Charlene Polio

Measures of linguistic accuracy in second language writing research

Because a literature review revealed that the descriptions of measures of linguistic accuracy in research on second language writing are often inadequate and their reliabilities often not reported, I completed an empirical study comparing 3 measures. The study used a holistic scale, error-free T-units, and an error classification system on the essays of English as a second language (ESL) students. I present detailed discussion of how each measure was implemented, give intra- and interrater reliabilities and discuss why disagreements arose within a rater and between raters. The study will provide others doing research in the area of L2 writing with a comprehensive description that will help them select and use a measure of linguistic accuracy.

The relationship between experience, education and teachers' use of incidental focus-on-form techniques

This paper reports the findings of an empirical study that explored whether ESL teachers’ use of incidental focus-on-form techniques was influenced by their level of experience. The results showed that experienced ESL teachers used more incidental focus-on-form techniques than inexperienced teachers. A follow-up study investigated whether inexperienced ESL teachers’ awareness and use of incidental focus-on-form techniques could be influenced by education, specifically, their participation in a teacher education workshop. Overall, the studies demonstrate the importance of taking experience and education into account in research on teacher-initiated incidental focus on form.

Using Stimulated Recall to Investigate Native Speaker Perceptions in Native-Nonnative Speaker Interaction

Implicit negative feedback has been shown to facilitate SLA, and the extent to which such feedback is given is related to a variety of task and interlocutor variables. The background of a native speaker (NS), in terms of amount of experience in interactions with nonnative speakers (NNSs), has been shown to affect the quantity of implicit negative feedback (namely recasts) in a classroom setting. This study examines the effect of experience and uses stimulated recall to attempt to understand the interactional patterns of two groups of NSs (with greater and lesser experience) interacting with second language (L2) learners outside of the classroom context. Two groups of NSs of English each completed an information exchange task with a L2 learner: The first group consisted of 11 preservice teachers with minimal experience with NNSs, whereas the second group included 8 experienced teachers with significant teaching experience. Immediately after the task, each NS participated in a stimulated recall, viewing a videotape of the interaction and commenting on the interaction. The quantitative results did not show a strong difference in the number of recasts used by the two groups, but it did show a difference in the quantity of NNS output between the two groups. This finding was corroborated by the stimulated recalls, which showed that those with experience—who clearly saw themselves as language teachers even outside of the classroom—had strategies for and concerns about getting the learners to produce output. Additionally, the experienced teachers showed greater recognition of student comprehension, student learning, and student problems. Those with little experience were more focused on themselves, on student feelings, and on procedural and task-related issues.

ESL writing assessment prompts: How students choose

Abstract This qualitative study examines how ESL students choose a prompt from several options on a timed-writing exam. This issue is worth investigating for several reasons: Little is known about the writing process on timed-writing tests; previous quantitative attempts to examine factors affecting student choice have been inconclusive; and opinions vary on whether or not students should be given a choice. Twenty-six students were observed taking a writing exam and were interviewed upon completion. We conclude that students spend little time making a decision; that several factors including their own background knowledge, question type, and specificity of the topic influence their decision; that attention to the time factor is an overriding consideration.

Multiple Perspectives on Interaction: Second Language Research in Honor of Susan M. Gass

Introduction Alison Mackey and Charlene Polio The psycholinguistics of the interaction approach Nick Ellis A Variationist perspective on the interaction approach to SLA Elaine Tarone Languaging in collaborative writing: Creation of and response to expertise Lindsay Brooks Merrill Swain Creating pressure in task pedagogy: The joint roles of field, purpose, and engagement within the interaction approach Martin Bygate Virginia Samuda Motivational processing in interactional tasks Zoltan Dornyei Wen-Ta Tseng How young is too young? Investigating negotiation of meaning and feedback in children aged five to seven years Rhonda Oliver Interaction research in second/foreign language classrooms Nina Spada Patsy M. Lightbown Recasts in multiple response focus on form episodes Shawn Loewen Revealing the nature of SCMC interaction D. Bryan Smith Interaction and attention to form in L2 text-based computer-mediated communication Lourdes Ortega Epilogue: Exploring the intricacies of interaction and language development Jenefer Philp

The Use of Zero Pronouns By Nonnative Speakers of Chinese and the Implications for the Acquisition of Nominal Reference

Some earlier SLA research suggests that zero pronouns should be easily acquired by second language learners, yet this has not been carefully examined because studies of nominal reference are usually limited to the acquisition of languages that do not have zero pronouns. This study examines how speakers of languages with zero pronouns (Japanese) and without them (English) use zero pronouns when acquiring a language that has them (Mandarin Chinese). The findings show that second language learners do not use zero pronouns as often as native speakers and that their use increases with proficiency. When examined more closely, it can be seen that the speakers have no difficulty using zero pronouns when there is a syntactic or semantic restriction, but they do have difficulty at the discourse level. It is claimed that this underuse of zero pronouns corresponds with other research that shows that second language learners tend to avoid pronouns in favor of full noun phrases. Some explanations for these phenomena are postulated.

Second Language Writing Development: A Research Agenda.

In 1998, Wolfe-Quintero, Inagaki & Kim published a monograph describing measures used in assessing writing development. Despite more recent research on linguistic development (e.g., Bulte & Housen 2012 ; Verspoor, Schmid & Xu 2012 ; Connor-Linton & Polio 2014 ), the volume is still a valuable resource and good starting point for anyone wanting to select measures of fluency, accuracy, and complexity for second language (L2) writing research. The volume, however, was limited to research on language development within the context of writing, and this is certainly one way to think about writing development. A recent edited volume by Manchon ( 2012 ), however, has greatly expanded conceptions of writing development showing that it involves much more that linguistic development, for example, genre knowledge (Tardy 2012 ) and goal setting (Cumming 2012 ) as well. Writing development can also focus on various aspects of the writing process and how writers’ change their approach to text production as they become more expert writers (e.g., Sasaki 2004 ; Nicolas-Conesa, Roca de Larios & Coyle 2014 ). This expansion of focus, of course, makes development more difficult to define.

SECOND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN WRITING: MEASURES OF FLUENCY, ACCURACY, AND COMPLEXITY . Kate Wolfe-Quintero, Shunji Inagaki, and Hae-Young Kim . Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998. Pp. viii + 187.

Second language development in writing: Measures of fluency, accuracy, and complexity is a technical report that reviews 39 studies examining measures of writing development. It is a comprehensive, lucid, and carefully researched piece of work analyzing an untidy body of literature. This volume is essential reading for anyone doing quantitative research in L2 writing. The studies included in this review are those that have attempted to correlate potential linguistic measures of writing development with writing proficiency, not simply studies that have used the various measures as dependent variables to examine the effects of some instructional treatment. Complicating the picture is the fact that indicators of writing proficiency are varied, as is the case with indicators of oral proficiency (Thomas, 1994). Each of these indicators, including standardized tests, levels in various language programs, and holistic measures, has its own set of problems. For example, of the 16 studies using holistic scales, only half reported interrater or intrarater reliability.

20.00 paper.

In today’s post-method climate, it is unlikely that any named approach or method will be adopted as a whole in a large variety of contexts. While the Production-Oriented Approach (POA) is no exception, it is based on sound principles, and the activities in iEnglish, a tangible implementation of POA, provide excellent models for pre-service teachers. I discuss here some of the challenges for pre-service ESL/EFL teachers, based on both my research and on my experience, and show how the principles of POA can help raise their awareness of certain crucial issues. This is not to claim that all pre-service teachers face the same difficulties, but rather, the ones described here are the most common in my experience. In Mackey, Polio, and McDonough (2004), we found that pre-service teachers did not provide oral feedback or a pre-emptive focus on language as often as experienced teachers when implementing the same set of lesson plans. We hypothesized that the preservice teachers were so focused on following the lesson plan that they did stop and think about how to draw students’ attention to language issues. In a related study (Polio, Gass, & Chapin, 2006), we found that when completing an information gap activity with ESL students, pre-serviceteachers focused on the best way to complete the task and the ESL students’ feelings, not on student learning, as did the experienced teachers. I see these findings as being related to Wen’s (2016) concern about reducing the teacher’s role to that of “facilitator, consultant, and helper” (p. 4). Although not all pre-service teachers see themselves as merely facilitators, it is important for pre-service teachers to see themselves as people who provide the tools and structured activities for learners as emphasized by the Learning-Centered Principle. In our two studies, the pre-service teachers did not seem to be able to provide feedback or to view a task as a language learning activity because they were too focused on the lesson or the learner and not on learning. Somewhat related to this issue is the lack of some pre-service teachers to move beyond a top-down approach to the chosen listening or reading material. Wen (2016) stated: I have found quite a few teachers like to assign students a speaking or writing activity preceded or followed by brain-storming. They may ask students to do pair or group work

Reflections on the Production-Oriented Approach vis-à-vis Pre-service Teachers

research and pedagogy. However, they also show that there is no broad agreement on questions such as the rate at which words are learned when reading or on how well the learning is retained. They point out new directions for research as well as some reasons for inconclusive findings to date, of which I would highlight the problems and limitations of measuring incidental learning (Huckin and Coady, 1999). In conclusion, this well-written collection of articles should appeal to language teaching researchers, as it makes available a variety of approaches to the study of writing and vocabulary development. It also provides ways to develop elicitation methods, insights into data handling techniques, and some advice for future research. Teachers interested in vocabulary and writing instruction can also find it useful, as obvious implications for the classroom arise from most of the studies.