Second Language Acquisition and Language Pedagogy

275 Pages·1992·0.97 MB·English

by  Rod Ellis

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title: Second Language Acquisition & Language Pedagogy Multilingual
Matters (Series)
author: Ellis, Rod.
publisher: Multilingual Matters
isbn10 | asin: 185359136X
print isbn13: 9781853591365
ebook isbn13: 9780585304649
language: English
subject Second language acquisition, Language and languages--Study
and teaching.
publication date: 1992
lcc: P118.2.E39 1992eb
ddc: 418/.007
subject: Second language acquisition, Language and languages--Study
and teaching.
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Second Language Acquisition & Language Pedagogy
Rod Ellis
Temple University Japan

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Ellis, Rod
Second Language Acquisition and Language Pedagogy/Rod Ellis
(Multilingual Matters: 79)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Second language acquisition. 2. Language and languages Study and
teaching. I. Title. II. Series: Multilingual Matters (Series)
P118.2.E39 1991
418´.007 dc20
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 1-85359-136-X (hbk) ISBN 1-85359-135-1 (pbk)
Multilingual Matters Ltd
UK: Bank House, 8a Hill Road, Clevedon, Avon, England BS21 7HH. USA: 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA 19007,
USA. Australia: P.O. Box 6025, 83 Gilles Street, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.
Copyright © 1992 Rod Ellis
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from
the publisher.
Photoset, printed and bound in Great Britain by The Longdunn Press Ltd, Bristol.

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CONTENTS
Section 1: Introduction 1
Section 2: Interaction and Second Language Acquisition 17
1. Teacher-Pupil Interaction in Second Language Development 19
2. The Classroom Context An Acquisition Rich or An Acquisition
Poor Environment? 37
Section 3: Formal Instruction and Second Language Acquisition 51
3. Can Syntax be Taught? A Study of the Effects of Formal Instruction
on the Acquisition of WH Questions by Children 53
4. Are Classroom and Naturalistic Acquisition the Same? A Study of
the Classroom Acquisition of German Word Order Rules 75
5. The Role of Practice in Classroom Learning 101
Section 4: Variability and Second Language Acquisition 121
6. Sources of Variability in Interlanguage 123
7. Interlanguage Variability in Narrative Discourse: Style Shifting in
the Use of the Past Tense 140
Section 5: Learning Styles and Second Language Acquisition 161
8. Individual Learning Styles in Classroom Second Language
Development 163
9. Classroom Learning Styles and Their Effect on Second Languange
Acquisition: A Study of Two Learners 175

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Section 6: From Research to Pedagogy 191
10. Second Language Learning and Second Language Learners:
Growth and Diversity 194
11. Contextual Variability in Second Language Acquisition and the
Relevancy of Language Teaching 213
12. Grammar Teaching Practice or Consciousness-raising? 232
Section 7: Conclusion 243
References 250
Index 266
A Note on Terminology
1. The abbreviation 'SLA' is used to refer to second language acquisition as a field of study. In contrast, 'L2 acquisition' refers to
the actual acquisition of a second language.
2. There is no consistency in the use of pronouns to refer generically to 'learner', 'native speaker', 'teacher' etc. This reflects my
own changing practice in the use of these pronouns over the last decade. Whereas I initially opted for masculine pronouns I
have more recently preferred feminine forms. I hope that, taken as a whole, the book offers reasonable balance between
masculine and feminine pronouns and that, as a result, no serious offense to any reader will arise.

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SECTION 1
INTRODUCTION
The last quarter of a decade has seen the birth of second language acquisition (SLA) as a field of study within applied
linguistics. Although there were a few studies of how people acquired a second language (L2) before this period (see, for
instance, Leopold's (1939) admirable study of the speech development of a bilingual child) it is certainly true that the growth in
emperical work has been exponential since the late 1960s. This is reflected in a dramatic increase in the published journals that
inform the field (Applied Linguistics, Studies in Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Research, for example, did
not exist prior to 1980) and also in full-length books, providing both collections of conference papers and state-of-the-art
reviews of the field. It is pertinent to ask three general questions:
(1) What motivated this growth in SLA studies?
(2) What developments in SLA have taken place over this 20-year period?
(3) What issues have SLA studies focused on?
Given that SLA has always been closely associated with proposals for language pedagogy a theory of language learning together
with a theory of language constituting the twin sources of the theoretical principles that give shape to particular instructional
approaches (cf. Richards & Rogers, 1986) it is also pertinent to ask a fourth question:
(4) In what ways have SLA studies informed L2 pedagogy?
This introduction will briefly examine each of these questions and in so doing provide a context in which to locate the papers
that comprise this collection.
The Origins of SLA Studies
The sudden development in SLA studies which took place in the late 1960s was the result of a number of factors, which
together conspired to interest researchers in how an L2 was acquired in particular, in naturalistic surroundings. These factors
were: (1) previous work in first language

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acquisition, (2) theoretical conflict as a result of competing views of how language is acquired, and (3) a growing
disillusionment with contemporary approaches to the teaching of an L2.
The Debt to L1 Studies
The early 1960s saw a number of empirical studies of L1 acquisition. Roger Brown and associates at Harvard University
conducted a longitudinal study of three children learning English. They collected spoken data of conversations between the
children and their mothers in play situations, painstakingly transcribed them and then submitted them to a number of detailed
analyses in order to investigate how the children gained control over the grammatical system of English. Similar studies were
carried out by Dan Slobin and associates and by Lois Bloom. In each case the studies were longitudinal and the emphasis was on
describing and accounting for the linguistic (in particular, grammatical) development that took place in young children.
De Villiers & de Villiers (1973) used a rather different approach. They collected data from a larger number of children but at a
single point in time and then sought to determine the accuracy with which specific grammatical morphemes (e.g. plural -s and
past tense -ed) were performed by the children, hypothesising that accuracy order and acquisition order would be closely
related. In this way the cross-sectional study of acquisition could be used to provide information about L1 development.
These studies of L1 acquisition informed early work in L2 acquisition in a number of ways. First, they demonstrated that it was
possible to investigate how a language was acquired in valid and reliable ways. Second, they offered a set of methodological
procedures that could be used equally well in the study of L2 acquisition. Third, they provided a body of descriptive information
about how children acquired English as their L1 which could serve as a baseline for investigating how learners acquired English
as an L2. Fourth, they addressed key theoretical issues such as the extent to which L2 acquisition was influenced by
environmental or innate factors.
SLA research has always owed much to the study of L1 acquisition. The early longitudinal studies (e.g. Ravem, 1968; Cazden et
al., 1975; Wode, 1976) borrowed extensively from the methods used by L1 researchers, relying on audio recordings and pencil-
and-paper notes of naturally occurring speech. They also focused on the same set of gramatical features which had attracted
attention in L1 studies (e.g. interrogation and negation), documenting the transitional rules that learners constructed on their way
to target language

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competence. Similarly, cross-sectional studies (e.g. Dulay & Burt, 1973; Bailey, Madden & Krashen, 1974) calculated the
accuracy order of the same set of grammatical morphemes that had figured in L1 studies. Somewhat later, as attention in L1
acquisition research switched to the role of input and interaction (cf. Cross, 1977), L2 researchers also became interested in such
phenomena as foreigner talk and teacher talk and again made use of the methodological procedures developed for investigating
caretaker talk.
Theoretical Controversy
In the 1950s, the prevailing view of how an L2 was learnt was derived from behaviourist theories of learning. These emphasised
the role of environmental factors. Learners learnt the L2 as a result of responding to stimuli and receiving feedback on the
correctness of their productions. The principal mechanisms of learning were imitation, repetition and reinforcement. Successful
learning occurred when the learner succeeded in forming new habits. Unsuccessful learning (which manifested itself in errors in
learner production) was the result of negative transfer (interference) from the learner's L1.
This view of L2 learning was seriously challenged in the late 1960s. Drawing on the kinds of arguments with which Chomsky
had challenged behaviourist accounts of language and on the growing body of information about the way children acquired their
L1, applied linguists such as Newmark (1966), Corder (1967) and Selinker (1972) advanced theories of L2 learning that de-
emphasised the role of the environment and gave greater recognition to learner-internal factors. The learner was credited with
some kind of language learning mechanism (not necessarily identical with that which the child used to discover the rules of the
L1). This mechanism accounted for the creative process by which learners constructed a mental grammar of the L2 a process
which manifested itself in errors of a uniquely developmental nature. These views were radically different from those advanced
by the protagonists of audiolingual learning theory (Brooks, 1960; Lado, 1964) who drew heavily on behaviourist accounts of
learning.
The controversy between behaviourist and mentalist theories of language learning stimulated some of the early empirical work
in SLA. Researchers set out to use the techniques of error analysis to evaluate to what extent learner errors could be explained
with reference to L1 transfer or to the process of creative construction. Such studies as Richards (1971) and Dulay & Burt
(1974a) set out to test the rival claims by investigating corpora of learner

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errors. The results indicated that L1 transfer was far less prevalent than had previously been assumed, lending support to the
mentalist position. 1
Language Teaching at the Cross-roads
Language teaching in the 1950s and 1960s was dominated by the 'method' construct the idea that it was possible to identify a set
of procedures which, if executed correctly and efficiently, would result in successful language learning. During these decades
the long-lived hegemony of the grammar-translation method, which emphasised the written medium and the study of explicit
grammar rules, gave way to new methods based on scientific accounts of language and a well-established learning theory (i.e.
behaviourism). In the USA audiolingualism was touted as the method which would make language learning accessible to all,
including elementary school children. In Britain the oral method, derived from the practical teaching experience of a group of
language educationalists (e.g. Palmer, West and Hornby), was promoted as a means of achieving real communicative skills. The
audiolingual and the oral methods shared much in common, in particular the conviction that language was best taught
inductively item by item through carefully controlled practice exercises.2
The claims advanced in the name of these methods, however, proved illfounded. Learners did not succeed in developing the
kind of oral control over an L2 which they were expected to. Careful drilling did not succeed in avoiding or eliminating error.
Even after hours of study, learners were often unable to hold even simple natural conversations. Furthermore, many learners
found the intensive drilling and the insistence on formal correctness demotivating. The Foreign Languages in the Elementary
School (FLES) movement in the USA, based on the audiolingual method, proved disappointing. Furthermore, large scale studies
(e.g. Scherer & Wertheimer, 1964; Smith, 1970) conducted in the USA to test the efficacy of the audiolingual method in
relation to more traditional, deductive methods failed to demonstrate its expected superiority. In general, it did not seem to
matter what method was used.
This led to disillusionment with the 'method' construct, which in turn had two outcomes. First, it led to the advent of
observational studies of actual classroom practice a move from reliance on purely external accounts of how teaching should
proceed to descriptions of what actually took place inside classrooms when particular techniques were used (e.g. Politzer, 1970).
Second, it resulted in a strongly felt need to discover what kinds of conditions were needed to ensure that successful language
learning took place. This motivated the study of L2 acquisition by learners in naturalistic settings, as this kind of acquisition was
considered to be typically successful, especially in the case of children. Just about all the early studies of L2 acquisition were
conducted with learners

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acquiring the L2 naturalistically and there was no serious attempt initially to study how languages were acquired in the
classroom context, even though one of the motivating factors was a desire to improve language pedagogy.
These factorsthe availability of research 'models' from L1 acquisition research, the rival claims of behaviourist and nativist
theories of language learning and the desire to find out how successful, natural learning took place as a basis for improving
language pedagogy contributed to the emergence of SLA as a field of study in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They also helped
to shape the kinds of enquiry that initially took place. The early studies investigated natural L2 acquisition. Work in error
analysis set out to test whether errors could best be explained as the product of L1 transfer or of creative construction.
Longitudinal and cross-sectional studies focused on a fairly limited set of morphological and syntactic features and sought to
provide descriptive information about the developmental path that learners followed. From these beginnings, SLA has
blossomed, so that now it is a rich and somewhat confusing field, encompassing a great range of research interests and
employing a variety of research methods.
Developments in SLA Studies
It is possible to identify three broad trends in SLA research over the last 20 or so years: (1) a general move from description to
explanation of L2 acquisition, (2) the widening of the frame of reference from the study of how learners acquire grammatical
competence to how they acquire a knowledge of the pragmatic rules of an L2, and (3) the establishment of SLA as a relatively
autonomous subdiscipline of applied linguistics and a concurrent lessening of interest in its application to language teaching.
From Description to Explanation
Lightbown (1984), summarising work done during the 1970s, comments that SLA researchers concentrated mainly on
describing how L2 acquisition takes place. A number of studies produced evidence to suggest that learners with diverse
language backgrounds appeared to follow more or less a standard route in the acquisition of grammatical morphemes and such
areas of syntax as negation and interrogation. Other studies indicated that some variation in the order of development of these
features could occur. Most of these studies, involving learners, were not theoretically motivated rather they sought to provide
information about how L2 acquisition took place, which could then be used to construct theories, a posteriori.
The 1980s, however, was a period when the concern for description and theory building gave way to the concern for
explanation and theory-testing.

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