Shawn Loewen

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.

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.

Implicit and Explicit Knowledge in Second Language Learning, Testing and Teaching

Part 1: Introduction Chapter 1 Implicit and explicit learning, knowledge and instruction - Rod EllisPart 2: The measurement of implicit and explicit knowledge Chapter 2 Defining and measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of a second language - Rod Ellis Chapter 3 Elicited oral imitation as a measure of implicit knowledge - Rosemary Erlam Chapter 4 Grammaticality judgement tests and the measurement of implicit and explicit l 2 knowledge - Shawn Loewen Chapter 5 Validating a metalinguistic test - Cathie ElderPart 3: Applying the measures of implicit and explicit knowledge Chapter 6 Investigating learning difficulty as implicit and explicit knowledge - Rod Ellis Chapter 7 Implicit and explicit knowledge of an l 2 and language proficiency - Cathie Elder Chapter 8 Pathways to proficiency: Learning experiences and attainment in implicit and explicit knowledge of English as a second language - Jenefer Philp Chapter 9 Exploring the metalinguistic knowledge of teacher trainees - Rosemary Erlam, Jenefer Philp, and Cathie ElderPart 4: Form-focused instruction and the acquisition of implicit and explicit knowledge Chapter 10 The roles of output-based and input-based instruction in the acquisition of l 2 implicit and explicit knowledge - Rosemary Erlam, Shawn Loewen and Jenefer Philp Chapter 11 The incidental acquisition of 3rd person -s as l 2 implicit and explicit knowledge - Shawn Loewen, Rosemary Erlam and Rod Ellis Chapter 12 The effects of two types of input on the acquisition of l 2 implicit and explicit knowledge - Hayo Reinders and Rod Ellis Chapter 13 Implicit and explicit corrective feedback and the acquisition of l 2 Grammar - Rod Ellis, Shawn Loewen and Rosemary ErlamPart 5: Conclusion Chapter 14 Retrospect and prospect - Rod Ellis

Corrective feedback in the chatroom: An experimental study

This paper replicates in a synchronous learning environment a study that looked at the effectiveness of providing two types of corrective feedback to students in the classroom. Elementary learners of L2 English (N = 31) completed two communicative tasks, during which time they received either recasts (implicit feedback) or metalinguistic information (explicit feedback) in response to any utterance that contained an error in the regular past tense. A third group served as a control. Learning was measured by timed and untimed grammaticality judgement tests. Results, which contrast with that of the original study, show no statistically significant gains in response to either type of feedback. An examination of chatscripts suggests some possible reasons as to why learning, as measured on the tests used, did not take place in a computer-mediated communicative context.

A comparison of incidental focus on form in the second language classroom and chatroom

Although many second language learners still study in a traditional, face-to-face classroom, an increasing number of students now participate in virtual classrooms and communicate online. Regardless of the mode of communication, interaction and focus on form can be considered important components of the learning environment. This paper reports on a study comparing teacher and student interaction on a single communicative task. Three groups of teachers and students in a private language school in New Zealand conducted the task in a face-to-face context. Another four groups in a writing course at the University of Auckland conducted the same task in an online chatroom. Two of these groups included the presence of a teacher (moderated), while two groups consisted of only students (unmoderated). The frequency and characteristics of focus on form episodes (FFEs), in which participants took ‘time out’ to focus on linguistic form, was analysed. The results indicate that focus on form occurred in all three contexts; however, it was most frequent in the face-to-face context and least frequent in the unmoderated context. In addition, the majority of the FFEs were in response to learner errors and targeted both grammar and vocabulary. Finally, the use of emoticons and chat language in the teacher-moderated online context received considerable attention in the interaction.

A comparison of the effects of image-schema-based instruction and translation-based instruction on the acquisition of L2 polysemous words

This quasi-experimental study investigated the effectiveness of two types of vocabulary instruction — image-schema-based instruction (ISBI) and translation-based instruction (TBI) — on the acquisition of second language (L2) polysemous words. Fifty-eight Japanese high school learners of English were divided into two treatment groups (ISBI and TBI) and a control group. The treatment groups were given 20 minutes of instruction on the target words, namely the verb break and the preposition over. In order to examine the effectiveness of instruction, an acceptability judgment test and a production test were administered prior to instruction (pre-test), two days after instruction (post-test 1) and two weeks after instruction (post-test 2). The results showed that ISBI tended to be as effective as TBI for both acceptability judgment test and production test scores, except in one case where ISBI was significantly more effective than TBI. This study suggests that image-schema from the field of cognitive semantics can serve as a pedagogical devise in teaching L2 polysemous words.

The use of statistics in L2 acquisition research

Second language acquisition (SLA) as a discipline has not had a long history and, as any new discipline, has seen growing pains over the years. This research timeline traces the development of the increased and more sophisticated use of statistics in SLA research and the increasing demands for rigor in their use. Use of statistical procedures has been increasing in the SLA literature, but the tools themselves have not developed from within the field; rather the increased use stems from greater statistical sophistication on the part of users. In other words, SLA is not an innovator but an increasingly knowledgeable borrower and adapter of statistical procedures.

TIMED AND UNTIMED GRAMMATICALITY JUDGMENTS MEASURE DISTINCT TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE: Evidence from Eye-Movement Patterns

Grammaticality judgment tests (GJTs) have been used to elicit data reflecting second language (L2) speakers’ knowledge of L2 grammar. However, the exact constructs measured by GJTs, whether primarily implicit or explicit knowledge, are disputed and have been argued to differ depending on test-related variables (i.e., time pressure and item grammaticality). Using eye-tracking, this study replicates the GJT results in R. Ellis (2005). Twenty native and 40 nonnative English speakers judged sentences with and without time pressure. Analyses revealed that time pressure suppressed regressions (right-to-left eye movements) in nonnative speakers only. Conversely, both groups regressed more on untimed, grammatical items. These findings suggest that timed and untimed GJTs measure different constructs, which could correspond to implicit and explicit knowledge, respectively. In particular, they point to a difference in the levels of automatic and controlled processing involved in responding to the timed and untimed tests. Furthermore, untimed grammatical items may induce GJT-specific task effects.

An A–Z of Applied Linguistics Research Methods

It is often difficult to reconcile, for example, the distinct epistemological stances of quantitative and qualitative approaches (see findings of Hashemi & Babaiis, 2013, systematic review of mixed methods research in applied linguistics).