Teacher- and Learner-Led Discourse in Task-Based Grammar Instruction: Providing Procedural Assistance for Morphosyntactic Development  

Oleh:

Toth, Paul D.

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Language Learning: A Journal of Research in Language Studies (Full Text) vol. 61 no. Sup1 (2011), page 141–188.
Topik: classroom research; teacher-led discourse; learner discourse; task-based instruction; instructed SLA; L2 Spanish; anticausativity; pushed output; proceduralization; scaffolding
Fulltext: 61_Sup.01_Toth.pdf (453.34KB)

Isi artikel

For many years, task-based second-language (L2) grammar instruction has been considered the ideal means for achieving a focus on linguistic form within meaningful, purposeful communication (Ellis, 2003; Long & Crookes, 1993; Nunan, 1989; Samuda & Bygate, 2008). Within this framework, small-group, learner-led discourse (LLD) is often believed to facilitate L2 development better than whole-class, teacher-led discourse (TLD), given the greater discursive autonomy for learners and presumed greater opportunities for negotiated interaction (Lee, 2000; Long&Porter, 1985; Pica, 1987; van Lier, 1996). Indeed, many have criticized TLD, given evidence of disfluent exchanges during which teacher turns impede rather than support learner participation (e.g., Brooks, 1993; Donato & Brooks, 2004; Hall, 1995, 2004; Leemann-Guthrie, 1984). Still, some have argued that TLD may greatly benefit learners if teacher assistance, negotiation, and feedback are well managed (Adair-Hauck & Donato, 1994; Ant´on, 1999; McCormick & Donato, 2000) and that witnesses to such exchanges may benefit as much as active participants (Ohta, 2001).However, only a few studies have directly compared TLD with LLD, and these have yielded conflicting results (Fotos, 1993, 1994; Pica & Doughty, 1985; Van den Branden, 1997, 2000). This study therefore aimed to contribute to the literature by presenting quantitative and qualitative classroom data gathered under similar task conditions for both TLD and LLD. Rather than unequivocally advocating for one discourse format over the other, I evaluated the strengths and limitations of both as tools for L2 morphosyntactic development. Participants in the study included 78 English-speaking adults from six university classes of beginning L2 Spanish, with two assigned to each treatment (LLD = 25; TLD = 28) and two other classes comprising a control group (n = 25). Instruction involved seven lessons targeting the anticausative clitic se, with one recorded and transcribed in each treatment. Results on grammaticality judgment and guided production tasks administered as a pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest indicated a stronger performance for TLD learners on both tasks. Although the transcript data revealed numerous episodes of constructive L2 negotiation and support in LLD—often addressing topics that were not assessed quantitatively—the transcripts nonetheless suggest that the teachers facilitated L2 development by directing attention more consistently to target structures and providing morphosyntactic “procedural assistance” to learners during utterance formulation. Because such moves are unlikely to occur among learner peers alone, I argued that teachers may be uniquely positioned to assist L2 development through their discursive role, such that an ideal task-based L2 pedagogy would include principled sequences of both TLD and LLD.

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