Applied linguistics: 60th anniversary of AILA

AILA 60th anniversary interviews from Shona Whyte

With the help of Kees De Bot and the ENS Lyon audiovisual team (Justine Lascar and Sofiane Doulfaquar), I recorded a set of interviews with key figures in the history of applied linguistics in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the international association of applied linguistics AILA. This anniversary is shared by the French association for applied linguistics, AFLA, now hosting the AILA Congress 2023 in Lyon.

Watch our thirteen 5-10 minute videos on the AFLA YouTube playlist.

Converging trends? Cultures of teaching and learning in English for Specific Purposes in the UK and France

Converging trends from Shona Whyte

Converging trends? Cultures of teaching and learning in English for Specific Purposes in the UK and France
  
In this talk I examine links between the development of English for specific purposes (ESP) teaching and learning in the UK and in France in the latter part of the twentieth century, a period described by Swales (2013: 137) as a “golden age” for applied linguistics in the British Council which marks the beginning of the history of ESP in its current form (Whyte, 2022). In previous work I have investigated the roots of ESP from a British perspective, showing how the pioneering milestones in our field marked out by figures such as John Swales, Tim Johns, and Tony Dudley-Evans were made possible by groundwork laid in the 1960s by the first British applied linguists. The contributions of linguists like Henry Widdowson, John Munby and David Wilkins also informed the development of general English language teaching, underpinning the introduction of communicative language teaching and the beginnings of the common European framework which is our reference for language teaching and testing today.
 
The evolution of l’anglais de spécialité in France shows some parallels as well as divergent development with respect to dimensions such as the practitioner-theorist divide, links between specialised and generalist teaching and learning, and applied linguistic versus discourse analytical approaches. Similarities and differences on each side of the Channel also emerge with respect to teacher and learner roles, teacher education and teaching materials, and educational culture more broadly. This talk offers a panorama of this shared culture in ESP teaching and learning, drawing on contemporary articles and textbooks as well as retrospective memoirs, highlighting the influence of policy and practice but also unplanned and serendipitous developments, and showing how our common histories continue to play out in ESP today.
 
Swales, J. M. (2013). Incidents in an educational life: A memoir (of sorts). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Whyte, S. (2022). The British Juggernaut: ESP Practice and Purpose in the 1970s. In Smith, R., & Doff, S. (Eds.). Policies and Practice in Language Learning and Teaching: 20^th century historical practices. (pp. 237-260). Amsterdam University Press.

Learner interaction in virtual learning scenarios for primary EFL

This is our EuroCALL 2022 presentation from Friday 19 August: co-authors S Whyte, C Wigham, N Younès and C Redondo.

There’s a 20 minute video here

ESPACE L2: exploring spacing effects in explicit and implicit online learning of L2 English

This is a EuroCALL 2022 presentation by myself with Amanda Edmonds, Katerina Palasis and Emilie Gerbier (BCL, Université Côte d’Azur) on 18 August 2022.

Here is the five-minute pitch:

And the pre-recorded video can be accessed here.

References

Ellis, N. C. (1995). The psychology of foreign language vocabulary acquisition: Implications for CALL. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 8, 103-128.
Gerbier, E. & Toppino, T. C. (2015). The effect of distributed practice: Neuroscience, cognition, and education. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 4, 49-59.
Kang, S. H., Lindsey, R. V., Mozer, M. C., & Pashler, H. (2014). Retrieval practice over the long term: Should spacing be expanding or equal-interval? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21(6), 1544–1550.
Lindsey, R. V., Shroyer, J. D., Pashler, H., & Mozer, M. C. (2014). Improving students’ long-term knowledge retention through personalized review. Psychological Science, 25(3), 639-647.
Nakata, T., & Elgort, I. (2020). Effects of spacing on contextual vocabulary learning: Spacing facilitates the acquisition of explicit, but not tacit, vocabulary knowledge. Second Language Research.
Paribakht, T., & Wesche, M. (1993). The relationship between reading comprehension and second language development in a comprehension-based ESL program. TESL Canada Journal, 11, 9-29.
Rogers, J., & Cheung, A. (2020). Input spacing and the learning of L2 vocabulary in a classroom context. Language Teaching Research, 24(5), 616–641.
Vafaee, P., Suzuki, Y., & Kachisnke, I. (2017). Validating grammaticality judgment tests: Evidence from two new psycholinguistic measures. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 39, 59-95.

Instructed SLA: Long (2017) Part 2

Implicit Learning and Input Enhancement

ELT Research Bites

2018-01-01

The second of two posts on instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) investigates this new subfield at the intersection of second language acquisition (SLA) research and language teaching (Long 2017). In the first post we focused on his definition of ISLA and how it differs from L2 teaching and classroom research. Now we move on to the second part of the article to understand why implicit language learning is favoured by second language researchers and what this might mean for teachers.

A cognitivist-interactionist theory of ISLA

Adults learning an L2 are disadvantaged because a) first language learning has tuned out the capacity we have as newborns to learn any language (i.e., notice all kinds of phonetic contrasts or grammatical features) and b) after age 12, our capacity for implicit learning is much reduced. These factors block L2 users’ capacity to notice L2 features, creating a learning problem.

ISLA research aims to determine what kind of instruction can help. Long assumes three constraints on L2 instruction.

1. Explicit or implicit learning alone is not sufficient: there is too much to learn. EFL learners need to know 9K word families. Class time cannot cover this volume of vocabulary, and for incidental learning via reading a 3 million word corpus would be required, also too time-consuming.
2. Instruction can only affect the linguistic environment, NOT the actual learner. Implicit and incidental learning can occur alongside explicit knowledge gained from intentional learning. It is difficult to know what kind of learning results from instruction, although it is still possible to design tasks to encourage one type or another by focusing on language form or communicative intent.
3. Implicit L2 learning is more important for a functional command of L2 than explicit learning, and some L2 researchers do not believe that explicit knowledge can become implicit (the “non-interface position”). This is still a minority position in language teaching, and perhaps rightly so, since few learners have both time and aptitude for implicit language learning, Long acknowledges.

Long suggests three ways instruction can support L2 acquisition given these constraints. All rely on incidental learning plus one of the following:

1. focus on forms to facilitate noticing Teach grammar explicitly, by traditional presentation-practice-production (PPP), to make learners aware of L2 features.
2. focus on form to facilitate noticing or detection Include brief references to L2 features during communicative teaching to make learners notice, or become conscious of a feature. Later, learners may apply this learning subconsciously, that is, detect or learn from further examples in subsequent input.
3. unintrusive input enhancement to facilitate detection Develop unconscious awareness of L2 cues, or make L2 features salient to learners without explicit noticing, by highlighting important features like verbal morphology with bold or colour, or by associating visual and aural input.

Long argues that Condition 1 is effective only if L2 competence is tested on discrete points and without time pressure. In other words, it doesn’t produce implicit learning, and it disrupts communicative teaching. Condition 2, drawing learners’ attention briefly to particular L2 features during communicative activities, also works. This has the advantage of not sabotaging communicative instruction – see Geoff Jordan and Anthony Schmidt for more on this.

Condition 3 would have even less negative impact on communicative instruction: the goal is to to reset L1 parameters or “unlearn” instincts derived from L1 by focusing on relevant L2 features. Cintrón-Valentín & Ellis (2015) investigated the learning of L2 Latin verbal morphology by L1 English speakers. L1-influenced reliance on adverbial cues blocks learners’ attention to more important verbal morphology. The study found that highlighting morphological cues through colour coding in computer-delivered input increased attention to this salient feature and helped learners’ overcome the adverbial block to improve learning. This suggests more explicit grammar teaching is not necessary.

Condition 3 can also include ways to speed up detection of new forms in input. Malone (2016) investigated incidental vocabulary learning through reading with and without an oral rendition. He found the bi-modal condition (reading and hearing) produced better learning. He suggests teachers recommend learners read along with audiobooks to improve incidental learning. Long claims that basic research has shown that unintrusive input enhancement works, and that controlled laboratory studies should now be undertaken.

An ISLA research agenda

In conclusion, Long rejects explicit grammatical instruction such as Ellis’ hybrid grammatical and task syllabus, or a grammar syllabus supplemented by extensive reading, claiming they lack psycholinguistic coherence. He maintains his preference for incidental learning via a communicative syllabus with opportunities for focus on form, or, better, unintrusive enhancements to allow unconscious re-tuning of attention to L2 features and uptake of new forms.

Long sees a major goal of ISLA research as freeing instruction of unnecessary artificial aids, to identify the least intrusive but still efficient means of achieving instructional goals.

Reaction

I like how this article carves out a space at the intersection of second language acquisition and language teaching research. SLA research is not all relevant to language teaching, since some relates to naturalistic learning, for example, or consists in basic research without direct classroom applications. Similarly, Long shows how not all research in language teaching or L2 classrooms relates to language acquisition or development. This speaks perhaps to some of Geoff Jordan’s concerns about the sociocultural turn in applied linguistics, and to Richard Smith’s points about teacher research: while not denying the interest of this work, Long is clear that a) very specific pedagogical choices are best made by teachers in their own classroom contexts, and b) the context-dependent findings of research into pedagogical procedures “do not qualify as research on ISLA.”

Since the article focuses on research rather than instruction, the arguments are framed around learning rather than teaching, and Long does acknowledge that SLA researchers’ emphasis on “incidental and implicit L2 learning in adults” is “still a minority position in the world of language teaching” (p. 23). He argues that explicit teaching should not take the form of a grammatical syllabus, but rather focus on form, or unintrusive input enhancement. His examples are based on computer-delivered instructional materials, making the teacher at best an instructional designer. Focus on form, however, also concerns teacher behaviour in the classroom, including feedback on errors, for example. There is no mention in this article of how unintrusive input enhancements might be provided and how, or indeed whether, research into this could contribute to ISLA. Thus for the moment, it seems that ISLA remains more focused on learning than teaching, no doubt to the frustration of some readers of ELT Research Bites.

References

Cintrón-Valentín, M. and Ellis, N. (2015) Exploring the interface: explicit focus-on- form instruction and learned attentional biases in L2 Latin. Language Learning 37(2): 197–235. 10.1017/s0272263115000029

Long, M. (2017). Instructed second language acquisition (ISLA): geopolitics, methodological issues, and some major research questions. ISLA, 1(1): 7-44. journals.equinoxpub.com

Malone, J. (2016) Incidental vocabulary learning in SLA: effects of frequency and aural enhancement (Qualifying Paper. PhD in SLA Program). College Park: University of Maryland.

Instructed SLA: Long (2017) Part 1

ELT Research Bites

2017-12-25

Should teacher be consumers or producers of research? Recent months have seen lively debate on the links between research on language learning on one hand, and language teaching on the other:

• Geoff Jordan has argued that the research which informs language teaching should come from cognitive SLA  rather than sociocultural models and critical sociological approaches;
• Henry Widdowson gave a plenary address at the BAAL conference where he suggested applied linguistics research has failed language teachers by defining “competence” in ways which deny language learners’ experience;
• Emma Marsden and Rowena Kasprowicz published an article in the Modern Language Journal showing that British language teachers have little access to research and suggested journals publish “lay summaries;”
• Richard Smith is calling for a “rebalancing” of the teaching/research relationship to address teachers’ priorities by encouraging critical reading of research but also action research by teachers.

There’s certainly disagreement about what counts as research, what its aims should be, and how we should go about conducting studies and sharing results. One paper that tackles these issues is by Mike Long (2017), a leading figure in second language acquisition (SLA) research, which appeared in the first issue of the new, open-access journal Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA).

Long is known especially for his research on cognitivist-interactionist SLA (see Myles), particularly task-based language teaching (TBLT). He has a lot to say directly about pedagogical applications of TBLT (Long 2014) and focus on form (see Ellis 2016 for a review). In this post, however, we consider how ISLA research proposes to bridge the gap between language teaching and second language research.

After defining the field of ISLA, the article argues that geopolitical factors make language learning an important concern for many, and thus increase the need for effective teaching based on SLA (and indeed for better SLA). He reviews some methodological innovations (eye-tracking studies, L2 repositories) and argues for a cognitivist-interactionist view of language learning which prioritises implicit learning .

I’m going to present Long’s arguments in two parts. In this post, we look at his definition of ISLA, showing how it includes some language teaching concerns but not others. We then consider some of the trickier aspects of implicit learning, focus on form, and input enhancement, with examples of recent studies, in a second post. Most of my post is in précis form, that is, using the author’s own words.

Instructed SLA, LT research, and L2 classroom research

For Long, instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) research is not synonymous with language teaching (LT) research or research on L2 classrooms. He sets out the differences with this analogy with biological sciences. Only basic research and controlled studies count as ISLA.

RESEARCH DOMAIN	BASIC RESEARCH	CONTROLLED STUDIES	APPLIED RESEARCH
Biochemistry	nutritional value of vegetables	trial of new food supplements	study of medical practice (how healthcare professionals treat patients)
ISLA	L2 learning which is influenced by teachers, classmates, or pedagogic materials	relationship between types of instruction and language learning outcomes	research on language teaching

ISLA: what it is, and what it’s not*

ISLA involves incidental and intentional, implicit and explicit L2 learning, when learning processes are intended to be influenced by teachers, classmates, or pedagogic materials. ISLA does not include naturalistic learning via exposure (e.g., through residence overseas, study abroad or watching FL movies) or other forms of incidental learning in L2 environment unless instruction is involved.

ISLA research aims to understand how intervention (i.e., teaching) influences naturalistic learning processes via measurable effects on:

1. interlanguage development and the acquisition of form-meaning-function relationships
2. the development of learners’ ability to perform real-world L2 tasks.

Early SLA research assumed the development of learner language (no. 1 above) preceded the ability to function in the new language (no. 2 above), but now the reverse is thought to be true: it is the accomplishment of progressively more complex tasks that drives language learning.

SLA theory as well as empirical findings are used to motivate studies, with the aim of identifying causal relationships between language teaching and learning.

ISLA research differs from L2 classroom research by excluding work on identities, socialisation and acculturation, for example. It also differs from the kind of research which focuses on pedagogical procedures without making a connection with learning outcomes, such as work on teaching styles, use of L1, or learner preferences, all of which tends to be context-dependent. ISLA research operates at the level of cognitive processes and methodological principles which have the potential to be generalisable across teachers, settings, and learner types.

The ultimate purpose of ISLA research is to improve L2 learning or teaching and so some connection with language acquisition is required. Geopolitical factors, including migration, CLIL teaching, and multilingual societies, mean that second and foreign languages have become very important, and these factors have indirectly increased attention to ISLA research and spurred methodological developments, including

1. statistical meta-analyses
2. new technology (eye-tracking, reaction times, EEG, ERP)
3. new instrumentation (e.g. measures of language aptitude)
4. collaboration (repositories like IRIS, replication studies).

Long goes on to argue that SLA researchers agree on the central position of “incidental and implicit L2 learning in adults” but that this is “still a minority position in the world of language teaching” (p. 23). In my next post, I look more closely at implicit learning, including the notions of noticing and detection, and different types of input enhancement or focus on formS.

Ellis, R. (2016). Focus on form: A critical review. Language Teaching Research, 20(3), 405-428.

Long, M. (2014). Second language acquisition and task-based language teaching. Wiley.

Long, M. (2017). Instructed second language acquisition (ISLA): geopolitics, methodological issues, and some major research questions. ISLA, 1(1): 7-44. PDF

Myles, F. (2004?). Second language acquisition (SLA) research: its significance for learning and teaching issues. Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies Guide to Good Practice. Southampton.

*This heading is a nod to one of my first linguistics professors, Harry Gradman, whose 1970 dissertation rejoiced in the title: The contrastive analysis hypothesis: what it is, and what it isn’t.

The dirty dozen: key terms in DDL and SLA

The dirty dozen: bridging gaps between la didactique des langues and second language studies in 12 key terms. Paper presented at AILA international congress, August 2021

This paper takes an epistemological perspective on differences in foreign and second language (L2) teaching research in English and French. L2 studies, long a central subfield of applied linguistics in the English-speaking world, is divided over two distinct domains in French-language research in Europe: a) a psycholinguistic approach to second language acquisition, and b) language didactics, a theoretical approach to how teaching leads to learning. Following the foundation of AILA in 1964, the disciplinarisation and institutionalisation of applied linguistics in the UK and the US was very different from France. Where English-language research since Corder (1967) and Selinker (1972) has concentrated on learner language, particularly as compared to native-speaker competence (Firth & Wagner 1997), French language didacticians have focused on the target language and culture, and on the role of the language teacher (Galisson & Coste 1976). Another point of crystallisation for these opposing research cultures has been the CEFR, which has been resisted by European researchers working in English on psycholinguistic grounds (e.g., Hulstijn 2011), and by French didacticians for pedagogical and perhaps ethical reasons (Huver 2017).

Theoretical and terminological divergences across French and English writing are of course damaging to our collective research enterprise as several numerous recent writers note (Kramsch 2009; Carton, Narcy-Combes & Toffoli, 2015). The time therefore seems ripe to revisit a small collection of key terms in the L2 studies and language didactics literature in French and English which typify differences in research cultures but where intersections in interpretation also exist. For each term, the paper briefly retraces historical differences in French and English usage and shows how recent research suggests ways of bridging the gaps. The paper concludes with implications for future L2 studies/language didactics research but also emerging domains of application such as LSP didactics and higher education pedagogy.

ONELA: French applied linguistics conference

Instrumentation and New Explorations in Applied Linguistics

Conference in Toulouse, October 2021

Plenaries

Watch the recordings:

https://webtv.univ-rouen.fr/channels/#onela2021

Read the abstracts:

Béatrice Daille: TAL et linguistique outillée

François Grin: Naviguer entre les disciplines : l’expérience de l’observatoire économie-langues-formation

Bryan Smith: Technology-enhanced language teaching and learning
in a post-COVID world: Challenges and Opportunities

Languages in higher education teaching

Presentation at ONELA conference on 19 October 2021

La communication médiatisée par les technologies pour l’anglais à l’école primaire

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