Rod Ellis

MEASURING IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE OF A SECOND LANGUAGE: A Psychometric Study

A problem facing investigations of implicit and explicit learning is the lack of valid measures of second language implicit and explicit knowledge. This paper attempts to establish operational definitions of these two constructs and reports a psychometric study of a battery of tests designed to provide relatively independent measures of them. These tests were (a) an oral imitation test involving grammatical and ungrammatical sentences, (b) an oral narration test, (c) a timed grammaticality judgment test (GJT), (d) an untimed GJT with the same content, and (e) a metalinguistic knowledge test. Tests (a), (b), and (c) were designed as measures of implicit knowledge, and tests (d) and (e) were designed as measures of explicit knowledge. All of the tests examined 17 English grammatical structures. A principal component factor analysis produced two clear factors. This analysis showed that the scores from tests (a), (b), and (c) loaded on Factor 1, whereas the scores from ungrammatical sentences in test (d) and total scores from test (e) loaded on Factor 2. These two factors are interpreted as corresponding to implicit and explicit knowledge, respectively. A number of secondary analyses to support this interpretation of the construct validity of the tests are also reported. This research was funded by a Marsden Fund grant awarded by the Royal Society of Arts of New Zealand to Rod Ellis and Cathie Elder. Other researchers who contributed to the research are Shawn Loewen, Rosemary Erlam, Satomi Mizutani, and Shuhei Hidaka.The author wishes to thank Nick Ellis, Jim Lantolf, and two anonymous SSLA reviewers. Their constructive comments have helped me to present the theoretical background of the study more convincingly and to remove errors from the results and refine my interpretations of them.

Current Issues in the Teaching of Grammar: An SLA Perspective

The study of how learners acquire a second language (SLA) has helped to shape thinking about how to teach the grammar of a second language. There remain, however, a number of controversial issues. This paper considers eight key questions relating to grammar pedagogy in the light of findings from SLA. As such, this article complements Celce-Murcia’s (1991) article on grammar teaching in the 25th anniversary issue of TESOL Quarterly, which considered the role of grammar in a communicative curriculum and drew predominantly on a linguistic theory of grammar. These eight questions address whether grammar should be taught and if so what grammar, when, and how. Although SLA does not afford definitive solutions to these questions, it serves the valuable purpose of problematising this aspect of language pedagogy. This article concludes with a statement of my own beliefs about grammar teaching, grounded in my own understanding of SLA.

Temperature variability and the yield of annual crops

Abstract Global production of annual crops will be affected by the increases in mean temperatures of 2–4°C expected towards the end of the 21st century. Within temperate regions, current cultivars of determinate annual crops will mature earlier, and hence yields will decline in response to warmer temperatures. Nevertheless, this negative effect of warmer temperatures should be countered by the increased rate of crop growth at elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations, at least when there is sufficient water. Of more importance for the yield of annual seed crops may be changes in the frequency of hot (or cold) temperatures which are associated with warmer mean climates. The objectives of this paper are to review evidence for the importance of variability in temperature for annual crop yields, and to consider how the impacts of these events may be predicted. Evidence is presented for the importance of variability in temperature, independent of any substantial changes in mean seasonal temperature, for the yield of annual crops. Seed yields are particularly sensitive to brief episodes of hot temperatures if these coincide with critical stages of crop development. Hot temperatures at the time of flowering can reduce the potential number of seeds or grains that subsequently contribute to the crop yield. Three research needs are identified in order to provide a framework for predicting the impact of episodes of hot temperatures on the yields of annual crops: reliable seasonal weather forecasts, robust predictions of crop development, and crop simulation models which are able to quantify the effects of brief episodes of hot temperatures on seed yield.

Learner Uptake in Communicative ESL Lessons

This article examines incidental and transitory focus on form. Learner uptake was studied in focus-on-form episodes occurring in 12 hours of communicative ESL teaching. Learner uptake was generally high and successful - to a much greater extent than has been reported for immersion classrooms. Uptake was higher and more successful in reactive focus on form and in student-initiated focus on form than in teacher-initiated focus on form. The level of uptake was also influenced by whether meaning or form was negotiated and by the complexity of an episode. This study indicates that focus on form can occur without disturbing the communicative flow of a classroom and that the classroom context can affect the amount of uptake.

TASK-BASED RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY

Two very different theoretical accounts of task-based language use and learning are critiqued and their relevance for language pedagogy discussed. One account, which will be referred to as the psycholinguistic perspective, draws on a computational model of second language (L2) acquisition (Lantolf, 1996). According to this perspective, tasks are viewed as devices that provide learners with the data they need for learning; the design of a task is seen as potentially determining the kind of language use and opportunities for learning that arise.Three different psycholinguistic models are discussed: Long’s Interaction Hypothesis, Skehan’s ‘cognitive approach’ and Yule’s framework of communicative efficiency. The second theoretical account of tasks is that provided by socio-cultural theory. This is premised on the claim that participants co-construct the ‘activity’ they engage in when performing a task, in accordance with their own socio-history and locally determined goals, and that, therefore, it is difficult to make reliable predictions regarding the kinds of language use and opportunities for learning that will arise. Socio-cultural theory emphasizes the dialogic processes (such as ‘scaffolding’) that arise in a task performance and how these shape language use and learning. Both theoretical approaches afford insights that are of value to task-based language pedagogy. The psycholinguistic approach provides information that is of importance for planning task-based teaching and learning. The socio-cultural approach illuminates the kinds of improvisation that teachers and learners need to engage in during task-based activity to promote communicative efficiency and L2 acquisition.

Communicating About Grammar: A Task-Based Approach

Providing learners with grammar problems they must solve interactively integrates grammar instruction with opportunities for meaningful communication. This article reports the results of an exploratory study of the use of a communicative, grammar-based task in the college EFL classroom. The two research questions addressed are whether the task successfully promoted L2 linguistic knowledge of a specific grammar point and whether it produced the kind of negotiated interaction which has been assumed to facilitate L2 acquisition. The limited results of this investigation suggest that the grammar task encouraged communication about grammar and enabled EFL learners to increase their knowledge of a difficult L2 rule.

THE ROLES OF MODIFIED INPUT AND OUTPUT IN THE INCIDENTAL ACQUISITION OF WORD MEANINGS

This article reports an experimental study of the differential effects of premodified input, interactionally modified input, and modified output on the comprehension of directions in a listen-and-do task and the acquisition of new words embedded in the directions. The modified output group achieved higher comprehension and vocabulary acquisition scores than either of the input groups. There was no difference between the premodified and interactionally modified input groups. The advantage of the modified output group is explained in terms of the qualitatively superior dialogic interaction that occurred in this condition rather than in terms of actual language production.

Interlanguage Variability in Narrative Discourse: Style Shifting in the Use of the Past Tense

This study examines style shifting in the use of three past tense morphemes (regular past, irregular past, and past copula) by 17 intermediate L2 learners of English. It differs from previous studies in that style shifting is examined within a single discourse mode—narrative discourse—according to the amount of planning time made available. Data were collected under three conditions: (a) planned writing, (b) planned speech, and (c) unplanned speech. Different patterns of style shifting were observed for three morphemes, suggesting that the nature of the linguistic feature under investigation is a determining factor. For regular past, greatest accuracy was most evident in planned writing and least evident in unplanned speech, with planned speech intermediate. Little style shifting took place in irregular past, whereas style shifting for past copula occurred only between planned speech and unplanned speech. The three conditions produced different accuracy orders for regular and irregular past, suggesting that the so-called “natural” order may not be a stable phenomenon. The paper concludes with a number of important questions requiring further investigation.

Doing focus-on-form

Abstract ‘Focus-on-form’ refers to a particular type of form-focused instruction - the treatment of linguistic form in the context of performing a communicative task. This article considers the rationale for this approach to teaching form as opposed to the more traditional ‘focus-on-forms’ approach where linguistic features are treated sequentially. It describes some of the main methodological options for attending to form in communication. These are considered under two main headings; ‘reactive focus-on-form’ and ‘pre-emptive focus-on-form’. The advantages and disadvantages of the various options are also discussed. Finally, some general questions relating to the practice of focus-on-form are identified as a basis for further discussion and research.

Preemptive Focus on Form in the ESL Classroom.

This article contributes to the growing body of descriptive research investigating focus on form, defined as the incidental attention that teachers and L2 learners pay to form in the context of meaning-focussed instruction. Whereas previous research addressed reactive focus on form (i.e., corrective feedback), the study reported in this article investigated preemptive focus on form (i.e., occasions when either the teacher or a student chose to make a specific form the topic of the discourse). The study found that in 12 hours of meaning-focussed instruction, there were as many preemptive focus-on-form episodes (FFEs) as reactive FFEs. The majority of the preemptive FFEs were initiated by students rather than the teacher and dealt with vocabulary. Students were more likely to uptake a form (i.e., incorporate it into an utterance of their own) if the FFE was student initiated. The preemptive FFEs were typically direct, that is, they dealt with form explicitly rather than implicitly. Despite this, they did not appear to interfere unduly with the communicative flow of the teaching. The article concludes by arguing that preemptive focus on form deserves more attention from classroom researchers than it has received to date.