Nation (2005) recommends a range of techniques, including guessing from context, learning from word cards and using word parts. The strategy of guessing from context through reading involves learners’ use of both linguistic clues (i.e., the part of speech of the unknown word, its immediate context and its wider context), as well as the background knowledge clues to guess the meaning of unknown words in a given text. As pointed out by Nation (2005), for the strategy to be successful, learners should be familiar with 98% of the running words in the passage. Once learners guess the meaning of the unknown word, they should check that the guess is correct in the dictionary, especially if they have been trained in the use of such a tool. The second strategy, learning from word cards, consists of rote learning and has been proven to be an effective technique. Nation2 states the following guidelines for instruction to be effective: i) retrieve the meaning of the word before looking at the translation; ii) space the repetitions; iii) keep changing the order of the cards 2

Nation, Paul. “Teaching and Learning Vocabulary.” In Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning (Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005), 590-591.

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in the pack; iv) say the word to yourself when looking at the card; v) use L1 translations when making the cards; vi) use mnemonic tricks or analysis of word part to make the word easier to learn; vii) avoid putting related words together in the same pack; and viii) learn the word productively once it has been learned receptively. Finally, the last strategy, using word parts, suggests the learning of word parts, particularly prefixes and suffixes, to help learners in the acquisition of new vocabulary.

3.3 Background knowledge development It is a well documented fact that background knowledge plays a crucial part in L2 reading comprehension. Most representative studies into the effect of background knowledge on L2 reading comprehension are divided into two kinds, namely i) those relating to knowledge of the world, that is, cultural and content knowledge, and ii) those relating to knowledge of how texts are organised. As regards the effects of world knowledge, the widely cited studies conducted in the late 1970s and 1980s (Steffensen et al. 1979; Johnson 1981, Reynolds et al. 1982) clearly demonstrated the profound effect of cultural knowledge on reading comprehension. Moreover, the research conducted by Chikalanga (1993) showed that cultural background knowledge not only enhances comprehension of the texts, but also helps in the ability to draw inferences. Similar findings are corroborated by studies on the effect of content knowledge. For example, Chen and Donin (1997) examined the effects of discipline-related knowledge on text processing among Chinese biology learners in Canadian universities and found that discipline-related knowledge significantly affected recall performance. In a more recent study, Usó-Juan (2006) attempted to estimate the contribution of discipline-related knowledge to reading comprehension in English for Academic Purposes (EAP), and demonstrated through six regression analyses that discipline-related knowledge accounted for a range varying between 21% and 31% of EAP reading. Considering these results, the author concluded that the way in which domain knowledge affects reading comprehension is very strong. With regards to the effects of knowledge of text structure, a large number of studies have verified that readers’ background knowledge and awareness of text structure significantly enhances reading comprehension (Carrell 1984a, 1984b; Carrell 1992; Lahuerta 2002). Further, explicit training in text structure facilitates comprehension of both expository (Carrell 1985) and narrative texts (Kitajima 1997). Bearing in mind the fact that background knowledge is a precondition for making sense of the written text, a variety of classroom activities have been proposed to activate or build learners’ background knowledge of the text content

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and structure. As regards the activation or building of background knowledge of the text content, Anderson (1999), for example, suggests classroom discussion of the text content through the use of i) anticipated guides, which include provocative statements to challenge learner knowledge of the text topic, or ii) semantic maps, a technique in which learners are given a key word or concept that is part of the text, and then they are requested to generate ideas associated with it. In addition to class discussion, asking learners to write a list in two columns with those things they know for sure about the text topic and those they are not sure of is another useful activity to activate learner’s knowledge of the topic of the text. This particular activity needs to be linked with activities in the reading phase in which learners check things they were sure of and try to answer those things they were not sure of (Williams 1987). Finally, as proposed by Aebersold and Field (1997), field trips, role-plays or word association activities can also be helpful to activate learners’ knowledge of the topic of the text. Needless to say, if learners do not have background knowledge to activate, teachers have to build it by presenting them with information about the text topic via television, newspapers or magazines. With regards to the activation of background knowledge of text structure and discourse organisation, Grabe and Stoller (2001) propose text-analysis and graphics-related activities to guide learners towards understanding how texts are structured and subsequently facilitate text comprehension. Text-analysis activities include among many others: i) the identification of topic sentences and their relations to other sentences; ii) the identification of transition phrases or words together with a description of what the next section is about; iii) an explanation of what a set of pronouns refers to in the text; or iv) the identification of those clues that facilitate the recognition of major patterns of organisation like comparison-contrast, problem-solution, and so forth. Additionally, graphics-related activities, such as the use of graphic organisers (i.e., a visual picture of text information) or graphical ways to organise information, are particularly recommended with difficult texts to promote learners’ awareness of text organisation.

3.4 Development of strategic readers To construct meaning from text, in addition to having automatic word-level skills and background knowledge, readers require the skilful use of clusters of reading strategies (Koda 2005; Ediger 2006). The term reading strategies refers to those conscious or unconscious procedures, actions, techniques or behaviours that learners can utilise in order to enhance their comprehension and make up for interpretation problems. Following O’Malley and Chamot (2000), strategies are classified as metacognitive (i.e., related to regulating cognitive processing as

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in monitoring and planning), cognitive (i.e., related to accomplishing a cognitive task during reading such as inferencing, making predictions, linking with background knowledge, and so forth), as well as social and affective strategies (i.e., related to personal traits as well as interaction with others during the reading process, as in working with peers to solve a problem). Research into L2 reading strategies has revealed differences in strategy use of more and less proficient L2 readers. The widely cited study by Block (1986), for example, compared strategy use by adult native and non-native English-speaking college learners enrolled in remedial reading courses. Results showed that four main characteristics distinguished higher proficiency readers from lower proficiency readers, namely the ability and predisposition to: i) integrate information; ii) recognise aspects of text structure; iii) use general knowledge, personal experiences and associations; and iv) respond in an extensive rather than in a reflective or personal mode. The study conducted by Chamot and El-Dinary (1999), which involved young learners in elementary French, Japanese, and Spanish immersion classrooms, also reflected a dominance of background knowledge strategies (including interferences, predictions and elaborations) among high-achieving learners. Results from the studies by Block (1986) and Chamot and El-Dinary (1999) are significant because they revealed that across age levels fluent readers favour more top-down strategies. The research conducted by Anderson (1991), with adult English as an L2 learners, also provided illuminating results on the use of reading strategies. The author found that learners who used more strategies achieved higher reading scores and, therefore, highlighted the importance of orchestrating the use of a set of reading strategies to obtain meaning from the text. Moreover, research on the impact of direct instruction of both metacognitive and cognitive strategies has proved that it is beneficial in terms of learners’ reading performance in the target language and reading strategy use (Salataci and Akyel 2002; Dreyer and Nel 2003). Taken together, these research findings suggest that a major goal of reading courses is to help learners develop as strategic readers. Put it another way, reading instruction should help learners know how to utilise a wide repertoire of strategies, orchestrate their use and evaluate their effectiveness in achieving a particular purpose (Block 1986; Ediger 2006). To that end, and drawing upon previous work by instructional researchers (Anderson 1999; Grabe and Stoller 2001; Janzen 2002; Ediger 2006), the following approach could be implemented in the classroom in order to develop strategic readers. The approach consists of three main stages: i) teacher’s direct instruction; ii) learner’s reading practice, and iii) teacher’s feedback on strategy use. In the first stage (i.e., teacher’s direct instruction), the teacher explicitly instructs learners in strategy use. The instruction focuses on metacognitive information by addressing questions such as what the strategy is, as well as

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when and why the strategy should be used. In addition to this instruction, teacher modelling of (i.e., thinking aloud) effective reading strategies, including strategies to monitor text comprehension, could be of great help since the application of this technique in the classroom allows learners to observe an expert reading behaviour and subsequently promotes learners’ metacognitive awareness (Anderson 1999; Janzen 2002). A few strategies should be presented at a time and the interrelationship among them explained. Instruction should be scaled over time to allow learners to become more independent readers. In the second stage (i.e., learner’s reading practice), learners put all theoretical concepts into action. Learners can be asked, for example, to collect a range of reading materials in a single topic and across different genres (Ediger 2006). In class, they could practise the think aloud reading procedure and complete a chart with information about strategy use, more specifically, with information about what strategies they used as well as when and why they used them. This practice could be used as the basis for discussion on how the purposes for which one reads affect the selection of specific strategies. Finally, in the third stage (i.e., teacher’s feedback on strategy use), the teacher provides feedback and metacognitive reflection on the learners’ performance so as to drive them to use more appropriate reading strategies depending on the purpose for reading and, therefore, help them become more autonomous in the reading process.

3.5 Extensive reading development Extensive reading is acknowledged as being a key component in reading programmes (Carrell and Grabe 2002). It involves reading large quantities of texts for general comprehension over some extended period of time, the goal being pleasure or just practice. As a rule, studies into extensive L2 reading have reported that not only is reading ability enhanced, but that there is also an improvement in a range of areas of language knowledge including vocabulary, linguistic competence, writing, spelling and reading fluency, among others (Day and Bamford 1998). Furthermore, the benefits of extensive reading may affect not only intermediate or advanced levels of instruction but also low proficiency levels, as shown by the research conducted by Leung (2002) and Maxim (2002). Because of these educational benefits, it is surprising that extensive reading does not play a major role in reading courses. No wonder a recent chapter by Renandya and Jacobs (2002) is entitled: Extensive reading: Why aren’t we all doing it? According to these authors, one of the reasons why extensive reading is not promoted in reading courses may be related to the function that teachers perform in the classroom. They claim that, in an intensive approach to reading, teachers play a central role, whereas in an extensive approach to reading,

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teachers just guide learners and, therefore, have a less central role, which makes them feel a bit uncomfortable. Additionally, practical reasons, such as limited school resources for engaging learners in extensive reading or a teachers’ lack of knowledge of how best to implement such an approach, might also affect the lack of attention given to extensive reading (Grabe and Stoller 2001). In an attempt to promote extensive reading, Bamford and Day3 have advanced ten principles for putting extensive reading into action: i) reading material is easy; ii) a variety of reading material on a wide range of topics is available; iii) learners choose what they want to read; iv) learners read as much as possible; v) reading is fast (learners should be discouraged from using dictionaries); vi) the purpose of reading is usually for pleasure, information or general understanding; vii) reading is individual and silent; viii) reading is its own reward; ix) the teacher orients and guides the students; and x) the teacher is a role model of a reader. As noted by these authors, the first two principles are related to what learners read, whereas the remaining ones depend on these two first principles. With regard to the what component, Hu and Nation’s (2000) research suggests that for extensive reading to be effective, the density of unknown words in a given text should be around one in fifty. In other words, in order to read with comprehension, comfort and pleasure, learners need to know almost all words in a given text. This condition, as stated by Nation (2005), is likely to be met in graded or simplified readers and, therefore, the author strongly recommends this material for L2 learners at all proficiency levels. It is also a good idea to make learners keep an ongoing log with information about what they read, how many pages they read and the time spent on reading. This log should be checked frequently by teachers and discussed with the learners (Grabe and Stoller 2001).

3.6 Reading instruction through a “pre-, while- and post-reading” approach After the discussion of the five primary components to be developed in a reading course presented above, it may seem that the act of reading is so fragmented that learners are in danger of losing sight of the whole process of reading. A focus on those components in a reading course should not be an end in itself, but rather the way to help learners become efficient readers. A way to pull together the aforementioned components is to use a lesson format that 3 Bamford, Julian and Richard R. Day, eds. Extensive Reading Activities for Teaching Language. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 2-3.

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incorporates pre-, while- and post-reading stages. Of course, teacher’s selection of reading activities within each of the three stages will be guided mainly by instructional goals and type of reading material. The pre-reading stage can help to arouse learners’ interest and activate learners’ background knowledge about the text. In this stage, learners could be asked to: i) discuss the topic of the text with the teacher; ii) preview the content and form of the text on the basis of clues provided by the text, such as title, subtitles, bold and underlined words, pictures or graphs; iii) answer challenging questions posed by the teacher about the text topic; iv) skim the text to build expectations; or v) work with key vocabulary words. The while-reading stage can help learners to extract relevant information in line with their purpose for reading. In this stage, learners could be asked to: i) monitor comprehension and adjust strategies based on their answer to monitoring questions; ii) identify main ideas and find supporting details in the text; iii) answer challenging questions posed by the teacher; iv) guess unknown vocabulary through reading; v) recognise discourse features; or vi) identify the writers’ intention. Finally, the post-reading stage may help learners deepen their understanding about the text content while it may also expand on concepts related to the reading text. In this stage, learners could be requested to: i) check whether their reading purpose has been successfully met; ii) ask questions that call for critical reading; iii) review information in the text by summarising the events; iv) research answers posed by the teacher in the pre-reading stage and that are not overtly stated in the text; or v) evaluate information in the text. In order to foster fluency, intensive reading should be coupled with extensive reading both in and out of the classroom (Day and Bamford 1998). In the classroom, learners could engage in 15 minutes of sustained silent reading to read individually what they have selected in the target language. Out of the classroom, learners should be encouraged to read interesting material, such as newspapers, magazines, novels and so forth.

4. Conclusion and research agenda The aim of this chapter was to outline the pedagogical implications that derive from the L2 reading research that has been conducted over the last three decades. In so doing, it has highlighted the importance of addressing the following crucial areas for effective reading instruction: i) automaticity development; ii) vocabulary development; iii) background knowledge development; iv) development of strategic readers; and v) extensive reading development. Additionally, it has shown how to integrate these five areas in a lesson format that incorporates pre-, while- and post-reading stages.

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Although research into L2 reading has advanced our understanding of how to tackle reading instruction in the classroom to a considerable extent, there are still several promising research areas that remain to be addressed in the future in order to deepen that understanding. First, although automaticity in word recognition is regarded as a prerequisite for fluent reading, it remains somewhat uncertain whether fluency instruction in itself significantly improves reading comprehension. Future research should therefore address this issue. Second, it is a well-documented fact that background knowledge is crucial in reading comprehension. However, few empirical studies have compared the benefits of different instructional techniques used to activate learners’ background knowledge of text content and structure. One possibility, for example, would be to compare the benefits of activating learners’ knowledge of the content of the text topic through the use of anticipated guides or semantic maps (see section 3.3 for the explanation of such techniques). Third, although empirical studies have shown the benefits of strategy instruction for learners at all levels of proficiency, research on the most effective instructional means remains scarce. Finally, more empirical research into extensive reading across learners of different ages and proficiency levels should be conducted to provide further evidence of the important benefits of adopting this approach in instructed language settings. Research in these areas could assist language practitioners and educators in making L2 reading instruction more effective.

Works Cited Aebersold, Jo Ann and Mary Lee Field. From Reader to Reading Teacher. Issues and Strategies for Second Language Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Anderson, Neil J. Exploring Second Language Reading. Boston, MA.: Heinle and Heinle, 1999. . “Individual Differences in Strategy Use in Second Language Reading and Testing.” Modern Language Journal 75, no. 4 (1991): 460-72. Anderson, Richard C. and P. David Pearson. “A Schema-Theoretic View of Basic Processes in Reading Comprehension.” In Handbook of Reading Research, edited by P. David Pearson, 255-91. White Plains, NY.: Longman, 1984. Bamford, Julian and Richard R. Day, eds. Extensive Reading Activities for Teaching Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Birch, Barbara M. English L2 Reading. Getting to the Bottom. Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002. Block, Ellen. “The Comprehension Strategies of Second Language Readers.” TESOL Quarterly 20, no. 3 (1986): 463-94.

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Carrell, Patricia L. “Awareness of Text Structure: Effects on Recall” Language Learning 42, no. 1 (1992): 1-20. . “Facilitating ESL Reading by Teaching Text Structure.” TESOL Quarterly 19, no. 4 (1985): 727-52. . “Evidence of a Formal Schema in Second Language Comprehension.” Language Learning 34, no. 2 (1984a): 87-112. . “The Effects of Rhetorical Organization on ESL Readers.” TESOL Quarterly 18, no. 3 (1984b): 441-69. Carrell, Patricia L and William Grabe. “Reading.” In An Introduction to Applied Linguistics, edited by Norbert Schmitt, 233-50. London: Arnold, 2002. Celce-Murcia, Marianne and Elite Olshtain. Discourse and Context in Language Teaching. A Guide for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Chamot, Anna Uhl and Pamela Beard El-Dinary. “Children’s Learning Strategies in Language Immersion Classrooms.” Modern Language Journal 83, no. 3 (1999): 319-38. Chen, Qin and Janet Donin. “Discourse Processing of First and Second Language Biology Texts: Effects of Language Proficiency and DomainSpecific Knowledge.” Modern Language Journal 81, no. 2 (1997): 209-27. Chikalanga, Israel W. “Exploring Inferencing Ability of ESL Readers.” Reading in a Foreign Language 10, no. 1 (1993): 931-52. Day, Richard R. and Julian Bamford. Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1998. Dreyer, Carisma and Charl Nel. “Teaching Reading Strategies and Reading Comprehension within a Technology-Enhanced Learning Environment.” System 31, no. 3 (2003): 349-65. Ediger, Anne M. “Developing Strategic L2 Readers by Reading for Strategic Purposes. In Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills, edited by Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor, 30328. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. Eskey, David E. “Reading in a Second Language.” In Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning, edited by Eli Hinkel, 563-79. Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005. Grabe, William and Fredricka L. Stoller. Teaching and Researching Reading. London: Pearson Education, 2002. Grabe, William and Fredricka L. Stoller. “Reading for Academic Purposes: Guidelines for the ESL/EFL Teacher.” In Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, edited by Marianne Celce-Murcia, 187-203. Boston, MA.: Heinle & Heinle, 2001.

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Grabe, William. “Developments in Reading Research and their Applications for Computer-Adaptive Reading Assessment.” In Issues in Computeradaptive Testing of Reading Proficiency, edited by Micheline ChalhoubDeville, 11-47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Goodman, Kenneth S. “Psycholinguistic Universals of the Reading Process.” In Psycholinguistics and Reading, edited by Frank Smith, 21-29. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973. . “Reading: A Psycholinguistic Guessing Game.” Journal of the Reading Specialist 6, no. 4 (1969): 126-35. Gough, Philip B. “One Second of Reading.” In Language by Ear and by Eye, edited by James F. Kavanagh and Ignatius G. Mattingly, 331-58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Hinkel, Eli 2006. “Current Perspectives on Teaching the Four Skills.” TESOL Quarterly 40, no. 1 (2006): 109-31. Hunt, Alan and David Beglar. “A Framework for Developing EFL Reading Vocabulary.” Reading in a Foreign Language 17, no. 1 (2005): 23-59. Hunt, Alan and David Beglar. “Current Research and Practice in Teaching Vocabulary.” In Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice, edited by Jack C. Richards and Willy A. Renandya, 25766. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Hu, H. Marcella and Paul Nation. “Unknown Vocabulary Density and Reading Comprehension.” Reading in a Foreign Language 13, no. 1 (2000): 403-30. Johnson, Patricia. “Effects on Reading Comprehension of Language Complexity and Cultural Background of a Text.” TESOL Quarterly 15, no. 2 (1981): 169-81. Janzen, Joy. “Teaching Strategic Reading.” In Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice, edited by Jack C. Richards and Willy A. Renandya, 287-94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Kitajima, Ruy. “Referential Strategy Training for Second Language Reading Comprehension of Japanese Texts.” Foreign Language Annals 30, no. 1 (1997): 84-97. Koda Keiko. Insights into Second Language Reading. A Cross-Linguistics Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. . “L2 Word Recognition Research: A Critical Review.” The Modern Language Journal 80 no. 4, (1996): 450-60. LaHuerta, Cristina. “Empirical Examination of EFL Readers’ Use of Rhetorical Information.” English for Specific Purposes 21, no. 1 ( 2002): 81-98. Laufer, Batia. “How much Lexis is Necessary for Reading Comprehension?” In Vocabulary and Applied Linguistics, edited by Henri Béjoint and Pierre J.L. Arnaud, 126-32. London: MacMillan, 1992.

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. “What Percentage of Text-lexis is Essential for Comprehension?” In Special Language: From Humans Thinking to Thinking Machines, edited by Christer Laurén and Marianne Nordman, 316-23. Clevendon: Multilingual Matters, 1989. Leung, Ching Yin. “Extensive Reading and Language Learning: A Diary Study of a Beginning Learners of Japanese.” Reading in a Foreign Language 14, no. 1 (2002): 66-81. Maxim, Hiram H. “A Study Into The Feasibility and Effects of Reading Extended Authentic Discourse in the Beginning German Language Classroom.” Modern Language Journal 86, no. 1 (2002): 20-35. Nation, Paul. “Teaching and Learning Vocabulary.” In Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning, edited by Eli Hinkel, 581-96. Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005. O´Malley, J. Michael and Anna Uhl Chamot. Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pearson, P. David and Diane Stephens. “Learning about Literacy: A 30-year Journey.” In Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading, edited by Robert B. Ruddell, Martha R. Ruddell and Harry Singer, 22-46. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association, 1994. Quian, David D. “Investigating the Relationship between Vocabulary Knowledge and Academic Reading Performance: An Assessment Perspective.” Language Learning 52, no. 3 (2002): 513-36. Reynolds, Ralph E., Marshá A Taylor, Margaret S. Steffensen, Larry L. Shirey, and Richard C. Anderson. “Cultural Schemata and Reading Comprehension.” Reading Research Quarterly 17, no. 3 (1982): 353-66. Renandya, Willy A. and Jacobs, George M. “Extensive Reading: Why Aren’t we All Doing it?” In Methodology in Language Teaching. An Anthology of Current Practice, edited by Jack C. Richards and Willy A. Renandya, 295302. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Rumelhart, David E. “Schemata: The Building Blocks of Cognition.” In Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension, edited by Rand J. Spiro, Bertram C. Bruce and William F. Brewer, 33-58. Hillsdale, NJ.: Erlbaum, 1980. . 1977. “Toward an Interactive Model of Reading.” In Attention and Performance, Vol. VI, edited by Stan Dornic, 573-603. New York: Academic Press, 1977. Rumelhart, David E. and Donald A. Norman. “Representation of Knowledge.” In Issues in Cognitive Modeling, edited by A.M. Aitkenhead and J.M. Slack, 15-62. London: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1985. Rumelhart, David E. and Andrew Ortony. “The Representation of Knowledge in Memory.” In Schooling and the Acquisition of Knowledge, edited by

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Richard C. Anderson, Rand J. Spiro and William E. Montague, 99-135. Hillsdale, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1977. Salataci, Reyhan and Ayse. Akyel “Possible Effects of Strategy Instruction on L1 and L2 Reading.” Reading in a Foreign Language 14, no. 1 (2002): 117. Segalowitz, Sidney J., Norman S. Segalowitz and Anthony G. Wood. “Assessing the Development of Automaticity in Second Language Word Recognition.” Applied Psycholinguistics 19, no. 1 (1998): 53-67. Segalowitz, Norman S. and Sidney J. Segalowitz. “Skilled Performance, Practice, and the Differentiation of Speed-up from Automatization Effects: Evidence from Second Language Word Recognition.” Applied Psycholinguistics 14, no. 3 (1993): 369-85. Stanovich, Keith E. “The Interactive-Compensatory Model of Reading: A Confluence of Developmental, Experimental, and Educational Psychology.” RASE 5, no. 3 (1984): 11-19. . “Toward an Interactive-Compensatory Model of Individual Differences in the Development of Reading Fluency.” Reading Research Quarterly 16, no. 1 (1980): 32-71. Steffensen, Margaret S., Chitra Joag-Dev and Richard C. Anderson. “A CrossCultural Perspective on Reading Comprehension.” Reading Research Quarterly 15, no. 1 (1979): 10-29. Usó-Juan, Esther. “The Compensatory Nature of Discipline-Related Knowledge and English Language Proficiency in Reading English for Academic Purposes.” Modern Language Journal 90, no. 2 (2006): 210-27. Usó-Juan, Esther and Alicia Martínez-Flor. “Towards Acquiring Communicative Competence through Reading.” In Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Skills, edited by Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor, 261-77. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. Venezky, Richard L. “The History of Reading Research.” In Handbook of Reading Research, edited by P. David Pearson. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002. Williams, Eddie. “Classroom Reading through Activating Content-Based Schemata.” Reading in a Foreign Language 4, no. 1 (1987): 1-7. Zimmerman, Cheryl Boyd. “Do Reading and Interactive Vocabulary Instruction Make a Difference? An Empirical Evidence.” TESOL Quarterly 31, no. 1 (1997): 121-40.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN RESEARCH-ORIENTED PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHING WRITING JUAN CARLOS PALMER-SILVEIRA MIGUEL F. RUIZ-GARRIDO Universitat Jaume I

1. Introduction For many years, one of the main topics of discussion among educators has been the need to find the right way to teach students to write a text in a foreign or second language (L2). Writing is not a natural ability, even in one’s first language (L1), so there should be some effort in order to teach a person how to create a good piece of written discourse, mainly when dealing with an L2. In fact, as Cook points out, writing “forms a complex linguistic system, which is important to all literate language users, and which has to be acquired by all literate people whether in the first language […] or second language […].”1 Based on this idea, the use of specific strategies to teach students how to write properly is necessary, particularly when dealing with an L2. Thus, it is fairly common to observe how L2 users often show signs of carrying over their L1 writing system, something which can jeopardise their ability to express themselves in an L2, especially when dealing with lexical choices and syntactic structures (Chikamatsu 1996; Koda 1996). Based on these studies, many researchers have shown their interest in analysing and developing new ways to enhance the students’ abilities related to learning how to write in an L2. Lecturers have observed how rather similar students, receiving the same specific training, may either fail or succeed when taught to write simple texts in an L2. As Victori pointed out, analysing English as a foreign language writing performance, “one of the objectives of educators is to find variables that are responsible for differences among successful and 1 Cook, Vivian. “Knowledge of Writing.” International Review of Applied Linguistics 39, no. 1 (2001): 1.

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unsuccessful learners.”2 However, although these variables may exist, great part of the lecturers’ success will be based on the teaching task, as well as on the previous knowledge that the students might have of the topic. Writing, therefore, is a fairly complex activity that deserves our attention as it is a way to express our ideas accurately. To cut a long story short, we consider that writing helps clarify our thinking; quite often we observe that our thoughts are clearer when we write them down. In fact, teaching writing in an L2 classroom can be a fairly frustrating task. Nevertheless, in recent years there have been many authors who have paid attention to the design and enhancement of written composition in classroom settings. As Hyland points out, L2 teaching “has been both a significant driving force and a major consumer of writing research in recent years, applying it to develop more effective practice.”3 Thus, and despite the traditional studies on how native speakers develop their writing abilities, there has been a burgeoning of studies devoted to understanding the emergence of L2 writing as a subdiscipline, something which has implied new theoretical perspectives, research methods and pedagogical strategies. In fact, relevant studies related to L2 writing instruction have been published (Reid 1993; Grabe and Kaplan 1996; Ferris and Hedgcock 1998), even including some edited collections on the topic (Belcher and Braine 1994; Silva and Matsuda 2001; Kroll 2003). Based on these previous efforts, many researchers wonder how non-native students behave when required to write a text in an L2 (Johns 2006). So far, we can say that different pieces of research have proved that students’ writing is usually marked by short, simple sentences without many indicators of transitions or logical connections between sentences. As Greaney points out, “students seem to avoid writing more complex sentences with subordinate clauses, appositive phrases, and other marks of sophisticated writing, because they are uncertain about how to use such structures and avoid the risk of error by keeping their writing syntactically simple.”4 Besides, even those students who are able to combine sentences when doing difficult grammar exercises tend to choose simple strings of short sentences when asked to write an essay. Nevertheless, even considering this fact, we should also keep in mind that

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Victori, Mia. “An Analysis of Writing Knowledge in EFL Composing: A Case Study of two Effective and two Less Effective Writers.” System 27, no. 4 (1999): 537. 3 Hyland, Ken. Teaching and Researching Writing. (Harlow: Longman, 2002), 213. 4 Greaney, George L. "Less is More: Summary Writing and Sentence Structure in the Advanced ESL Classroom." The Internet TESL Journal 3, no. 9 (1997): 1 [Electronic journal available at http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Greaney-Writing.html ] [Cited 29 May 2006].

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students are following a logical process when choosing the information they want to include in their texts. Research investigating the different steps followed by students writing a text in an L2 has been relatively scarce. Nevertheless, some authors have observed the recursive nature of L2 writing (Scarcella 1984; Friedlander 1990; Silva 1993); as Manchón et al. point out, “L2 writers (like their L1 counterparts) are said to create their texts by moving back and forth between the subprocesses of planning, transcription and revision.”5 It is obvious that the nature of the writing process is a dynamic one, as Raimes clearly states, when she comments that “writers inevitably discover new ideas as they write and then change their plans and goals accordingly.”6 The never-ending process of writing a text, the fact of having to move back and forth when fulfilling the writing task, has to do with the overall purpose of writing itself. Writing is discovering something and showing it to those prospective readers who may want to have a look at what we are willing to offer. However, it is not always easy to find the words that best express what we are trying to say, no matter the language used for this purpose. Additionally, there are different written genres, each one of them sharing a different set of features; thus, it is quite simple to see the obvious differences between a business letter and the introduction of a research article, as these two genres do not share many common features. These differences among genres can jeopardise the quality of the written texts, even when created by native speakers. Needless to say, these difficulties are even more relevant when dealing with non-native students. Thus, it will be up to language lecturers to teach writing skills based on those genres most often used by the students, as this will help them understand the way texts are (and should be) written (Bazerman 1995; Devitt 1996; Bhatia 1998). This is what Nwogu points out: For a long time the teaching of writing in most ESL classrooms was characterized by an undue emphasis on the acquisition of mechanical skills like grammar, spelling, and punctuation. This practice persisted because teachers believed that ESL learners needed to master the mechanics of language before they could write meaningful prose. Development of writing competence was retarded because little attention was being given to schemata, semantic organization, thematic structure, or cohesion. However, in recent times, innovations from communicative language teaching—especially in ESP contexts—have shifted the focus away from materials that were essentially a

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Manchón, Rosa M., Julio Roca de Larios and Liz Murphy. “An Approximation to the Study of Backtracking in L2 Writing.” Learning and Instruction 10, no. 1 (2000): 13-14. 6 Raimes, Ann. “Anguish as a Second Language? Remedies for Composition Teachers.” In Learning to Write: First Language/Second Language.(London: Longman, 1983), 230.

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Thus, in Nwogu’s opinion, lecturers should try to teach students that “real life” written language that better fits their aims and communicative purposes. They should design an appropriate system to help students find the right way to express their ideas in a written format (Krashen 1984). It seems appropriate to consider that the importance of the teaching of writing strategies in the language classroom will depend on a number of factors that may be highly relevant for students. Among those, it is important to choose the overall level of difficulty of the written piece, as well as observe appropriately the formality of the style used. Concepts such as politeness, cohesion, coherence and relevance should also be enhanced. As a result of these initial thoughts, we can easily conclude that L2 writing is not a simple task, as many researchers have already proved (Cumming 1989; Palmer-Silveira 1996). Language lecturers should therefore work very hard in order to teach their students how to write a text in an L2. There has been the widespread belief, for many years, that college lecturers have to teach their students how to write a simple text, despite their previous language level. Similarly, most people also think that, by the mere fact of writing compositions in an L2 every now and then, students will be able to improve their writing ability. We think that writing on a regular basis makes any student a better writer; thus, the more you practice, the better you write. It seems that practice can be enough. However, as many researchers have pointed out, improving students’ writing skills is not that simple. Lecturers should be very cautious when choosing different activities related to the implementation of writing skills in the language classroom (Hayes et al. 2000), as well as when rating compositions (Herman et al. 1993). Many factors may affect students’ performance when writing in an L2, specially when they should show a strong voice in order to establish their knowledge on a given topic (Bloch 2003). Lecturers should consider the students’ age, their performance in large classes, their previous background knowledge of the topics they should write about, their motivation to take part in the group, and many other factors (Marinova-Todd et al. 2000). What is more, there is a growing tendency to write in a fairly careless way, not paying attention to the overall coherence of the text (Liu 2000). The purpose of this chapter will be to show the way to improve the writing abilities of L2 students. In order to do so, we will try to define some general features of writing, in an attempt to specify as clearly as possible both its nature 7 Nwogu, Kevin N. “Structuring Scientific Discourse: Using the “Given-New” Perspective.” Language Teaching Forum 33, no. 4 (1995): 22.

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and its components. Later on, we will analyse how previous research on writing has helped lecturers to enhance their students’ ability to express thoughts and experiences in a coherent text, analysing some of the strategies that can help them to fulfil this activity (prewriting, drafting, revising and editing, and writing a final version). Finally we will draw some conclusions about the topic.

2. The nature of writing To start with, let us point out four ideas that have to be considered before starting an accurate definition of writing. In our opinion, writing is thinking; it is a way to express ideas in such a way that any reader can understand what the writer thinks of a given topic. Therefore, writing implies offering a part of the writer to someone who may (or may not) appreciate it. Besides, it can be read at any time, as it becomes immanent. This implies a sense of difficulty that can jeopardise students’ attempts to create good pieces of written discourse. Being such a personal experience, writing tends to start with observation, in such a way that the writer, after thorough examination, chooses something to write about. Due to this individual sense implied by writing, a second concept that is often an integral part of this type of task is its uniqueness; it is hard to see people choosing the same concepts in order to define one item. Writing is, therefore, unique to each individual. This is due to the fact that writing often involves inference on the basis of evidence, interpretation on the basis of observation. In these cases, therefore, background knowledge becomes a major issue to understand all the mental processes taking part in writing. However, this train of thought that writers use in order to describe any topic may vary after some time; their way of thinking and recording can change from situation to situation. This concept of continuous development implied by the activity seems to suggest a third idea related to writing: it is a process and not merely a product. In order to understand what a writer is trying to say we should assume that there are a number of choices he or she has previously made. These decisions will be the key to design and develop the written text, the final product. Thus, the text as a product is always based on a complex process of creation, where different aspects (genre, background knowledge, length, time, possible readership, etc.) can affect its final appearance. We therefore assume that the importance of teaching students how to create a text (the process) is far more important than the mere analysis of the final piece of discourse (the product). In fact, there has been a burgeoning of relevant research related to process writing in recent years, plenty of interesting references to all those steps that the writer has to take in order to create a composition. Many authors have studied this topic, offering

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relevant results (Watson 1982; Spack 1984; Raimes 1985; Hamp-Lyons 1986; Zamel 1987; Krapels 1990; White and Arndt 1991; Houston 2004). Accordingly, we can say that process writing is learning how to write by writing (Tompkins 1990; Gardner and Johnson 1997). We will analyse the difference between writing as a product and writing as a process in the third section of this chapter. Finally, our fourth idea related to writing is based on its final target: the reader. All writing efforts are carried out because there is a prospective reader. Thus, writing is meant to be read. The nature of this activity implies an effort to introduce a topic in such a way that a given reader would be able to understand the writer’s thoughts on a specific subject. Unfortunately, and especially when dealing with students’ compositions, not all writers are able to state their message clearly. In such cases, it will be important to consider what the problem could be, in order to solve it in later drafts. Let us recommend the design and implementation of different drafts in order to generate a final piece of written discourse. To sum up, we believe that writing is thinking made tangible, one of the few ways people have in order to let everyone know their own ideas on a given topic. The whole writing process should help any writer to express him or herself to a prospective reader, something that should always be kept in mind.

3. Implications from research into writing instruction In order to define the way lecturers can enhance students’ comprehension of what writing is, two concepts introduced above should be considered: product and process. A text can be seen as a product, though students will benefit if they analyse how it has been created, observing the whole process. This dichotomy is initially based on two different approaches to writing: on the one hand the interactive approach assumes that the writer is involved in a dialogue with the audience, being the main person responsible for the effectiveness of the communicative process involved. On the other hand, the social constructionist approach pays attention to the written product, considering it as a social act that can take place only within and for a specific context and audience (Tribble 1996). It should be observed that, whereas many researchers are defending the process writing perspective in recent years, there is actually little hard evidence that these model techniques lead to significantly better writing, as Hyland (2002) points out. It may be important, therefore, to analyse how both product and process writing perspectives were originally formulated, trying to analyse their pros and cons.

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3.1 Writing as a product In the nineteenth century, as well as in the first half of the twentieth century, many researchers observed writing in a product-oriented way. Following behaviourism, they observed the teaching and learning of writing on what could be seen, the written product. Students were asked to analyse how other people have completed their texts, paying attention to both rules and models of good writing. Therefore, they were required to imitate what were considered to be good pieces of written discourse. This approach, under a psychological perspective, assumes that human behaviour is perfectly observable, as many people would behave the same way in similar situations (Mason 2000). Thus, the product writing model became predominant for many years and can still be observed in different writing programs. Some of the main features that many lecturers had to pay attention to when assuming the product-based approach to writing were based on language. In fact, lecturers devoted their efforts to enhance correct spelling, as well as the appropriate use of grammar, syntax and a good range of vocabulary. Writers ought to take care of both style (using the adequate level of formality) and tone (different levels of politeness). In any case, the analysis of layout and general organisation of the text was also considered within this approach, taking care of how texts were divided into paragraphs. By doing so, many lecturers observed the method of organisation, trying to promote highly identifiable ones (similarity/contrast, for/against, pros/cons, cause/effect, before/after, linear/flashbacks). In order to do so, lecturers often paid attention to the use of linking devices and punctuation in order to enhance their students’ writing ability. One of the aspects most often valued by those defending this approach was the relevance of the reader. In fact, the writer often includes all the subjects required by the reader, paying attention to avoiding the use of irrelevant information. Thus, it is basic to enhance the level of explicitness of the text, as it should be as close as possible to the one expected by the reader. Additionally, the style and tone should be appropriate and consistent with the writer’s purpose (Gairns and Redman 1986). Therefore, texts should be well organised and clear.

3.2 Process writing Writing is a complicated process. This approach, which originated in the 70’s and was vastly used in the 80’s and 90’s, disallows the traditional emphasis given to the written text as a product, trying to get into the process around its creation (Raimes 1983). It could be summarised as a method of indirect instruction in which learners use prewriting strategies, drafting, revision or refinement, editing, and

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publishing/sharing with an audience (Houston 2004). The student, in order to write a text, follows a strategy that, by means of drafting, could help him achieve a final text. Many lecturers give students the chance to work a text completely by means of discussions, readings, and tutorials, as well as generating brainstorming and listmaking activities. Thus, the focus of process writing is on the process of revision and editing, rather than on the finished product. In fact, as Emig (1971) pointed out, the stages are not lockstep or sequential. On the contrary, writers often move back and forth among the four main pillars of this approach (prewriting, drafting, revision and editing), what offers them the opportunity of improving the quality of the final piece of discourse before getting to the final stage (publication). Emig’s research on L1 process writing was later undertaken by other authors when dealing with L2 writers. Voss points out that its importance is based on the fact that it fostered “the development of what might be called ‘science consciousness’ in composition research.”8 an attitude and an approach that, in Krapels’ (1990) opinion both L1 and L2 researchers have maintained. In this approach, the writer corrects himself, without any additional help from an external marker. Peer work is not implied by it, though it could be added in order to help the author to improve his text. The teacher tries to be on the side, leaving complete responsibility to the student. First drafts are nor corrected, neither graded, considering that they are nothing more than a stage among many others, in which the possible reader (instructor or peer) will be able to answer the ideas developed in the text. So, as Silva points out, this approach to writing: calls for providing a positive, encouraging, and collaborative workshop environment within which students, with ample time and minimal interference, can work through their composing processes, The teacher’s role is to help students develop viable strategies for getting started (finding topics, generating ideas and information, focusing, and planning structure and procedure), for drafting (encouraging multiple drafts), for revising (adding, deleting, modifying, and rearranging ideas); and for editing (attending to vocabulary, sentence structure, grammar and mechanics).9

Regarding its application, it can be interesting to remember that this type of activity is not affected by time; it is not considered a determining factor, so students can learn from the fine nuances offered by readers throughout their comments. This task can be repeated as many times as necessary, until the teacher considers that a good text has finally been achieved. Thus, the writing process facilitates both instruction and practice, as lecturers can use one or more of the stages to direct the 8

Voss, Ralph F. “Janet Emig’s the Composing Process of Twelfth Graders: A Reassessment.” College Composition and Communication 34, no. 3 (1983): 279. 9 Silva, Tony. “Second Language Composition Instruction: Developments, Issues, and Directions in ESL.” In Second Language Writing: Research Insights for the Classroom. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 15.

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writing students complete in the classroom (Elbow 1998). Besides, and probably more relevant for the whole learning process, when students learn about each one of the stages undertaken, they have the opportunity of understanding the specific features implied by the overall learning process, being then able to reflect on those aspects already learnt. In order to establish the different steps to be considered when dealing with process writing, some concepts should be analysed. Hence, we will pay attention to some prewriting strategies implied by process writing. 3.2.1 Prewriting strategies There are some strategies that can be used in order to generate texts in the L2 classroom. Prewriting strategies are often used in order to engage the students in the writing process, helping them to discover the best way to support ideas in a written piece of discourse. These strategies can be used to introduce any writing task in the language classroom. These are often thought provoking activities that tend to be enhanced by the lecturer, in an attempt to generate and clarify ideas. Most of them are based on helping the students to break the ice, forcing them to start in a positive way. In short, making writing fun will be an asset for all lecturers interested in getting the best from their students. It is important to point out that, during the prewriting stage, students should be guided by the lecturer. Prewriting activities should enhance the students’ ability to identify some specific concepts that should be implemented. Thus, the writers have to be sure of the specific purpose of writing, paying special attention to their role as writers, as well as to the role of the pre-established audience. The relationship between reader and writer should also be analysed, in order to find the appropriate style. If possible, the writers should always analyse the reader’s relevant background knowledge on the topic, trying to adapt their message to the necessities of that prospective audience, in an attempt to offer something new that could improve some gaps that the reader could have. Additionally, and as a fairly important concept, the writer has to pay attention to the type of text that has to be written, as different genres imply different ways of offering information, by means of using different types of organisation, tone and explicitness. Regarding the different types of prewriting strategies that can be used in the L2 classroom we want to point out some of them, such as brainstorming, quickwriting and questioning and answering. These are not the only possibilities in order to develop a text, though we understand that they are probably the ones more often used in the classroom.

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3.2.1.1 Brainstorming Lecturers often ask their students to generate lists of ideas related to a given topic. In order to do so, they set up a time limit, which is used by the class members to offer ideas associated to previous terms already mentioned. It is important to note down all the possible terms and ideas that might emerge from the general topic to be developed. Anything coming to mind can be written down; there is always a later possibility to eliminate it, should it be irrelevant or redundant. This procedure works quite well in fairly active settings, as it enhances the mental ability of the writers, having to implement their organisational skills (Palmer-Silveira 1996). Due to this, many lecturers use brainstorming techniques in order to compel their students to get ideas into writing, as in many cases other prewriting activities allow them not to participate, hiding behind other more active classmates. Most of the ideas that students offer can be used in later compositions, whereas other ideas, that may not be so valid, could help them to think of subsequent concepts that could probably be of interest. Brainstorming techniques have been implemented in recent years, and clustering (also known as balloon writing, mind mapping or idea mapping) has become one of the most interesting strategies used in the language classroom. It allows students to explore relationships between ideas in a fairly visual way. In the centre of a page students write a concept and, by using lines, other ideas connected to that concept should also be written down. This activity can be taken as far as the students feel like, creating as many levels as necessary, and giving them the opportunity of adding or deleting information all through the writing process. Brainstorming, therefore, allows to observe if ideas fit together. It gives a nice opportunity to analyse which is the best way to join concepts in a written way before actually doing so. In short, it offers a good layout of their later piece of writing. 3.2.1.2 Quickwriting Quickwriting, also known as freewriting, is a process developed in order to generate a lot of information by writing non-stop. The basic idea of this prewriting strategy is quite simple: the students have to choose a topic and then, after establishing a time limit, they have to write down everything a text as quickly as possible, without paying special attention to contents or form. Due to this time constraint students are unable to edit any of their ideas. This strategy is based on the idea that quantity is more important than quality in the prewriting stages; in other words, and following Briére (1966), content is more important than form, something that is also commented by Jacobs (1986). As an initial prewriting

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activity it can be of relevance among L2 students, especially among those groups which often accept their mistakes in a fairly positive way. After completing the activity, students have to look back to what they have written and highlight those ideas which could be of the highest interest. This resulting text can then be implemented by a second stage, being rewritten in a more conventional way. The lecturer can always force the students to narrow the topic, developing further versions of this activity. This prewriting strategy implies well-acquired levels of creativity, and can be used by lecturers who are not afraid of experimenting in the classroom. In fact, enhancing the creativity of the students when dealing with an L2 is an aspect that has been highly valued by many researchers. The advantages are twofold: it can help students to increase their ability to both construct and generalise ideas, aspects that will improve the overall quality of the text. Nevertheless, this strategy has some flaws too. The freedom created by the activity itself makes it difficult to extract conclusions regarding the actual writing progress of our students. Looping is a quickwriting technique that allows the student to discover a writing topic by focusing on an idea in a recurrent way. It works this way: students start writing on a topic for a pre-established amount of time. After completing this task, they underline all those ideas that they consider good enough to appear in a final version of their composition. They look for interesting topics, phrases or sentences. The lecturer can also recommend the idea of using peer work: classmates read each other’s writing and get the best from what has been written. Once they have chosen all those good ideas from the original composition they start writing on a specific idea or concept that came to mind in the first composition, and complete this additional task in a similar amount of time. They do it as many times as they feel like. The same rules that apply general quickwriting apply, so they do not edit their composition, neither stop writing before the preestablished time limit. 3.2.1.3 Questioning and answering Questioning and answering, also known as the journalist approach to writing, is based on the traditional approach that most press members use in order to complete a piece of news before writing it in a newspaper. It is also known as the W-approach, as journalists often have to consider and answer six questions before completing their activity; those six questions are the following: Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How? These questions are used in order to explore a topic that students may be interested in. Due to this, in some cases students will observe the importance of the person they are talking about, giving great importance to the Who question. On the contrary, in other cases it will be important to write on a given topic without paying great attention to the

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people; in such a case, the What question will receive a higher level of relevance. The rest of the questions will receive special relevance depending on the interest of dates, places or reasons. This prewriting strategy can enhance the students’ ability to develop a great deal of information about a topic in a fairly quick way. Nevertheless, and specially among lower-level students, asking the appropriate question can be difficult, and this activity can be slightly frustrating. It is always important to keep track of what students know; thus, they are recommended to keep note of all the concepts that they know about a topic. By doing so, students will be able to focus on those questions that have not been answered yet, filling those gaps that will help them to create better compositions. After completing these prewriting activities lecturers should analyse how students design and create an initial version of their composition. 3.2.2 Writing the initial draft Drafting means putting all the ideas observed in the prewriting stage down on paper, as well as exploring new concepts and ideas during writing. Those ideas are often a group of notes that have been taken after a thorough prewriting process. So, it will be up to the students to expand on the notes, depending on how comprehensive these may be. This often means that the writer either has to turn the organised notes into sentences, or has to add more elements, such as facts, arguments, examples or ideas. In order to reorganise the text, students will have to pay attention to a large number of techniques that can facilitate their task. Among those, we can recommend adding, removing and deleting information. Additionally they should also split information into different sections or paragraphs, as well as combining ideas in order to summarise relevant concepts and ideas. At this stage, it is important to recommend students to say what they mean as briefly and clearly as possible. In any case, they should always keep in mind that this is just an initial draft and that subsequent drafts are advisable. As we will later see, all the students should complete as many drafts as necessary before turning in a final composition. In any case, they should always keep in mind the importance of linking the different elements that should appear in the text so that it is clear for the reader. The lecturer plays an important role in this stage, encouraging students to say what they mean as directly as they can, without forgetting that the text is meant to be read by someone. The writers, thus, have to be themselves, using a personal point of view, but trying to be sure that their message comes across in a simple way, easy enough to be understood by any prospective reader. Let us keep in mind that drafting is hardly completed in one sitting. Students often give some time to the text before working on it again, creating a second (or

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successive) draft. Peer work can be beneficial when analysing initial drafts, as other readers can offer good points of view on the weaknesses of the original texts. The whole writing process forces the writer to fulfil a complete revising of the text, implying both editing and proofreading, in an attempt to evaluate and improve the first draft. 3.2.3 Revising the initial draft As we commented at the beginning of this chapter, writing is a difficult activity, and it implies a wide number of mental abilities. In fact, only those people who are able to read properly become good writers. Drafts often reflect the struggle to get ideas down on paper. Because of this difficulty, most drafts are often rough and incomplete, with many things that do not work properly and which deserve the writer’s attention. Writing, therefore, can be regarded as a long-lasting activity, implying a whole process of revising and editing. Writers should, therefore be fairly critical with their first draft, reading it in detail and trying to achieve a global impression. Thus, the writers should place themselves in the position of the reader and decide if the text is effective enough to be completely understood. As a result of this initial activity, the writer should read the text looking for specific aspects that have to be clear. Among those, we point out the relevance of the task, its coverage and explicitness, any problems regarding its general organisation and layout, or any unnecessary difficulties in the language used. Should there be any problem, the writer has to make any necessary alterations. In any case, everything should be done in order to create a second, improved version of the previous draft. Revising can be defined as the act of bringing a written piece of writing to completion, trying to get the best from any draft version and deleting any irrelevant or redundant information. In order to create an improved draft of a text, writers often edit information themselves. They can do so for different reasons, though it is probably accuracy the most relevant one. They use this technique in order to find the appropriate way to say something, especially when dealing with an L2. However, in many situations writers edit their texts for reasons of organisation, trying to find the simplest way to offer their ideas and views on a topic. Additionally, other reasons to edit initial drafts can be based on finding the right terminology, avoiding spelling mistakes or rearranging both paragraph and sentence structures. In any case, all the editing process should help writers to improve the conciseness and clarity of their compositions.

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3.2.4 Creating a final draft Students should be aware that many drafts may be necessary. In fact, every single draft version is opening up new ways for the writer in order to express ideas and concepts. Once students are happy enough with the final version of the composition, they should take it as the resulting text. Needless to say, all drafts should improve previous versions; there is no point in creating a draft without adding, deleting or restructuring information, trying to elaborate a new framework in order to express ideas. In general, we can say that the completion of a good writing process often generates a successful product. In any case, lecturers should keep in mind that the whole process is based on the use of a necessary element: feedback. They should be both motivating and helpful, trying to individualise their teaching as far as possible, even when dealing with large, heterogeneous classes. It is important to consider that what is taught is not necessarily what is learned, so lecturers’ efforts should be devoted to minimise that problem. In order to do so, we have to point out that the secret of success is often based in involving actively the students in the learning process. Active learning will become, therefore, a key feature of the process approach to writing.

4. Conclusions and research agenda As a conclusion, we should state that L2 writing has become a fulfilling activity in recent years, as many researchers point out (Polio 2003; Silva et al. 2003). However, there are still some gaps in research that have to be filled. It is probably Polio who better describes the main flaw, when she points out that “little research has been conducted on what actually happens in writing classes.”10 Despite the interest of previous researchers on what students do in the class, and how lecturers behave in order to establish their teaching methodology, not much has been done related to the way both views converge in the writing classroom. In fact, we forecast that one of the most interesting topics in the near future will be to observe which are the techniques and materials used in the L2 classroom in order to help students to improve their writing skills (Kroll 2006). We also consider that research should be devoted to the study of awarenessraising techniques in the L2 writing classroom. We should analyse the best possible ways to help students to discover and identify all the specific elements of good writing, as well as some of the features implied by different writing genres (Cumming 2006). By doing so, we will enhance both their reading and 10

Polio, Charlene. “Research on Second Language Writing: An Overview of What we Investigate and How.” In Exploring the Dynamics of Second Language Writing. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 59.

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writing abilities; this reading-writing connection deserves greater attention, as the development of reading skills always enhance the students’ writing ability (Carson 2001); nevertheless, this relation has not been studied until recently when dealing with teaching L2 writing techniques (Grabe 2003). Some of the tasks that can be analysed in the language classroom can be based on linking (inserting additional information within the text) or in comparing two texts in terms of register or style. Looking at the future, we cannot forget the words by Roca de Larios et al. (2006), who seem to address towards a step forward in L2 writing research, assuming the need to move beyond conventional process approaches. Thus, it is necessary to take into consideration the sociocognitive aspects involved in L2 writing. As we introduced above, the process of offering feedback to students can be of the highest importance in the writing process; students often think of the lecturer as a person who knows everything about the process and the only resource they have in order to improve their writing abilities. In any case, feedback has been traditionally underused or misunderstood; we do not think that the lecturer should be correcting the text as a way of feedback for later draft versions, but offering tips in order to have the students implementing those texts. Feedback, therefore, should be a learning experience, helping the students to identify both merits and shortcomings of their writing performance. It is important to analyse, for future research, all the reasons that cause any writing shortcomings in the language classroom, trying to discuss possible improvements. Thus, the use of alternative evaluators (such as self-correction, peer correction or mixed mode, including the lecturer and the group as a whole) could be implemented to motivate students in their writing tasks. To summarise, we can conclude by stating that teaching writing techniques in the L2 classroom can be a hard task for many lecturers, though it is also highly motivating and fairly rewarding. There is not a secret in order to teach students to write; lecturers should accept that it is a time-consuming activity, and that attention should be paid to a wide number of problems that can arise throughout the process. Good planning techniques should be advised, as the overall organisation of the text will benefit. In short, writing is hard, but those difficulties can be minimised by clearly defining and organising the teaching practice, getting the best from the students. This basic rule should be kept in mind in the daily teaching practice.

Acknowledgements This article is part of a research project on English language at secondary and tertiary levels, granted by Fundación Caixa Castelló—Bancaixa (P1·1A2002-13).

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Works Cited Bazerman, Charles. “Systems of Genre and the Enactment of Social Intentions.” In Genre and the New Rhetoric, edited by Aviva Freedman and Peter Medway, 79-101. London: Taylor and Francis, 1995. Belcher, Diane and George Braine, eds. Academic Writing in a Second Language: Essays on Research and Pedagogy. Norwood, NJ.: Ablex, 1994. Bhatia, Vijay K. “Generic Conflicts in Academic Discourse.” In Genre Studies in English for Academic Purposes, edited by Inmaculada Fortanet-Gómez, Santiago Posteguillo-Gómez, Juan C. Palmer-Silveira and Juan F. CollGarcía, 15-28. Castelló: Universitat Jaume I, 1998. Bloch, Joel. “Creating Materials for Teaching Evaluation in Academic Writing: Using Letters to the Editor in L2 Composition Courses.” English for Specific Purposes 22, no. 4 (2003): 347-64. Brière, Eugène J. “Quantity before Quality in Second Language Composition.” Language Learning 16 (1966): 141-51. Carson, Joan. “A Task Analysis of Reading and Writing in Academic Contexts.” In Linking Literacies: Perspectives on L2 Reading-Writing Connections, edited by Diane Belcher and Alan Hirvela, 48-83. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2001. Chikamatsu, Nobuko. “The Effects of L1 Orthography on L2 Word Recognition.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18, no. 4 (1996): 403-32. Cook, Vivian. “Knowledge of Writing.” International Review of Applied Linguistics 39, no. 1 (2001): 1-18. Cumming, Alister. “Teaching Writing: Orienting Activities to Students’ Goals.” In Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills, edited by Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor, 473-91. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. . “Writing Expertise and Second Language Proficiency.” Language Learning 39, no. 1 (1989): 81-141. Devitt, Amy J. “Genre, Genres, and the Teaching of Genre.” College Composition and Communication 47, no. 4 (1996): 605-16. Elbow, Peter. Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Emig, Janet. The Composing Processes of Twelfth Graders. Urbana, IL.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1971. Ferris, Dana R. and John S. Hedgcock. Teaching ESL Composition: Purpose, Process and Practice. Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998. Friedlander, Alexander. “Composing in English: Effects of a First Language on Writing in English as a Second Language.” In Second Language Writing:

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Research Insights for the Classroom, edited by Barbara Kroll, 109-25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Gairns, Ruth and Stuart Redman. Working with Words. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986. Gardner, Ann and Debra Johnson. Teaching Personal Experience Narrative in the Elementary and Beyond. Flagstaff, AZ.: Northern Arizona Writing Project Press, 1997. Grabe, William. “Reading and Writing Relations: Second Language Perspectives on Research and Practice.” In Exploring the Dynamics of Second Language Writing, edited by Barbara Kroll, 242-62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Grabe, William and Robert Kaplan. Theory and Practice of Writing. Harlow: Longman, 1996. Greaney, George L. "Less is More: Summary Writing and Sentence Structure in the Advanced ESL Classroom." The Internet TESL Journal 3, no. 9 (1997) [Electronic journal available at http://iteslj.org/Techniques/GreaneyWriting.html ] [Cited 29 May 2006]. Hamp-Lyons, Liz. “No New Lamps for Old yet, Please.” TESOL Quarterly 20, no. 4 (1986): 790-96. Hayes, John R., Jill A. Hatch and Christine M. Silk. “Does Holistic Assessment Predict Writing Performance? Estimating the Consistency of Student Performance on Holistically Scored Writing Assignments.” Written Communication 17, no. 1 (2000): 3-26. Herman, Joan L., Maryl Gearhart and Eva L. Baker. “Assessing Writing Portfolios: Issues in the Validity and Meaning of Scores.” Educational Assessment 1, no. 3 (1993): 201-24. Houston, Gloria. How Writing Works: Imposing Organizational Structure within the Writing Process. Boston: Pearson, 2004. Hyland, Ken. Teaching and Researching Writing. Harlow: Longman, 2002. Jacobs, George. “Quickwriting: A Technique for Invention in Writing.” ELT Journal 40, no. 4 (1986): 282-92. Johns, Ann, M. “Areas of Research that Influence L2 Writing Instruction.” In Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills, edited by Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor, 401-22. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. Koda, Keiko. “L2 Word Recognition Research: A Critical Review.” Modern Language Journal 80, no. 4 (1996): 450-60. Krapels, Alexandra R. “An Overview of Second Language Writing Process Research.” In Second Language Writing: Research Insights for the Classroom, edited by Barbara Kroll, 37-56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

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Krashen, Stephen D. Writing: Research, Theory and Applications. Oxford: Pergamon, 1984. Kroll, Barbara. “Techniques for Shaping Writing Course Curricula: Strategies in Designing Assignments.” In Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills, edited by Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor, 473-91. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. . ed. Exploring the Dynamics of Second Language Writing. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003. Liu, Dilin. “Writing Cohesion: Using Content Lexical Ties in ESOL.” Language Teaching Forum, 38, no. 1 (2000): 28-35. Manchón, Rosa M., Julio Roca de Larios and Liz Murphy. “An Approximation to the Study of Backtracking in L2 Writing.” Learning and Instruction 10, no. 1 (2000): 13-35. Marinova-Todd, Stefka H., D. Bradford Marshall and Catherine Snow. “Three Misconceptions about Age and L2 Learning.” TESOL Quarterly 34, no. 1 (2000): 9-34. Mason, Jean S. “From Gutenberg's Galaxy to Cyberspace: The Transforming Power of Electronic Hypertext.” PhD diss., Montreal, McGill University, 2000. Nwogu, Kevin N. “Structuring Scientific Discourse: Using the “Given-New” Perspective.” Language Teaching Forum 33, no. 4 (1995): 22-31. Palmer-Silveira, Juan C. “Teaching Writing Skills in the Business English Classroom: Obstacles and Solutions.” In English in Specific Settings, edited by Jordi Piqué, José V. Andreu-Besó and David J. Viera, 75-85. València: Nau, 1996. Polio, Charlene. “Research on Second Language Writing: An Overview of What We Investigate and How.” In Exploring the Dynamics of Second Language Writing, edited by Barbara Kroll, 35-65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Reid, Joy M. Teaching ESL Writing. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall, 1993. Raimes, Ann. “What Unskilled Writers Do as They Write.” TESOL Quarterly 19, no. 2 (1985): 229-58. . “Anguish as a Second Language? Remedies for Composition Teachers.” In Learning to Write: First Language/Second Language, edited by Aviva Freedman, Ian Pringle and Janice Yalden, 258-72. London: Longman, 1983. Roca de Larios, Julio, Rosa M. Manchón and Liz Murphy. “Generating Text in Native and Foreign Language Writing: a Temporal Analysis of ProblemSolving Formulation Processes.” The Modern Language Journal 90, no. 1 (2006): 100-14.

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Scarcella, Robin. “How Writers Orient their Readers in Expository Essays: A Comparative Study of Native and Nonnative English Writers.” TESOL Quarterly 18, no. 4 (1984): 671-88. Silva, Tony. “Toward an Understanding of the Distinct Nature of L2 Writing: The ESL Research and its Implications.” TESOL Quarterly 27, no. 4 (1993): 657-77. . “Second Language Composition Instruction: Developments, Issues, and Directions in ESL.” In Second Language Writing: Research Insights for the Classroom, edited by Barbara Kroll, pp 11-23. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Silva, Tony, Melinda Reichelt, Yoshiki Chikuma, Nathalie Duval-Couetil, RuoPing J. Mo, Gloria Vélez-Rendón and Sandra Wood. “Second Language Writing Up Close and Personal: Some Success Stories.” In Exploring the Dynamics of Second Language Writing, edited by Barbara Kroll, 93-114. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003. Silva, Tony and Paul K. Matsuda, eds. On Second Language Writing. Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. Spack, Ruth. “Invention Strategies and the ESL College Composition Student.” TESOL Quarterly 18, no. 4 (1984): 649-70. Tompkins, Gail E. Teaching and Writing: Balancing Process and Product. Columbus, OH.: Merrill Publishing, 1990. Tribble, Christopher. Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Victori, Mia. “An Analysis of Writing Knowledge in EFL Composing: A Case Study of two Effective and two Less Effective Writers.” System 27, no. 4 (1999): 537-55. Voss, Ralph F. “Janet Emig’s the Composing Process of Twelfth Graders: A Reassessment.” College Composition and Communication 34, no. 3 (1983): 278-83. Watson, Cynthia B. “The Use and Abuse of Models in the ESL Writing Class.” TESOL Quarterly 16, no. 1 (1982): 5-14. White, Ron and Valerie Arndt. Process Writing. London: Longman, 1991. Zamel, Vivian. “Recent Research on Writing Pedagogy.” TESOL Quarterly 21, no. 4 (1987): 697-715.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF LANGUAGE LEARNING ASSESSMENT ANA BOCANEGRA VALLE Universidad de Cádiz

1. Introduction There is no such thing as teaching without assessment. By practising their profession, foreign language teachers are constantly engaged in the task of assessing a multi-layered environment as efficiently and reasonably as possible: assessing target needs; assessing learners’ and learning needs; assessing course structure, lesson content and implementation; assessing language learning materials; assessing authenticity and availability of discourse and tasks; assessing classroom management and degree of control; assessing language scope, register and difficulty; and, most frequently, assessing learners’ achievement, learning outcomes and overall language performance through the preparation and administration of tests. All too often foreign language teachers are trained on the theories and approaches underlying learning and teaching, on the planning and implementation of the language course (syllabus design, textbooks and materials evaluation, role of teachers and learners, classroom management), on the practice of teaching the language and the skills as well as on a wide variety of background issues (language varieties, learner diversity, learning styles, motivation, etc.), but little training is provided on the goals, procedures and practices accompanying assessment towards successful language teaching and learning. In fact, literature on English as a second and foreign language methodology does not usually consider assessment to be related to the practice of language teaching and well-known references include just a few pages, if any, on assessment and/or testing1ʊsee, for example, Stern (1983), 1

Throughout this paper, assessment is understood as “a systematic approach to collecting information and making inferences about the ability of a student or the quality or success of a teaching course on the basis of various sources of evidence” (Richards and Schmidt 2002, 35). On the other hand, testing is understood as the use of procedures for measuring a

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Doff (1988), Nunan (1991), Wallace (1995), or Cross (2003), among many others. It is only recently that the study of classroom-based assessment practices within second/foreign language contexts has begun to appear. Examples of these are Cumming (2001) or Cheng et al. (2004), among others. Paradoxically, teachers are, as a whole, continuously engaged on a task, assessing, for which they have not been sufficiently and appropriately trained. If asked, many foreign language teachers would regard testing and assessment as being out of their immediate concern for everyday classroom practice, and respond to this demand by following their common sense rather than any theoretical grounds. This used to be at one time the foundation of the traditional approach to language testing:2 the measurement of language proficiency was understood as a task concerning teachers and of no scientific interest. In fact, underlying this belief was the assumption that whoever taught a language was also able to test it. In foreign language classrooms, much of this assumption still remains today although it is in the awareness of assessment practices and testing issues shown by the teaching profession that the difference lies. An example of this can be found in Alderson (2004) who, in a recent lecture, highlighted some of the issues which still prevail in today’s current testing practice to show that the traditional approach to language testing has not been completely superseded. Among such issues, three stand out: i) a University degree in a foreign language qualifies one to examine language competence, despite lack of training in language testing; ii) in many circumstances merely being a native speaker qualifies one to assess language competence; iii) teachers assess students’ ability without having been trained. It is at present that a revival of this concern is leading scholars, like Alderson and Banerjee (2001, 2002), to stress the relationship between language assessment (language testing, mainly) and applied linguistics. As Davies (2003) explains, it is precisely its detached status and its lack of attachment to a clear parent discipline the main reason why earlier attempts to bring testing, in particular, within the main applied linguistics debates have failed and why, as opposed to other subfields such as syllabus design or interlanguage studies, this issue has remained stubbornly outside the applied linguistics kirk. Following Rea-Dickins (2004), there are four research perspectives which concern language testers and second language acquisition researchers at the same student’s ability, knowledge or performance, which contribute in return to the overall assessment process. 2 Together with this traditional trend, there are two other approaches to language testing, all of them widely accepted in the literature: the psychometric-structuralist approach, and the psycholinguistic-sociolinguistic approach. Very briefly, whereas the former applies the principles of statistics to the analysis of data and is based on a structuralist view of language, the latter is more concerned with measuring communicative language as a whole, rather than its constituent elements.

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time, so far showing the connection between assessment and instruction. These are: i) the impact of assessment on classroom instruction; ii) the links between assessment and instruction in relation to the authenticity and coherence of assessment practices regarding a particular study programme; iii) the consideration of the success of a language programme in terms of learner attainment; and, iv) the study of teacher assessment from an instruction-embedded perspective (i.e., the construct of classroom formative assessment). Amid these views, and filling in the gap between testers and researchers, foreign language teachers play the role of agents of assessment and, as a consequence: teachers find themselves at the confluence of different assessment cultures and faced with significant dilemmas in their assessment practices: sometimes torn between their role as facilitator and monitor of language development and that of assessor and judge of language performance as achievement.3

Hughes (1989) finds that the relationship between teaching and assessment (particularly testing) is that of partnership;4 hence, their underlying theory and practice are mutually supportive and accordingly exert a corrective influence. More specifically, teachers can make two contributions to the improvement of testing: “they can write better tests themselves, and they can put pressure on others, including professional testers and examining boards, to improve their tests.”5 For this scholar, the relationship between what and how to teach and what and how to test is so strong that “areas which are not tested are likely to become areas ignored in teaching and learning.”6 Sharing the concern that teacher training courses and methodology courses do not usually encompass the training on assessment knowledge and practices actually 3

Rea-Dickins, Pauline. “Understanding Teachers as Agents of Assessment.” Language Testing 21 (2004): 249-58. 4 Let’s consider, for instance, the university entrance examinations in Spain (i.e., selectividad). At present, the secondary school student’s ability to understand and speak a foreign language is an issue which has been overlooked by educational authorities as far as testing is concerned; this fact may help to explain why listening and speaking skills are not seriously taken into consideration in the corresponding syllabus, why those students aiming to take the corresponding foreign language test as part of such university entrance examinations receive little training on the skills required for communicating orally in the foreign language, and why such students are rarely provided with classroom opportunities to master them. 5 Hughes, Arthur. Testing for Language Teachers. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 5. 6 Ibid., 23.

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demanded on the teachers’ part, this paper aims at increasing the awareness on the duality teaching/assessing, and hence claims for a pedagogical dimension of language assessment. It begins by reviewing seven current issues of relevance to language learning classroom-based assessment and testing. Such issues are diagnostic competence, washback, authenticity, validity, reliability, practicality, and computerised testing. Then, by placing particular emphasis on the nature of tests, testing techniques and the testing constraints governing each skill, attention is drawn to how language and skills learning attainment is assessed.

2. Current relevant issues 2.1 Diagnostic competence Diagnostic competence is a new and fresh-formulated concept introduced by Edelenbos and Kubanek-German (2004) to refer, in general terms, to the teachers’ ability to interpret students’ foreign language growth and provide students with appropriate help in response to this diagnosis. Diagnostic competence is understood as one of the many competences language teachers need to be equipped with in order to be efficient assessors and, therefore, skilfully deal with all the assessing tasks embedded in language teaching. As such, diagnostic competence precedes assessment because it is precisely the attribute that teachers need in order to assess. It is a combination of different attitudes, skills and abilities (observing, comparing, interpreting, selecting diagnostic material, designing, adapting tests, checking, or measuring, among others) or, as Edelenbos and Kubanek-German (2004) put it, “diagnostic competence is the ‘power’ to see more in a teaching and learning situation than the novice or average teacher does.”7 The ability to make an educated guess about a student’s silence, to evoke student’s prior knowledge or to group students according to perceived needs, are examples of features which show that a teacher is diagnostically competent. However, whether such diagnostic skills can be acquired through training (as a part of a pre-service training programme), whether they are developed from experience after a period of teaching, whether they are sustained by innate mechanisms and brought into action intuitively, or whether they are a combination of any of the three, are issues which, at present, remain unexplored but certainly offer promising research perspectives in view of more efficient classroom-based assessment practices.

7

Edelenbos, Peter and Angelika Kubanek-German. “Teacher Assessment: The Concept of ‘Diagnostic Competence.’ ” Language Testing 21, no. 3 (2004): 277.

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2.2 Washback The ethical perspective of assessment has led to a growing interest in fairness, a greater attention to accountability and, therefore, an overriding concern about washback (or backwash, as it is also termed by some authors). The construct of washback dates back to the 80s but was strengthened by Wall and Alderson’s (1993) so-called washback hypothesis, and thereafter taken into consideration by most publications on language assessment and language testing.8 Studies on washback have raised the issue of how assessing practices, in particular testing, affect teaching, learning, and all those involved. Testing may have positive or negative effects on stakeholders (students, teachers, course planning, syllabus design, instituting examinations, and even society), leading to beneficial or adverse educational changes accordingly. As such, washback is a device for change in education having a place in current assessment trends and showing the complexities of testing in relation to teaching and learning (Cheng et al. 2004). Teachers cannot be indifferent to washback. Good tests have a positive influence on teaching and learning, whereas bad tests have a negative influence. How assessment in general, and testing in particular, may influence teaching styles and teaching expected outcomes, and, moreover, how the task of measuring learners’ language development influences the learner and those within the learner’s environment are issues which demand minute attention. The harmful or beneficial, the direct or indirect, the short-term or long-terms effects of assessment cannot be underestimated in the teaching profession, particularly as a support for teachers in the planning and implementation process of a language course as well as in the description of their learners’ language development across the curriculum. Some authors, like Prodromou (1995), are convinced that teachers are the most to benefit from this effect simply because they can draw conclusions that can be wisely applied to the design and later development and implementation of their language course. This is to be thereby understood as the instrumental cost of testing as opposed to the affective or attitudinal cost to the learner who will either congratulate him/herself for his/her success or ponder over his/her poor performance. Following Hughes (1989), assessment can achieve a beneficial washback effect by applying the following principles to the corresponding testing practices: i) Test the abilities whose development you want to encourage: This is an obvious but, at the same time, necessary recommendation aiming to

8

See, for example, the special issue of the journal Language Testing edited by Alderson and Wall (1996), Hamp-Lyons’ (1997) paper on the ethics and validity of washback, or the recent work edited by Cheng, Watanabe and Curtis (2004).

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eradicate the all too frequent tendency of testing what is easiest to test rather than what should really be tested. ii) Sample widely and unpredictably: Even though conditions are not favourable or some test targets are difficult to test, samples to be measured should be included across the full range of specifications to be tested. iii) Use direct testing: This recommendation implies avoiding indirect testing as much as possible and trying to make students perform exactly what is going to be measured. iv) Make testing criterion-referenced: Avoid relating performances across students, make a clear picture of what students have to achieve and analyse what students will be required to do with or through the foreign language. v) Base achievement tests on objectives: If tests are based on objectives specified and known beforehand, rather than on textbooks or on teaching outcomes, it will be much easier to know what has really been achieved. vi) Ensure test is known and understood by students and teachers: This recommendation is aimed at increasing the reliability of the testing procedure through correct and uniform conditions of test administration. vii) Where necessary, provide assistance to teachers: In order to achieve the intended effect, it might be advisable to guide and train teachers to suit down to the demands of certain tests. This is particularly important if testing aims at a change in teaching practices. viii)Count the cost: This recommendation does not only refer to the opportunity of incurring a minimal expense but also, and perhaps more important, of making tests easy to construct, administer, score and interpret. The construct of washback is closely connected to the social and political context of language assessment (McNamara 1998), and, hence, it provides a range of perspectives on critical language assessment.9 As a general rule, “public perceptions of the accountability of tests are frequently negative”10 and the upheaval for alternative assessment grounded on questions of fairness and ethicality stresses the complexity of the issue in terms of both educational and social practices.

9

Here, the term critical language assessment echoes Shohamy’s (1997) critical language testing. In the same way that this scholar introduced this notion to claim the position of tests within social, education and political contexts as part of the scope of critical pedagogy and critical applied linguistics, the position of general assessment practices needs to be claimed. 10 McNamara, Tim. “Policy and Social Considerations in Language Assessment.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18 (1998): 306.

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2.3 Authenticity Although not new, a persistent issue in language assessment is how testing techniques can manage to mirror the purposes of real life communication. The shift of interest from the knowledge of the rules of a language (linguistic competence) to the knowledge of the rules of language use (communicative competence) paved the way to communicative teaching and, hence, to communicative testing: testing tasks should resemble real-life situations as closely as possible and should be based on the communicative needs of learners. Over the past two decades test designers have endeavoured to design and administer tests which replicate authentic language in a given domain of language use (Bachman 1990), but this is not an easy task. Constraints are varied and may be summed up as follows: First of all, gaining access to authentic samples of natural language. This may be particularly difficult in the case of a foreign language and when aiming to test certain skills like listening. It is true that, today, information technologies provide testing teachers with both traditional and hot topics under different formats ready to be downloaded and used; however, these materials need not be suitable as such and much additional work might be necessary (i.e., editing the material so as to have it ready for use and adapting formats to resources available). Secondly, a mismatch between real-life language use and the techniques employed to elicit communicative responses from learners. It is problematic to assess what students can do with the new language by assigning them a task they will rarely have to undertake in everyday life, not even through the use of their mother tongue. A clear example of this is that people will not usually find themselves “in the situation of having to carry out the sorts of tasks which are commonly used in language tests, such as deciding whether what they have just heard corresponds to one of four written or pictorial alternatives.”11 Indeed, few acts of natural communication demand a specific response to be deployed and measured but a performance of some sort is necessary in view of a certain kind of measurement. Thirdly, negotiation of language and meaning. Very frequently successful communication involves negotiating speech so that possible language lacks are overcome and meanings get through eventually. However, as regards the context of foreign language teaching/learning, assessment practices cannot always afford providing opportunities for negotiating speech and engaging in participative tasks since achievement tests, and not performance tests, prevail. In fact, setting test conditions aiming to replicate actual real-life communication would make tests unpractical in such circumstancesʊthis is, they would become more complex in terms of administration requirements. 11 Brindley, Geoff. “Assessing Listening Abilities.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18 (1998): 174-75.

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2.4 Validity, reliability and practicality There are three important requirements for a good test: validity, reliability and practicality. First of all, tests should be valid; this is to say, tests should measure those skills, linguistic forms, etc. which have prompted their development and administration. If the test certainly measures what it is intended to measure (language and/or skills), matching language development theories and predicting future learners’ language behaviours, it will enjoy a degree of validity. Validity is a construct which includes four main approaches: i) Content validity: a test has content validity if it includes a proper and representative sample of the relevant structures or skills which are going to be measured; ii) Criterion-related validity: a test has criterion-related validity if the results obtained on the test correlate with or conform to a criterion measure (i.e., an external independent standard test against which the test is validated); iii) Construct validity: a test has construct validity when it measures the essential aspects underlying the theory (i.e., the construct of a theory) which motivates the test; iv) Face validity: a test has face validity if it appears to measure what it pretends to measure. Validity may be affected by different factors such as lack of specifications, lack of training (either in the case of the teachers designing the test or in the case of the students with the tested items), unclear criteria for marking, or lack of feedback to candidates and teachers, among others. Secondly, tests should be reliable; this is to say, obtained results should be free from errors of measurement and, consequently, should show a certain degree of homogeneity or consistency over time. As such, a reliable test would allow for the drawing of conclusions about the general behaviour of the group, about the effectiveness of the course, and about the degree of achievement of course goals. In accordance with this, a test which avoids ambiguous items and demands objective marking will be more likely to provide reliable results than, for instance, free subjective tests. In order to make tests more reliable, Hughes (1989) suggests some ways of achieving consistent performances from test takers: enough samples of behaviour should be taken; candidates should not be allowed too much freedom in their answers; unambiguous test items should be presented; instructions provided should be as clear and explicit as possible; tests should be well laid out and perfectly legible; students taking the test should be familiar with format and testing techniques; items permitting objective scoring and direct testing should be used; a detailed scoring key should be provided; scorers should be trained, especially if subjective scoring is to be used, etc. Some of the factors affecting reliability relate

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to poor administration conditions (such as noise, lighting, etc.), lack of information in advance, lack of specifications, or lack of training in the case of those marking the tests. Thirdly, tests should be practical; this is to say, the process of design, layout, administration and marking should not present teachers with too many obstacles which divert their attention from the testing and elicitation process. For example, a test which, in an average school, demands learners to use computers or which requires teachers to spend hours to mark one test would not comply with this requirement. Practicality has to do with the accessibility of resources in terms of workforce, facilities and economic support. Practicality may be threatened by different factors such as limited time to report results, lack of awareness as regards complexity and cost, and most important, the recognition of the need to train teachers so as to fulfil their role as testers.

2.5 Computerised testing With different purposes in mind, traditional pen-and-paper testing (or paperbased testing) has in some occasions been replaced by scanned tests with the aim of grading and analysing objective tests as quickly and accurately as possible. However, at those institutions with the available resources, such apparently familiar technique is gradually giving way to computer technology and computerised testing (also known as computer-administered testing, or even computer-assisted testing). Generally speaking, computerised testing may divided into ComputerBased Tests (CBTs) and Computer-Adaptive Tests (CATs).12 The main difference between them is that whereas CBTs are mainly regarded as paper-based tests put on computers, CATs respond and evolve according to the answers introduced. One example of a CBT is the TOEFL, implemented by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which serves the purpose of evaluating the English proficiency of individuals whose mother tongue is not English. At present, it is mainly used as part of the standard admissions procedure for non-native speakers of English applying for courses in colleges and universities in Canada and the USA, and also as part of the process of language proficiency evaluation undertaken by government agencies, scholarship programmes, and licensing and certification agencies. Thanks to the possibilities computers and computing offer, tests can be administered throughout the year, networked at permanent or mobile centres worldwide, and individuals taking the test are free to submit their scores for the 12

Internet may also be regarded as a global resource on testing issues and assessment practices. However, do not expect to find the test that fits your course on line! Today, Internet is useful in helping teachers gain access to test specifications, relevant professional information, tips for developing more valid, reliable and practical tests, etc., but certainly not for administering tests as such.

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corresponding rating or either cancel them so that no official score report will be returned (ETS 2003). The other popular computerised test, the CAT is typically used for (although not limited to) the testing of reading comprehension by taking into account the responses provided to earlier items. In CATs, the questions are drawn from a large bank of items and are tailored to the responses given in terms of difficulty so that the more items passed, the more difficult they become, and the more items failed the easier they become. The benefits and drawbacks of computerised testing over traditional or paperbased testing are varied. According to Davidson (2003), these may be summed up as follows: Benefits of computerised testing: x It generates broader and more precise measurements of certain constructs. x It is quicker and more reliable since marking is automated. x It utilises more diverse, interactive test formats. x It results in more standardised administration. x It allows for ‘testing on demand’. x It improves test security. x It allows for item banking. x It can be ‘tagged’ to provide test-takers with immediate and comprehensive feedback. x Test path data can provide invaluable information to teachers and test administrators. Drawbacks of computerised testing: x It unintentionally tests irrelevant constructs (such as the ability to use a mouse). x The number of question types that are utilised is limited. x Test developers are sceptical about the reliability of automated scoring. x Test administrators (mainly teachers) usually express negative attitudes towards computerised testing. x As tests are short, its validity for inferring a learners’ ability is questioned. x They are expensive to create. x Test security may be breached. x Technology often fails. Once more, computer-assisted testing may be regarded as a good example of that partnership assessment/instruction earlier pointed out by Hughes (1989) and, particularly, as a good example of how assessment may cope with and respond to teaching practices. The 90’s introduction of computers into educational

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programmes for the teaching and learning of foreign languages has also generated an interest on the possibilities computers offer for assessing language performance and learning outcomes more validly, more reliably and more practically. But despite such enthusiasm, computerised testing is at present rarely used for the assessment of foreign language development through ordinary classroom teaching/learning courses. One of the reasons accounting for this is, indeed, the technological resources needed, rarely available in an average school; although, the availability of tests tailored down to specific course objectives is perhaps one of the most peremptory challenges to face. Adding to these, the need for teacher training in the use of computers (for testing purposes), the recognition of such task as part of the teaching profession, and the cooperation of testing institutions in the construction of item banks and the design of tests are gradually pushing computerised testing into the background of foreign language learning courses.

3. Assessing learning attainment Following Alderson (2004), assessment is central to language learning because: i) it is necessary to establish where learners are at present and what level they have achieved; ii) it provides learners with feedback on their learning; and, also, because iii) it enables the planning of curricula, materials and activities. But in foreign language teaching and learning, assessment is based on the design and administration of tests, and language testing is much more than a complex matter. In fact it is to be considered “a highly professional and organized enterprise.”13 Moreover, assessing a language classroom-based context is a multidisciplinary endeavour involving various disciplines such as linguistics, sociology, psychology, pedagogy, and even psychometrics. Such recognition encourages the work of many organisations and associations around the world working on the issue from different perspectives: by trying to promote the understanding of the foundations of language assessment, by promoting awareness and recognition as a professional discipline, and also, by improving and sharing testing and assessing practices throughout those countries concerned.14

13

Edelenbos, Peter and Angelika Kubanek-German. “Teacher assessment: The concept of ‘Diagnostic Competence.’ ” Language Testing 21, no. 3 (2004): 276. 14 Among others, ARELS Examination Trust (AET), Association of British ESOL Examining Boards (ABEEB), Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE), the European Association of Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA), The British Council English Language Testing Service (ELTS), International Language Testing Association (ILTA), University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES), University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations (UODLE), or The Educational Testing Service (ETS) responsible for the well-known Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).

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Tests can be classified according to seven different variables as shown in Table 14-1. The existence of such a variety of test types simply accounts for the fact that there is no such thing as a panacea for testing. As Hughes well explains: Language testers are sometimes asked to say what is ‘the best test’ or ‘the best testing technique’. Such questions reveal a misunderstanding of what is involved in the practice of language testing. In fact there is no best test or best technique. A test which proves ideal for one purpose may be quite useless for another; a technique which may work very well in one situation can be entirely inappropriate in another.15

Typically, the purpose and the specification (i.e., the why and what, respectively) of the assessment are the two variables which exert a greater influence on the choice of a particular testing technique and the design of a particular test. In the foreign language classroom context, achievement criterionreferenced tests are the most relevant since they are primarily designed to show mastery of a particular syllabus and students are assessed in terms of syllabus matters and course objectives. Diagnostic or progress tests are also popular but, as they have little or no recognition on the part of educational authorities, they do not aim at achieving well-established educational aims. In the foreign language context, what to measure and how to do it is, to a greater extent, a reflection of what to learn and how to teach. Therefore, most of the testing techniques (formats and tasks) employed are merely an extension of everyday classroom dynamics which help to identify language teaching/learning achievements, mainly, but also strengths and weaknesses both in the learners’ language learning development and in the course design and implementation. Testing formats and tasks (or testing techniques) are regarded as the means to elicit responses from learners so that results can be measured and conclusions can be drawn (in a foreign language classroom, conclusions are mainly drawn about how far learners have met the objectives of a particular course).

15

Arthur Hughes, Testing for Language Teachers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 6.

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Table 14-1: Classification of test types. Variable Purpose (i.e., why the test is administered)

Test type Proficiency test Placement test Diagnostic/progress test Aptitude tests Achievement/Attainment tests

Time (i.e., when the test is administered)

Opening tests Summative tests Formative tests

Mode (i.e., how the test is administered)

Oral tests

Dependence (i.e., how much personal contribution is allowed) Specification (i.e., what the test is aiming to test)

Free tests

Procedure (i.e., how results are going to be elicited)

Direct tests

Assessment (i.e., how results are going to be measured)

Written tests

Controlled tests Semi-controlled tests Language tests Skills tests

Indirect tests Discrete tests Integrative test Criterion-referenced tests Norm-referenced tests Subjective tests Objective tests Analytic tests Holistic tests

Test goal They specify the general level of language competence. They identify a target group to place learners in. They are used to know learners’ strengths and, particularly, weaknesses regarding language knowledge and use. They predict how well learners will do when developing a new language. They explain what learners have learnt after a particular course. Tests following different purposes and taking place when facing a group of learners for the first time. Achievement tests which take place at the end of the course. They are achievement tests taking place at some time throughout the course. They test learners through listening and/or speaking skills. They test learners through reading and/or writing skills. They allow for unexpected responses but are limited by topic and environment. They predict learners' responses beforehand. They channel responses so that a limited range is allowed. They test grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and phonetics. They test reading, writing, listening and speaking (macro and micro) skills. They explicitly ask learners to carry out tasks which only require the knowledge and/or skill display to be tested. They ask learners to carry out a task involving more knowledge and/or skill display than that/those to be tested. They test different aspects, one at a time. They test different aspects at the same time. They assess learners according to a criterion envisaged beforehand. They assess learners with reference to the general group performance. They rely on the personal view of the examiner. They rely on a structured marking system envisaged beforehand. They are divided into parts and assessed item by item. They are assessed from an overall point of view.

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3.1 Assessing language Tests aiming to assess the knowledge of the formal aspects of the language (lexis, grammar and phonetics) are typically of the direct, discrete-point type, and heavily rely on target language items explicitly learnt throughout a course. Language can be assessed at the level of recognition (i.e., vocabulary, grammatical structures or sounds are understood) or either at the level of production (i.e., learners are required to provide particular vocabulary, grammatical structures or sounds). Many different techniques may be employed when aiming to assess language; all of them trying to be as reliable, valid, practical, easily administered and quickly marked as possible. Below is an example of some of them:16 Techniques which help to test lexis: x Re-arrange the letters previously mixed up to provide a meaningful term. x Choose among four terms to give the correct one (Multiple-choice). x Among four possibilities select the term which is least connected with the input provided (Odd one out). x Provide the terms which have been deleted selectively in a passage (Modified cloze). x Provide the terms which have been partly deleted in a passage by using the clue of the first letter (C-test). x Provide the term which fits a definition given. x Provide the term which fits a series of clues given. x Provide the term which matches abbreviations, acronyms or symbols/signs. x Problem-solving. x Translation from foreign language into mother tongue. x Translation from mother tongue into foreign language. x Complete and extend classifications or semantic fields to a given term. x Fill in the gaps by using the root words given in brackets. x Match terms according to specific relationships between them regardless of meaning. x Replace definitions or expressions with equivalent terms in a given text. x Provide synonyms. 16

Due to the limits on the edition of this paper, it should be taken into account that the format/tasks provided should be considered both at the level of recognition and production. For example, by re-arranging the letters previously mixed up to provide a meaningful term, there are two possibilities according to the level being tested: i) recognition: both jumbled term and correct term are provided and students are simply required to match as appropriate; ii) production: only jumbled term is provided.

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x x x x

Provide antonyms. Use prefixes or suffixes for word formation. Insert terms in a text from a table provided. Provide the term to a picture or parts of a picture.

Techniques which help to test grammar: x Re-arrange jumbled words into a meaningful and correct sentence. x Choose among four sentences the grammatically correct one (Multiplechoice). x Select among four possibilities the grammatical structure which does not fit at all within the input provided (Odd one out). x Match the two parts of a sentence given in two columns. x Fill in the gaps with the correct grammatical structure (articles, prepositions, etc.). x Provide free questions to the answers given. x Provide selected questions to the underlined parts of an answer given. x Re-write sentences so that their meaning remains the same. x Paraphrase sentences given by using one’s own words. x Provide general definitions. x Provide specific definitions (according to function, physical appearance, etc.). x Spot the grammatical error in a sentence or passage, either on their own or with reference to a picture. x Translation of sentences or paragraphs from foreign language into mother tongue. x Translation of sentences or paragraphs from mother tongue into foreign language. x Provide sentences or passages by using linking words (with the corresponding grammatical changes as appropriate). x Finish the sentences as appropriate, either on their own or with reference to a picture. x Problem-solving. x Provide sentences which suit down (i.e., describe) a picture given. Techniques which help to test phonetics/pronunciation: x Point out those terms containing a particular target sound. x Point out the term which does not contain a particular target sound (Odd one out). x Underline the syllable having a particular target sound.

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x Underline the syllable having the primary stress (or any other stress of interest). x Extend a series of terms according to a particular target sound. x Match terms with their pronunciation. x Classify terms according to a particular target sound. x Classify terms according to stressed syllables. x Problem-solving. Some teaching practices are reluctant to incorporate pure grammar components in the foreign language classroom as they are more concerned with language skills and not with the control of grammatical structures. The shift towards communicative testing has left aside, at one time unthinkably, the strong interest of measuring learners’ mastery of grammatical structures in isolation; thus, testing formats and tasks tend to guide learners’ responses towards a need for the use of some specific vocabulary or grammatical structures just because they underlie a particular communicative target, not because they constitute a learning target on their own. But the raw testing of a learner’s knowledge and use of grammar is not out of date. Notwithstanding today’s widely-spread preponderance of skills testing, “it seems unlikely that there are many institutions, however ‘communicative’ their approach, that do not teach some grammar in some guise or other;”17 and this is particularly true as regards the everyday teaching practice in a foreign language classroom, obliged to meet the mastery of a number of grammatical structures as part of the course syllabus.

3.2 Assessing skills Although each skill has its own peculiarities and complexities, there are some common issues which apply when assessing the four language skills. As a difference to the assessment of linguistic components, the valid, reliable and practical assessment of skills presents two main problems which have to be overcome through different testing techniques and approaches. For one thing, it is especially difficult to isolate one skill for testing (particularly if those skills require the display of oral abilities), and, hence, most tests involve the assessment of more than one skill simultaneously. For another, assessing skills very much depends on the indirect assessment of the three types of communicative competence deployed when carrying out the testing tasks (i.e., discourse competence, sociolinguistic

17 Hughes, Arthur. Testing for Language Teachers. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 141-142.

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competence, and strategic competence).18 Should any of these competences fail, the validity of the communicative test may be breached. Another issue which also exerts a heavy influence on the way skills can be assessed and tested is the processing of language (i.e., bottom-up processing versus top-down processing), how it is understood within the syllabus, and how it is implemented through classroom work. Deriving from such view, testing techniques will be required to sample language from lower level information to achieve higher level meaning, or vice versa. Different behaviours may be elicited according to the different levels of analysis presented, so that it is possible to assess macro-skills, micro-skills and even lower-level operations. A good example of this is provided by Hughes (1989) for the case of testing reading: examples of reading macro-skills are scanning a text to locate specific information, skimming a text to obtain the gist, identifying stages of an argument, or identifying examples presented in support of an argument; examples of reading micro-skills are identifying referents of pronouns, using context to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words, or understanding relations between parts of text by recognising indicators in discourse; finally, low level operations would include grammatical and lexical abilities such as recognising the significance of the use of the present continuous with future time adverbials, knowing that the word ‘brother’ refers to a male sibling, or even much lower level operations such as distinguishing between different letters often mispronounced. 3.2.1 Reading Reading, “perhaps the easiest skill of all to evaluate”19 according to Cross, is the most popular tested skill within the foreign language context. Most of the testing techniques employed depend on an input text carefully selected in terms of authenticity, length, difficulty and time available. Multiple-choice tests seem to be the most popular due to its ease and suitability when scoring a large number of tests; however, research on this type of testing technique has cast doubts on its validity and reliability as it has been shown that it is possible to answer correctly 18

Brown (1987, 230-231) points out that communicative tests have to meet rather difficult and stringent criteria, and also, that classroom teachers must be sensitive to such criteria: “It [a communicative test] has to test for grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic, and illocutionary competence as well as strategic competence. It has to be pragmatic in that it requires the learner to use language naturally genuine communication and to relate to thoughts and feelings, in short, to put authentic language to use within a context. It should be direct (as opposed to indirect tests which may lose validity as they lose content validity). And it should test the learner in a variety of language functions.” 19 Cross, David. A Practical Handbook of Language Teaching. (Essex: Pearson Education, 2003), 193.

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multiple choice reading comprehension items “without first having read the texts on which the items are based.”20 This supports the idea that there is more in processing a language than meets a skill. But, besides multiple choice, there are other formats and tasks which are frequently implemented in foreign language tests: skimming, scanning, general comprehension questions, true/false statements, guided short answers, summary cloze, locate examples which match certain pieces of information, organise the text according to sub-topics, provide headings to paragraphs, identify referents, guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from context, look for synonyms and/or antonyms, finish sentences using terms and expressions from the text, or transfer information from a given text into a picture, diagram or table. 3.2.2 Writing By assessing writing skills, the ability of a learner to produce grammatically correct sentences is not at stake, but the ability to produce a coherent meaningful piece of communicative language through conventional writing. According to Kroll assessing writing abilities in the case of non-native English speakers is an increasingly complex issue mainly because “writing abilities develop in interaction with other language skills”21ʊthese being in essence the mastery of grammar and vocabulary. Guided essays or reports and portfolios are regarded as the traditional formats used for testing writing, but there are others which are more popular simply because they are easier to implement as part of an integrative test sampling language and other skills: describing a picture, answering to particular questions which do not require the comprehension of a previous oral or written input, reconsidering and rewriting an input passage which contains misleading, false or questionable arguments, summing up a text, writing paragraphs following the clues provided and using the appropriate linking words, etc. Regardless of the technique employed, the major difficulty to face when trying to test writing as part of a foreign language course is time; time for students to carry out the task, and time for teachers to score the result in terms of fairness and objectivity. 3.2.3 Listening Listening is a skill which involves a heavy (if not the heaviest) processing load, particularly on lower level learners. This processing load is to be understood in terms of the characteristics of the speech, the speech rate, the medium presenting 20

Perkins, Kyle. “Assessing Reading.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18 (1998): 213. 21 Kroll, Barbara. “Assessing Writing Abilities.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18 (1998): 219.

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the oral input, or the quantity and quality (i.e., content relevance) of such input. As Thompson (1995) well explains, the main problem lies on the fact that listeners are not given the chance to review and re-evaluate the information presented to them; as a consequence, they are obliged to comprehend as they listen, retaining information in memory, integrating it with what follows and continually adjusting their understanding of what they have heard in the light of prior knowledge and incoming information. The testing of oral abilities is entirely dependent on the response to a piece of oral input (previously recorded or live) and, hence, listening is not liable to direct testingʊthis is, learners will be required to carry out different tasks by and through which their listening ability will be tested. Some examples are: listening and drawing, identifying the main topic, identifying ideas or subtopics, following up the instructions given, taking notes, filling in the gaps of a gapped recorded or dictated text, recognising different language functions (if speakers are suggesting, asking, giving instructions, etc.), identifying errors in a written text according to the oral input, ticking a list, filling in a checklist, matching sections of the oral input with pictures or similar, re-arranging the sentences of a jumbled paragraph, etc. 3.2.4 Speaking Probably, assessing speaking as a skill demands the highest level of training on the teacher’s part. Here, the teacher’s role as examiner is one of the keys to the success of the test as much depends on his/her ability to elicit testable language creating the right environment and encouraging testable communicative behaviour from the learner. Besides specific training, logistics-related issues usually discourage many foreign language teachers from testing speaking as it demands a well-planned framework for fitting large numbers of students into the time allotted and making use of the resources available, if any, for designing tests and administering them (language labs, for instance). Traditional role plays, free role plays, group topic discussion, interaction with peers, responses to recordings, and oral interviews rank as the most popular formats used for the assessment of speaking skills, all of them having advantages and disadvantages. For example, following Weir (1988) the advantages of a free interview might well be that: they get closer to extended conversations; conversation unfolds as it takes place; or conversation gets closer to real life social interaction governed by unexpectedness and spontaneity. On the other hand, the disadvantages of a free interview are that it is more difficult to measure what it is intended to measure (i.e., less valid) as performances will vary according to learners’ responses and reactions (i.e., according to unexpectedness); or that it is not practical in case many learners have to be tested. Together with those previously mentioned, there are other techniques which are typically used, particularly if test taking time is limited and the number

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of students to test is large enough: describing a picture, providing instructions or steps in a process, summing up a text, or giving an account of past events. All these may work out as a reasonable compromise between teaching practices and testing outcomes.

4. Conclusion As Rea-Dickins (2004) argues, the teacher is an assessor who engages with and creates discourses of assessment at different levels (i.e., the teacher him/herself as individual, the cultural context of the classroom, and the profession/institution), all of which reflect the different political and social contexts within the scope of the teachers’ work. Assessing teaching and learning environments and outcomes is a pedagogical and social practice closely related to the teaching profession but all too frequently overlooked by works concerned with language teaching methodology and language teacher training. The theory and practice of assessment have long received, and still do, very limited coverage within the mainstream of language teaching/learning literature. Indeed, such detachment has contributed to raising the issue as a cornerstone for abundant, successful and sustained research on its own; however, how teaching practices may influence assessment outcomes and how these, in return, can potentially impact on more successful teaching practices, particularly as far as learner’s attainment is concerned, are issues which demand further experimental research and referenced support.

Works Cited Alderson, J. Charles. “Basic Parameters for Quality in Language Testing and Examining.” [Document available at http://www.icceurope.com/AGM_2004/documentation/Allderson_final.ppt], 2004 [cited 20 May 2006]. Alderson, J. Charles and Jayanti Banerjee. “Language Testing and Assessment (Part 2).” Language Teaching 35, no. 1 (2002): 79-113. Alderson, J. Charles and Jayanti Banerjee. “Language Testing and Assessment (Part 1).” Language Teaching 34, no. 4 (2001): 213-36. Alderson, J. Charles and Dianne Wall, eds. Washback. Special issue of Language Testing 13, no. 3 (1996). Bachman, Lyle F. Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Brindley, Geoff. “Assessing Listening Abilities.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18 (1998): 171-91. Brown, H. Douglas. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall, 1987.

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Cheng, Liying, Todd Rogers and Huiquin Hu. “ESL/EFL Instructors’ Classroom Assessment Practices: Purposes, Methods, and Procedures.” Language Testing 21, no. 3. (2004): 360-89. Cheng, Liying, Yoshinori Watanabe and Andy Curtis, eds. Washback in Language Testing: Research Contexts and Methods. Mahwah, NJ.: Laurence Erlbaum & Associates, 2004. Cross, David. A Practical Handbook of Language Teaching. Essex: Pearson Education, 2003. Cumming, Alister. “ESL/EFL Instructors’ Practices for Writing Assessment: Specific Purposes or General Purposes?” Language Testing 18, no. 2 (2001): 207-24. Davidson, Peter. “The Equivalence of Paper-Based and Computer-Based Tests.” In IATEFL 2003. Brighton Conference Selections, edited by Alan Pulverness, 7375. Kent: IATEFL, 2003. Davies, Alan. “Three Heresies of Language Testing Research.” Language Testing 20, no. 4 (2003): 355-68. Doff, Adrian. Teach English. A Training Course for Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Edelenbos, Peter and Angelika Kubanek-German. “Teacher assessment: The concept of ‘Diagnostic Competence.’” Language Testing 21, no. 3 (2004): 259-83. Educational Testing Service. “The TOEFL CBT (Computer-Based Test).” Language Testing 20, no. 1 (2003): 111-23. Hamps-Lyons, Liz. “Washback, Impact and Validity: Ethical Concerns.” Language Testing 14, no. 3 (1997): 295-303. Hughes, Arthur. Testing for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Kroll, Barbara. “Assessing Writing Abilities.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18 (1998): 219-40. McNamara, Tim. “Policy and Social Considerations in Language Assessment.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18 (1998): 304-19. Nunan, David. Language Teaching Methodology. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall, 1991. Perkins, Kyle. “Assessing Reading.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18 (1998): 208-18. Prodromou, Luke. “The Backwash Effect: From Testing to Teaching.” ELT Journal 49, no. 1 (1995): 13-25. Rea-Dickins, Pauline. “Understanding Teachers as Agents of Assessment.” Language Testing 21, no. 3 (2004): 249-58. Richards, Jack C. and Richard Schmidt. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2002.

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Shohamy, Elana. “Critical Language Testing and Beyond.” Paper presented at the annual American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference. Orlando, Fl., 1997. Stern, Henry H. Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Thompson, Irene. “Assessment of Second/Foreign Language Listening Comprehension.” In A Guide for the Teaching of Second Language Listening, edited by David J. Mendelsohn and Joan Rubin, 31-58. California: Dominie Press, 1995. Wall, Dianne and J. Charles Alderson. “Examining Washback: The Sri Lankan Impact Study.” Language Testing 10, no. 1 (1993): 41-69. Wallace, Michael J. Training Foreign Language Teachers. A Reflective Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Weir, Cyril J. Communicative Language Testing. Exeter: Exeter Linguistic Studies, 1988.

SECTION V: CONCLUDING REMARKS

CHAPTER FIFTEEN BROADENING THE SCOPE OF LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH CHRISTINE RÄISÄNEN Chalmers University of Technology

Prologue Anna: I graduated from secondary school with top grades in French and Economics. To go for a university degree in International Economics specialising in French was therefore a rather natural choice for me. But I experienced a very rude awakening when [after the first diagnostic test] I was placed in the remedial French group. What distinguished us from the rest of the class was that none of us had spent time in France. It was very painful! David: Although we wrote quite a few reports [Electrical Engineering Master programme], we hardly ever received feedback on the writing itself, only on the content and maybe on the grammar. In consequence, it took a long time and much anxiety for me to learn how to think about writing when I started working. My manager kept on making me rewrite my texts.

1. Introduction Until recently the dominant discourse on language teaching has been preoccupied mainly with questions of what and how. The underlying assumptions have been that languages are autonomous context-independent systems. In this paradigm, languages have been viewed as transparent, reflecting truths rather than constructing meanings. Students have been seen as empty vessels to be filled with new propositional knowledge (to know that) about the lexis, grammar and syntax of the language in question. Learning has been perceived as the acquisition of discrete autonomous and transferable skills that

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will transform students into proficient language users. The question we need to ask ourselves is: proficient for what purpose? Thanks to a shift toward a communicative approach to the teaching of language (see Alcón this volume), course developers and teachers have been paying increasing attention to the contexts of culture and contexts of situation in which language use is embedded (e.g., Fairclough 1992). New approaches to listening, speaking reading and writing are evolving (see section IV this volume), which draw on theories and research from a variety of disciplines such as linguistics, psychology and rhetoric, and which acknowledge the complexity and dynamism of speech communities. Simultaneously there has been a significant shift in pedagogical approach from a teacher–input orientation and epistemology, to a learner–output orientation, where focus is on the process of learning rather than on the product to be taught (e.g., Biggs 1999; Bowden and Marton 1998; Dunne 1999). The present volume discusses current teaching and learning theories and practices, offering strategies that have been used to encourage deep learning of languages in the classroom context. But what happens when the learners leave the ivory tower? How adaptable are the literacies they bring with them from the classroom to the workplace? The purpose of this chapter is to situate language teaching and learning in Higher Education within the framework of other disciplines, such as the social sciences and engineering. How well does the university prepare students for the communicative challenges of their future professional workplaces and how well are language teachers attuned to the complexity of those workplace discourses and practices? The demand for Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP), as this type of language teaching and learning is called, is increasing in Europe and numerous job opportunities for graduates of language departments are being created. It is therefore imperative to widen the scope of language teaching and learning and to engage in ongoing dialogue with the teachers from the domain disciplines that these language courses support. What I am arguing for is integrated content and language courses and programmes in which content and language teachers collaborate to provide students with both content knowledge and communicative competence. In this dialogue between content and how it is communicated, language is used as one of the mediating tools for learning about the content and the language. In this chapter an integrated content and language programme consisting of six closely linked courses will serve as an example.

2. Reforms in higher education The shift in perspective toward a communicative approach to language teaching and learning has been accelerated by the current European reform of

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Higher Education, where emphasis has been placed on the importance of mobility across cultural and national boundaries. One of the prerequisites for achieving such mobility for European students is language proficiency. Today knowledge of one foreign language is no longer sufficient. Mobility in a united, multicultural and multilingual Europe requires of its citizens knowledge of English, the current global Lingua Franca, and one or preferably two supplementary foreign languages. In line with the Common European Framework of Reference (CEF), language learning for greater mobility should have a clear trajectory geared toward raising students’ own awareness of their language needs and learning by keeping a “life-long” or at least “educationlong” language portfolio of their progress (see Pérez this volume). Mobility, however, is not the only driver for enhancing language teaching and learning. A much stronger driver is employability. There are strong movements worldwide fuelled by the current economic and political rhetoric to re-conceptualise higher education so that it may better meet the needs of a knowledge or learning society (e.g., Beder 1998; Dunne 1999; Palomba and Banta 2001). A common complaint that resonates from companies worldwide is that university graduates, especially engineering graduates, lack competence in interpersonal communication, teamwork and networking (Palomba and Banta 2001; Dunne 1999). They lack negotiation skills and political awareness, critical-thinking skills and the ability to cope with uncertainties. As a result, new recruits to the workplace often have difficulties in the initial phases of their careers and have to spend time being inducted into the different genres and discourses obtaining in their work places. This learning process may be painful and long for the recruits, and costly for the company. The common denominators for all of the above-mentioned competences are language proficiency and information and communication literacies, which unfortunately are often taken for granted in our universities. Moreover, the university privileges a positivist, deterministic discourse with a clearly distinguished context, following predefined conventions and presupposing a homogeneous community. Therefore, courses, if communication is taught, tend to concentrate either on academic speaking and writing in which typified genre exemplars e.g. reports, business letters and public speaking for ideal recurrent situations are practiced, or on general-purpose expository essay writing and drill-based conversation practice (see Lillis 2001 for a discussion of academic essayist literacy). My claims above are supported by current research that has shown that communication taught by means of generic models and templates does not prepare students for the complex and flexible communicative practices in a multicultural and multipurpose workplace (e.g., Dias et al. 1999; Winsor 1996, Räisänen 1999, 2004a). Moreover, in the classroom correct language use and the

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realisation of a specific genre are the motives for text production; in the workplace, however, the motive is to elicit action and the language use and realisation of a specific genre are the mediating tools used (Räisänen 2004b). The outcome of the classroom activity is a grade; the outcome of the workplace activity is some kind of action. The narrow perspective of communication and genre in higher educationfocused more on teaching than on learning-limits possibilities for new recruits to engage in workplace activities, which delays their socialisation into their new environments. It is interesting to note here that the same difficulties apply to those students who remain at the university to do a doctorate. The links between the undergraduate and PhD levels tend to be non-existent and new PhD students suffer similar disorientation as do new recruits in the workplace i.e., lack of knowledge of the norms, procedures and ideologies that prevail in these contexts (Räisänen 1999). Apart from this crucial difference between classroom and workplace activities, research on writing has also highlighted the complexity and variation in writing tasks as well as the importance of dynamic local contexts and their influence on textual practices, processes and outcomes (e.g., Candlin and Hyland 1999; Lea and Street 1999; Palmer-Silveira and Ruiz-Garrido this volume). The results warrant serious reflection concerning the teaching and learning of communication literacy in higher education, and more of this research needs to be fed back into classroom practices. The remainder of this chapter describes an integrated content and language programme that draws on theories and research from applied linguistics (e.g., Candlin and Hyland 1999; Fairclough 1992, Räisänen 1999), writing theory and pedagogy (e.g., Bakhtin 1986; Björk and Räisänen 2003; Dias et al. 1999; Lea and Street 1999; Lillis 2001; Miettinen 1999; Scollon 1999) and sociology e.g., Schön’s epistemology of practice (Schön 1983, 1987). Although the programme was originally developed for engineering students, the whole programme or individual courses are applicable and adaptable to most faculties and disciplines in higher education.

3. An example: integrating content and language Technical Communication is an elective bilingual 30-credit1 programme offered to students from all the engineering schools at Chalmers University of 1

One semester of studies in Sweden encompasses 20 credits. Technical Communication has place for 30 students and spans 3 semesters in which the students take 10 credits of Technical communication courses and 10 credits of domain courses. If a student enrols in the programme, he/she must take all the courses.

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Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. A prerequisite of the programme is that the students have fundamental knowledge of their domain subject, i.e., that they have passed the two first years of their degree. What distinguishes the programme is that communication is foregrounded as a supporting structure through which explicit and implicit knowledge is acquired (Lindahl and Räisänen 2004; Räisänen 2004a). Students learn that professional knowledge creation is not a personal and isolated endeavour, but is intersubjective, nurtured by collective inquiry. Another important distinction is that most of the assignments are project-based and carried out in co-operation with real workplaces. Five colleagues from different disciplines (Philosophy, Human Factors Engineering, Architecture, Organisation Studies, and Applied Linguistics) have collaborated to design and teach the six closely linked courses of the programme, where the content of each course focuses on some aspects of communication e.g., written, oral, graphic, form and design, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The rationale for this concentration on communication has been the call from governments and workplaces for engineers with solid communicative and general competences. Thus, each course focuses on particular information management, communication and language issues in a variety of contexts, the idea being to empower engineering students to become communication mediators in their future professions. Using the students’ domain knowledge as a resource (knowledge from their engineering disciplines) we benefit from the transdisciplinary characteristic of the programme, i.e., the courses work together to build a science of professional practice, what Schön (1983; 1987) calls a reflective practice. The transdisciplinary perspective attunes the students to different points of view on the ethos, pathos and logos of disciplinary argumentation. Building on Schön’s (1987) notion of a reflective practitioner and on Bakhtin’s (1986) theory of dialogic interplay, we use a process-oriented methodology where reflections on content and process are focal activities. In this process, reading, writing, listening and speaking are used as tools for learning, reflection and dialogue throughout the programme. Before I describe the aims, content and assignments in the courses, the concept of Technical Communication needs to be explained.

3.1 What is technical communication? Although the term technical communication has been in use for a long time, it remains ambiguous, much due to the fact that the terms technical and communication are in themselves multi-faceted. Often, technical communication is equated with technical writing and associated with expertise in software

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handling. Of late, technical communication has also been associated with document design. To avoid uncertainty about the contents and learning objectives of the programme, the competences that the students acquire after completion are defined as: x Fundamental domain knowledge (e.g., engineering physics, mechanical engineering, chemistry; however, the domain may also be linguistics, technical writing, social science). x ICT competence (e.g., software tools and choice of medium, form and style suitable for the given content and audience). (See Ruiz-Madrid and Sanz-Gil this volume). x Information Literacy competence. x Design Communication competence (ability to think visually and use visual media to communicate). x Human Factors knowledge. x Project Management competence. x Communicative competence and Language knowledge.

3.2 Description of the courses The courses are divided into two parts: i) building a theoretical base, and ii) applying theory to practice and reflecting on the outcomes. Language, as mentioned earlier, is used as a tool for learning and reflection. Assignments are designed to be as realistic as possible and to emulate work procedures in the real world. Therefore many of the tasks are project-based to make students comfortable with collaborative practices. In the following, the courses are briefly described, highlighting some of the questions they address and giving some examples of the kinds of assignments that are set. Philosophy of Science and Communication (Swedish) Questions: How do we know what we know? How do we make sense of words, pictures and sounds? What roles do analogies, metaphors and models play in communication? Content: The theoretical part of this course takes the students through basic ideas in the philosophy of science geared to the production, dissemination and consumption of knowledge. The second part applies these ideas to a final programme project consisting of the production of a multimedia artefact. This project may also serve as a pilot study for those students who choose to do their master thesis within Technical Communication, thus combining their domain knowledge with the new knowledge acquired in the programme.

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Assignments: The course trains students to read and respond to unfamiliar and often difficult philosophical texts and is mainly built around group dialogue to elicit individual and group reflection. At the end of the course, the students are assigned a home exam in the form of an extended essay, where they have to assess their learning in the course by relating it to their own past experiences. Technical Information and Documentation (Swedish and English) Traditionally engineers are given very little, if any, training in document design and usability testing, yet they are the ones who create the artefacts. Questions: How can we translate “information” so that it becomes accessible to a given audience? How can we ensure that artefact and document are aligned, i.e., convey the same message? How do we develop appropriate usability tests for both artefact and document? Content: This course focuses on the design of technical information – graphic design as well as content – from the perspective of the users’ needs and requirements. Theory is combined with viable methods and practical working tools. Assignment: Students are assigned two group projects. First they have to create a poster describing a technical concept to schoolchildren. This pedagogical project task forces students to break down their knowledge in order to translate it into language that is understandable to the given audience. Doing this highlights the difficulty of articulating tacit knowledge (explained later on in the chapter). The second assignment is to redesign and rewrite a problematic, real commercial instruction, e.g., Canon camera instructions or IKEA assembling instructions. The students have to test the original document on real users, assess the results of their test, revise the document, and test it again. The outcomes of the project are then written up in a report and presented orally. Form, Design and System Design (Swedish) In this course, we try to encourage students “to develop an intuitive ‘feel’ for the incalculable complexity of engineering practice in the real world.”2

2

Ferguson, Eugene. Engineering and the Mind’s Eye. (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992), 168.

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Questions: What are the critical aspects of design processes in sociotechnical contexts? How can we highlight and understand the artistic, formative elements that are part of a design process? Content: The emphasis of the course is on the artistic, formative elements that are part of a design process, i.e., perception theory, aesthetics, analysis of form, material and colour. Other aspects of design processes such as problem solving and decision-making as well as communication and information processing are also dealt with. Assignments: The students are given the same final assignment as the architecture students at the end of their first year. The task is to produce an artefact prototype, given certain choices of material and measurements, which may be reproduced in full-scale. The artefact requirement is that it should describe the following path: from–along–over–between–under–in–behind– through–to. The students have to devise the context or narrative for their artwork e.g. life’s journey from the cradle to the grave, a day in the life of…. In the same way as architecture students, the Technical Communication students publicly present their artefacts to an examination board consisting of a mix of academic and professional architects. Processes, practices and the discourse in architecture differ markedly from those of engineering fields, yet actors from both areas are highly dependent on understanding each other in the workplace. This course thus prepares future engineers for that challenge by fostering an understanding of how the other party works and speaks. Digital Representation (Swedish) ICT and its uses are developing at such a dramatic rate that no one can ignore it. Although engineers are supposedly proficient users of the technology, they are less well versed in the communicative, ethical and aesthetic aspects of multimedia technology. Today ICT literacy is as necessary in the humanities and social sciences as it is in science and technology (see Ruiz-Madrid and Sanz-Gil this volume). Questions: How can we best use (and avoid misuse of) digital tools and media to represent, build and disseminate knowledge? How can we create narrative coherence in interactive media? What are the ideological underpinnings of ICT solutions? Content: This course compares the characteristics of different media and how they interact. Students obtain an understanding of narrative strategies for given media. The course also focuses on the implementation stages and evaluation procedures of interfaces, as well as the assessment and evaluation of design tools, prototyping methods and implementation of interactive systems.

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Assignments: Students design and build an interactive, pedagogically oriented demo e.g., geography course for children in fifth grade, web-pages for an association, tourist guide to restaurants in Gothenburg, introduction to Salsa. The demo is then further developed in the final programme project mentioned earlier. Project Management and Organisational Communication (Swedish and English) Organisations are becoming increasingly projectified, i.e., most of the activities are carried out in projects. This shift in work structure entails the creation of new actor roles and relationships, resulting in profound changes in organizational identities and subjectivities. Most of our graduated engineers can expect to work in a project organisation as a team or project leader. (Even in academia today much of the activity is carried out in project form.) Questions: How can we deal with uncertainties? How can we enthuse team members so that all the human resources available may be pooled? How is information managed and transferred in multi-project environments? Content: The aim of this course is to familiarise students with the most common work-forms in organisations. The focus is on how to run projects and achieve effective information transfer and communication between project leaders, stakeholders, decision makers, project members and other relevant parties. Students learn how to use project tools, such as various management models, and mediating tools i.e., communication literacies to effectively run projects. This course is co-taught by a domain teacher and a language teacher. The course is designed as a learning-by-doing course, in contrast to most mainstream project-management courses, which are mainstream literature and model based (e.g., Räisänen and Linde 2004). The outcomes are therefore never entirely predictable and both students and teachers need to learn how to be flexible and to improvise. The ability to improvise is an extremely valuable asset in project management. Assignments: The group assignment is to study a real project in an organisation from a communicative perspective. The task is divided into two parts: a preparatory part and a research part. The aim of the preparatory part is to acquire situated genre awareness and to practice working in a team. In the project groups the students start by doing a collective text analysis of a published research article (part of their course reading) and a previous course research report. They then write a collective review of the two subgenres. In a follow-up session, students and teacher collectively reflect upon the dynamics in the groups during the task and the genre characteristics of research articles and reports. With these reflections in their luggage, they are better prepared to

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embark on their own small research projects, which are then presented orally and in a research report. Professional writing and oral communication in English Questions: How can we use writing to enhance thinking? How can we incorporate text, process and practice in our view of writing and speaking? How can we cope with changing local contexts? How can we become proficient rhetors? Content: This course consists of two parts: a foundation course and an advanced course. Both sub-courses are structured around the four communication elements—reading, writing, speaking, and listening—which are systematically integrated into all the activities. The foundation course spans the first term of the programme and lays the groundwork for a process-oriented, genre-based and problem-solving approach to communication. The common learning outcomes are established in the classroom at the beginning of the course and include the following elements: x x x x x x x x

Using personal writing and dialogue as tools for reflective thinking. Improving written, oral and listening proficiencies. Reading critically and giving constructive feedback. Being able to recognise and use different text types and genres. Arguing coherently and reflectively. Increasing active and passive vocabularies. Reflecting on what we do by talking about how we do it. Having fun!

The advanced course is integrated with the other courses in the programme and focuses on training the students to cope with the flexibility of workplace genres. Moreover, this course also familiarises them with the genre of the Master thesis and the system of genres included in the process of applying for a job. Assignments: The assignments in these two courses consist of numerous reading, writing and speaking tasks. I will here only describe some of them. The first task is to compare a play called Educating Rita by Willy Russel (Russel 2000) and the film based on the play. This task is very different from anything the students have done previously at Chalmers. Some of them have never read a play in their lives. Moving to an entirely different genre, which also deals with crucially important topics such as higher education and the nature of learning, has proven a powerful way of generating critical thinking and discussions on a multitude of topics concerning life, art, the nature of knowledge and

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interpersonal communication. The writing tasks consist of both expository and reflective essays as well as different types of reports. For example, to prepare them for their Master thesis, they have to analyse two published theses and attend and review two Master theses presentations. All the reviews they write have to reflect the lessons learned by the student. Throughout these courses we highlight critical incidents as learning experiences. In accordance with this practice, the students are asked to choose three assignments from these two courses and use them as a base to argue for a final grade. The premise for the final grade is what they have learnt from doing these tasks, rather than the assessment they have received. The aim of this task is to train self-reflection and to encourage students to keep a portfolio of their learning experiences that reflects critical incidents in their learning.

4. Acquiring two kinds of knowledge: explicit and tacit In the world of science and engineering, the privileged knowledge is that which is codifiable in theories, formulae, plots and numbers. The explicit representation of this type of knowledge makes it easy to transfer and store. Knowledge from this perspective is seen as a commodity to enhance performance; the more knowledge stored in memory, the better the performance (Patriotta 2003). The dilemma is that professional real-life situations are unpredictable and dynamic, seldom fitted for the pre-tailored knowledge suit intended to solve them. To deal with the heterogeneity and dynamics of the workplace, a different kind of knowledge needs to be recognised and mobilised. This knowledge is tacit, i.e. it cannot be codified or articulated (Polanyi 1966; see also Nonaka et al. 2001). Tacit knowledge is embedded in the collective practices in which we participate, and is shared through active engagement. Novices learn from experts through Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) (Lave and Wenger 1991). The participation is legitimate because the novices are a part of the community of practice carrying out the activity; it is peripheral because they are learning to become fully-fledged members of the community. During this learning process, novices gradually make sense of their new environment and can thus appropriate the discourse, ideology, norms and routines of their community of practice. It is through LPP that novices successively develop an epistemology of practice (Schön 1987), acquiring the ability to judge situations and find the appropriate linkages between the explicit and the tacit: between theory and practice. This sense-making process takes place through dialogue, i.e., the act of making meaning common, both in explicit terms and in tacit terms.

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By cooperating with industry, the Technical Communication students’ projects are not simulated case studies, but actual issues being addressed in organisations. This means that the students are able to spend at least some time as temporary legitimate peripheral participants in ongoing activities and observe the actual deployment of practices and discourses, in contrast to theoretically espoused practices and discourses. They work in teams on mini projects aimed at exploring a problem, analysing it within the framework of theories learnt in the classroom and devise solutions that are appropriate and practical for the organisation at hand.

5. Language mediating tool Another kind of knowledge that students need to acquire to function efficiently in the workplace is of course language knowledge, which includes, as we have seen, a number of literacies. These literacies are not ends in themselves, but rather the mediating tool which will enable novices in the workplace to get things done. Language is power, if used effectively! To enhance students’ communicative competence, higher education needs to raise student’s awareness of the interrelatedness of genres, discursive procedures and disciplinary cultures (Bhatia 2004; Räisänen 1999, 2004a). It needs to foster a general discursive competence in the students (and in the teachers!). In other words, higher education needs to pay more attention to raising the students’ critical awareness of the ongoing interaction between linguistic phenomena and the social dynamic exigencies that govern the context (e.g., Candlin and Hyland 1999; Fairclough 1989; Lillis 2001, Räisänen 2004b). To increase students’ critical awareness, we (university teachers) need to pay more attention to the communicative process itself, namely the dialogic interaction between writer, text-in-the-making and receiver. We need to highlight the affordances of subjective, informal writing, reading, listening and speaking for enhancing both individual and collective communication and thinking processes. Although the concept of writing as a tool for thinking may have gained currency in language courses, it remains largely unexplored in content courses, and is seldom combined with other modalities than writing. Focusing on the students’ communicative practices as process rather than product is not only a means of helping them develop their thoughts, it is also an effective method of developing a socio-cultural awareness of how texts— spoken, written or graphic—are embedded in situational and institutional practices, the norms and ideologies of which do not always coincide with each other (see Björk and Räisänen 2003 for a description of a process-oriented methodology). The shift in perspective from product to process puts more systematic and structured efforts into proactive thinking (brainstorming,

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outlining and time planning) on the one hand, and reflection on content, structure and language (constructive dialogue in the form of feedback, selfevaluation and revision) on the other. Peer feedback and self-evaluation become focal points for negotiating meaning in student groups and between groups and instructors. Peer feedback promotes student autonomy, develops self-confidence and trust, and mitigates anxiety (see Arnold this volume). In this way, a processoriented approach trains students to use language as a tool for learning and encourages two types of reflection: x Reflection on content: Verbalising helps students visualise what they know and to realise what they do not know. By making dialogue and reflection an integral part of all assignments, we can guide students to focus on key issues, to conceptualise ideas, and to help each other reach higher levels of abstraction. x Reflection on process: Here a conceptualise-design-deliverreflect cycle provides students with a work process that is adaptable for all work situations. Using reflective and informal dialogue to explore both content and situation helps students develop their own communicative strategies. In the Technical Communication programme we introduce the students to concepts and models from communication theory (e.g., Dimbleby and Burton 1998), genre analysis (e.g., Swales 1991; Bhatia 2004) and process writing (e.g., Björk and Räisänen 2003) to familiarise them with the work methods and terminology. However, rather than use textbooks as a base, we work incrementally and collaboratively with the students’ own reading and research assignments. This procedure emphasises the relevance of communication to the students’ own situations. The aim is to generate reflection on both task-solving actions and writing actions and to demonstrate that both successes and failures can be turned into assets for learning when these are shared. One of the most important results achieved is the insight that content and form are indeed intricately linked; research process and writing process are parallel procedures and would therefore benefit from being treated simultaneously. Supported by the students’ own situated cognition, it becomes easy to motivate them to pursue a process-oriented method as a viable work model for subsequent projects.

5.1 What about assessment? For the credibility of a process-oriented teaching and learning approach it is important that there is alignment with assessment methods. Unfortunately in higher education assessment seems to lag behind communicative approaches,

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thereby sending mixed messages to the students. According to Brown and Knight (1994), assessment is at the heart of the student experience since it defines what they learn and how they learn it. Assessment plays an important role in shaping students’ identity, which in turn has implications for their socialisation processes into the workplace (Brown et al. 1997). If a shift in perspective from a positivist world-view to a relational world-view is to be accomplished in higher-education curricula, a good place to start is to make changes in the methods of assessment (Räisänen 2006). Thus all assessment in the Technical Communication programme is formative rather than summative. Furthermore there is a wide variety of methods used such as group project assignments, individual and group practical hands-on tasks, individual and group reflective essays and analyses, individual home exams, designing and constructing artefacts (see description of courses). There are no formal “sat” exams in the programme. In the six years that the programme has run, there have been no controversies concerning assessment. On the contrary, the assessment process is one of the attractions of the programme. A recurrent comment in the course evaluations is how much the students have appreciated working incrementally—albeit they have worked very hard—rather than cramming for exams at the end of a course.

Closing remarks The uniqueness of this programme lies in the fact that all the courses are integrated. We have tried to create a holistic package in which each course links dialogically to all the other courses and together incrementally build up the students’ stock of knowledge. The transdisciplinary perspective not only provides different points of view on common topics, it also raises the students’ critical awareness of the fact that there are different ways of viewing and dealing with problems. Another positive aspect of this programme is that it is bilingual, giving the students the opportunity to improve their communication skills in both Swedish and English. The most important transferable skills that can be imparted to students is the ability to reflect critically about communication and to be able to judge the characteristics of a situation in order to respond effectively. To develop these transferable skills in our students we need to adopt a practice approach to the teaching and learning of language and communication. This means viewing communication as a social act in which language constructs both meaning and identities. There is not one, but many literacies, and all of them are socially and institutionally situated. Furthermore, in social interaction, some texts are privileged, while others are marginalised. In Fairclough’s words:

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In my view it is the universities responsibility to provide students with possibilities to develop the ability to act creatively to make their own connections. This volume of collected theories and practices by teachers and scholars dedicated to creating engaging, realistic and enduring languagelearning experiences for their students may serve as example and stimulus for further work.

Works Cited Bakhtin, Mikhail M., Caryl Emerson, Michael Holquist and Vern W. McGee. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986. Beder, Scharon. “Beyond Technicalities: Expanding Engineering Thinking.” In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Teaching Science for Technology at Tertiary Level. Stockholm, 14-17 June. Stockholm: Royal Institute of Technology, 1997. Bhatia, Vijay K. Worlds of Discourse. London: Continuum, 2004. Biggs, John. Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Pres, 1999. Björk, Lennart A. and Christine Räisänen. Academic Writing: A University Course Book. Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2003. Bowden, John and Ference Marton. The University of Learning: Beyond Quality and Competence in Higher Education. London: Kogan Page, 1998. Brown, George, Bull Joanna and Malcolm Pendlebury. Assessing Student Learning in Higher Education. London: Routledge, 1997 Candlin, Christopher and Ken Hyland, eds. Writing: Texts, Processes and Practices. London: Longman, 1994. Dias, Patrick, Aviva Freedman, Peter Medway and Anthony Paré. Worlds Apart: Acting and Writing in Academic and Workplace Contexts. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999. Dimbleby, Richard and Graeme Burton More than Words: Introduction to Communication. London: Taylor & Francis, 1998. 3

Fairclough, Norman. Discourse and Social Change (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), 91.

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Dunne, Elizabeth. “Change in Higher Education: a Learning Society and the Role of Core Skills.” In The Learning Society, edited by Elizabeth Dunne, 620. London: Kogan, 1999. Fairclough, Norman. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992. Ferguson, Eugene. Engineering and the Mind’s Eye. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992. Lave, Jean and Etiene Wenger. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Lea, May R. and Brian P. Street. “Writing as Academic Literacies: Understanding Textual Practices in Higher Education.” In Writing: Texts, Processes and Practices, edited by Candlin Christopher and Ken Hyland. 62-81. London: Longman, 1999. Lillis, Theresa. Student Writing: Access, Regulation, Desire. London: Routledge, 2001. Lindahl, Göran and Christine Räisänen. “Project Based Learning: A Contradiction in Terms?” In Proceedings of WCPM. Toronto: May, Ryerson University, 2004. Miettinen, Reijo.“Transcending Traditional School Learning: Teachers’ Work and Networks of Learning.” In Perspectives on Activity Theory, edited by Yrjö Engeström, Reijo Miettinen and Raija-Leena Punamäki, 325-44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Nonaka, Ikurijo, Konno Noboro and Toyama Ryoko. “Emergence of ‘Ba’.” In Knowledge Emergence: Social, Technical, and Evolutionary Dimensions of Knowledge Creation, edited by Ikuriju Nonaka and Toshiro Nishigushi, 1329. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Palomba Catherine and Trudy Banta. Assessing Student Competence in Accredited Disciplines: Pioneering Approaches to Assessment in Higher Education. Richmond: Stylus Publishing, 2001. Patriotta, Gerardo. Organizational Knowledge in the Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post Critical Philosophy. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1974. Räisänen, Christine. “Assessing Assessment from an Activity Theory Perspective.” In Bridging the Assessment Gap in English-medium Higher Education, edited by Robert Wilkinson, Vera Zegers and Charles van Leeuwen. Maastricht: University Language Centre, 2006. ——. “Multiple Literacies for the ‘New’ Engineer: Learning to Integrate Content and Language.” In Integrating Content and Language: Meeting the Challenges of a Multilingual Higher Education, edited by Robert Wilkinson, 264-74. Maastricht: Universitaire Pers Maastricht, 2004a.

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——. “A Framework for Coping with Generic Flexibility in ESP Teaching and Learning.” In Proceedings of the 3rd AELFE International Conference, 2004b ——. The Conference Forum as a System of Genres: A Sociocultural Study of Academic Conference Practices in Automotive Crash-Safety Engineering, Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1999. Räisänen, Christine and Anneli Linde. “Technologizing Discourse to Standardize Projects in Multi-Project Organizations.” Organization 11, no. 1 (2004): 101-21. Russel, Willy. Educating Rita. London: Longman, 2000. Schön, Donald A. Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco: JosseyBass, 1987. ——. The Reflective Practitioner. New York: Basic Books, 1983. Scollon, Ron. Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction: A Study of News Discourse. London: Longman, 1998. Swales, John. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Winsor, Dorothy. A. Writing like an Engineer: A Rhetorical Education. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996.

CONTRIBUTORS Eva Alcón Soler is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Studies at Universitat Jaume I (Castelló, Spain). Her research interests include second language acquisition from an interactive perspective, interlanguage pragmatics and discourse analysis. Some of her work has appeared in System, International Review of Applied Linguistics, Communication and Cognition, Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. Jane Arnold Morgan is a professor of language teaching methodology at Universidad de Sevilla (Spain). Her main research interests are in the area of affective factors in language learning. She has published Affect in Language Learning (Cambridge University Press, 1999) as well as articles in numerous national and international journals. Ana Bocanegra Valle is a senior lecturer of English at Universidad de Cádiz (Spain). She has wide experience of teaching EFL/ESP to undergraduate and postgraduate students. Her main research interests include English language acquisition, methodology and teaching techniques and interlanguage strategies. She has published several papers on various aspects of EFL/ESP learning and teaching. Monica Stella Cárdenas-Claros is an M.A. in Applied Linguistics/TESL from Iowa State University (USA). Her research interests include cognitive styles, feedback and help options in CALL. She has presented her research at ASOCOPI (Asociación Colombiana de Profesores de Inglés) and at national American conferences such as CALICO and TESOL. Her latest work has appeared in Melanges 28 (2006).

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Contributors

Carol A. Chapelle is a professor of TESL/Applied Linguistics in the English Departament at Iowa State University (USA). Her research explores issues at the intersection of computer technology and applied linguistics and it has been published in John Benjamins (2003) and Cambridge University Press (2006) and in journals such as TESOL Quarterly, Language Learning, Language Testing, and Language Learning & Technology. Viviana Cortes is an assistant professor at Iowa State University (USA) where she teaches courses in English Grammar, Corpus-based Text Analysis, ESP, and Academic Writing for graduate ESL students. She received her PhD from Northern Arizona University in 2002. Her latest articles can be read in English for Specific Purposes and Applied Linguistics as well as in several edited volumes. Richard Duda is a professor in Applied Linguistics and head of the English Department at Université Nancy 2 (France). His research interests fall into the application of ICTs, cultural features of language teaching and learning, error analysis and the writing process in the mother tongue and FL. He has published numerous national and international books and articles. Rosa M. Manchón is a senior lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Universidad de Murcia (Spain). Her research focuses on the socio-cognitive dimension of SLA and it has appeared in Communication and Cognition, Learning and Instruction, Journal of Second Language Writing, International Journal of English Studies and The Modern Language Journal. She serves on the Editorial Board of AILA Book Series. Alicia Martínez-Flor is a lecturer in the English Studies Department at Universitat Jaume I (Castelló, Spain). Her research interests include second language acquisition, interlanguage pragmatics and the teaching of foreign language listening and speaking. She has co-edited the volume Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills (Mouton de Gruyter, 2006) with Esther Usó-Juan.

Pedagogical Reflections on Learning Languages in Instructed Settings

317

Juan Carlos Palmer-Silveira is a senior lecturer of English at Universitat Jaume I (Castelló, Spain). His teaching experience is mainly based on Business English. His main research interests are in the areas of academic and professional English, in oral and written aspects. Some of his work has been published in national and international journals. Carmen Pérez Vidal is a senior lecturer in English at the Department of Translation and Interpretation at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain). Her research interests lie in the field of language acquisition and bilingualism, with a specific interest in child bilingualism. She has published in international journals such as Journal of Child Language, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. Christine Räisänen is an associate professor in Applied Linguistics at the English Department at Chalmers University of Technology, (Göteborg, Sweden). Her research comprises genre theory, discourse as social interaction, knowledge management and learning in higher education. She is the author of The Conference Forum as a System of Genres and co-author of Academic Writing: A University Writing Course. Philip Riley is a professor in Ethnolinguistics at the Université Nancy 2 in France. His main areas of interest include bilingualism and language didactics, and the relationship between language learning, culture and identity. He has published numerous books and articles, including The Bilingual Family (with Edith Esch), Discourse and Learning, and Domain-specific English (with Pina Cortese) Miguel F. Ruiz-Garrido is a lecturer of English Language and English for Business Communication at Universitat Jaume I (Castelló, Spain). His main research interests are in English for Business Communication and student’s writing skills. He has published articles dealing with English for Specific Purposes at national and international levels.

318

Contributors

Mª Noelia Ruiz-Madrid is a lecturer of English in the Department of English Studies at Universitat Jaume I (Castelló, Spain). Her research areas include language learning autonomy and the ICT. Her latest work has appeared in Melanges, 28 (2006). She is co-editor of Towards the Integration of ICT in Language Learning and Teaching: Reflection and Experience (Universitat Jaume I, 2006). Patricia Salazar Campillo is a lecturer of English in the Department of English Studies at Universitat Jaume I (Castelló, Spain). Her main research interests include the effects of negotiation of meaning and form on foreign language acquisition, collaborative discourse and interlanguage pragmatics. She is coeditor of Teaching and learning the English language from a discourse perspective (Universitat Jaume I, 2005). Mercedes Sanz-Gil is a lecturer of French in the Department of European Philology and Cultures at Universitat Jaume I (Castelló, Spain). Her research areas focus on language learning autonomy and the ICT. She is co-editor of Towards the Integration of ICT in Language Learning and Teaching: Reflection and Experience (Universitat Jaume I, 2006). Esther Usó-Juan is a lecturer of English in the Department of English Studies at Universitat Jaume I (Castelló, Spain). Her main research interests focus on the areas of second language acquisition, interlanguage pragmatics and reading in a second/foreign language. She has co-edited Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills (Mouton de Gruyter, 2006) with Alicia Martínez-Flor. Mª Luisa Villanueva Alfonso is a senior lecturer of French in the Department of European Philology and Cultures at the Universitat Jaume I (Castelló, Spain). Her current research interests focus on the relationship among genre studies, new literacy and the ICT. Her latest work, ICT paradoxes from the point of view of autonomy training and plurilingualism, has appeared in Mélanges, 28 (2006).

INDEX

advising 52, 53, 54,57, 59, 60 affect vii, x, 41, 140, 141, 142, 143, 148, 151, 153, 154, 157, 158, 160, 161, 162, 163, 187, 193 anxiety 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 161, 298, 310 assessment viii, x, xi, 3, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 46, 52, 81, 112, 114, 115, 123, 125, 138, 170, 172, 173, 199, 201, 252, 253, 271, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 289, 292, 293, 294, 295, 305, 308, 310, 311, 313 authenticity 12, 13, 37, 38, 207, 235, 274, 276, 277, 280, 290 automaticity 225, 226, 241, 242, 249, 250, 254 autonomous learning 18, 25, 52, 53, 54, 68, 70, 72, 90, 113,114, 176 autonomy vii, ix, x, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 18, 20, 25, 27, 28, 48, 50, 51, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 63, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 78, 79, 80, 82, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 120, 133, 136, 152, 173, 184, 199, 310 background knowledge 174, 204, 213, 239, 240, 241, 243, 244, 245, 246, 249, 250, 258, 259, 263 bottom-up processing 208, 210, 239, 290 classroom learning 149, 232 cognitive style x, 5, 25, 53, 60, 164, 165, 166, 168, 169, 173, 174, 176, 177, 178, 180, 196 Common European Framework of Reference x, 17, 24, 25, 27, 50, 91, 112, 114, 138, 300 communicative

communicative approaches ix, 3, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 23, 41, 137, 159, 215, 310 communicative competence 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 29, 30, 31, 32, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46, 50, 55, 59, 116, 142, 143, 161, 211, 216, 217, 218, 224, 226, 237, 238, 254, 280, 289, 299, 303, 309 communicative event 205, 209, 210, 222 communicative Language Teaching ix, 29, 257 complexity vii, xi, 2, 14, 16, 22, 70, 76, 86, 104, 106, 169, 198, 206, 207, 214, 227, 252, 279, 282, 299, 301, 304 Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) x, 63, 64, 65, 66, 78, 81, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178 computerised testing 277, 282, 283, 284 conditional knowledge 189, 190, 191 content knowledge 39, 244, 299 content-based instruction 38, 39, 40 corpora vii, 37, 45, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111 corpus corpus collection 96, 101, 104 corpus size 95, 98 cultural knowledge 16, 244 data-driven learning 37, 38 declarative knowledge 15, 189, 190 diagnostic competence 277, 284, 294 discourse analysis 31, 32, 50, 94, 114 eclecticism vii, ix, 2, 3, 12 ecological perspective 3, 183, 198 emotional engagement 149, 151, 153

320

Pedagogical Reflections on Learning Languages in Instructed Settings

extensive reading 241, 243, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 253 field field dependence (FD) 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 177, 178 field independence (FI) ix, x, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 176, 177, 178 flow 35, 151, 152, 153, 159, 160, 221, 222 focus Focus on Form (FonF)34, 35, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 221, 223, 232, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236 Focus on Forms (FonFormS) 34, 35, 221, 233 focus on meaning 33, 34, 221, 232 genre 10, 32, 66, 96, 97, 99, 101, 102, 110, 209, 247, 257, 259, 263, 268, 270, 300, 301, 306, 307, 309, 310, 312, 314 identity politics 49 individual differences 42, 79, 141, 154, 160, 162, 164, 165, 166, 171, 177, 194, 240, 241, 250, 254 individualisation 69, 70, 85, 89, 93 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) vii, x, 10, 56, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 114, 302, 303, 305 input 9, 10, 30, 31, 33, 35, 38, 42, 44, 45, 46, 66, 109, 142, 150, 156, 192, 199, 203, 205, 207, 211, 212, 214, 220, 221, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 232, 234, 235, 236, 237, 240, 287, 288, 290, 291, 292, 299 interactive approach 260 intercultural 15, 16, 17, 24, 120, 121, 124, 125, 133, 136, 185 introspection 3, 18, 22, 104 language language assessment x, 26, 275, 277, 278, 279, 280, 284, 294 language awareness 38, 39, 43, 47, 53, 69, 120

language testing 22, 41, 215, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 284, 285, 293, 294, 295 learner learner corpora 94, 95, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111 learner training 52, 53, 73, 74, 78, 87, 89, 90, 189, 194, 197, 199 learner-centred education 49 learning styles vii, x, 7, 21, 25, 32, 36, 53, 57, 58, 68, 69, 71, 74, 79, 140, 154, 155, 156, 157, 161, 162, 164, 169, 173, 176, 177, 178, 213, 274 learning to learn 18, 53, 69, 71, 72, 73, 181, 182, 183, 186, 192, 195, 198 linking operators 3 listening listening comprehension 51, 177, 191, 195, 198, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 295 listening instruction 202, 206, 214, 218 listening strategies 185, 197, 210, 211, 212, 213, 216, 217, 218 mediation 3, 6, 10, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 36, 194 metacognition 189, 205, 218 miscommunication 222, 223, 235 motivation 18, 21, 22, 36, 48, 49, 78, 82, 102, 122, 124, 126, 140, 141, 143, 145, 147, 148, 152, 154, 159, 160, 161, 162, 166, 187, 188, 194, 196, 206, 213, 224, 232, 258, 274 multilingualism 16, 32, 42, 43 native speaker corpora 95, 100, 101 negotiation of meaning 212, 227, 229, 230, 232, 235 output 226, 229, 232, 234, 236, 237, 299 parallel processing 208, 210 practicality xi, 277, 281, 282 procedural knowledge 117, 189 process teaching 182, 183 psychopragmatic approach 67, 68, 69

Index reading reading comprehension 23, 132, 186, 190, 195, 196, 199, 238, 239, 242, 244, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 283, 291 reading instruction 239, 241, 242, 246, 248, 249, 250 reading strategies 190, 193, 195, 245, 246, 247, 251 reliability 77, 102, 104, 106, 108, 277, 279, 281, 283, 290 representativeness 95, 98, 99, 100, 101, 104, 108, 109 resource centres 51, 54, 57 sampling 98, 99, 100, 239, 291 schema theory 240 self-concept 147, 148, 149 socio-constructivism 8, 10, 11, 66, 67 sociocultural theory 45, 54, 55 sociolinguistics 31, 43, 50, 58, 59, 94, 114, 179, 237 Spanish European Language Portfolio (ELP) 112, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126,

321

127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137 speaking strategies 185, 191 spoken discourse 33, 214 strategic readers 241, 245, 246, 249 strategy instruction 36, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 197, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 194, 198, 205, 214, 216, 218, 250, 254 task-based instruction 38, 46, 60 top-down processing 209, 210, 239, 290 validity 12, 104, 108, 119, 168, 169, 173, 227, 271, 277, 278, 281, 283, 290, 294 washback 26, 277, 278, 279, 293, 294, 295 willingness to communicate x, 142, 143, 161, 163 working style 173, 175, 177 world knowledge 244 writing writing as a product 260, 261 writing as a process 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 273, 310 writing instruction 256, 260, 271 writing strategies 185, 258, 261, 263