Speaking and Instructed Foreign Language Acquisition (Second Language Acquisition): 57 - Hardcover

Miroslaw Pawlak

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 184769411X ISBN 13: 9781847694119

Publisher: Multilingual Matters, 2011

Synopsis

Developing the ability to speak in a foreign language is an arduous task. This is because it involves the mastery of different language subsystems, simultaneous focus on comprehension and production, and the impact of a range of social factors. This challenge is further compounded in situations in which learners have limited access to the target language. Thus, there is a need to explore issues related to teaching, learning and testing speaking with a view to translating the guidelines based on theoretical positions and research findings into feasible and context-specific pedagogical recommendations. This is the rationale behind this book, which considers speaking from leading theoretical perspectives, investigates individual variables which affect its development, and reports the results of studies focusing on different aspects of its instructed acquisition.

About this title

About the Author

Miros aw Pawlak is Professor of English in the English Department at the Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts of Adam Mickiewicz University in Kalisz, Poland. His main areas of interest are SLA theory and research, form-focused instruction, classroom discourse, learner autonomy, communication and learning strategies, individual learner differences and pronunciation teaching. Ewa Waniek-Klimczak is professor of English linguistics and the Director of Studies in the Institute of English at the University of od . She teaches courses in phonetics, phonology, accents of English and spoken discourse. Her main research interests are the acquisition and usage of the SL sound system, cross-linguistic phonetics and phonology and pronunciation teaching. Jan Majer is Professor of English and head of the Department of Psycholinguistics and ELT, Institute of English Studies, Faculty of Philology, University of Lodz, Poland. His main areas of interest are bilingualism, second language acquisition theory and research, analysis of classroom communication, and English as an International Language.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Speaking and Instructed Foreign Language Acquisition

By Mirostaw Pawlak, Ewa Waniek-Klimczak, Jan Majer

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2011 Miroslaw Pawlak, Ewa Waniek-Klimczak and Jan Majer and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84769-411-9

Contents

Contributors, vii, 
Preface, xiii, 
Part 1: Theoretical Perspectives on Instructed Acquisition of Speaking, 
1 Instructed Acquisition of Speaking: Reconciling Theory and Practice Miroslaw Pawlak, 3, 
2 Authenticity in Oral Communication of Instructed L2 Learners Agnieszka Nowicka and Weronika Wilczynska, 24, 
3 Formulaic Sequences in the Output of Instructed L2 Learners Piotr Bialas, 42, 
4 Formulaicity vs. Fluency and Accuracy in Using English as a Foreign Language Agnieszka Wrobel, 55, 
5 Talking the Same Language: Sociocultural Aspects of Code-Switching in L2 Classroom Discourse Jan Majer, 66, 
6 Speaking in English for Academic Purposes in the Light of Lingua Franca English and Sociocultural Theory Anna Nizegorodcew, 84, 
Part 2: Speaking and Individual Variables, 
7 Near-Nativeness as a Function of Cognitive and Personality Factors: Three Case Studies of Highly Able Foreign Language Learners Adriana Biedrori, 99, 
8 "I Am Good at Speaking, But I Failed My Phonetics Class" – Pronunciation and Speaking in Advanced Learners of English Ewa Waniek-Klimczak, 117, 
9 Oral Skills Awareness of Advanced EFL Learners Krystyna Drozdzial-Szelest, 131, 
10 Pronunciation Learning Strategies – Identification and Classification Aneta Calka, 149, 
11 Metaphonetic Awareness in the Production of Speech Magdalena Wrembel, 169, 
12 Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety from the Perspective of Polish Students of German Studies Krzysztof Nerlicki, 183, 
13 The Relationship between Language Anxiety and the Development of the Speaking Skill: Results of a Longitudinal Study Ewa Piechurska-Kuciel, 200, 
Part 3: Research into Instructed Acquisition of Speaking, 
14 On the Authenticity of Communication in the Foreign Language Classroom Sebastian Piotrowski, 215, 
15 Ways to Proficiency in Spoken English as a Foreign Language – Tracing Individual Development Irena Czwenar, 230, 
16 Task Repetition as a Way of Enhancing Oral Communication in a Foreign Language Anna Mystkowska-Wiertelak, 245, 
17 The Use of the Internet and Instant Messengers in Assisting the Acquisition of Speaking Skills in English Lessons Mariusz Kruk, 258, 
18 Investigating the Perception of Speaking Skills with Metaphor-Based Methods Dorota Werbifiska, 268, 
19 Phonetically Difficult Words in Intermediate Learners' English Jolanta Szpyra-Kozlowska, 286, 
20 Transcultural Interference, Communities of Practice and Collaborative Assessment of Oral Performance Przemyslaw Krakowian, 300, 

CHAPTER 1

Instructed Acquisition of Speaking: Reconciling Theory and Practice

MIROSLAW PAWLAK

Introduction

It is perhaps fitting to start this chapter with a quote from Bygate (2002: 27) who so aptly comments that 'The study of speaking – like the study of other uses of language – is properly an interdisciplinary field. It involves understanding the psycholinguistic and interpersonal factors of speech production, the forms, meanings and processes involved, and how these can be developed'. Indeed, when reading recent overviews of critical issues involved in learning, using, teaching and testing this crucial skill (e.g. Burns & Seidlhofer, 2010; Bygate, 2002, 2008, 2009; Hughes, 2002; Luoma, 2004; Tarone, 2005; Thornbury, 2005), it becomes clear that describing, understanding and explaining these complex processes requires insights from such disciplines as theoretical and applied linguistics, psychology, sociology, neurology or educational studies. More specific contributions, in turn, accrue from particular branches or combinations of these disciplines including, among others, phonetics, phonology, syntax, morphology, pragmatics, conversation analysis, corpus linguistics, second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics or neurolinguistics. Such a huge diversity of influences and the inherent intricacy of their manifold relationships testify to the tremendous complexity of the speaking skill, the inevitable outcome of which is the difficulty involved in its successful development when acquiring a second or foreign language, be it naturalistically, in the classroom or with the benefit of both of these conditions. This difficulty is particularly acute, however, in the case of instructed language acquisition in the foreign language context where out-of-class exposure is often restricted, language instruction is confined to just several hours a week and the quality of classroom discourse is far from conducive to the development of effective communicative skills (Majer, 2003; Ortega, 2007a; Pawlak, 2000, 2004, 2009).

An important source of ideas on how these problems can be tackled are theories, models and hypotheses that specialists have put forward over the last few decades to explain different aspects of the process of second and foreign language acquisition, including the reception and production of speech as well as the appropriation of the requisite knowledge, abilities and skills. This chapter aims to demonstrate how such theoretical perspectives can provide a basis for formulating a set of useful guidelines for learning and teaching speaking in a foreign language setting, such as the one typical of language education in Poland. Following a brief overview of the main challenges in instructed acquisition of speaking, firstly, the key tenets of influential psycholinguistic theories and hypotheses which are more or less directly relevant to the development of speaking skills will be presented, that is the model of speech production (cf. Kormos, 2006; Levelt, 1989, 1999), interactionist approaches (cf. Gass, 1997; Long, 1981, 1996; Swain, 1985, 1995), skill-learning theory (cf. DeKeyser, 1998, 2001) and the model of language proficiency (Skehan, 1998). Secondly, the pedagogical implications stemming from these theoretical positions will be discussed and the feasibility of implementing them in the foreign language classroom will be addressed. The chapter will conclude with a proposal for a tentative model of teaching speaking which is based on the recommendations of theorists but at the same time recognizes the constraints that teachers have to face daily in their classrooms.

Challenges of Instructed Acquisition of Speaking

Before embarking on the task of reconciling theory and practice for the benefit of more effective instructed acquisition of speaking in a foreign language, it appears warranted to take a closer look at what is involved in the mastery of this skill as well as the resultant challenges that have to be faced when learning and teaching it. What must be emphasized from the very outset is that there is a broad consensus among specialists that the ability to engage in oral language production, although it tends to be taken for granted, is '(...) the most complex and difficult to master' (Tarone, 2005: 485). This complexity, which is clearly reflected in the contributions to the present volume, is related to a number of issues, such as the fact that the act of speaking is rarely a monologue and typically also involves simultaneous listening and comprehending; it happens in real time, thus being transient and dynamic; it involves mobilizing various aspects of communicative competence, including non-linguistic resources; it is heavily reliant on the situational context and it must take account of the broader cultural and social milieu. It also impinges upon the process of the acquisition of this skill because, as Burns and Seidlhofer (2010: 197) point out, '(...) learning speaking, whether in a first or other language, involves developing subtle and detailed knowledge about why, how, when to communicate, and complex skills for producing and managing interaction, such as asking a question or obtaining a turn'. Such difficulties, in turn, inevitably generate a number of problems for teachers, particularly those in foreign language settings, as they have to create in their classrooms optimal conditions for the acquisition of all the components of the skill of speaking as well as ample opportunities for contextualized, meaningful and integrated practice in using it.

A description of the characteristics of speaking in a foreign language can be approached from different angles, but typically it is conceptualized in terms of two interrelated facets, that is the various types of knowledge that learners possess and their expertise in adeptly using this knowledge in real communication, which have been, respectively, labelled in latest state-of-the-art articles as language as a system and language in contexts of use (Bygate, 2002), form and function (Tarone, 2005), what learners know and what learners do (Thornbury, 2005) and oral repertoires and oral processes (Bygate, 2008). The current discussion, however, draws upon a more detailed characterization of the construct of spoken language offered by Bygate (2009), who breaks it down into (1) the spoken repertoire, (2) the conditions of speech and (3) the processes of oral language production. With respect to the first of these categories, it includes a range of linguistic elements, which can be subdivided into phonological (i.e. both segmental and suprasegmental), lexicogrammatical (morphological and syntactic resources, lexis, as well as formulaic and pragmalinguistic units) and discourse features (i.e. socio-pragmatic features and pragmatic discourse structures), and different constellations of which are used with a view to attaining social or informational purposes in specific situations (cf. Roever, 2009). Broadly speaking, these purposes are related to three overarching functions of oral discourse, namely interactional (i.e. maintaining social relationships), transactional (i.e. conveying information) and ludic (i.e. using language for entertainment) (cf. Brown & Yule, 1983; Tarone, 2005). As demonstrated by the findings of research in corpus linguistics (e.g. Chafe, 1985; Cullen & Kuo, 2007; O'Keefe et al., 2007), the occurrence and distribution of various linguistic features is characterized by fragmentation, or relative lack of modification and subordination, high incidence of sub-clause-level units or fragments and frequent evidence of editing, and involvement, which manifests itself in the use of elements signalling personal identity or group membership, or expressing feelings and attitudes towards the interlocutor or discourse content. As a result, spoken language is typically associated with short turns and frequent turn-taking, pausing, false starts, hesitations, fillers, backchannels, negotiation, repairs, communication strategies, the use of deictic pronouns, ellipsis, questions, negatives or disjuncts, although some of these are by no means confined to speech (cf. Biber et al., 2002). As regards the conditions in which spoken language is produced, Bygate (2009) points to the presence of an interlocutor, as well as conditions closely related to it: reciprocity, entailing making adjustments to allow smooth communication, and time pressure, deriving from lack of planning time and the need to listen to what is being said, both of which operate simultaneously and are responsible for the occurrence of fragmentation and involvement. Finally, the processes of language production are accounted for in terms of the stages of conceptualization, formulation, articulation and monitoring, posited by most models of speech production (de Bot, 1992; Kormos, 2006; Levelt, 1989), as well as controlled and automatic processing, viewed as gradable rather than categorical (cf. Segalowitz, 2003).

A question that arises at this juncture is whether it is at all feasible to acquire such a complex and multifaceted inventory of features, abilities and subskills, automatize them to such an extent that they can be used in real-time processing and apply them successfully to achieve specific communicative goals in an appropriate way in various culturally bound contexts. In the light of the fact that even prolonged, massive exposure to the target language (TL) together with its pragmatic and sociocultural norms, such as that available in second language contexts or, to some extent, in immersion education, by no means guarantees the attainment of high levels of proficiency, including accurate, appropriate and distinct speaking skills (e.g. Harley, 1989; Klatter-Folmer & Van Avermaet, 1997, cited in Van den Branden, 2007; Schmidt, 1983), such problems are bound to be exacerbated in foreign language settings. It is difficult to see, for example, how an average learner who attends four or five lessons a week, hardly ever uses the foreign language in a meaningful way in these lessons because of the nature of classroom interaction, has scant access to that language outside school and does not interact with native speakers can ever be expected to gain control over even a fraction of the repertoire described above, not to mention its skilful use in face-to-face communication. In fact, even advanced learners, such as those studying foreign languages for professional reasons (i.e. teachers, translators, linguists), who have apparently mastered their formal aspects, experience great difficulty with deploying these resources in spontaneous communication, let alone the fact that emulating the distinctive characteristics of speech and adjusting it to various contextual, social and cultural variables is typically beyond their reach.

It is obvious that there is a ceiling effect for interlanguage development, even for learners endowed with exceptional language aptitude, and thus their speaking skills are unlikely to ever mirror those of native speakers, and perhaps there is little reason why they should. Nonetheless, oral communication is such an important goal for most learners, irrespective of their level of proficiency, that effective instruction in this area should be at the top of the agenda for all foreign language teachers. Sadly, there are still situations where learners have virtually no opportunities for developing this skill due to frequent reliance on the L1, teacher-fronted classes with rigid control over all classroom discourse or excessive preoccupation with other skills and subsystems. Even when efforts are made to teach spoken language, they are either aimed at preparing students for specific examination formats or simply misguided since the activities, such as role-plays that students recite from memory or exchanges that require minimal output, have little to do with authentic communication. When it comes to specialized foreign language instruction in institutions of higher education, although students have the benefit of separate speaking classes in which opportunities for oral communication abound, a major woe of such classes is that they seldom, if ever, focus upon such issues as colloquial, situation-specific phrases, appropriateness of expression, levels of formality, turn-taking mechanisms, negotiation of meaning, communication strategies and so on. As a consequence, students who consider themselves to be effective communicators are in for an unpleasant surprise on their first trip to the TL country when eyebrows are raised over the language that they produce and phrases that they would never have thought of uttering are used in specific situations. All of these problems testify to the challenges involved in instructed acquisition of speaking but at the same time point to the urgent need to provide a framework for effectively developing this key skill in response to learner expectations, such that would specify curricular decisions, materials, resources and practicable instructional options. A good point of reference for designing such a model are insights derived from influential theoretical perspectives on the processes of second language acquisition and use to which we now turn.

Tenets of Selected Psycholinguistic Perspectives on Foreign Language Acquisition

Before discussing the claims of the second language acquisition theories, models and hypotheses that may be germane to instructed acquisition of speaking, a few important qualifications are in order. For one thing, the author is fully aware that the theoretical perspectives dealt with below represent only what Sfard (1998) refers to as the acquisition metaphor and focus mainly on cognitive processes. In doing so, they ignore sociocultural perspectives which adopt the participation metaphor and place emphasis on contextual factors and interpret language learning as a dynamic, ongoing activity embedded in experience (see e.g. Batstone, 2007; Lantolf & Thorne, 2007; Ortega, 2007b; Zuengler & Miller, 2006). Still, although the latter have grown in prominence in recent years and provided an impetus for many empirical investigations (e.g. Brooks & Swain, 2009; Suzuki & Itagaki, 2009; Swain & Lapkin, 2002), this decision was intentional and was dictated by the desire to provide a coherent account of instructed acquisition of speaking, space limitations and the fact that such issues are touched upon elsewhere in this publication (see Majer, this volume; Nizegorodcew, this volume). It should be added that the following discussion is confined to those psycholinguistic theories and hypotheses which the author considers as best suited to providing insights into the teaching and learning of speaking skills and that only key tenets of each position are highlighted.

Model of speech production

The discussion in the present section draws upon a model of speech production which was initially proposed by Levelt (1989) to account for this process in the first language and was later adapted to bilingual speech production in the publications of, among others, de Bot (1992), Pienemann (1998), Bygate (2002), Izumi (2003) and Kormos (2006), with the last of these attempts being the main point of reference in our further considerations. Kormos (2006) argues that the modular approach adopted by Levelt (1989) is superior to spreading activation theories (Dell, 1986; Stemberger, 1985) and writes that 'Despite a few shortcomings (...) the modular theory of speech processing provides the most detailed and systematic account of the generation of verbal messages to date and has therefore been the most influential in the study of L2 speech' (2006: 11). In keeping with the original formulation, she claims that bilingual speech production consists of three separate modules, that is the conceptualizer, the formulator and the articulator, and makes the following additional assumptions: (1) although learners at higher proficiency levels can engage in parallel processing, encoding can only be serial when it requires conscious attentional control; (2) cascading of activation is allowed because lexical items which are activated but not selected can in turn activate relevant phonological nodes; (3) backward flow of activation between levels is impossible, with monitoring involving the use of the system of speech comprehension and (4) the nature of speech processing in the L1 and the L2 is similar. When it comes to the types of knowledge that a foreign language learner has at his or her disposal, Kormos (2006) postulates the existence of one long-term memory store which comprises (1) episodic memory (i.e. memory of autobiographical events); (2) semantic memory, which is hierarchically organized and includes the mental lexicon consisting of concepts (linguistic or non linguistic notions as well as associated meaning-related memory traces), lemmas (containing syntactic information) and lexemes (storing morphophonological information); (3) the syllabary (holding automatized articulatory scores used to produce syllables) and (4) declarative memory of syntactic and phonological rules. What should be emphasized is that the first three of these are shared between first and additional languages and only the last one is particular to bilingual speakers, such as instructed foreign language learners. It is also assumed that attentional resources are limited, which inevitably affects speech production in L2, and thus automatization of encoding procedures is necessary, which can be explained in terms of both rule-based approaches, such as adaptive control of thought theory (Anderson, 1983, 1995), and item-based approaches, such as instance theory (Logan, 1988) or strength theory (MacKay, 1982).

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 184769411X
• ISBN 13: 9781847694119
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 328
• Editor: Miroslaw Pawlak, Ewa Waniek-Klimczak, Jan Majer