The Role of Receptive Skills in Enhancing Second Language Acquisition - Unpublished MA Thesis by Rahim SARI, 1996 - Education - http://maxpages.com/thena/From_Reception_to

INTRODUCTION

Some Issues in Second Language Teaching and Learning

From Reception to Production

Scarcity of input might be considered the crucial factor leading to failure in second language learning in a classroom setting (vanPatten, 1994). Although the majority of L2 acquirers in underdeveloped societies of the world such as those in Africa entertain high levels of proficiency in their target language due to high doses of input they collect through natural communication, L2 learners in educated societies generally fail to attain the same level of competence, largely because of minimum in put provided in a classroom environment (Krashen & Terrell, 1983). It can even be suggested that the appearance of L2 teaching methods has been detrimental rather than facilitative, when one considers the considerable ease with which naturalistic/st reet acquirers pick up an L2 and the difficulty that formal classroom learners experience in developing their L2 competence.

The aforementioned stance does not, of course, represent the majority view among applied linguists or L2 teachers and learners. If it did, then classroom L2 teaching would not be marked by output practice in the form of speaking, writing, and grammar exercises. The general eclectic trend prevailing in English language teaching (ELT) circles nowadays reinforces the integration of four skills from the very beginning with some emphasis of grammar. Students are encouraged to speak or write just afte r they have got minimum amount of listening and/or reading input, as if there is a one-to-one correspondence between input and output (Gary, 1975). The students are viewed as computers capable of producing output once they get equal amount of input. In some cases the equality between input and output is broken for the worse: on the basis of minimum input, students are required to produce maximum output, thinking that production practice coupled with an implicit focus on form will result in the i nternalization of the target structures contextualized in their output (Sharwood-Smith, 1981; Brown, 1987; McLaughlin, 1987; Bialystok, 1988; 1991; 1994; Allen et al., 1990; Stern, 1990; Cook, 1991; Spada & Lightbown, 1993).

Research on Second Language Acquisition

It was only in 1970s that L2 teachers and researchers seriously questioned the validity of such an output plus grammar orientation in language teaching. What was taught and practiced in class did not necessarily match what was accepted and used by th e students in spontaneous conversation or free writing. The mismatch between teaching and learning forced the L2 researchers to carry out many studies with the aim of determining the underlying processes of second language acquisition. What these studies showed was that irrespective of the method of presentation and practice of L2 material in class, students followed a natural route which is basically similar to that of children in acquiring a new language ( Brown & Hanlon, 1970; Dulay & Burt, 1 973; 1974; Ervin-Trip, 1973; Bailey, Madden & Krashen, 1974; Milon, 1974; Fathman, 1975; Krashen, Madden & Bailey, 1974; Larsen-Freeman, 1976; Krashen et al., 1977; Anderson, 1978). Their mature cognitive capacity, social and intellectual skills do not allow them to follow a different path. Even researchers who tried to change the natural order through conscious teaching failed to do so, and their student subjects "developed their language stepwise despite the scheduling of the teaching" and mo re importantly "in the same order as has been found for natural acquisition"(Pienemann, 1989,pp.71-72). Similar results were obtained for other foreign languages.

..Data elicited [from] 39 learners of L2 German at two points in time are used to describe the sequence of acquisition of three obligatory word order rules. A comparison of this sequence with that reported for naturalistic learners of Ge rman revealed no difference, despite the fact that the order in which the rules were introduced and the degree of emphasis given to the rules in the instruction differed from the naturalistic order.... The results of this study support the claim that the classroom and naturalistic L2 acquisition... follow similar routes.(Ellis, 1989, p.305).

Such data needed to be accounted by a plausible theory of SLA and the first remarkable attempt was made by an applied linguist at the University of Southern California. Krashen (1977) suggested that the main determinant of natural acquisition order i s an innately specified device--LAD-- responsible for any kind of language acquisition and use. Unlike Chomsky (1965), however, who claimed the unexploitability of LAD after first language acquisition, Krashen (1992) asserted that it is fully functional throughout one's life and that the only critical period after which one cannot acquire a new language is death (Krashen, 1983). The unexploitability according to Krashen, has nothing to do with a critical age, but it has to do with the effectiven ess of the relevant factors triggering the device (Krashen, 1982). That is, if a second language acquirer is exposed to the same environmental stimuli that a child is exposed to, then LAD can acquire any new language with maximum efficiency, except f or accent; that aspect of language, which cannot be developed due to muscle plasticity (of the articulatory muscles in the vocal cords)rather than brain's elasticity (Krashen, 1973). The crucial environmental factor triggering LAD is, according to Krashen, comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985a). When one is exposed to ample amounts of understandable messages, he can automatically acquire the linguistic structures in the input subconsciously. In fact, Krashen says, he acquires the language unavo idably, inevitably (Krashen, 1983a).

Krashen's Monitor Theory has revived an interest on receptive skills and accordingly North American second language teaching has witnessed a mushrooming of comprehension-based methods (Asher, 1982; Swain and Lapkin, 1982; Swain, 1984).

Krashen's theory was indifferent to benefits of grammar instruction. A basic premise of his theory was that subconscious acquisition rather than conscious learning is the basic determinant of success in second language acquisition. Thus, acquisition with and without learning is virtually the same. Consciously learned rules cannot become subconsciously acquired through practice. The only way to acquisition is through exposure to ample amount of input.Krashen formulated this view in his frequently criticized statement that learning does not become acquisition. On the opposite side, there were the majority of teachers and methodologists who claimed the existence of an interface between acquisition and learning. They believed that consciousl y learned rules become subconsciously acquired through pattern and/or communicative practice (McLaughlin, 1987).

Conscious Learning versus Subconscious Acquisition

To test whether Krashen's or his opponents' point of view was true, a number of researches have been carried out. Long (1983), for example, reviewed a dozen of studies comparing the effects of grammar instruction on learners' overall second language proficiency. Learners of various age and proficiency levels receiving grammar instruction are compared to those experiencing exposure to input. Six of these studies(Carroll, 1967; Krashen et al., 1974; Krashen & Seliger, 1975; Chirara & Odler, 1978; Brier, 1978; Krashen at al., 1978) showed an advantage of instruction over exposure to natural input(Long 1983). Three of the studies, Long mentioned,(Upshur, 1968; Mason, 1971; and Fathman, 1975) showed no significant difference between instruction and exposure. Only two of twelve studies (Hale and Budar, 1970; Fathman, 1976) indicated an advantage of exposure over instruction (Long, 1983).

The conclusion that Long derives out of these studies, the majority of which have shown the beneficial effects of instruction, was that conscious teaching/learning of grammar aids subconscious acquisition. In an updated review of the in structed secon d language learning research, Long 1988), likewise, concluded that grammar instruction is beneficial to learners, especially in terms of rate of second language acquisition. Pienemann's study (1984) also showed that classroom learners acquire faster than naturalistic learners provided that they have psycholinguistic readiness.

There are other studies, cited in Ellis (1993) which showed positive effects of instruction on second language acquisition. One such study was done by Weslander and Stephany (1983) who claimed the effects of grammar instruction on second language acq uisition of more than 500 child learners of English as a second language. They found that instruction helped especially at lower levels. In another study by Ellis and Rathbone (1987), the relationship between class attendance and language proficiency of adult learners of German as a second language was investigated. The results showed positive correlation between the two factors supporting the view that learning becomes acquisition (cited in Ellis 1993).

Finally, Doughty (1991), in her article titled "Second Language Instruction Does Make a Difference" suggested that form-focused instruction facilitated second language acquisition. None of these research results, however, are unaccountable in Krashen's non-interface point of view which denies any seepage from learning to acquisition. To account for the facilitative effects of classroom instruction, Krashen suggests that it is t he enhanced comprehensibility of classroom input -rather than grammar instruction- which fosters the process of second language acquisition:

[A1] [A2] Any rate advantages claimed for the classroom, according to Krashen, are due to the kind of input provided in classrooms, i.e. comprehensible input, being better for acquisition ..... than the untuned mix of comprehensible and (unusable) in comprehensible input available through exposure (street learning) alone (Larsen-Freeman and Long, 1991, p.323).

Krashen (1982) believes that even "grammar translation provides scripts of comprehensible input" (p.128). Therefore he assigns any advantage perceived in second language classes to the existence of input, no matter how much form-focused the grammar i nstruction is. Similarly, Ellis (1984) questions the attribution of beneficial effects of classroom second language learning to grammar instruction only: (Grammar)instruction involves both 'exposure'(input) and consciousness raising/practice ....(I)is conceivable that it was classroom exposure rather than consciousness raising/practice that facilitated second language acquisition.(p.148).

It is basically because of the enhanced likelihood of receiving better and more easily understandable input in a classroom setting that Krashen (1983) advises beginning level learners to attend a second language class rather than going to the native country of the target language where much of the input is incomprehensible thus noise.

A major misinterpretation of Krashen's non-interface position is that once you learn a rule, you can never acquire it. However, what Krashen means is that a rule cannot be acquired through conscious learning and practice but through exposure to input bearing that rule. He has never meant that learning blocks acquisition but that it is not transformed into acquisition, nor does he deny the possible contribution of conscious grammar knowledge.

[C]onscious rules could indirectly aid acquisition. Conscious rule knowledge may help make input comprehensible, even if the conscious rule that helps do this is not at i+1 and is not itself the object of acquisition. It may contribute to the context and aid in the acquisition of some other rule. (Krashen, 1985a. p.42)

Krashen's Monitor theory, therefore predicts that exposure to roughly- tuned classroom input coupled with some weak form of grammar instruction facilitates second language acquisition more than exposure to input in native environment alone. There are some studies in the literature focusing on the combined effects of form-focused and input-based instruction on second language acquisition. For instance, Montgomery and Eisenstein (1985) compared two groups of learners, one receiving both meaning and form- focused instruction while the other gets only form-focused one. The former group, the results showed, displayed higher competence both in overall proficiency and in grammar.Similarly, vanPatten and Cadierno(1993) and Spada (1986) found that mat ching form and meaning-based instruction yields beneficial effects in second language acquisition.

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