Reineke's SLA Notebook

[reineke]

Processing word prosody—behavioral and neuroimaging evidence for heterogeneous performance in a language with variable stress

In the present behavioral and fMRI study, we investigated for the first time interindividual variability in word stress processing in a language with variable stress position (German) in order to identify behavioral predictors and neural correlates underlying these differences. It has been argued that speakers of languages with variable stress should perform relatively well in tasks tapping into the representation and processing of word stress, given that this is a relevant feature of their language. Nevertheless, in previous studies on word stress processing large degrees of interindividual variability have been observed but were ignored or left unexplained.

We conclude that even in a language with variable stress, interindividual differences in behavioral performance and in the neuro-cognitive foundations of stress processing can be observed which may partly be traced back to individual basic auditory processing and WM performance.

In some languages (e.g., Czech, Finnish, Polish, Turkish, Persian, or French) main stress always falls on the same position within a word (fixed stress; for a typological overview see Van der Hulst, 1999). In those languages, no minimal pairs of words exist which do only differ in terms of their stress position. Accordingly, in fixed stress languages word stress is not contrastive and does not carry lexical information. In consequence, the processing and representation of word stress is not particularly relevant in the use of such languages. In this vein, it has been repeatedly reported that speakers of languages with fixed stress encounter difficulties when confronted with tasks requiring processing or representation of word prosody (Dupoux et al., 1997; Peperkamp et al., 1999, 2010; Mehler et al., 2004; Domahs et al., 2012, 2013a).

In contrast, other languages (e.g., English, Spanish, Russian, or German) have variable stress positions. Word stress may be contrastive, carrying lexical information. Thus, there may be minimal pairs, which only differ in their suprasegmental make-up, i.e., stress pattern, their segmental sequence being identical (e.g., German verbs umfáhren vs. úmfahren, to drive around vs. to knock over). Therefore, the processing and representation of word stress is particularly relevant in languages with variable stress and speakers of those languages are typically found to be highly sensitive to suprasegmental manipulations, showing relatively good performance in a variety of tasks tapping on word stress (Domahs et al., 2008; Molczanow et al., 2013; for a direct comparison between speakers of a language with fixed stress (French) and with variable stress (Spanish or German) see Dupoux et al., 2001, 2008; Schmidt-Kassow et al., 2011a).

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/ ... 00365/full

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Editorial: Learning a non-native language in a naturalistic environment: insights from behavioral and neuroimaging research


Research on bilingualism has boomed in the past two decades. The processes by which a second language is acquired and processed has been investigated via linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic perspectives, focusing not only on second language (L2) acquisition and processing, but also the effects it might have on cognition and brain structure and function (Bialystok et al., 2012). More recent studies have focused on the effects of experience-based factors on L2 acquisition and processing (Dussias and Piñar, 2009); for example, several studies have increasingly focused on how L2 processing is affected by the active and continuous use of L2, or immersion, whether it becomes native-like, and which language domains are particularly affected (Dussias and Sagarra, 2007; Pliatsikas and Marinis, 2013). The present E-Book is a collection of recent studies that demonstrate the effects of immersive L2 learning in lexical, phonological and morpho-syntactic processing, while at the same time discusses the potential effects of immersive non-native acquisition on the structure of the bilingual brain.

Several studies in this E-Book have focused on morpho-syntactic processing by immersed late L2 learners. In an ERP study, Carrasco-Ortiz and Frenck-Mestre (2014) showed that highly proficient L2 learners of French with limited immersion (5–6 months) were native-like in their sensitivity of detecting verbal inflectional errors. This sensitivity was enhanced in the presence of phonological cues to the errors, but was also dependent on the L2 learner's overall proficiency. Further evidence in the domain of morpho-syntax was provided in an ERP experiment by Meulman et al. (2014), who demonstrated that immersed (5 years) late Romance learners of Dutch were native-like in detecting auditorily-presented verb agreement violations in non-finite verbs, but not gender violations. This demonstrated that there might be limits to how native-like L2 processing can be, but these limits are specific to the grammatical construction under investigation.

In two behavioral masked lexical priming experiments and in an ERP study with advanced Spanish and German late L2 learners of English, De Cat et al. (2015) showed that lexically transparent noun-noun compounds (NNCs) such as moon dust are processed combinatorially by advanced non-native speakers similarly to native speakers; however, sensitivity to word order violations within the NNCs was modulated by the learners' L1.

In an acceptability judgment task, Parafita Couto et al. (2015) examined the interaction between word order and focus in the context of unaccusative (e.g., arrive) and unergative (e.g., walk) verbs in Spanish in a group of English late L2 learners of Spanish with extensive naturalistic exposure to L2 input. Immersed late L2 learners accepted different word order patterns depending on the focus context; however, they failed to distinguish between unaccusative and unergative verbs, and the ability to do so was a function of the verb's frequency rather than its categorical classification on the basis of unaccusativity. At the same time, L2 learners were less categorical in their judgments compared to monolingual speakers.

In terms of lexical recognition, in two behavioral experiments, Casaponsa et al. (2014) demonstrated that immersed balanced and unbalanced Spanish-Basque bilinguals were equally efficient in recognizing L2-specific bigrams, suggesting that bilingual immersion can lead to native-like orthographic processing; however, these effects were modulated by the participants' L2 proficiency.

Zinszer et al. (2014) tested Chinese-English bilinguals in China and in the US on a lexical categorization task and examined which L2 learner's language history variables (length of immersion, L2 training, age of L2 onset, and code-switching patterns) and language variables (e.g., native speaker agreement on picture naming) predict performance on this task. The authors reported that words with high name agreement and few alternate names elicited high performance; at the same time, immersion, age of L2 onset and code-switching patterns contributed positively to learners' performance, whereas years of L2 training had a negative impact on task performance.

The effects of exposure to naturalistic L2 input on vocabulary learning were examined in two studies by Dahl and Vulchanova (2014) and by Vulchanova et al. (2015). Dahl and Vulchanova examined whether providing naturalistic L2 exposure within a standard school curriculum influences comprehension of vocabulary in two groups of 6-year-old Norwegian-speaking children. After 8 months of exposure, the group that received naturalistic input to English outside the classroom setting but within the school context outperformed on vocabulary learning the group that was only exposed to English within the classroom setting. This suggests that increased exposure to the L2 can lead to a significant increase in receptive vocabulary at this young age even after a short period.

Vulchanova et al. (2015) examined short- and long-term memory effects of first language (L1) and L2 subtitles on text comprehension and vocabulary learning in two groups of adolescent Norwegian learners of English. Short-term effects of L1 and L2 subtitles on text comprehension were found in both groups. These effects were modulated by vocabulary knowledge in the younger group of L2 learners and by knowledge of grammar in the older L2 group. There were no long-term effects in either group on vocabulary learning as measured through a word definition task and lexical decision task. Participants' extracurricular activities such as reading and writing in the L2, exposure to L2 media and games also emerged as significant predictors of the L2 learners' comprehension abilities.

In terms of phonological processing, Gor (2014) demonstrated that heritage English-Russian speakers (early naturalistic interrupted learners) of high proficiency in Russian, were equally efficient to native speakers of Russian in processing speech in noise. This demonstrated the early benefits of immersed L2 learning, which appear to persevere even when immersion is interrupted.

Although the existing behavioral and ERP literature appears to argue for substantial effects of immersion on bilinguals' performance, its effects on brain structure are proven more difficult to capture and describe. In an opinion article, Sharwood Smith (2014) discusses the issues in combining linguistic, psychological and neuroimaging approaches in the search for a unified theory of bilingual processing. In reviewing the neurolinguistic literature, Stein et al. (2014) argue that the reported structural effects of bilingualism on the gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) of the brain cannot be safely attributed to the type or amount of L2 immersion, although it appears that immersion is more likely to have an impact on the WM (see also Pliatsikas et al., 2015). The effects of bi-/multilingualism on the GM are further demonstrated in a structural MRI study by Kaiser et al. (2015). In this study, possibly the first of its kind on multilinguals, it is suggested that successive L2 learning leads to more extended changes in GM compared to early simultaneous language learning. This effect persists even in individuals that learn a third language later in life, suggesting that early immersive bilingualism might lead to more effective synaptic connectivity for language learning, which in turn leads to less profound structural changes during late learning of additional languages.

Taken together, the papers in this E-book demonstrate the role and the importance of experienced-based factors, and especially linguistic immersion, for the acquisition and processing of a second or a third language. We hope that this E-book will inspire researchers to pay particular attention to the environmental factors that shape the linguistic experiences of their non-native participants, and to present comprehensive descriptions of their groups' linguistic background, including detailed information about their bi-/multilingual immersion.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/ ... 01009/full

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The role of Broca’s area in speech perception: Evidence from aphasia revisited

Motor theories of speech perception have been re-vitalized as a consequence of the discovery of mirror neurons. Some authors have even promoted a strong version of the motor theory, arguing that the motor speech system is critical for perception. Part of the evidence that is cited in favor of this claim is the observation from the early 1980s that individuals with Broca’s aphasia, and therefore inferred damage to Broca’s area, can have deficits in speech sound discrimination. Here we re-examine this issue in 24 patients with radiologically confirmed lesions to Broca’s area and various degrees of associated non-fluent speech production. Patients performed two same-different discrimination tasks involving pairs of CV syllables, one in which both CVs were presented auditorily, and the other in which one syllable was auditorily presented and the other visually presented as an orthographic form; word comprehension was also assessed using word-to-picture matching tasks in both auditory and visual forms. Discrimination performance on the all-auditory task was four standard deviations above chance, as measured using d′, and was unrelated to the degree of non-fluency in the patients’ speech production. Performance on the auditory–visual task, however, was worse than, and not correlated with, the all-auditory task. The auditory–visual task was related to the degree of speech non-fluency. Word comprehension was at ceiling for the auditory version (97% accuracy) and near ceiling for the orthographic version (90% accuracy). We conclude that the motor speech system is not necessary for speech perception as measured both by discrimination and comprehension paradigms, but may play a role in orthographic decoding or in auditory–visual matching of phonological forms.

Highlights
► We assess the speech sound discrimination ability of stroke patients with lesions involving Broca’s area. ► We find that using signal detection methods damage to Broca’s area does not result in substantial speech perception deficits. ► We conclude that the mirror system is not critically involved in speech perception.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 4X11001295

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On the effects of L2 perception and of individual differences in L1 production on L2 pronunciation

Abstract
The speech of late second language (L2) learners is generally marked by an accent. The dominant theoretical perspective attributes accents to deficient L2 perception arising from a transfer of L1 phonology, which is thought to influence L2 perception and production. In this study we evaluate the explanatory role of L2 perception in L2 production and explore alternative explanations arising from the L1 phonological system, such as for example, the role of L1 production. Specifically we examine the role of an individual’s L1 productions in the production of L2 vowel contrasts. Fourteen Spanish adolescents studying French at school were assessed on their perception and production of the mid-close/mid-open contrasts, /ø-œ/ and /e-ε/, which are, respectively, acoustically distinct from Spanish sounds, or similar to them. The participants’ native productions were explored to assess (1) the variability in the production of native vowels (i.e., the compactness of vowel categories in F1/F2 acoustic space), and (2) the position of the vowels in the acoustic space. The results revealed that although poorly perceived contrasts were generally produced poorly, there was no correlation between individual performance in perception and production, and no effect of L2 perception on L2 production in mixed-effects regression analyses.This result is consistent with a growing body of psycholinguistic and neuroimaging research that suggest partial dissociations between L2 perception and production. In contrast, individual differences in the compactness and position of native vowels predicted L2 production accuracy. These results point to existence of surface transfer of individual L1 phonetic realizations to L2 space and demonstrate that pre-existing features of the native space in production partly determine how new sounds can be accommodated in that space.

Keywords: L2 perception, L2 production, transfer, L1 production, variability in production, L2 phonology
INTRODUCTION
Learning a foreign language in adulthood (and often much earlier) is generally associated with difficulties in producing sounds of this language (Goto, 1971; Long, 1990; Flege, 1999; Piske et al., 2001; but see also Neufeld, 1979; Bongaerts, 1999; Gallardo del Puerto et al., 2005 for contradictory evidence showing accent-free late L2 productions). This phenomenon is commonly called having a “foreign” accent and may be described as “… phonological cues, either segmental or suprasegmental, which identify the speaker as a non-native user of the language” (Scovel, 1969, p. 38)



https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4220632/

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The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue: Review of the role of the motor system in speech perception

Highlights
•
The role of the motor system in speech perception is reviewed.
•
Distributed production regions/networks ubiquitously participate in perception.
•
Regions/networks specific to production and vary dynamically with context.
•
Data consistent with a sensorimotor/complex network models of speech perception.
•
Existing models of the organization of language and the brain fail to explain results.



Why does it matter if “the motor system” or, specifically here, brain regions supporting speech production, play a role in speech perception? It matters because, after decades of research, we still do not know how we perceive speech sounds even though this behaviour is fundamental to our ability to use language. One hindrance to this understanding has been an inability to specify how we hear sounds as particular (and putative) speech categories like phonemes or syllables. Indeed, no acoustic features have been found that can uniquely and consistently be used to characterize those units (Appelbaum, 1996, Appelbaum, 1999, Goldinger and Azuma, 2003 and Port, 2010). Speech production systems matter in this context because it has long been proposed by theoretical models of speech perception that this problem of acoustic indeterminacy – or “lack of invariance” – can be addressed by making reference to the motor system. In particular, the motor theory of speech perception proposed that “sounds are not the true objects of perception … rather, they only supply the information for immediate perception of the gestures” (Liberman & Mattingly, 1985). These gestures are “represented in the brain as invariant motor commands that call for movements of the articulators” and involve a “perception-production link [that] is a necessary condition for recognizing speech as speech” (Liberman & Mattingly, 1985). In contrast, the “analysis-by-synthesis” (AxS) model proposed that the motor system assists perception by providing production-based constraints on the interpretation of acoustic patterns as needed (Bever and Poeppel, 2010, Poeppel and Monahan, 2011, Skipper et al., 2006 and Stevens and Halle, 1967).

If either of these models were accurate, there are implications not only for our theories of speech perception, but also our understanding of the organization of language in the brain. That is, though neither model is neurobiologically well specified, both can be used to make inferences about the brain basis of language. The motor theory of speech perception suggests that the motor system needs to play a role in the neurobiology of speech perception. In contrast, the AxS model suggests that speech perception is more distributed in the brain with the motor system contributing dynamically in an active, constructive, or predictive manner. Neither model is consistent with “textbook” or “classical” models of the organization of language in the brain because speech production and perception are presented as separable neurobiological processes in those models, with production occurring as a result of processing in Broca’s area and comprehension as a result of processing in Wernicke’s area (a model still taught to medical students; Geschwind, 1970).

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 4X16301420

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IN THE BRAIN, ONE AREA SEES FAMILIAR WORDS AS PICTURES, ANOTHER SOUNDS OUT WORDS

Georgetown neuroscientists say once a word is known, sounding it out is not necessary

WASHINGTON (June 9, 2016) — Skilled readers can quickly recognize words when they read because the word has been placed in a visual dictionary of sorts which functions separately from an area that processes the sounds of written words, say Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) neuroscientists. The visual dictionary idea rebuts a common theory that our brain needs to “sound out” words each time we see them.

This finding, published online today in Neuroimage, matters because unraveling how the brain solves the complex task of reading can help in uncovering the brain basis of reading disorders, such as dyslexia, say the scientists.

“Beginning readers have to sound out words as they read, which makes reading a very long and laborious process,” says the study’s lead investigator, Laurie Glezer, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow. The research was conducted in the Laboratory for Computational Cognitive Neuroscience at GUMC, led by Maximilian Riesenhuber, PhD.

“Even skilled readers occasionally have to sound out words they do not know. But once you become a fluent, skilled reader you no longer have to sound out words you are familiar with, you can read them instantly,” Glezer explains. “We show that the brain has regions that specialize in doing each of the components of reading. The area that is processing the visual piece is different from the area that is doing the sounding out piece.”

Glezer and her co-authors tested word recognition in 27 volunteers in two different experiments using fMRI. They were able to see that words that were different, but sound the same, like “hare” and “hair” activate different neurons, akin to accessing different entries in a dictionary’s catalogue.

“If the sounds of the word had influence in this part of the brain we would expect to see that they activate the same or similar neurons, but this was not the case — ‘hair’ and ‘hare’ looked just as different as ‘hair’ and ‘soup.’”

Glezer says that this suggests that in this region of the brain all that is used is the visual information of a word and not the sounds. In addition, the researchers found a different distinct region that was sensitive to the sounds, where ‘hair’ and ‘hare’ did look the same.

“This suggests that one region is doing the visual piece and the other is doing the sound piece,” explains Riesenhuber.

“One camp of neuroscientists believe that we access both the phonology and the visual perception of a word as we read them, and that the area or areas of the brain that do one, also do the other, but our study suggests this isn’t the case,” says Glezer.

Riesenhuber says that these findings might help explain why people with dyslexia have slower, more labored reading. “Because of phonological processing problems in dyslexia, establishing a finely tuned system that can quickly and efficiently learn and recognize words might be difficult or impossible,” he says.

https://gumc.georgetown.edu/news/Two-Br ... -New-Words

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Lexical access in L2
Representational deficit or processing constraint?

Previous research on phonological priming in a Lexical Decision Task (LDT) has demonstrated that second language (L2) learners do not show inhibition typical for native (L1) speakers that results from lexical competition, but rather a reversed effect – facilitation (Gor, Cook, & Jackson, 2010). The present study investigates the source of the reversed priming effect and addresses two possible causes: a deficit in lexical representations and a processing constraint. Twenty-three advanced learners of Russian participated in two experiments. The monolingual Russian LDT task with priming addressed the processing constraint by manipulating the interstimulus interval (ISI, 350 ms and 500 ms). The translation task evaluated the robustness of lexical representations at both the phonolexical level (whole-word phonological representation) and the level of form-to-meaning mapping, thereby addressing the lexical deficit. L2 learners did not benefit from an increased ISI, indicating lack of support for the processing constraint. However, the study, found evidence for the representational deficit: when L2 familiarity with the words is controlled and L2 representations are robust, L2 learners demonstrate native-like processing accompanied by inhibition; however, when the words have fragmented (or fuzzy) representations, L2 lexical access is unfaithful and is accompanied by reduced lexical competition leading to facilitation effects.

https://benjamins.com/catalog/ml.10.2.04coo

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First- and Second-Language Learnability Explained by Orthographic Depth and Orthographic Learning: A “Natural” Scandinavian Experiment

Effects of orthographic depth on orthographic learning ability were examined in 10- to 13-year-old children who learnt to read in similar orthographies differing in orthographic depth, defined as consistency of grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences. Danish children who learnt to read a deep orthography underperformed their Swedish counterparts who acquired a shallow orthography on vocabulary, phonological working memory, orthographic learning ability, and a range of first-language (L1: Danish/Swedish) and second-language (L2: English as a foreign language) measures. Orthographic learning ability explained over and above vocabulary and phonological working memory the better performance of Swedish children in comparison with Danish children on L1 reading accuracy and fluency, spelling, and visual word familiarity. With respect to L2 learning, orthographic learning ability determined spelling and visual word familiarity over and above L2 vocabulary and phonological working memory. It is concluded that shallow orthographies promote orthographic learning ability more efficiently than deep orthographies.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1 ... ode=hssr20

"In shallow orthographies, the spelling-sound correspondence is direct: from the rules of pronunciation, one is able to pronounce the word correctly.[1] In other words, shallow (transparent) orthographies, also called phonemic orthographies, have a one-to-one relationship between its graphemes and phonemes, and the spelling of words is very consistent. Such examples include Spanish, Italian, Finnish, and Turkish.

According to the orthographic depth hypothesis, shallow orthographies are more easily able to support a word recognition process that involves the language phonology. In contrast, deep orthographies encourage a reader to process printed words by referring to their morphology via the printed word's visual-orthographic structure.[2] For languages with relatively deep orthographies such as English, French, Arabic or Hebrew, new readers have much more difficulty learning to decode words. As a result, children learn to read more slowly.[3] For languages with relatively shallow orthographies, such as Italian and Finnish, new readers have few problems learning to decode words. As a result, children learn to read relatively quickly.[3]"

Wikipedia

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Why has the lexical approach been so long in coming?
Twenty years after Michael Lewis used computer research to show that the phrases and word groups used in English hold the key to learning the language, not grammar rules and vocabulary, ELT remains resistant to change.

Opinion
Twenty years after the publication of Michael Lewis's seminal book The Lexical approach: The state of ELT and a way forward, the bold prophecy of the title remains unfulfilled. A quick glance at any commercially available EFL textbook reveals that a traditional grammar syllabus, the main object of Lewis's attack, is still alive and kicking, albeit more cleverly disguised. How come Lewis's ideas have not been eagerly taken up by the mainstream English Language Teaching (ELT)?

Lewis's lexical approach which proposed shifting the focus from what's possible to what's probable. In other words, instead of learning abstract grammar rules and then finding the words to fill the slots, learners' attention should be directed to most common, prototypical examples of grammar in use. As far as vocabulary is concerned, new vocabulary items should likewise be presented "in company" of other words that frequently co-occur with them:

brush your teeth

commit a crime

generous donation

fundamentally flawed

In truth, Lewis's lexical approach, the core principle of which is the oft-cited dictum "language consists of lexicalised grammar not grammaticalised lexis" did boldly away with grammar/vocabulary dichotomy. In Lewis's view, "chunks" are the building blocks of language. The subsequent titles (Implementing the Lexical approach, 1997 and Teaching Collocation, 2000 – both by Cengage-Heinle) offered further insights into this new language description and pedagogical suggestions on how it translates into practice.

Skeptics were not convinced. There are hundreds of thousands of chunks the learner has to commit to memory – where do we start? Opponents scoffed that it's easier to equip learners with grammar rules and set them off on a path of putting together comprehensible phrases and sentences, thus ensuring faster progress...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thegua ... revolution


L is for (Michael) Lewis
by Scott Thornbury

It was Michael Lewis who was the first to popularize the view that “language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar” (1993, p. 34). This claim is a cornerstone of what rapidly came to be known as the Lexical Approach – rapidly because Lewis himself wrote a book called The Lexical Approach (1993), but also because, at the time, corpus linguistics was fueling a major paradigm shift in applied linguistics (under the visionary custodianship of John Sinclair and his brainchild, the COBUILD project) which, for want of a better term, might best be described as ‘lexical’. Lewis was one of the first to popularize this ‘lexical turn’ in applied linguistics, and he did so energetically, if, at times, contentiously.

So, what happened to the Lexical Approach – and to Lewis, its primum mobile?

Well, for a start (as I argued in an article in 1998), the Lexical Approach never was an approach: it offered little guidance as to how to specify syllabus objectives, and even its methodology was not much more than an eclectic mix of procedures aimed mainly at raising learners’ awareness about the ubiquity of ‘chunks’. Moreover, Lewis seemed to be dismissive – or perhaps unaware – of the argument that premature lexicalization might cause fossilization. To him, perhaps, this was a small price to pay for the fluency and idiomaticity that accrue from having an extensive lexicon. But wasn’t there a risk (I argued) that such an approach to language learning might result in a condition of “all chunks, no pineapple” i.e. lots of retrievable lexis but no generative grammar?

In the end, as Richards and Rodgers (2001) note, the Lexical Approach “is still an idea in search of an approach and a methodology” (p. 138). Nevertheless, as I said in 1998, “by challenging the hegemony of the traditional grammar syllabus, Lewis… deserves our gratitude.”

Michael responded graciously to these criticisms, acknowledging them – although not really addressing them – in a subsequent book, Teaching Collocation (2000). There the matter rested. Until 2004, when I published a ‘lexical grammar’ – that is, a grammar based entirely on the most frequent words in English – and, in the introduction, paid tribute to my ‘lexical’ precursors, specifically Michael Lewis, and Jane and Dave Willis.

Michael was not pleased.When I next ran into him, at an IATEFL Conference a year or two later, he was still fuming. Apparently, by suggesting that his version of the Lexical Approach had anything in common with the Willis’s, or that my book in any way reflected it, was a gross misrepresentation. The sticking point was what Michael calls ‘the frequency fallacy’, that is, the mistaken belief that word frequency equates with utility. Much more useful than a handful of high-frequency words, he argued, was a rich diet of collocations and other species of formulaic language. I, by contrast, shared with the Willis’s the view that (as Sinclair so succinctly expressed it) ‘learners would do well to learn the common words of the language very thoroughly, because they carry the main patterns of the language’ (1991, p. 72). To Michael, ‘patterns of the language’ sounded too much like conventional grammar.

When we met again, a year or two later, at a conference at the University of Saarbrücken, we found that we had more in common than at first seemed. For a start, we sort of agreed that the chunks associated with high frequency words were themselves likely to be high frequency, and therefore good candidates for pedagogical treatment. And Michael was working on the idea that there was a highly productive seam of collocationally powerful ‘mid-frequency’ lexis that was ripe for investigation.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/scottthorn ... lewis/amp/

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S is for SLA

"...Cautiously, then, and following VanPatten and Williams’ (2007) example, I’ve compiled a list of ‘observations’ about SLA that have been culled from the literature (albeit inflected by my own particular preoccupations). On the basis of these, and inspired by Long (2011), I will then attempt to frame some questions that can be asked of any teaching aid (tool, device, program, or whatever) in order to calculate its potential for facilitating learning.

Here, then, are 12 observations:

1. The acquisition of an L2 grammar follows a ‘natural order’ that is roughly the same for all learners, independent of age, L1, instructional approach, etc., although there is considerable variability in terms of the rate of acquisition and of ultimate achievement (Ellis 2008), and, moreover, ‘a good deal of SLA happens incidentally’ (VanPatten and Williams 2007).

2 ‘The learner’s task is enormous because language is enormously complex’ (Lightbown 2000).

3 ‘Exposure to input is necessary’ (VanPatten and Williams 2007).

4 ‘Language learners can benefit from noticing salient features of the input’ (Tomlinson 2011).

5 Learners benefit when their linguistic resources are stretched to meet their communicative needs (Swain 1995).

6 Learning is a mediated, jointly-constructed process, enhanced when interventions are sensitive to, and aligned with, the learner’s current stage of development (Lantolf and Thorne 2006).

7 ‘There is clear evidence that corrective feedback contributes to learning’ (Ellis 2008).

8 Learners can learn from each other during communicative interaction (Swain et al. 2003).

9 Automaticity in language processing is a function of ‘massive repetition experiences and consistent practice’ in ‘real operating conditions’ (Segalowitz 2003; Johnson 1996).

10 A precondition of fluency is having rapid access to a large store of memorized sequences or chunks (Nattinger & DeCarrico 1992; Segalowitz 2010)

11 Learning, particularly of words, is aided when the learner makes strong associations with the new material (Sökmen 1997).

12 The more time (and the more intensive the time) spent on learning tasks, the better (Muñoz 2012). Moreover, ‘learners will invest effort in any task if they perceive benefit from it’ (Breen 1987); and task motivation is optimal when challenge and skill are harmonized (Csikszentmihalyi 1990).

On the basis of these observations, and confronted by a novel language learning tool (app, game, device, blah blah), the following questions might be asked:

ADAPTIVITY: Does the tool accommodate the non-linear, often recursive, stochastic, incidental, and idiosyncratic nature of learning, e.g. by allowing the users to negotiate their own learning paths and goals?
COMPLEXITY: Does the tool address the complexity of language, including its multiple interrelated sub-systems (e.g. grammar, lexis, phonology, discourse, pragmatics)?
INPUT: Does it provide access to rich, comprehensible, and engaging reading and/or listening input? Are there means by which the input can be made more comprehensible? And is there a lot of input (so as to optimize the chances of repeated encounters with language items, and of incidental learning)?
NOTICING: Are there mechanisms whereby the user’s attention is directed to features of the input and/or mechanisms that the user can enlist to make features of the input salient?
OUTPUT: Are there opportunities for language production? Are there means whereby the user is pushed to produce language at or even beyond his/her current level of competence?
SCAFFOLDING: Are learning tasks modelled and mediated? Are interventions timely and supportive, and calibrated to take account of the learner’s emerging capacities?
FEEDBACK: Do users get focused and informative feedback on their comprehension and production, including feedback on error?
INTERACTION: Is there provision for the user to collaborate and interact with other users (whether other learners or proficient speakers) in the target language?
AUTOMATICITY: Does the tool provide opportunities for massed practice, and in conditions that replicate conditions of use? Are practice opportunities optimally spaced?
CHUNKS: Does the tool encourage/facilitate the acquisition and use of formulaic language?
PERSONALIZATION: Does the tool encourage the user to form strong personal associations with the material?
FLOW: Is the tool sufficiently engaging and challenging to increase the likelihood of sustained and repeated use? Are its benefits obvious to the user?"

https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/20 ... s-for-sla/