QUESTIONS

PART I - SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (SLA)

UNIT-1. Child language acquisition

1. Explain Skinner’s theory of learning by operant conditioning.

By operant conditioning we understand a conditioning in which the organism emits a

response or operant (which is normally a sentence or an utterance), without necessarily
observable stimuli. Verbal behaviour is controlled by its consequences. When
consequences are rewarding, behaviour is maintained and increased and when
consequences are punishing or when there’s lack of reinforcement, behaviour is
weakened and extinguished.

According to this theory, the way we maintain, and therefore learn, an operant is by
reinforcement which could, for instance, be a positive verbal or non-verbal response from
another person.

2. What are the shortcomings of Skinner’s model?

It does not give explanations for several important factors: the capacity to acquire
language, language development itself and the abstract nature of language. It does not
offer a theory of meaning, either. For instance, the fact that some sentences we speak or
write are novel, that is, which have never been uttered before, cannot be explained by a
theory like this based on conditioning and reinforcement.

3. Name the innate linguistic properties of the LAD. (Language acquisition device)

1- The ability to distinguish speech sounds from other types of sounds in the environment.

2- The ability to organise linguistic events into several categories which can be refined
later on.

3- Knowledge that only a specific kind of linguistic system is possible and that other types
are not.
4- The ability to constantly evaluate the developing linguistic system. This allows us to
construct the simplest possible system out of the linguistic data that are encountered.

4. What do pivot grammars consist of?

The early grammars of child language were called pivot grammars. According to pivot
grammars in child’s speech there are two separate word classes. First class of words is
called pivot since they could pivot around a number of words in the second class. Second
class of words is called open class. The first rule of pivot grammar was:

Sentence = pivot words + open word.

5. In what way has the generative rule-governed model been challenged?

The generative-governed model was challenged due to the belief that those generative
rules were connected in a serial way, that is, with one connection between each pair of
neurons in the brain. However, the parallel distributed processing model offered a more
fruitful picture: the neurons were supposed to form multiple connections

6. What is the language acquisition prcess? / How can we describe the language
acquisition process?

Language is universally acquired in the same manner in any language and that the deepest
structure of language may be common to all languages.

7. What is the main problem with generative rules?

They dealt with the forms of language and not with the very deepest level of language,
where memory, perception, thought, meaning and emotion are organised in an
independent way in the superstructure of the human mind. Generative rules also failed to
account for the functions of language.

8. Report on Piaget’s, Slobin’s and Holzman’s models.

Their perspective in child language study focused on the cognitive prerequisites of

linguistic behaviour.

1. Piaget’s definition of overall development corresponds to the result of children’s

interaction between their developing cognitive capacities and their linguistic experience.
Thus, their knowledge of the world will affect what they learn about language.
2. Slobin proposes a Language Making Capacity. Similarly to Chomsky’s Language
Faculty, the Language Making Capacity contains universal principles. Unlike Chomsky’s
Language Faculty, these are operating principles, particularly designed to work
inductively on the physical acoustic stimulus of the specific language children are
exposed to. According to Slobin, there are two types of principles: Perceptual and Storage
Filters and Pattern Markers. Slobin showed that semantic learning is dependent on
cognitive development in all languages and that semantic complexity determines
sequences of development more than structural complexity does.

3. Holzman proposes that “a reciprocal behavioural system operates between the

language-developing infant-child and the competent language in a socializing-teaching-
nurturing role”.

UNIT- 2 SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

1. What is the field of study within SLA was born?

SLA was born within applied linguistics in 1960s.

2. What are the factors that resulted in the sudden development of SLA?

The sudden development of Second Language Acquisition was the result of a number of
factors. The factors were

a) the debt to first language acquisition,

b) competing views on how language is acquired and

c) a growing disillusionment with approaches to the teaching of a second language.

3. In what way was de Villiers and de Villiers’ study different?

They performed a cross-sectional study of acquisition. They collected data from a larger
number of children but at a single point in time. They tried to determine the accuracy
children attained when expressing the grammatical morphemes of the regular plural and
the past tense –ed. In other words, their study was based on the synchronic approach.
4. Who challenged the behaviourist view of language acquisition?

Chomsky in his classic review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior seriously challenged the
behaviourist view of language acquisition. The controversy between the behaviourist and
the mentalist theories of language learning stimulated some of the early empirical work
in second language acquisition.

5. What is the ZISA project?

One of the most important bodies of SLA dedicated to sequential development, conducted
chiefly at the University of Hamburg in the late 1970’s under the direction of Jurgen
Meisel. ZISA stands for Zweitsprachenwrb Italienischer und Spanischeer Arbeiter. It
consisted of a cross-sectional study of 45 adults and a two-year longitudinal study of 12
adults, both using interview data on the naturalistic acquisition of German as a second
language by speakers of Spanish and Italian working and living in Germany. The main
aim of the research was the study of GSL word-order rules and they found out that after
a period in which learners of the SL produced isolated words and formulae, they seemed
to adhere to a fixed five-stage developmental sequence. The way in which learners
developed their interlanguage following this sequence seemed to imply that they
accumulated rules and that the sequence was implicational in the sense that each one of
the rules had to be acquired before they could move to the next one. The sequence was as
follows:

1. SVO (Canonical order)

2. ADV (Adverb preposing)
3. SEP (Verb separation)
4. INV (Inversion)
5. V-END (Verb-end)
The five structures are manifestations of five underlying stages in interlanguage
development and this eplanation and analysis of word-order data can be extrapolated to
other contxts and languages.

6. What are the two key questions proposed by Ellis?

Ellis proposes two key questions:

a) Is the development sequence found in naturalistic learners also found in instructed
learners?

b) Is it possible to alter the natural developmental sequence through formal instruction?

By the way, naturalistic context refers to students who acquire the language in a natural
way by being exposed to input and it is opposed to formal instruction in which students
are explicitly taught in some type of school context.

7. Whose methodology did Tarone adopt to study style shifting?

Tarone adopted Labov's methodology. She accepts that the psycholinguistic mechanism
responsible for style shifting is attention to speech and suggests that different styles can
be elicited using tasks which require different degrees of attention to speech.

8. What is careful style?

According to Tarone, careful style, in opposition to vernacular or casual style, , arises

when the learner pays most attention to his/her task. Careful style may contain more
native language variants than the more casual style.

9. What has Ellis demonstrated?

Ellis has demonstrated that when a learner has more planning time, he/she performs much
better. Therefore, preparation is very important.

10. What are the two types of variability according to Ellis?

According to Ellis, there are two kinds of variability. In the first type the learner produces
two forms of the same structure (one right and one wrong) in a haphazard way. In other
cases the variability is systematic, in a way that it is possible to explain or even to predict
when each variant will be used.
UNIT- 3 FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE SLA I: THE LINGUISTIC
ENVIORNMENT FOR SLA

1. Mention three modifications caretakers make in their speech when addressing

young children.

Caretakers adjust their speech formally so that the input directed to children is clearer and
linguistically simpler than the speech they use when speaking with other adults. On the
one hand, they make phonetic modifications. For instance, they half the speed of their
speech, they use a higher pitch when talking to children. Some mothers also tune the
pitch, intonation and rhythm of their speech.

On the other hand, caretakers make adjustments in terms of lexis and syntax. They use
a higher ratio of content words compared to functors and they also restrict the range of
vocabulary items employed. It was also shown that caretakers prefer the use of simple
sentences to subordinate and coordinate constructions.

Finally, from a pragmatic point of view, parents tend to follow the here-and-now
principle by talking about topics that can be understood in terms of objects physically
present and actions that are taking place at the time. They avoid talking about activities
that are displaced in time and space until the child has developed the necessary concepts
to understand them. In addition, parents prefer topics that are familiar to their children.
Another characteristics of caretakers speech is that it contains interactional modifications.
They normally use attention-getters (for example, look or hey). Caretakers tend to make
sure that what they say is understood by the children by using comprehension checks or
repeating all or parts of their utterance.

2. What is foreigner talk? What are its characteristics?

The talk used by native speakers when they are addressing foreigners. It shares many
characteristics with caretaker talk but there are some differences. In languages where
native speakers employ a copula in equational clauses in normal communication (for
example: he is a doctor) they often omit it when they talk to foreigners.

Ferguson suggested that ungrammaticality is manifest in three ways and it is not found in
caretakers:
A. omission of grammatical functors such as copula, articles, conjunctions, subject
pronouns and inflectional morphology

B. expansion, as when you is inserted before an imperative verb (for example, you give
me money)

C. replacement/rearrangement, as when post-verbal negation is replaced by pre-verbal

negation (for example, No want play)

There are changes in pronunciation, epenthesis (the insertion of an additional vowel), the
replacement of reduced vowels by full vowels, and exaggerated intonation similar to the
kind observed in caretaker talk have all been found in foreigner talk.

3. Is teacher talk ungrammatical? What are its features?

Studies of ESL teacher talk report on absence of ungrammatical modifications. Teacher's

talk shows other modifications like:

a) fewer false starts, the preference for full forms over contracted forms.
b) use of explicit markers of grammatical relations.
c) the avoidance of idiomatic expressions.
d) the use of lexical items with a wide coverage.
They make the message more cognitively simple. Long describes a number of strategies
which native speakers use to make the topic of the conversation understood by non-native
speakers. They include relinquishing topic control, selecting salient topics, dealing with
topics briefly making new topics salient and checking non-native comprehension.

4. Is interlanguage talk more grammatical than foreigner talk?

Interlanguage talk refers to the language that learners receive as input when addressed
by other learners. Very often interlanguage talk constitutes the primary source of input
for many learners. It has been found to be less grammatical overall than foreign talk or
teacher talk. According to Porter and after analysing interlanguage talk produced by
intermediate and advanced L2 learners in pair work, only 6 per cent of foreign talk was
faulty, 20 per cent of interlanguage talk showed itself to be so. The negotiation of
meaning or how you interact is more common in interlanguage talk than in foreigner
talk.
5. How has research in SLA changed in recent years?

For several decades, linguistic research focused on linguistic forms and on descriptions
of the structure of language that were basically at the sentence level. In recent years the
emphasis has shifted to the discourse level. The consequence of this is that we now realise
that formal approaches that emphasise the speech product of the learner overlook
important functions of language.

6. Why do Hatch and Long say that conversations are cooperative ventures?

One of the most salient and significant modes of discourse is conversation. Conversations
offer excellent examples of the interactive and interpersonal nature of communication.

The first rule of conversation is attention-getting. Once the speakers have secured the
hearer’s attention, they need to nominate the topic. After the topic is nominated,
participants in a conversation embark on topic development. To do so, they must use
conventions of turn-taking to accomplish various functions of language. Aside from turn-
taking itself, topic development involves clarification, shifting, avoidance, and
interruptions. Topic shifting and avoidance may be implemented through both verbal and
non-verbal signals. Interruptions are a typical feature of all conversations. Finally, topic
termination is an art that even native speakers of a language sometimes have difficulty in
mastering.

Conversation rules are a major category of discourse, but also of great interest in second
language learning is the acquisition of the discoursal conventions for accomplishing
certain functions.

7. Why is group work of considerable interest in teaching?

It is often considered an essential feature of communicative language teaching. The main

pedagogic arguments in favour of it are:

a) It increases language practice opportunities.

b) It improves the quality of student talk.

c) It helps to individualise instruction

d) It promotes an affective climate

e) It motivates students to learn

Small-group work provides more opportunities for language production and greater
variety of language use particularly in initiating discussion, asking for clarification,
interrupting, competing for the floor, and joking. However, Pica and Doughty in the
results of their study indicate that there is a relationship between the participation pattern
and the type of task. Thus, group-work only results in more negotiation of meaning if the
task is of the required-information exchange type.

UNIT- 4 FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE SLA II: EXPLANATIONS

FOR DIFFERENTIAL SUCCESS AMONG LANGUAGE
LEARNERS.

1. Why do people think that young people learn foreign languages better than older
people?

It is commonly believed that young learners usually perform better than older learners.
This assumption is corroborated by the critical period hypothesis, which states that there
is a particular period of years in which students can learn the language in a natural and
effortless way, and after that period, complete success in learning a language is
impossible.

2. What kind of research shows that adults outperform children?

Krashen et al. (1979), cited on Ellis (1994, conclude that adults learn faster than children
and:

a) Adults are superior to children in rate of acquisition in terms of grammar.

b) Older children learn structures faster than younger children.

Snow and Hocfnagel-Hoehle (1978) investigated the naturalistic acquisition of Dutch by

eight- to ten-year old English speaking children, twelve- to fifteen-year old adolescents,
and adults over a tell-month period.

Olson and Samuels (1973) found out that American English-speaking adolescents and
adults performed considerably better than children in the case of tests measured after 10-
25 minute sessions based on German pronunciation.
The above examples seem to give support to Krashen et al.'s claim (1979) that adults learn
faster than children. Results appear to indicate that this is more applicable to grammar
than pronunciation, although when it comes to formal learning situations, adults appear
to do better even in this area of learning

3. Is the acquisition of grammar the same as the acquisition of pronunciation?

The critical period for grammar may be later than for pronunciation (around 15 years).
The process of acquisition in the case of an L2 grammar is not significantly affected by
age, but that of acquisition of pronunciation may be. In relation to phonology, they
found some clear processing differences: these suggest that children and adults rely on
different mechanisms. However, with regards to grammar, they did find clear
differences; this fact suggests that learners of all ages rely on the same learning
mechanisms. However, with regard to grammar, they did not find clear differences: this
fact suggests that learners of all ages rely on the same learning mechanisms. One
possible conclusion based on research is that the acquisition of phonology, which does
not appear to be affected by age, is different from the acquisition of grammar, which
seems to be much less sensitive.

4. What is the difference between the terms critical period and sensitive period?

The difference between a "critical" and a "sensitive" period is based on the consideration
that completely successful acquisition can only be possible within a given period of a
learner's life (that is, “critical”) or that acquisition is just easier within that period, but not
impossible afterwards (“sensitive”).

5. Explain Cummins’ distinction between basic interpersonal communication skills

and cognitive academic language proficiency.

Cummins’ makes a distinction between basic interpersonal communication skills and

cognitive academic language proficiency. The former consists of these skills required for
oral fluency and the socio-linguistically appropriate use of language. The latter is related
to a dimension of language proficiency that is linked to overall cognitive and academic
language skills and can be equated with the proficiency factor related to intelligence.

6. Can learning styles be changed?

Although an individual's learning style is generally considered quite fixed and not easily
changed, Little and Singleton (1990) argue that we can help adult learners explore their
own preferences and mould their learning approach to tit the requirements of a particular
learning task. That is what researchers call ‘learning training’.

7. What learning styles did learners prefer in Reid’s study?

Reid distinguished four perceptual learning modalities on the basis of learner’s

preferences:

a) Visual learning (for example, reading. and studying charts).

b) Auditory learning (for instance. listening 10 lectures or to audio tapes).

c) Kinaesthetic learning (involving physical response).

d) Tactile learning (hands-on learning as in building models).

He added another category to the four learning modalities consisting in students who
preferred to work individually as opposed to those who preferred group-work. The
students from his study showed a general preference for kinaesthetic and tactile learning
styles (with the exception of the Japanese), and for individual as opposed to group
learning.

8. What did Willing investigate? What type of learning styles did he identify?

Willing investigated the learning styles of 517 adult ESL learners in Australia. He
analysed the responses to a 30-item questionnaire by means of factor analysis. He
identified two major dimensions of learning style: one was cognitive; whereas the other
was more affective in nature and therefore concerned how active learners were in the way
they reported their approach to L2 learning tasks. Based on these two dimensions, Willing
(1988) describes four learning styles:

a) Concrete learning style. (Learners use active and direct means of processing
information. They are interested in information that has immediate value.)

b) Analytical learning style. (Learners are independent and like to solve problems.)

c) Communicative learning style. (Learners are independent, but at the same time highly
adaptable and flexible. They prefer social learning and a communicative approach.)

d) Authority learning style. (Students are reliant on other people, they need teacher’s
directions and explanations.)
9. What is intrinsic motivation? And extrinsic motivation? And amotivation?

Intrinsic motivation refers to the motivation to engage in an activity because it is thought

to be enjoyable and satisfactory. Intrinsic motivation is founded upon innate needs for
competence and self-determination. There are three subtypes of intrinsic motivation:

1. Intrinsic motivation knowledge, it is the motivation for doing an activity for the feeling
associated with exploring new ideas and developing knowledge.

2. Intrinsic motivation accomplishment, refers to the sensations related to attempting to

master a task or achieve a goal.

3. Intrinsic motivation stimulation, relates to motivation based simply on the sensations

stimulated by performing the task, such as ascetic appreciation or fun and excitement.

In contrast to intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation is the motivation to engage in an

activity to achieve some instrumental end, such as earning a reward or avoiding a
punishment. There are three levels of extrinsic motivation:

1. External regulation, it refers to those activities that are determined by sources external
to the person, such as tangible benefits or costs.

2. Introjected regulation, it is related to reasons to perform an activity because of some

type of pressure that individuals have imposed on themselves. The student is reacting to
pressure, not acting in the basis of personal choice.

3. Identified regulation, it is the most self-determined form of extrinsic motivation.

Individuals invest energy in an activity because they have chosen to do so for personally
relevant reasons.

Amotivation refers to the situation in which people see no relationship between their
actions and the consequences of those actions. In such a situation, people have no reason,
be it extrinsic or intrinsic, for performing the activity, and are expected to quit as soon as
possible.

10. What three kinds of self-esteem can we distinguish?

Self-esteem has been defined as the feeling of self-worth that an individual possesses.

Global self-esteem, it is the individual’s overall self-assessment, at the highest level. This
would be followed at the medial level by specific self-esteem, or how individuals
perceive themselves in various life contexts (education. work. etc.) and according to
various characteristics (intelligence. attractiveness. etc.). Finally, at the lowest level, we
would find the valuation one gives oneself on specific tasks (writing a paper. talking to
someone, etc.).

UNIT- 5 THEORIES IN SLA

1. What is meant by a theory?

According to Larsen-Freeman and Long, a theory is a more or less formal, more or less
explicit, synthesis of what is known at a given point in time about some natural
phenomena, such as the factors involved in SLA.

2. Theories of SLA range along a continuum from nativist through interactionist to

environmentalist. In which way do they differ?

Nativist theories are the ones that propose a relationship between innate mechanisms and
knowledge; environmentalist theories claim that knowledge is based on experience and
finally, interactionist approaches constitute the theories that propose that there exists a
relationship or interaction among innate abilities, learned abilities and environmental
factors.

3. What do nativist theories consist of?

They are those which purport to explain acquisition by positing an innate biological
endowment that makes learning possible. In some cases the endowment is language-
specific. In others what is held to be innate consists of general cognitive notions- out of
which grammatical principles are built- and mechanisms used for all kind of learning,
including language learning. In still others, the innate endowment involves both linguistic
principles and general cognitive notions.

4. What are the five major claims in Krashen’s theory?

1) The Acquisition-learning. Two separate but complementary systems: acquired

system (unconscious and natural process) and learned system (conscious manner and
instructional settings).
2) The Natural Order. There is a fixed order in which the rules of the second language
are learned and they do not normally coincide with the way they are established in
teaching syllabuses.

3) The Monitor Hypothesis. Summarises the relationship between the acquired and the
learned system

4) The Input Hypothesis. It claims that the input received by students is vital for their
learning of the language as sometimes it is the only linguistic source they receive, but
only comprehensible input

5) The Affective Filter Hypothesis. Negative factors can prevent input from reaching
students.

5. What is the main shortcoming of the MT according to its critics?

McLaughlin criticised Krashen's distinction between learning and acquisition due to the
difficulty in testing his hypotheses. It states facts that seem reasonable and logical, but
when analysing them from an empirical point of view, they cannot be scientifically tested

6. What are the general characteristics of environmental theories of learning?

These theories claim it is not innate factors, but nurture or experience which affect
learning. Behaviourist theories are the best known examples of this type of theories. We
can state that apart from Connectionism, no other theory can be considered completely
environmentalist, although there are others that can be included in this category since they
try to justify acquisition by invoking learner external variables. Shumman’s model is one
of these as he tries to account for naturalistic SLA as a result of acculturation.

7. What does social distance consist of according to Schumann’s Model?

It is a group phenomenon consisting of eight factors: social dominance, integration

pattern, enclosure cohesiveness, size, cultural congruence, attitude and intended length of
residence.

8. What are the general characteristics of interactionist theories?

They are more powerful, all other things being equal, than either nativist or
environmentalist theories, because they invoke both innate and environmental factors to
explain language learning.
9. What are the main goal and characteristics of Givon’s theory?

His main objective is a unified theory of all types of language change which includes
language acquisition. His approach, the 'functional-typological syntactic analysis' (FTSA)
is functionalist as it considers syntax and typological in its inclusion of a diverse body of
languages. In the beginning, the model was applied to the study of language change but
it later evolved to include second language acquisition.

10. What does the current state of SLA imply?

The current state of SLA obliges researchers to apply several evaluation criteria at the
same time and to take into account criteria belonging to different theories since theory
construction in the field of SLA is still marred by the lack of sound results and empirical
evidence. Therefore, it is proposed that researchers entering this field should consider
taking into account different perspectives in SLA and try to benefit from those they find
more adequate for their purposes.

UNIT- 6 CORPUS LINGUISTICS AND ITS APPLICATION TO

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND TEACHING

1. Define what a corpus is.

A large collection of language, usually stored electronically, normally used for the
purposes of linguistic analysis through the use of concordancing programmes.

2. Name two of the several specific corpora available for educational or academic
applications.

The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) and the British Academic
Spoken English Corpus (BASE).

3. Name three of the differences we find when comparing the traditional methods of
analyzing texts and the way this is done through CL.

In the traditional way, we would read the text as a whole, we would read horizontally and
we would read as an individual act of will; whereas in the CL way we would read a text
fragmented, we would read vertically and we would read it as a sample of social practices.
4. What are the five main tools that you can find in AntConc? Describe them briefly.

a) Concordance Tool: we can see results in a ‘Key Word In Context’ format and allows
us to see how words and phrases are commonly used in corpus texts.

b) Clusters (N-Grams): it is used to show clusters based on the search condition. It scans
the entire corpus for ' N '(e.g. 1 word, 2 words, etc.) length clusters. This allows us to find
common expressions in a corpus.

c) Collocates: here we can see the collocates of a search term. This allows you to analyse
patterns of language.

d) Word List: this counts all the words in the corpus and presents them in an ordered list
allowing us to quickly find which words are the most common expressions in a corpus.

e) Keyword List: This shows which words are unusually frequent/infrequent in a

particular corpus when compared with the words in a reference corpus.

5. What are the three main applications of CL in the field of education?

The development of dictionaries, grammar books and text books.

6. What are the two applications of corpora in the field of language teaching?
Explain briefly.

- Direct: these offer a double option:

a) teacher-corpus interaction.

b) learner-corpus interaction.

- Indirect: these normally have an impact on syllabus design or teaching materials.

7. What is Data Driven Learning?

It is the most widely-known proposal of the direct approach and throughout it students
become active agents of their own learning process. They learn by inductive acquisition
of grammatical rules or regularities by means of the analysis of concordances yielded by
corpora.
8. What are the four potential problems of DDL in particular and CL in general?

1) The cost of the necessary hardware and software and the time to prepare the materials.

2) Teachers would need some type of training in order to be capable of using DDL.

3) Students would need to spend more time and effort to adapt to DDL. Learners need to
develop “corpus literacy” (Mukherjee, 2002:179).

4) The content of learning may also be a problem, as teachers need to make sure that the
data they are using is appropriate for their particular learners and they need to take into
account that DDL might not be suitable for all language questions.

PART II- Teaching English as a Foreign Language

UNIT- 1 Approaches to TESOL

1. What is the objective of the Grammar-Translation Method? What are the

activities?
The goal of foreign language study learnt through the GT method was to learn a
language in order to read its literature or in order to benefit from the mental discipline
and intellectual development that result from foreign language study. Typical
activities for students are learning lists of nouns with their respective cases, verb
declensions and a large list of vocabulary items.

2. What factors contributed to the rejection of the Grammar-Translation Method?

It was frustrating for students to learn by rote without understanding what they were
learning. Moreover, this method ignored oral proficiency. Another problem was that
language is not just a collection of words, we have to learn phrasemes or chunks of
language too.

3. In the Direct Method, was the class conducted in the foreign language? How was
grammar taught? How was language introduced?
The teacher avoided as much as possible the L1 and taught the classes in the language
the students were studying. Some of the principal ideas behind this method are that
 speaking a language is more important than being able to write. Therefore, there was
a greater interest in pronunciation and oral sills. Moreover, during teaching the
printed word was avoided as much as possible. Grammar was normally taught
inductively in order to avoid student’s mother tongue and the printed word. Learning
of grammar and use of translation were also avoided because they implied the use of
the mother tongue to be explained, and the emphasis was on everyday vocabulary
and sentences. Vocabulary was taught through demonstration, objects, and pictures
while abstract was taught by association of ideas.

4. What is the origin of the Communicative Approach? What authors were

influential in the CA?
CA began to dominate the teaching of English by the late 60s and early 70s but was
influenced by principals of previous methods such as the emphasis on the target
language of the Direct Method and the focus on functions and notions from the
Functional Notional Approach and from Situational Language Teaching the
importance of context. CA came at a time when several exciting new ideas and
notions about language were circulating. It was influenced by Searle, Hymes,
Halliday and Strevens, and Firth.

5. What is the Total Physical Response? Who developed it?

This method, devised by James Asher (1966), is designed to be less stressful that
other methods as the students can remain silent for several lessons before being asked
to speak. It is based on the coordination of speech and action and it allows students
to react to language without thinking too much. In these lessons, students are asked
to carry out the instructions by physically performing the activities.

6. Who created the Silent Way?

Gattegno did it in 1972 to provide the learner with a secure learning environment to
help them consciously use their intellect to improve their learning potential. The
teacher is supposed to be silent as much as possible.

7. What is the spirit of language according to Gattegno?

The subordination of teaching to learning. We do not get the barrage of utterances as in a
normal classroom environment.
8. Who developed Suggestopedia? What it its main characteristic?
It was invented by Georgi Lozanov (1978). The most striking thing about
Suggestopedia is the setting and atmosphere provided in the learning context.
Students are made to feel relaxed through the presence of art and music. This would
lead to what he calls 'spontaneous concentrative psychorelaxation'.

9. Who are the creators of the Natural Approach? To which method do the authors
relate the NA?
This method was built around Krashen’s “Monitor Model” of second language
development. Terrell was the a,rtifice of the method along with Krashen. The
teaching principles of this approach emphasise natural communication over formal
grammar study and the use of the target language. In this sense, it is like the Direct
Method but is more forgiving of learner’s errors.

10. What is implied from Krashen's five hypotheses?

It is implied that listening and reading should be emphasised from the beginning,
letting speaking emerge after some instruction time has passed and a relaxing
atmosphere has emerged so that the affective filter has lowered.
 ARTICLES

UNIT 1: What is the Logical Problem of Foreign Language Learning?

(Robert Bley-Vroman)

1. According to the author, do adults have the same facility to acquire language as
children?
No, they are different since they rely on different mechanisms when acquiring a
language. Child’s language is always successful but the second language acquisition
is very difficult to be successful. Everyone is going to be successful when learning a
first language, but not when they learn a second language (or the degree of success
is going to be different). It is nearly impossible to achieve learning a L2 in such a
degree.
Moreover L1 always affects the learning of L2. When you are a child, motivation
isn't affecting your first language, you are going to learn it anyway.

2. Do researchers think that child and adult language acquisition is similar?

Among many scholars, a consensus has developed during the last decade that the
same fundamental process controls both the child’s learning of a first language and the
adult’s learning of a foreign language. However, the author of this article defends the
preposition that child language development and foreign language learning are in fact
fundamentally different. The domain-specific acquisition system does not have the role
in addressing the logical problem of foreign language learning that it has in child learning.

3. What does general failure mean?

Complete success in adult foreign language learning is extremely rare, particularly
regarding the accent because we tend to assimilate foreign language's sounds with
our own sound system.

4. What is your goal in learning English?

The goals affect the way you are learning foreign language. Having a goal when
 learning L2 will help you to be more successful. Adult foreign language acquisition
is a problem-solving. They usually want to learn English for a concrete reason (to
sing songs, to be able to chat in a meeting...) and depending on the goal, instruction
should be different. Different goals require setting different subgoals, involving
perhaps different learning strategies. On the other hand, children do not set their own
individual goals. For them, the ‘goal’ is predetermined by the language faculty and
not under learner control.

5. What is the Charles Boyer phenomenon?

When people seem proud of their own foreign accent. This phenomenon can be
produced either consciously or unconsciously.

6. What is fossilization?
When a learners reach certain point in their learning, a good level that allows them
to communicate properly, and they are comfortable in this level, they don't advance
anymore and get stabilize at that stage. In other words, it is a stage of learning at
which learners stabilize. So, the development ceases and the level at which you get
stuck and efforts to change are often fruitless.

7. What does the term ‘indeterminate intuitions’ refer to?

It is a third class of grammaticality judgements. In other words, it is the capacity of
the speakers of L1 naturally to construct sentences. It is a natural intuition that helps you
to learn grammar.
8. Is the effect of instruction easy to prove?
No, it is not easy at all. The style of the teacher, the quality of students, different
motivations, the age factor, all of them affect the results of learning. Moreover, not all
instructions are expected to be successful.
9. What is negative evidence?
It is any prove, any evidence which you receive from the input that make you realize that
your performance is not correct, e.g. the pronunciation of ‘pyramid’. There are two types
of negative evidence: explicit and implicit. The explicit evidence is produced in an
intentional way, while the implicit one is not intentional.
10. Are affective factors relevant in SLA?
Yes, they are very important. In fact, numerous empirical studies have shown significant
correlations between affective factors and proficiency.

11. Why do we say that FL learners know too much?

Foreign language learners may presume that certain features of the native language are
universal. They may not only expect that the language to be learned will have some
relatively small set of phonemes but that it will have exactly the same set as the native
language, that the language to be learned will have an analogous politeness system, that
noun phrases with numerals may omit plural making, and so forth. Therefore, L1
sometimes disturb the learning process of L2.

12. Why does the author consider that interference theory is not acceptable?
This theory does not explain why children should differ from adults in their ability to
learn a second language, and it does not explain why a third language should often seem
to be less difficult than a second. In this theory, it is previous knowledge of a language,
not some factors related to age, which impedes foreign language learning. In addition, not
really adequate psychological mechanisms was available to proponents of the interference
theory. Finally, it is not really clear why previous knowledge of one language ought not
to make the learning subsequent language easier rather than harder.

13. Why is the input theory not acceptable?

Because input alone cannot explain the lack of success and it lacks any specified
acquisition model.

14. Do children have affect?

Adults are influenced by motivation, attitude, self-image, etc. but children are
spontaneous and therefore, they are not influenced by these factors. Consequently,
children have affect or a kind of bubble which protects them from these factors.

15. What has been found out about the role of affect in FLA?
The affective variable is the result of proficiency rather than the cause. People, by and
large like to do what they are good at, and they feel better about themselves if they
succeed.
16. According to the PSC approach (Problem-Solving Cognitive System), who are
the best learners?
Teenagers or the adolescents are the best learners. There are two systems for thinking and
learning. For instance, children are good at imitating, but they are bad at learning
grammar. In fact, PSCS allows us to think logically. Therefore, teenagers have two ways
to approach the processing of language data: either through the LSC or the PSCS.
Consequently, LSC begins to compete with PSCS in the analysis of language data and
this makes adolescents become the best learners.

17. What does the timing of the system suggest?

The timing is not exact, but it allows us to know which system the learners are using. The
decline in learning does not clearly take place at puberty, but some years later. We might,
therefore expect that the early teens, where both formal operating and LAD are available,
would be an especially good time for foreign language learning.

UNIT- 2 Uptake in Incidental Focus on Form in Meaning-Focused ESL

Lessons (Shawn Loewen)

1. What is uptake?

It is a term used to describe learner’s responses to the provision of feedback after either
an erroneous utterance or a query about a linguistic item within the context of meaning-
focused language activities.

3. What is Chaudron’s definition of uptake? And Lyster and Ranta’s?

Chaudron suggested that one measure of the effectiveness of any type of corrective
reaction would be a frequency count of the student’s correct responses following each
type.

Lyster and Ranta defined uptake as a student’s utterance that immediately follows the
teacher’s feedback and that constitutes a reaction in some way to the teacher’s intention
to draw attention to some aspect of the student’s initial utterance.
4. Do students always have the chance to produce uptake?

No, there may not always be a chance for students to produce uptake. Students may have
no opportunity to react to teachers’ feedback if the teacher continues his or her turn. The
student can also continue his turn and the uptake will not be produced. Finally, another
student can interrupt or any other interruptions can take place and consequently the uptake
will not be produced.

5. How do Lyster and Ranta categorize uptake? And Ellis et al.?

Lyster and Ranta categorize uptake as repair and need-repair, depending on whether
students corrected, in their uptake, the linguistic errors that led to the provision of
linguistic information. Ellis et al. used the terms successful and unsuccessful uptake to
include preemptive as well reactive focus on form. Successful uptake involves students
in either repairing their erroneous utterances or demonstrating an understanding of a
linguistic item. On the other hand, unsuccessful uptake involves students in either making
no attempt or failing in an attempt to repair an error, or not clearly understanding of the
targeted linguistic item.

6. According to Lyster, what is one way in which uptake may facilitate acquisition?
What is the other important aspect of uptake?

One way in which uptake may facilitate acquisition is by providing opportunities for
learners to proceduralize target language knowledge already internalized in declarative
form. This may automatize their L2 production and lead to increased fluency.

Another aspect of uptake relates to the role of output in L2 learning. Uptake constitutes
one type of pushed output. Pushed output occurs when learners process language
syntactically rather than semantically, and it allows learners to reanalyse and modify their
nontarget output as they test new hypotheses about the target language.

8. What was the overall rate of uptake occurrence in the observed lessons?

The overall uptake occurred in 73% of the FFFs. (Focused on Form Episodes)

15. Does this study support the importance of immediate FFEs?

Yes, it does. The immediate FFEs lead to successful uptake. There are two regression
models to corroborate the results. Code-related FFEs predicted successful uptake, because
the negotiation of code often had much more definite outcomes than negotiation of
meaning. By contrast, message-related FFEs were sometimes never resolved.

UNIT- 3 Native Speaker/Non-native Speaker Conversation and the

Negotiation of Comprehensible Input (Long, M.)

3. Why is research on speech modified for NNSs important?

Recent research on NS-NNS conversation suggests that while understanding may indeed
be facilitated by encoding in shorter, syntactically less complex utterances, speech
modifications alone are rarely sufficient.

4. Which type of adjustments made by NSs is more important for providing

comprehensible input?

Native speakers make a lot of adjustments to the interactional structure of conversation,

and it is modifications of the later sort that are greater and probably more important for
providing comprehensible input.

5. What does input refer to?

Input refers to the linguistic forms (morphemes, words, utterances) or the streams of
speech in the air directed at the non-native speaker. [Everything that student receives as
a passive subject, hearing and reading/ after receiving an input students produce an
output]

8. Had previous findings on input modifications to NNSs been consistent?

Previous findings on input modifications to non-native speakers have been inconsistent

both within and across studies.

10. What are the reasons why NSs appear to modify interaction?

NS appear to modify interaction to two main ends:

1. To avoid conversational trouble

2. To repair the discourse when trouble occurs.

16. Are the modifications of interaction that NSs make common to all speakers?

The modifications of interaction that native speakers make are quite numerous, diverse,
and apparently prone to vary with certain characteristics of the speaker. However, some
patterns in their use can be observed but only when they are used as atrategies.

A Variable Competence Model of Second Language Development (Ellis,

R.)

1. What is the problem in theory construction in SLD?

SLD research has suffered from the lack of a sound theoretical base, with researchers
often happy to investigate researchable but unrewarding hypotheses.

2. What three sets of factors does Schumann identify?

The first set consists of initiating factors. These help to answer the questions why. The
second set, involves cognitive processes. These are the internal learner mechanisms that
are responsible for the internalisation of data from the input and also for the use of
internalised rules in actual performance. The third set of rules involves linguistic product,
the actual utterances the learner produces.

6. What two systems does Krashen distinguish?

Krashen distinguishes two separate systems: acquisition and learning. He argues that the
manner in which these two knowledge systems are internalised, stored and used in the
production and reception of utterances is different.

8. What two modes of processing does McLaughlin propose?

McLaughlin proposes the controlled and automatic processing. Controlled processing

requires some degree of active attention. It occurs because the user lacks the ability to
attend to every single aspect of performance at the same time. Automatic processing does
not require active control. It occurs because the learner has access to knowledge that is
thoroughly automatized through use.

12. What is more important: the ability to participate in planned or unplanned

discourse?

The ability to take part in unplanned discourse is for most people more important than the
ability to construct planned discourse.

16. What are the steps for rule acquisition in the classroom?

The mastery of each rule will involve

1. Perception of the formal properties of each rule

2. Controlled processing of the rule and more automatic processing of the rule.

The stages of development have been divided into primary and secondary. The primary
levels are reflected in speech which is pidginised. They are primary because they are
chronologically first and because all learners complete the first two stages and at least
enter the third. The secondary levels arise in the natural process of development after the
primary levels and not all learners will reach this far. The third stage is shown as falling
within both primary and secondary levels.

20. Should we avoid using activities which involve planned discourse in the
classroom?

It would be a mistake to neglect them entirely in classroom teaching. Learners need to be

able to engage in a variety of discourse types from the unplanned to the planned end of
the continuum.
 VIDEOS

1) Innatism video

1. What are the two different theories that explain the acquisition of language as
stated by Chomsky at the beginning of the video?

a. Your brain works in the same way whatever you are learning.

b. However, there are different systems and one of them is exclusively devoted to
learning languages.

2. What is Chomsky’s view on language acquisition?

According to Chomsky, language acquisition is inherited. It is encoded in our DNA so

we are born with the capacity to learn languages.

3. According to Chomsky, do children need to be taught to talk? What word does

he prefer instead of “learning”?

According to him, we cannot teach children to talk. Instead of the word learning, he
prefers the term acquisition, since acquisition means absorbing the knowledge
unconsciously or in a natural way.

4. What are the two technical names of the two opposed views?

Imitation theory and innatism theory.

5. What does the story whose protagonist is Ernie (from Sesame Street) exemplify?
You will have to wait until the end of the video to answer this question.

You cannot force the children to learn quicker. Because there is a natural order for
learning.

6. What is the proof that children do not learn by imitation only?

They can produce new sentences that they have never heard before. They create
sentences and creativity in language goes beyond imitation.
7. Is learning languages a similar process to that of learning any other thing?

Actually, it is different. Nobody teaches how to talk, you do not need to practice to be
good at it, since we do not have training wills.

8. Do children react in some way when some parents use simplified language with
them?

They ignore their parents’ simplified language. In fact, simplified language does not help
children to learn. Therefore, we should teach the correct forms and do not use simplified
language.

2) Krashen’s Monitor Theory video

1. The verb sequence ‘I go’, ‘you go’, (s)he goes’ seems easy to learn, and according
to Prof. Krashen, if a child can tie his/her shoelace, surely (s)he can manage the
above. Yet what does Krashen say about a child acquiring the ‘s’ of the third person
singular of the verb? What is the Hypothesis that could explain this fact?

It is difficult because it is later acquired and the natural order hypothesis explains this
fact.

2. According to Krashen, does error correction help acquisition?

No, correcting errors does not help acquisition.

3. Prof. Krashen gives two ‘lessons’ to his audience. What is the purpose of both
lessons? What is the Hypothesis that could explain this?

The purpose is to explain how the comprehensible input works through the example of
teaching German. The input hypothesis explains it.

4. Fill in the gaps for the explanation of lesson two:

If you understand lesson two, I did everything necessary to teach German. We acquire
language in only one way – (this is the big moment) – when we understand messages.
That’s it. We’ve tried everything else. We’ve tried teaching grammar; we’ve tried having
students memorize vocabulary; we’ve had people memorize dialogues, sit in front of
machines; next we’ll try electric shock; we’ve tried everything. But the only thing that
works, the only thing that counts, is giving people messages they understand. What we
now call comprehensible input.

5. What is the Hypothesis that explains the facts stated in question number 4?

The input hypothesis.

6. What was Hitomi, the Japanese child to whom Krashen alludes, doing in her first
five months in the U.S.?

She was listening, picking up comprehensible input because she needed time before being
ready to talk.

3) “Using corpora in the language classroom” video

1. Professor Reppen mentions at the beginning of the video that she is an ESL
teacher and a FLT teacher. What do those two terms stand for?

ESL stands for English as a Second Language teacher and FLT stands for Foreign
Language Teaching.

2. What does she do “as a good teacher” at the beginning of her lesson?

She presents the goals of her lesson.

3. What is the role she assumes given the fact that her audience is made up of
teachers?

The role of facilitator.

4. What are the three goals of her presentation?

1- To provide some reasons for using corpora or corpus research.

2- To show how to use corpus research and corpora in the classroom

3- To present some guidelines and resources.

5. What are the reasons she gives to use a corpus?

Corpus provide insights into language use where intuitions often fail or even give us the
wrong information. It can also be a source of language teaching materials. Also, it can
provide students with opportunities for hands-on language learning.

6. What is a corpus?

A large, principled collection of natural texts.

7. What are the four ways of using corpora or corpus information in the classroom
that she is going to teach?

To inform the syllabus, create materials and activities, create specialized corpora and use
online resources.

8. What are the two most common lexical verbs in English?

Say and get.

9. What is the implication of the results for the most frequent verbs in academic
contexts?

When you are teaching academic English to your students, you have to emphasize
vocabulary, to use a great range of it.

10. What are the results of the study she carried out at university level together with
Biber, Byrd and Conrad?

In the classroom teaching the most used words were verbs, while in the textbooks the
most used words were nouns.

11. Are prefixes or suffixes the most productive way of forming words in English for
academic words?

Suffixes are the most productive way of forming words in English.

12. What are the six most productive suffixes?

-tion, -ity, -er, -ness, -ism, and –ment.

13. Take a look at the activity she shows on the use of affixes and give your opinion.

It is a good way to play with the words the students already know in order to create new
words, so it is a useful technique for studying new vocabulary.
14. What are the three ways in which you can use corpora to create materials?

Word frequency list from readings, practice activities and testing, models of language use
and role play actual dialogues.

15. What are the two concordancing programmes that she mentions?

MonoConc and AntConc.

16. What does KWIC stand for?

Key Word in Context.

17. Look at the different activities that she proposes and write your opinion about
them.

Using corpora in reading activities is very useful for students to practice skimming and
scanning techniques and it is also very useful for teachers since it provides the quick
analysis of the vocabulary level of your students, so that you can do pre-teaching activities
before the actual reading.

18. Listen to the part on specialized corpora. What were the results of their analysis
of the Anthropology corpus and their implications?

The content words were often typographically enhanced, defined in the text, easily
explainable, discipline specific and conceptually related to other content words. The
academic words were almost invisible, often polysemous and often used in a variety of
texts. Specialized corpora is used to identify unfamiliar words, identify high frequency
words, use KWICS to generate class activities, identify word senses and practice
inferencing strategies.

19. What were the results of the study she carried out on the collection of student
papers by Navajo kids?

Navajo kids were making more errors than native English speakers.

20. Watch the example using the Time magazine corpus. Summarize it and give your
opinion.

Is a corpus made up of Time magazine, it is a good resource for an academic writing or

academic reading test. The activity consists of entering the word “hippie” into Time
corpus, selecting the chart. Then the results will show that the word “hippie” was more
popular in 1960s. The results will also show that before that year, the word was used very
few times or not used at all, so the corpus indicates when words start to be used. In my
opinion, it is a very interesting exercise to practice the context of words and also to know
its origin and the frequency of use.

21. Name the different aspects we need to take into account when we develop
activities using corpora.

Know what you want to teach, select the best corpus resource for your lesson. Explore
the corpus completely for the point you want to teach. Have complete and easy to follow
directions. Provide a variety of ways for interacting with the materials and always have
an alternative plan or activity if you are using computers.

22. What are the things teachers and students can use corpora for?

Teachers can use corpora to create word frequency lists from readings, models of
language use and role play actual dialogues, practice activities and testing, specialized
corpora and use online corpora. Learners can interact with corpora to learn vocabulary,
to explore extended collocations, compare against model texts and discover patters of use.

23. What are the challenges of the use of corpora?

The availability of corpora, we need to have studies that explore the effectiveness of the
use of corpus as a classroom approach

24. Summarize the results of the study carried out by her graduate student.

All of the students learned vocabulary. However, the students that worked with corpora
had a depth of vocabulary and they were more proficient in the use and production of that
words.
 OTHER ACTIVITIES

- SLA

1) UNIT- 4. Factors which influence SLA

There is no doubt that learning a new language takes time and dedication. Moreover, the
process of learning a language is present at all ages. However, the motivation factor can
be crucial when learning a new language. In fact, having a goal when doing something
is a key point. Not only having a purpose is important but being conscious about it is
significant too. Moreover, when the learner has a goal it is easy to establish different
techniques and activities for the learning process. Motivation helps the students in
difficult situations, especially when they are about to quit. In fact, once the learning goal
is achieved, the students may feel satisfied and proud of their succeed. Motivation can
also be the reason why teenagers are better learners than younger children. In fact, the
following question is very common among children. Why do I have to study English?
The problem of that kind of question is the answer we provide to it and its reception.
Usually, teenagers and adults in general are more conscious about the cause and its
consequences. Therefore, motivation is one of the reasons for the successful results
when learning a new language.

-TEFL

1) Unit-1

1.1 According to your own personal experience, explain the best technique used by
one of your teachers when teaching English.

According to my experience as the student of English language, one of the best

techniques employed by my teacher was the gap-filling activity. More specifically, that
exercise consisted of listening to a song while reading and following the lyrics which
we had on our activity sheet. The song was played three times. The first time we were
supposed to listen the song and follow the lyrics. Then, we had to fill in the gaps with
the missing words. Finally the song was played once again in order to correct the
answers. Moreover, sometimes we were asked to sing the song while listening to it and
reading the corrected lyric sheet. In my opinion it is a very useful technique, since you
practice several skills at the same time in an effortless way while enjoying the music.

1.2 According to your own personal experience, explain the worst technique used by
one of your teachers when teaching English.

One of the worst experiences when I was taught English was the technique of learning by
heart a list of irregular verbs, which we would never use in class again. As far as I am
concerned, learning a language by heart is the worst method to teach that language.
Regarding the effectiveness of learning, it makes little sense to force students to memorize
large amount of text that they will not internalise or they will instantly forget.

2) Mention a word or expression which cannot be translated or is very hard to

translate into English and briefly explain it.

Usually idioms or idiomatic expressions are very difficult to translate, specially when
sticking to the original words. However, there are many equivalents, since idioms
represent common notions and believes which are present in different countries and
cultures. Nevertheless, I have chosen the word “sobremesa” which does not have an
equivalent translation in English in one single word. Moreover, it is a cultural
phenomenon or procedure very common in Spain, which is not found in Anglo-Saxon
culture. As it is not a part of the daily life in English speaking countries, it is hard to find
the correspondent equivalent. Consequently, the only solution is to explain the meaning
behind the word “sobremesa” and the action of sitting round the table and talking after
the lunch or dinner.