The Role of Receptive Skills in Enhancing Second Language Acquisition - Experimental Design - Education - http://maxpages.com/thena/Experimental

Aim

This study aims at assessing the role of listening comprehension and free voluntary reading activities in a basically comprehension-based program of instruction on the speaking and writing performance of the foreign language learners. It intends to answer the following research questions:

1)Do learners in a comprehension-based program of instruction, which is supported by form-focused instruction and which emphasizes listening comprehension, develop better speaking skills than the ones in a basically form-focused program of instruction?

2) Can the learners under a comprehension-based program of instruction, which emphasizes free voluntary reading and which gives no writing instruction and practice in and outside the class, do as well as the learners under a basically form-focused p rogram of instruction supported by programmed writing activities on writing tests? The study also indirectly examines the following questions:

3) How does the performance of the students under the comprehension- based program of instruction on a C-Test which is considered as a test of overall ability and reading ability (Hughes, 1990; Madsen, 1983) differ from that of the ones in a form-focu sed program of instruction?

4) How do overall school achievements of the students in both groups differ at the end of the year?

Subjects

The study was carried out at a prep class of a lycee school. One experimental and one control group each containing 20 lycee prep students formed the subjects of the study. The subjects in the experimental group were chosen at the beginning of the first semester. The researcher himself was the instructor of the experimental group. As a common procedure, all students were given a test of proficiency at the beginning of the year. Though there has not yet been a standardized test of English proficiency at the beginner level (Winitz & Garcia, 1986; Spada & Lightbrown, 1993) the researcher relied on the test given, and on the arrangements of the administrators. In fact, the school had been doing a very good job in forming homogeneous classes. Yet, of the 24 students in his class the researcher excluded three who had college background, and one who was a complete beginner from Azerbaijan. The subjects in the experimental group all came from standard state secondary schools. They had taken approximately three hours of English education for three years. The course books were An English Course for Turks Elementary 1, 2, and 3. The books are arranged around a structural syllabus; the presentation of the language input is determined according to a linguistically graded target structures from simple to complex. Though structures are embedded in the passages and dialogs in each unit, most of the time, lessons are done as grammar rule teaching and memorization of the vocabulary.

The subjects were expected to have some competence in English depending on their educational background. However, the researcher saw that they were really very low level students with some knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. That seemed to be an advantage at the beginning of the instruction in terms of presenting more input with ease from the very beginning.

The control group was selected from among 65 students at the same school. The researcher intended to form the control group at the beginning of the year; however due to the kind of questions in the study it was better to form the control group at the end of the year. Since the study tries to find a relationship between receptive skills and productive skills, i.e. between free voluntary reading and writing and listening and speaking, the researcher could not ignore the fact that students in the form-focused classes might as well be engaged in pleasure reading and listening activities outside the class on their own. In fact, the school offers such facilities to its students. There was a common library where students could find a lot of Engl ish books to read and a private English study room for the prep students to practice reading and listening after the class hours. Therefore, the control group to be compared with the experimental group was formed one week before the speaking test was given. The researcher first interviewed with four English teachers who has grammar orientation in their teaching about the achievement level of the students in their classes. Those students who were reported to be poor were not given the questionnaire and hence excluded from the study. In this way, a group of 65 students with almost similar properties in terms of school achievement was formed. Later, a questionnaire was given to the group and twenty subjects which showed common properties in terms of learning activities in and outside class were chosen to form the control group.

Both the experimental and the control groups had one main course teacher and a skills teacher. The teachers of the control group had longer experience of teaching than the experimental group teacher who had five years of actual teaching experience. The skills teachers however, were all new teachers with one year of teaching experience. In some respect, treatment of both groups by one and the same teacher seems common in most comparative studies in order to eliminate the biasing effects of teacher difference. Still, different teachers for the experimental and the control groups are preferred by some researchers. (Hillocks, 1986 cited in Hawisher et al., 1989) In our case, it was impossible to assign one teacher to both groups because of the great number of class hours per class and because of the school regulations.

The teacher of the experimental group, the researcher himself, has comprehension-based approach view of language teaching. He believes that second language acquisition is basically a subconscious process. The crucial element in language acquisition i s comprehensible input. The purpose of the language class, he believes, is to present as much comprehensible input as possible in a completely stress and anxiety free environment (Krashen & Terrell, 1983; Long, 1983; Swain, 1991; Ellis, 1993). The in put can best be given in listening and reading by way of meaning-based activities in class. He regards that writing and speaking are not the cause of the acquisition but merely are the results of the acquisition process. The grammar cannot be the cor e of a language education program; since the forms of the language will be acquired naturally, instruction should not focus on the forms. The only way grammar instruction works is the point where it facilitates the understanding of an L2 material. Fi nally, the teacher of the experimental group regards free voluntary reading activities much more functional and fruitful than intensive reading practices (Hafiz and Tudor, 1989a, 1989b, 1990; Brusch, 1991; Krashen. 1993a,1993b). He also believes that free voluntary reading naturally improves writing (Perera, 1990; Krashen,1984, 1992).

The teachers of the control group are proponents of some kind of eclectic method. The term "eclectic" was reported by the teachers of the control group. Whether the term eclectic is used to refer to an approach which best utilizes the most useful and the most appropriate parts of the methods or to one which advocates one best method (Haskell, 1978) or to an "intellectual obscenity", as Krashen names it, (Barasch, 1994) depends on the intention of the user.

The teachers of the control group see language learning as a conscious process of rule learning through practice. For them, one can attain language proficiency by explicit study of rules and vocabulary. Regardless of the so-called communicative activ ities in class; i.e. memorization of the dialogs and role-play, writing dialogs and compositions, and doing a lot of grammar exercises in and outside class as homework, their primary focus of attention was on accuracy and the exams were replete with grammar exercises. They also think that students should be forced to speak accurately and write accurately from the beginning of the instruction. For the teachers of the control group, focusing on form and correct production of the structures is necessary for successful language learning, a view represented by many in our field (Sharwood-Smith, 1981; McLaughlin, 1987; Bialystok, 1988; 1991; 1994; Rutherford,1987).

Experimental Treatment

The experimental and the control groups in the study were formed from among the students at the same school. The school had standard books and class hours and curriculum for all the sections in prep class. Each week both groups took 22 class hours of main course English; six class hours of reading and one hour of video. The study covered the 28 weeks of the instruction.

The subjects in the two groups showed the following common properties:

1) Members of the both group had similar educational background.

2) The age levels of the group members were identical.

3) The educational facilities at the school were at the service of both groups.
4) The same number of hours of education per week was allotted for both groups.

5) They studied and lived in the same environment during and after the lessons.

Apart from the above-mentioned similarities there were basic differences between the experimental and the control groups. These differences formed the basis of comparison between the groups.

1) The kind of language activities and the number of hours allotted to the language learning activities in and outside class differed in both groups.

2) Materials in the experimental group were supplemented for better comprehension and for more input.

3) The subjects in the experimental group were informed about the study and the methodology they would follow.

1)The language activities in and outside the classroom.

For the kind and the amount of activities in the form- focused classes of the control group the results of the questionnaire(see Appendix 1) are as follows:

In the classroom

1) Seven subjects in the control group have reported that they had taken 10 to 12 hours of grammar instruction in class. The rest 13 learners have reported that they studied grammar more than 13 hours a week.

2) Ten subjects reported 1 to 3 hours of listening practice in class every week. Eight subjects said they had done listening 4 to 6 hours a week. Only two of the subjects took 7 to 9 hours of listening practice. The listening practice reported by the subjects may as well cover the listening of the text once with books open and once with books closed without any special focus on meaning.

3) For the writing practice in class, five subjects reported 1 to 3 hours ; two subjects reported 4 to 6 hours; another five reported 7 to 9 hours; and eight of the students in the control group stated that they did 10 to 12 hours of writing practice in class time every week. Students in the control group were encouraged to write in their classes. They had private boards on class walls to exhibit their writings.

The questionnaire results for the experimental group have shown that there are drastic differences between the groups. Though the researcher himself arranged the type and the amount of activities in the experimental class, the questionnaire was also given to the experimental group at least for a verification of the instructional activities by the students themselves.

1) All of the subjects in the experimental group reported that they had 1 to 3 hours of grammar instruction every week. In fact, the teacher of the experimental class allotted half an hour to grammar explanation every day. He warned the students tha t following 25 minutes would be a grammar hour and that they would study grammar in order to understand the texts in the book. During the first two weeks of the instruction the students in the experimental group took Total Physical Response TPR-orien ted instruction two or three class hours a day. The rationale behind this approach is that comprehension precedes production (Asher et al., 1983; Krashen, 1982; Winitz & Garcia, 1986). TPR is a technique of teaching language through commands. At the beginning, the teacher acts out the commands while uttering them aloud. Later, he repeats the activity with volunteer students, and then the whole class takes part in the activity. Most of the time the experience is fun and very motivating. The students are not forced to speak but they notice that they understand and learn a great deal in a short period of time. Delaying student production till a natural period has the rationale that expectation of immediate production usually results in student frustration and may lead to affective barriers which may cause the students to hesitate to take part in communication activities (Gary, 1975; Krashen, 1981).

The researcher did not hesitate to use the mother tongue to explain the structures where he felt it would be easier for the student to understand (Krashen, 1996). He preferred a deductive approach to grammar teaching, because the inductive one seemed to be time consuming. The grammar section of the day ended with a short grammar homework from the supplementary grammar book, Practice Exercises in English 1 ,2 by DaçÀe and ÖÀzbay (1986,1987) (see Appendix 2). Therefore, majority of the grammar work was done outside the class thus leaving more time for input activities in class. (Krashen, 1989, 1996)

2) The experimental group took more than 13 hours of listening practice every week. The listening activities were usually in the form of listening comprehension exercises or in natural conversations about daily matters. Listening comprehension exerci ses were in the form of True / False exercises, sentence completion, or multiple choice questions (see Appendix 3). Almost all of the exercises were written by the teacher of the experimental group. The teacher regularly opened discussions on interesting matters and drew students' attention to the content of his speech.

Apart from the listening activities in class, every day, the teacher of the experimental group gave the students one hour of free reading in class which is called sustained silent reading activity (SSR)(Krashen, 1985,1994).

3) Writing practice was totally absent in the experimental language class. The instructor asked the students not to write any dialogs or compositions throughout the school year. Students were very pleased with the idea of the absence of writing assig nments. Still there was the problem of weekly quizzes which always had a writing section. In fact, the students in the prep class had to take a quiz every week. The researcher told the students not to answer the writing question in the test. Thus, students had no formal writing practice or writing instruction. The researcher wanted to test whether the students would automatically develop writing competence as a result of their extensive reading experience.

Finally, the reading teacher of the experimental group was also persuaded not to assign any writing practice in class.

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