ArticlePDF Available

The Language Teaching Puzzle

Authors:

Gregory Scott Child

University of Missouri - St. Louis

Puzzle pieces variations.

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represents the image I have constructed; it is the image that I believe best represents effective foreign language teaching and learning for me. I believe that every teacher is responsible to create the puzzle that best represents his or her teaching style and beliefs. It is important to remember that just as I learned to manipulate the Tangram puzzle pieces, I expect the way I position the puzzle pieces to change as I continue to gain experience.

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My puzzle

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Progressive glossing step 1. The text will appear to students on the screen like this. Italicized words are linked to progressive glosses. For example, the reader might not know the words 'mascota' and click on it. This would open up a pop-up gloss as shown in Figure 5.

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Progressive glossing step 2. The first gloss format presents the target word in

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Figures - uploaded by Gregory Scott Child

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Content uploaded by Gregory Scott Child

Content may be subject to copyright.

Utah State University

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e Language Teaching Puzzle

Gregory S. Child

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The Language Teaching Puzzle

Gregory S. Child

A portfolio submitted in partial fulfillment

Of the requirements for the degree

Master of Second Language Teaching

Approved:

Dr. María Luísa Spicer-Escalante Dr. Karin de Jonge-Kannan

Major Professor Committee Member

Dr. Joshua Thoms Dr. Bradford Hall

Committee Member Department Head

UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY

Logan, Utah

2012

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Abstract

The Language Teaching Puzzle

Gregory S. Child

Master of Second Language Teaching

Utah State University, 2012

Major Professor: María Luísa Spicer-Escalante

Department: Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies

This portfolio is a compilation of beliefs about effective foreign language (FL)

teaching. The core of this portfolio is a teaching philosophy, in which theories, such as

comprehensible input, teacher and student roles, and activities are explained. The teaching

philosophy is accompanied by a reflection of the authors teaching observed from a video.

Following the teaching philosophy and personal teaching reflection are three artifacts

centered on language, culture, and literacy. The language artifact contains an observational

study in which instructors’ practices are compared with their beliefs. The cultural artifact

is focused on storytelling. Many civilizations employ storytelling in the form of oral

traditions to pass on learning. In the artifact, effectiveness of storytelling as an approach to

FL teaching and learning is examined. The literacy artifact is a proposal for a research

study. In the proposal, questions are raised about the effectiveness of computer-aided

support materials offered to students as they navigate various texts. The final sections of

the portfolio contain a “looking forward” section, an annotated bibliography, and

references. [152 Pages]

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. María Luísa Spicer-Escalante, whose enthusiasm for

linguistics and support throughout the program have been inspiring. The direction she

gave was instrumental in the creation of several artifacts in this portfolio. I would also like

to thank Dr. Karin de Jonge-Kannan. Without her support this portfolio would not exist

today. She has also been influential in my decision to pursue a Ph.D. I thank Dr. Joshua

Thoms for opening my eyes to a new aspect of language instruction and learning (i.e.,

CALL). His counsel and support will always be appreciated. I would also like to thank my

colleagues for the time spent discussing the material for each class. Finally I would like to

thank my family for all of the support and encouragement along the way. Especially I

would like to thank my wife Lea, who has been a guiding light to me.

Dedication

I would like to thank my wife, Lea. She was the driving force behind my

completion of this degree. When things got busy and complicated it was she who brought

order to the chaos that I had created. Lea helped me every step of the way. Thank you!

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Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………..……..…….……………………………….….….. iii

Acknowledgments……………………….….….……………………………………….. iv

Dedication……………………………….………..….………………………………….. v

Table of Contents…………………….….……..……………………………………….. vi

List of Figures………………………..…...………...….….……………………………viii

Introduction……………………………………………….….……….………………… 1

Teaching Philosophy

Professional Environment….……………………….….…....…...........….....….…..….… 3

Apprenticeship of Observation……………………….……………...….……….. 4

Personal Teaching Philosophy…………………………………………………... 7

Teaching Reflection…………………………………………….…….…………..29

Observation of Others……………………………….….….…….…….….……..33

Artifacts

The Communicative Classroom: Insights on Perceptions and Practice.…....…... 36

Storytelling in a Foreign Language Classroom ………………………….…..…...60

Progressive Glossing..………....…......…..…………..………….....…..……....…73

Looking Forward………….……….………….………………………………………..…89

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Annotated Bibliography………………………………………………………………... 91

References.………………………………………………………………………………127

Appendices………………………………………………………………………………139

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List of Figures

Figure 1. The seven pieces of my puzzle…..….….…….….………….…………………8

Figure 2. Variation with puzzle pieces ….………..……………….…………………….27

Figure 3. My puzzle…….….……….….....…..…..…..………………………………...28

Figure 4. Progressive glossing step 1…………………….….…..……………………...140

Figure 5. Progressive glossing step 2………………………....…………………………141

Figure 6. Progressive glossing step 3…………………………………….…….….…….142

Figure 7. Progressive glossing step 4……………………………………….…..……….143

Introduction

This portfolio is a demonstration of my professional growth as a Master of Second

Language Teaching (MSLT) student. The focal point of this portfolio is my teaching

philosophy. In my teaching philosophy, I refer to language teaching as a puzzle in which

teaching principles, such as comprehensible input, teacher and student roles in the

classroom, implicit versus explicit learning, and classroom activities are described as the

pieces to my puzzle. However, unlike many puzzles, the pieces that I describe can be

manipulated in many ways to create multiple shapes. Once I was able to identify the shape

I was trying to put together (i.e., the goal of my instruction), the pieces fell into place.

Writing my teaching philosophy was a difficult process. I first approached it as if

there were one right answer, an answer that I was unable to find. It took me a considerable

amount of time to realize that I was looking for what I believe to be effective teaching.

Therefore, within my teaching philosophy, I combine research with my own experiences

to illustrate what I believe effective language teaching to be.

Accompanying my teaching philosophy are three artifacts that support my beliefs.

The first artifact deals with reflecting on practices in the classroom. In this artifact, I

discuss a study which I conducted in which I observed that teachers’ beliefs about

language education do not always match their practices in the classroom. The second

artifact is a proposed study on incidental vocabulary acquisition. I believe that using

computer-aided readings in the classroom can facilitate vocabulary acquisition. In my

final artifact, I examine the effects of using storytelling in the classroom along with a

description of how I would use stories to enhance my teaching.

My time in the MSLT program has been valuable to me. I have learned about

myself, my strengths, and my weaknesses. I have learned about working with others,

specifically that I do not have to have all of the answers and that it is ok to ask for help.

And I have learned about language teaching, much of which challenged what I previously

believed. Within this portfolio are the highlights of what I have accomplished, but what I

have gained from being in this program could easily fill many more pages.

Professional Environment

I hope to be a university teacher of Spanish, working with Spanish classes of all

levels and types, including both heritage and non-heritage Spanish speakers. In addition, I

want to train future language teachers. I have developed a passion for learning and

teaching foreign languages, which I want to use to inspire and encourage new teachers. I

see myself teaching methods and theories of second language acquisition to help future

teachers develop their own applicable teaching philosophies.

I hope to be instrumental in the development of curricula that fill the gaps that

exist between knowledge about language and the teaching of language (Bartels, 2005). I

want to research and contribute to the profession and not merely consume others’

research. I see myself going to different countries and observing how language teaching is

done elsewhere. Gleaning from the best practices of others, I hope to bring back new

insights into how to better our own educational practices. Our profession is a dynamic

one, always evolving, and I see myself actively involved in making it more effective.

To facilitate my goals I will be attending the University of Iowa starting in the fall

of 2012. While at the University of Iowa I will pursue a PhD in foreign language and ESL

instruction. Upon completing my PhD I will then seek a position as a university professor

where I may achieve my goals.

Apprenticeship of Observation

I never imagined I would be a Spanish teacher, or even a fluent Spanish speaker.

While I had always been told that education is an important aspect of life, I never believed

it. But I was fifteen when I first heard this and, while struggling in high school, it was then

that my father gave me her advice. She said, “I don’t care what you do, you can be a

sanitation engineer if you want, as long as you are the best one out there! Which means

you must get educated!” It was after hearing my grandmother’s words that my educational

journey really began; I would venture to say that it is really just beginning to get

interesting.

When I was younger, I struggled in school; all schoolwork was a chore not

willingly undertaken. I did, however, have teachers who found ways to make school

interesting to me. My fifth grade teacher, Miss Dickamore, was one of those teachers. Her

class was fun, because we were always on our feet doing some activity. I can hardly

remember sitting in her class. She had us sit down only so she could explain the next

activity and lay out its parameters. I loved her action-packed curriculum.

After leaving her class and making the dreaded transfer to high school, things

became monotonous and flavorless, that is until Spanish class. Of all the classes I had, I

was most proud that I was enrolled in that one. It was difficult, and I struggled to earn a

‘C’. However, when registration came around for Spanish II, there was no question in my

mind whether I would register for it. This is when the most memorable educational

experience of my life came about: the teacher told me “no.” She said that I struggled too

hard in the class, that I would just fail Spanish II, and that she was helping me to maintain

a relatively decent GPA by not allowing me to fail. I was so mad! The teacher, the person

whom I trusted in the classroom, had just told me that I was not good enough to be given

the chance. Looking back now, I should actually thank her; she helped my grades more

than she knows, for no matter what I did or what class I took I was going to prove her

wrong.

Shortly after graduating from high school, I chose to purse a two-year volunteer

opportunity with my church. I was asked to go to Bolivia and serve among a Spanish-

speaking population. Through immersion and not just memorization, I was able to learn

Spanish. I was in a situation where the goal was communication and not on whether I

could conjugate a verb or not. Being placed in a different situation I was able to succeed

and I think I speak it better than my high school Spanish teacher ever did. When I returned

home I decided that I was going to become a Spanish teacher and help students realize

their goals–be it speaking Spanish or finding academic success–I wanted to be able to tell

my students that taking my class would teach them to communicate. I never want any

student to be told, by a teacher especially, that he or she is not good enough no matter how

dedicated that student may be.

I graduated and found a job as a Spanish high school teacher in Colorado. I arrived

to my classroom abounding with ideas of how I was going to help my students achieve

more than any class before could. However I quickly got stuck juggling my lofty goals

with classroom management and I did not know what to do. As a first-year teacher, I had

worried that I would fail, that students would not learn. So at the beginning of the year I

observed the other Spanish teachers, and like a sponge looking for the “right” way to

teach, I absorbed all that I could. I went back to my classroom with a stack of worksheets

and full of false confidence. I had seen the “success” that worksheets provided my

colleagues and thought that I could copy what I had seen and I would not be a failure as a

teacher. At first, the worksheets seemed to be great; I thought that students were mastering

concepts that before were just out of their grasp. I created an error free environment,

however, I noticed, that I could not get the students to converse with me. I attributed that

to a lack of confidence, the students had not memorized the vocabulary, or they did not

pay attention during class. I placed all of the blame on the students for not being able to

use the language; it was not my teaching. I fell into a pattern of not teaching language use,

but how to succeed on worksheets.

When I noticed what I was teaching the students, and the lack of my ability to

create effective Spanish communicators, I was not happy. I had become the type of

teacher I that I did not like, but I was stuck. I tried to break free and teach Spanish the way

I had intended. I envisioned my students communicating in Spanish by the end of the year,

but I did not know what to change or how to change it. No matter what I tried, the pattern

that I had seen my colleagues use seemed to be the most effective. Lecture, worksheet,

and test–I hated it–I had become a teacher who did not facilitate students’ acquisition of

Spanish.

This brings me to my current endeavors in the Master of Second Language

Teaching program. This time, I am not here to prove my old Spanish teacher wrong, but to

prove that there is a better way of teaching. I believe that every student can learn another

language and should be given that opportunity through effective teaching. And so my

journey continues, every day learning to be better than the last.

Personal Teaching Philosophy

When I was young, I was introduced to a puzzle game called Tangrams. The

objective of this game was to manipulate seven puzzle pieces in order to create different

shapes (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The seven pieces of my puzzle.

I was fascinated with the variety of shapes that can be created by manipulating just seven

pieces. As I gained experience with these puzzles, I began to see different uses for each

piece. I learned that with the majority of the puzzles one could use the pieces in different

ways to produce the same picture, meaning that there was not one correct answer. As I

have developed as a foreign language teacher, I have found many similarities with

language teaching and the Tangram puzzles. Lightbown and Spada (2006) state, “the

complexities of second language acquisition…represent puzzles that scientists will

continue to work on for a long time” (p. 50). As a language educator, I am in an exciting

position as one who is allowed to manipulate the puzzle pieces and create my own shapes.

Learning how to manipulate the Tangram puzzle pieces requires gaining

experience through trial and error. Similarly, much of what I have learned as a language

Teacher"

language"use"

Student"

Language"

use"

Comprehensible"

Input"

Noticing"

Student/"

teacher"

roles"

Anxiety"

Activities"

teacher I have learned through trial and error. As I have manipulated the pieces of the

language teaching puzzle, I have come to believe that certain concepts are essential for

language acquisition. The puzzle I am constructing corresponds to my goal of developing

proficient Spanish speakers, listeners, readers, and writers. Following is a detailed

description of the seven puzzle pieces that I believe are essential in achieving my goals.

My beliefs are grounded in current second language acquisition (SLA) research.

I. Proficiency:

Before one can assemble a puzzle it is helpful to know what the shape or the goal

of the puzzle is (see Appendix A). As my goal is to aid students in developing language

proficiency, it is important to know what language proficiency is. Shrum and Glisan

(2010) define language proficiency as, “the ability to use language to perform global tasks

or language functions within a variety of contexts/content areas, with a given degree of

accuracy” (p. 247). The measurement tool which I use to determine student

proficiency/language accuracy is the proficiency guidelines published by the American

Council of the Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL, 2012). Specific guidelines have

been developed for each of the four language skills areas: reading; writing; speaking; and

listening. With respect to their guidelines, ACTFL cautions that they, “neither describe

how an individual learns a language nor prescribe how an individual should learn a

language, and they should not be used for such purposes. They are an instrument for the

evaluation of functional language ability” (ACTFL, 2012, p. 3). These guidelines are a

measurement tool I use to develop the rubrics I use in my classes. Now that I have

explained my goal as a foreign language instructor, namely proficiency development, I

will examine the specific pieces I need to accomplish my goal.

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II. Teacher Language Use:

Two important pieces to my puzzle are language use by teachers and

comprehensible input. I will begin with input which many researchers have said is

essential for students to acquire a language (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro & Mandell, 2001;

Krashen, 1987; Krashen & Terrell, 2000; Lee & VanPatten, 2003). ACTFL recommends

that the target language be used in the classroom 90% of the time or more (ACTFL, 2010).

Lee and VanPatten (2003) acknowledge that this is a daunting task for beginning and

experienced teachers alike. When I first entered the MSLT program I was given an

opportunity to teach a Spanish I (i.e., first semester) course. The students in my class had a

range of experiences with Spanish; some had taken high school classes while others had

little or no experience at all. I intended to approach this course the same way I had

previously taught my Spanish courses. I intended to lecture on grammar–in English–and

then practice what I had lectured on by giving worksheets and simple activities. Upon

meeting with my new employer, I was informed that our classes were taught completely in

Spanish. I could use five minutes at the end of class to clarify concepts and homework in

English, but only if absolutely necessary. I originally disagreed with this practice; I

thought it would be impossible to accomplish anything if the students could not first be

taught in English. I had previously read theoretical reasoning for using only Spanish in the

classroom, but I had never successfully been able to implement the practice in my

classroom. Because I did not want to lose the job opportunity I had been offered, I did as

was I instructed. To my surprise, students were able to interact with me and their

classmates in Spanish. I observed as the students struggled at first but gradually succeeded

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in conveying meaning to others. I was very impressed, and have adopted the belief that

Spanish must be used in the classroom as frequently as possible.

In support of classroom language use to facilitate language acquisition, it is

necessary to examine the distinction Krashen (1987) made between language acquisition

and language learning. Krashen distinguishes between acquisition and learning by stating

that learning is “conscious knowledge of language” (Krashen, 1987, p. 10). Language

acquisition on the other hand is “a subconscious process; language acquirers are not

usually aware of the fact that they are acquiring language, but are only aware of the fact

that they are using the language for communication” (Krashen, 1987, p. 10). Lee and

VanPatten (2003) expand on the concept of acquisition by stating that language learners

develop an “implicit linguistic system” (p. 15). According to Lee and VanPatten, students

use their implicit linguistic system to determine whether a statement is correct or not in the

target language, although this does not mean that second language learners develop an

implicit system equal to that of native speakers. Lee and VanPatten also recognize that

students who have explicit knowledge about language are able to use that knowledge to

explain why specific language characteristics operate the way they do. Lee and VanPatten

state that language rules are “not the starting point” (p. 16). I believe that, although not the

starting point, there is a time and a place for language rules to be studied.

To further emphasize why grammar should not be the starting point of language

instruction, I refer back to my teaching experiences. As a high school teacher I frequently

lectured on grammar. I quizzed the students on how well they were able to explain

grammatical concepts; rarely did I ask the students to demonstrate the use of grammar. My

students learned the grammatical rules very well and I was proud that they were able to

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describe language features with the details they used. However, I ran into problems when

students had to implement what I had taught them. To my embarrassment, I began to get

frustrated with my students because they could not communicate with me. I had taught

them the rules and it was up to the students to apply what I had taught them. It took me a

long time to learn that students do not use explicit knowledge when they speak (Krashen,

1987; Krashen & Terrell, 2000; Lee & VanPatten, 2003), I had asked students to do

something I had not prepared them for.

Students rely on their implicit system to “create utterances, that is, to speak” (Lee

& VanPatten, 2003, p. 132). Therefore it is essential that language learners be given an

opportunity to develop an implicit linguistic system (Wong & VanPatten, 2003). To

provide this opportunity, it is important that students be exposed to input, which contains,

“many subtle clues about the way language works, and it is only by getting lots of input

that learners can build up an implicit linguistic system” (Lee & Van Patten, 2003, p. 16).

Surrounding students with teacher-supplied input facilitates the creation of their implicit

language system, which is the first piece to my puzzle. I believe that students rely on their

implicit language system when communicating; hence I believe teachers must facilitate

the creation of students’ implicit language systems through appropriate language use. The

first piece of my puzzle is teacher use of the language in the classroom, but without the

second piece of the puzzle the first is rendered useless. The second piece of my puzzle is

comprehensible input.

III. Comprehensible Input:

The quality of input students are exposed to has received a lot of attention from

second language acquisition (SLA) researchers as it is considered by many an essential

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aspect of language acquisition (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001; Krashen,

1987; Krashen, & Terrell, 2000; Lee, & VanPatten, 2003; Littlewood, 1996;). Krashen

(1987) addresses input in the monitor model, stating that in order for students to advance

from one language level to the next, it is essential that they receive comprehensible,

meaningful input with linguistic aspects slightly more advanced than students’ current

language level. Krashen states that, “we acquire by understanding language that contains

structure a bit beyond our current level of competence (i + 1). This is done with the help of

context or extra-linguistic information” (p. 21). Lee and VanPatten (2003) agree that not

only must the language be comprehensible, but it must contain a message to which

students must attend. There are two essential aspects from these definitions: first, in order

for students to advance from one language level to the next, they must be exposed to input

that contains features of the next level. And second, input must be comprehensible and

meaningful, and students must have a reason to pay attention to the input they are exposed

to.

To aid in making input comprehensible, Lee and VanPatten (2003), using a list

developed by Hatch (1983), offer several suggestions: a slower rate of speech, simple and

high frequency vocabulary, simple syntax, repetition, and longer pauses. This is not a

comprehensive list as there are many things that instructors do to make their output

comprehensible. In my classes, I frequently act out what I am saying, draw on the board,

and rephrase words that my students do not understand. Häcker (2008), referring

specifically to vocabulary instruction, states that students are typically exposed only to the

language they are given in class. Unless students find another source of comprehensible

input outside of class, they are limited to what teachers provide. This is why I believe it is

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the responsibility of the teacher to provide comprehensible input to students, as many will

receive comprehensible input only from the teachers.

To ensure that students are given ample opportunity to be surrounded by

comprehensible input, I will primarily use Spanish in the classroom. I have seen the

benefits of conducting my classes using comprehensible input, and the frustrations of not

using comprehensible input, as previously described. Providing comprehensible input was

difficult at first, but students began to interact with me. I was able to give the students

instructions and they were able follow them. I attribute the interaction I had with my

students to the comprehensible input they received. Therefore the second piece to my

puzzle is comprehensible input.

IV. Student Language Use:

As reported by Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, and Mandell (2001), students who take

a foreign language course do so because they wish to communicate fluently and

comfortably in the foreign language. Krashen and Terrell (2000) state that, “spoken

fluency is not taught directly. Rather, the ability to speak fluently and easily in a second

language emerges by itself, after a sufficient amount of competence has been acquired

through input” (p. 20). Todhunter (2007) says that the “development of interactional

competence is promoted by participation in exchanges that are spontaneous, topically

coherent, and extend over multiple turns, which are characteristic of conversations outside

the classroom” (p. 605). Shrum and Glisan (2010) claim that “learners must be active

conversational participants who interact and negotiate with the type of input they receive

in order to acquire language” (p. 21). In other words, to achieve the communication goals

of students (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001), students must not only be

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exposed to comprehensible input, they must also participate in conversations in the L2. To

promote language use by the students, it is important that students are provided with

opportunities and motives for using the language (Long, 1996; Swain, 2005;).

Allwright (1984) called interaction a “fundamental fact of pedagogy” (p. 156 as

cited in Ellis, 1991). When students interact with each other, they help each other acquire

a language. Students support and challenge each other which facilitates language

acquisition. When students help each other to accomplish more than they would be able to

on their own, they experience what Vygotsky (1978) labeled the “zone of proximal

development” (p. 84). While Vygotsky makes reference specifically to advanced students

helping less advanced students, I believe that student interaction fosters the same

experiences as the zone of proximal development. I have observed students who were both

at a lower language level–compared to the entire class–work together to produce

conversations equal to their classmates. Naughton (2006) claims that “learners are seen to

be mutual scaffolders who give and receive support as they interact with their peers” (p.

170). Students learning languages help each other even when there are miscommunication

errors, “requests for clarification (e.g., ‘Pardon’) ‘stretch’ the [learners] by making [them]

clarify what [they] said” (Ellis, 1991, p. 7). Ellis claims, “that the role of input derived

through interaction is primarily that of facilitating the processes of noticing and

comparison” (p. 31). Ellis made reference to the fourth piece of my puzzle which is

noticing.

V. Noticing:

Noticing is a process that happens when students are producing language. When

students are producing language they, “notice that they do not know how to say (or write)

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precisely the meaning they wish to convey” (Swain, 2005, p. 474). In other words, when

students are pushed to use the L2, they often notice what they don’t know and are

presented with an opportunity to discover how to say or write what is meaningful to them.

In discovering how to convey what they wish, students are also presented with

opportunities to acquire new grammatical structures in meaningful contexts. Sousa (2006)

states that when students attach meaning to information the probability increases that the

information will be recalled. Therefore, when students notice they are unable to convey a

particular meaning, and go on to discover how to say what they wish, they will retain what

they have discovered. I believe noticing is important because once students notice what

they need to express, the students make the language important to them.

In my classes I have observed that students retain words they wish to use.

Frequently, I am asked about terms that students use in their everyday conversations, such

as slang terms. From my own observations of my teaching, I have seen that even with the

large quantity of vocabulary to remember throughout a course, students remember the

words and phrases they have asked about. I believe this is because the words that students

wish to learn have meaning for them, as they are words that the students can use on an

everyday basis. Hence, the fourth piece to my puzzle is noticing, which is facilitated

through student use of Spanish.

VI. Classroom roles:

Because interaction between students is essential for language acquisition (Ellis,

1991; Krashen & Terrell, 2000; Shrum & Glisan, 2010; Swain, 2005; Todhunter, 2007),

classes should not be designed with the idea of covering grammatical concepts. Rather,

classes should be designed with the idea that students will exchange information

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(Ballman, Lisking-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001; Lee & VanPatten, 2003). Therefore, the

fifth piece of my puzzle is the roles of the teacher and the students in the classroom. It is

the responsibility of the teacher to become an architect designing the course and activities

to provide ways for the students to construct meaning and exchange information (Lee, &

VanPatten, 2001). According to Brown (2009), students desire to communicate in the

foreign language. When teachers implement activities that require students to exchange

information, teachers are aiding students in achieving their goals.

It is the teacher’s responsibility as the course designer to create an environment in

which students are willing to use the target language (MacIntyre, 2007), afford students

multiple opportunities to communicate, and provide sufficient amounts of comprehensible

input for students to negotiate meaning (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001;

Krashen, 1987; Krashen & Terrell, 2000; Lee & VanPatten, 2003;). Through careful

classroom management and activity design, teachers provide opportunities for students to

use the language.

There is one more skill which I believe is important for foreign language teachers

to develop, that is reflection. Reagan and Osborn (2002) talk about three different

reflection practices: reflection-for-practice; reflection-in-practice; and reflection-on-

practice. Reflection-for-practice and reflection-on-practice refer to the reflection that

needs to happen prior to and after a lesson. Teachers need to be critical about what they

are going to do; a teacher should choose to do an activity not only because it is “fun.”

Rather, teachers need to make sure what they are planning to do has language learning

goals (Reagan & Osborn, 2002). Also, teachers need to reflect on what they have done.

They need to examine the activities they have used and then evaluate if those activities

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have enabled students to meet the goals for the day. Often when reflecting-on-practice,

teachers reflect-for-practice as they are able to see where they would make changes that

would improve future lessons (Reagan & Osborn, 2002).

While reflection-on-practice and reflection-for-practice are important, I consider it

essential that teachers learn how to reflect-in-practice. Reagan and Osborn (2002) state

that, “reflection-in-practice involves the teacher’s ability to utilize unarticulated

knowledge about content, pedagogy, and learners in the classroom context” (p. 23).

Teachers who reflect-in-practice are conscious of their classroom teaching and make

appropriate changes to improve the way they are teaching their students. I believe this is a

vital skill for teachers to master. One of the artifacts in my portfolio deals specifically with

teachers’ perceptions of their own teaching. When writing the artifact, I interviewed

teachers about their teaching and then conducted observations to see how the teachers put

into practice what they said they believed. Not all of the teachers were doing what they

said they believed they were doing. I believe when teachers learn to reflect-in-practice,

they will see where they can better incorporate the teaching strategies they believe are

necessary for effective language education.

In my own teaching, I have had activities that I spent a large amount of time

preparing for. Then, when the students began the activities, it has become evident that the

activities I planned were not working the way that I planned. In these situations it is my

responsibility to adapt to the situation, and make the appropriate changes to my activities.

Reagan and Osborn (2002) say, “It is the ability to engage in reflection-in-practice that, to

a very significant extent, distinguishes the experienced master teacher from the novice” (p.

23). I believe that it is impossible for a teacher to plan perfect lesson plans for every class.

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This does not mean the teacher is a bad teacher, as long as the teacher makes an attempt

during the lesson to improve the activities planned for the students.

Teachers have many responsibilities, but students are the active agents in the

classroom. Using Lee and VanPatten’s (2001) metaphor of the teacher as architect, this

means that students are responsible for carrying out the plans they have been provided

with. Students need to ask and answer questions, take an active part as interlocutors, and

freely join in conversations (Lee & VanPatten, 2001). It is the responsibility of teachers to

assist students but accountability for activity completion and use of the language belongs

to students. Teacher and student responsibilities are one important piece required to

complete my puzzle.

VII. Classroom Activities:

The sixth piece of my puzzle is classroom activities. As previously discussed, it is

the responsibility of students to be active participants in their learning. To facilitate

student participation, it is essential that activities be designed to guide students in the

completion of those activities. When designing activities, it is important to start with a

language goal. Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, and Mandell (2001) state that teachers who

desire to focus on language use in the classroom should use communicative goals with

each lesson, and that communicative goals should be the starting point of each lesson.

Once the goal is decided upon, it is then the responsibility of the teacher to design

activities that lead to accomplishing that goal. Shrum and Glisan (2010), along with others

(Chun, 2001; Chun & Plass, 1996; Gettys, Imhof, & Kautz, 2001), mention various

strategies for lesson planning, dividing them into top-down and bottom-up strategies.

Shrum and Glisan (2010) define a bottom-up strategy as building up to the final goal:

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“students analyze and learn grammar rules and vocabulary, and then later practice using

them in communication” (p. 58). In a classroom where the teacher uses a bottom-up

strategy, the teacher first presents grammar and vocabulary, then the students practice

what they have been taught. The students are expected to transfer the knowledge about

language into their working knowledge of the language. As I have previously discussed,

this is not the most effective way to teach.

The second strategy mentioned is a top-down strategy1. With this strategy,

“learners manipulate language to communicate thoughts using higher-level skills […]

before attending to discrete language structures with the use of lower-level skills” (Shrum

& Glisan, 2010, p. 60). In this type of classroom, the students focus on communication as

it is through communication that students learn grammar and vocabulary. Crawford (2004)

states that the “experience of learning through language is important not just because this

enhances levels of language input but because the very process of learning requires

opportunities to develop negotiation, interpreting, and expressing abilities” (p. 6). When

students use the language, they learn by doing, they no longer think of hypothetical

situations in which the language will be used, but experience situations in which the

language is used.

I believe that a top-down approach is the best approach. When I first began

teaching, I used a bottom-up approach; as previously described, students were not able to

take the knowledge about language and apply it to real-life situations. However, when I

have taught using a top-down approach, I have noticed that students are able to

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21"

communicate in real-life situations. Students practice speaking from the very start which

facilitates transferring what is done in class to real-life situations.

In my classroom I implement a top-down strategy by using task-based activities.

Task-based activities are activities that guide students through a series of tasks that lead to

a communicative goal (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001). Tasks are defined as

“[activities] in which meaning is primary, there is a problem to solve, there is a

relationship to the real-world, and […] there is an objective that can be assessed in terms

of an outcome” (Skehan, 1998, as cited by Huang, 2010, p. 32). Students need to be made

aware of the goals for each activity (Ballman, Lisking-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001). As

students accomplish each task, they progressively arrive at accomplishing the overall goal.

In my own teaching, I have seen how task-based activities foster new skills in

students. In one occasion when my students were learning about directions and addresses,

I used a task-based activity. The first task was an activity that required students to recall

vocabulary and phrases that they had studied on their own. After students reviewed the

vocabulary, they were divided into groups of two and each person in the group was given

a different worksheet with a map. The students were required to ask each other the

location of different buildings from their maps. Together the students were required to

create one map that contained all of the buildings from both maps. This however was not

the final goal.

The final goal for this day was that students would be able to give directions and

describe the city where they attended school. The final task for that day was to describe

where different buildings were located in their city (i.e., grocery store, clothing store,

restaurants, etc.). Because the students were given a set of tasks they could follow,

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students were able to accomplish the larger goal. In one day, students were able to

describe different locations of buildings throughout the city in which they lived, with

minimal help from the instructor. By the end of the first day of a new chapter, students

were able to use the new vocabulary and phrases in real-world contexts. Task-based

activities allow students to be placed in situations where they can use the language to

accomplish a task in the target language. Activity design is the sixth piece to my puzzle,

but it is not the final piece. In order for my puzzle to be complete we must add the seventh

piece; we must take into consideration anxiety.

VIII. Language Anxiety:

The final piece to my puzzle is language anxiety. Krashen (1987) addressed

language anxiety in the monitor model. He labeled anxiety and other affective factors of

language learning the affective filter. Krashen (1987) said the affective filter is composed

of three points: motivation, self-confidence, and anxiety. When I refer to anxiety, I mean

specifically language anxiety. Using MacIntyre’s (2007) definition, language anxiety

“captures the worry and usually negative emotional reaction aroused when learning or

using an L2” (p. 565). Na (2007) conducted a study on language anxiety with high school

students in China who were learning English for academic purposes. Na concluded that

language anxiety can be debilitating for students. When students experience language

anxiety, they are not able to perform to their true abilities.

Frantzen and Magnan’s (2005) conclusions are similar to Na’s (2007). Frantzen

and Magnan conducted a study in which true beginners and false beginners were enrolled

in the same course. The true beginners were anxious about the way they would be

perceived by their classmates who had language experience. The anxiety caused the true

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beginners to participate less in the classroom. Students will elect to save face rather than

speak up and be wrong in front of their classmates (Gregersen, 2003).

Gregersen (2003), commenting on the nature of language anxiety, states that

language anxiety is a cyclical process that students go through. “As errors are made,

learners become more anxious, and the more anxious they are, the more errors they make”

(Gregersen, 2003, p. 29). Anxiety spurs more anxiety. In my own teaching, I have

observed students experiencing what Na (2007) called debilitative language anxiety. I had

a student who appeared to struggle in one of my Spanish classes. Every time I called on

her, she would first be hesitant to speak and then stutter through her response which was

usually incorrect. I thought I was supporting her to help her as she was speaking, but she

started to make more errors and began to wait for my prompt before she would say

anything. I began to observe her more closely during activities to see how I could help her.

When she was working with a partner I would hear her speaking Spanish and would get

closer to determine how well she was using the language. When she became aware that I

was moving closer or that I was listening to her, she began to struggle with the language. I

was perplexed.

In this particular class I had a teacher’s assistant (TA). I asked him to try and listen

to her. My TA reported back to me that the student was participating in the group work as

an equal partner, and that her language use was in his words “really really good.” I

realized that my student was able to speak Spanish well, but when I was near she would

become anxious which had a debilitative effect on her language production.

I believe it is the teacher’s responsibility to create an atmosphere in which students

are not overcome by anxiety. Na (2007) recommends that teachers be trained on more than

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just the material they will be teaching; teachers need to be prepared to address anxiety. In

my classes I will do two things specifically to minimize language anxiety. First I will

place the focus of the classroom on things the students want to speak about. I believe that

having the students converse about topics they choose will help relieve some anxiety. I

want my classroom to focus on language use and not on grammar; I believe if the students

are focused on meaning they will not be as anxious about getting the structure correct. The

second thing I am going to do is have a lot of group work. Students worry about their

social standing (Gregersen, 2003), however, I believe that as students get to know each

other and as they become more comfortable with each other, they will be less anxious to

communicate with and in front of their friends.

Anxiety is the final piece of my puzzle, but nonetheless an important one. I,

myself, suffered greatly from language anxiety. I remember mispronouncing a word when

I was in high school. The way I said the word was actually another word which was very

embarrassing. The teacher told me I was incorrect then proceeded to tell the class what I

had just said. The entire class laughed at my mistake, I was very embarrassed. I remember

going to great lengths to avoid that and other words that I believed sounded like they

could be “bad” words. I also stopped offering answers freely in the class. I believe my

grade suffered because I withdrew from participation in that course. Language anxiety is a

factor in language learning that cannot be avoided by teachers or students. Teachers must

be aware of and account for student anxiety.

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IX. Technology:

Before concluding my teaching philosophy I would like to mention two things

about technology. I have not yet included technology into my puzzle because I have not

yet had enough experience with it for me to formulate any strong opinions as to how to

effectively implement technology in my classroom. However, researchers have identified

two aspects which I will continue to experiment with through my teaching career. The

following is a brief description of two concepts which I believe may be useful in language

teaching.

The first concept is the use of technology to provide students with opportunities to

interact in synthetic immersive environments (Arnold & Ducate, 2011). Synthetic

immersive environments (SIEs) are online environments where people interact with each

other in authentic situations (Sykes, Oskoz & Thorne; 2008). SIEs are intriguing because

students are placed in situations where they must use the target language to accomplish

tasks. The interesting thing about this is that students may use an avatar to interact with

others, which protects students and encourages interaction. One of the reasons that

students do not participate in language classes is because of the fear of failure, but when

students use an avatar it is the avatar that is at risk when students use the language not the

students (Sykes, Oskoz & Thorne; 2008). I would like to continue researching the use of

avatars in a foreign language classroom. Researchers have said that avatars improve

student participation in a foreign language, but I would like to experiment with this

myself.

The second concept is the use of computer assisted glossing. I believe that

students can learn a lot when they are exposed to authentic literature. The problem with

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authentic literature is that it often contains more vocabulary than the students are familiar

with. Therefore, to facilitate student use of authentic texts teachers may use glosses.

Computer assisted glosses provide teachers with a variety of glossing options (Liu & Lin,

2011). I am interested in investigating which type of gloss facilitates both the

comprehension of a text and the acquisition of vocabulary. In my literacy artifact, I

propose a study and provide a gloss type (I labeled this gloss progressive glossing) which I

believe will be effective, unfortunately I have not had the opportunity to implement this

gloss.

These are the two areas in which I would like to continue to study and implement

into my puzzle. I recognize that technology will play an important role in the future of

language education (Thoms, 2012). With more experience I hope to be able to discover

how I can effectively implement technology into my classroom. Until I have that

experience however, I will not include technology into my puzzle.

X. Conclusion:

I have described what I believe good language teaching looks like. Seven aspects

have been discussed as puzzle pieces that fit together to create what I believe are

proficient Spanish speakers. I recognize that there are many ways in which these puzzle

pieces can be put together. I also recognize that there are individuals who would exchange

one piece of my puzzle for another piece that I have not mentioned. One of the joys of the

Tangram puzzle is that with just seven pieces it is possible to create a plethora of images

(Figure 2).

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Figure 2. Puzzle pieces variations.

Figure 3 represents the image I have constructed; it is the image that I believe best

represents effective foreign language teaching and learning for me. I believe that every

teacher is responsible to create the puzzle that best represents his or her teaching style and

beliefs. It is important to remember that just as I learned to manipulate the Tangram

puzzle pieces, I expect the way I position the puzzle pieces to change as I continue to gain

experience.

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Figure 3. My puzzle

Teacher"

language"use"

Comprehensible"

Input"

Student"

Language"

use"

Activities"

Student/"

teacher"

roles"

Anxiety"

Noticing"

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Teaching Reflection

As an assignment in one of my MSLT courses, I had an opportunity to conduct a

small study examining how instructors put into practice what they believe constitutes

effective teaching. In the study, instructors were asked about their teaching philosophies,

and then their answers were compared to classroom observations. By the end of the study,

I came to the realization that teachers do not always implement the instructional strategies

in which they claim to believe. Upon contemplating what I observed, I recorded one of my

Spanish 1010 classes to identify the extent to which I apply my own beliefs. The class

took place on October 17th 2011, the class began at 1:30 p.m. and ended at 2:20 p.m. The

following is a brief comparison of what I believe good teaching should look like with what

I saw myself doing.

The first thing I noticed was the use of the target language. I used the language

95% of the time. The downside to my target language use was that I did not consistently

implement strategies to make my output comprehensible. In retrospect, I believe I focused

most of my time and effort describing what I wanted the students to do, causing me to

overlook how I conveyed my instructions. When I was with individuals, I matched my

language level to their language level which facilitated student interaction with me. When

I addressed the class as a whole, however, my input became less comprehensible for my

students. Since watching this video, I have placed more effort on using comprehensible

input. I believe I am improving yet I occasionally notice that students do not fully

understand what I say. It is essential that I provide appropriate output for my students. A

large portion of my philosophy is dedicated to providing comprehensible output. I believe

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that students must be surrounded by comprehensible language in order to acquire that

language.

The second thing I noticed is that during my task-based activities, the transition

from one task to the next was not done smoothly, meaning that the steps in my activities

were not put together in a logical sequence. I knew what I wanted the students to do and I

saw how each step was connected. However, if I were an outsider looking in, I believe

there would have been confusion. I noticed that several students had to explain to their

classmates what they were supposed to do, signifying to me that they needed more

assistance than what I offered. Some of this might be due to my lack of comprehensible

input.

What I saw that pleased me were interactions between students. Once one of the

students knew how to do what I wanted them to do, that student told another, who in turn

told another until all of the students knew what I wanted them to do. I liked that students

helped each other in this manner helping to understand what was required of them. It

allowed students to take charge of their learning. I was in the classroom to answer

questions but students were in charge, I was merely a facilitator of the activities.

This coincides with my teaching philosophy. As the instructor, I believe I am

responsible to plan activities that allow students to practice and develop language

proficiency. I believe it is the responsibility of students to do the work in the classroom. I

watched students work together to achieve the final goal. I fulfilled my role by offering

support while the students worked to achieve the lesson goals.

The final thing that I observed was a relaxed atmosphere. I believe that providing a

relaxed atmosphere promotes language acquisition. Students did not appear to be

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apprehensive when they interacted with me. I believe that the relaxed atmosphere

diminished potential anxiety towards using the language. What interests me is that while

the students will speak with me one on one, it is more difficult to get the students to speak

in front of the classroom. During the report portion of a task-based activity, students were

not as willing to offer answers to the whole class. I believe this is because of fear; students

did not want to make a mistake in front of their peers. Those who spoke in front of the

class made more mistakes than they would normally make when they spoke one-to-one

with me or a single classmate. In my teaching philosophy, I argue that when students are

placed in a stressful or emotionally taxing situation, there is an adverse affect on their

language production. It is my responsibility to create a relaxed environment, as I believe it

facilitates language production.

Having observed the disparity between my teaching practices and my beliefs has

caused me to set goals. First, I am going to start to include notes on my lessons to remind

myself that I need to use comprehensible input. I know that there are occasions when what

I say is not understood by a large number of students. I am going to focus on providing

more comprehensible input. The second change I am going to make is better design the

structure of my task-based activities. I am going to implement backwards planning with

each activity as I believe it will allow me to create smoother transitions between activities.

I believe that task-based activities allow students to achieve more in the target language. I

am going to focus on better structuring task-based activities to allow students to maximize

the greatest gain from each activity. Finally, I am going to have more paired and whole-

class activities. I believe that, as students get to know each other better, they will be less

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inhibited when it comes to language production in the classroom. The more a student uses

the language, the more the student will acquire the language.

It has been interesting to observe my own teaching and the extent to which I

applied what I believe. What I thought I was doing is not the same as what I saw myself

doing. I believe that watching myself teach has been beneficial. I have been able to set

goals that will help me become a better teacher. In the future I hope to have additional

opportunities to observe myself teach. This will help me set professional goals and

measure my progress in achieving them.

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Observation of Others

Throughout my career as a Spanish teacher I have had opportunities to observe

other teachers and glean from their practices new ideas for my own teaching. Several of

the new ideas are related to classroom procedures while others are centered on practices

which I have or will incorporate into my classroom. The first set of observations comes

from opportunities I have had to observe my coworkers at Utah State University, each of

those observations took place in either Spanish 1010 or 1020 courses. The second set of

observations was conducted during a summer English program entitled Global Academy.

The following is a brief description of several of my observations.

The first thing I noticed during my observations of the Spanish courses was the

examples the teacher provided her students. All of the examples were about her personal

life, including pictures or the places she had visited. When the teacher progressed from

one slide to the next there was an explanation of each picture which did not always

correlate with what the class was focused on. Some of the students enjoyed the pictures

and stories, but others appeared to be bored and disinterested in the stories and pictures.

This made me reexamine some of the pictures and examples I use. I think that teachers

need to be careful with the examples they use, it is fun to share stories from one’s past but

it is possible to share too much and lose focus.

The second observation deals with student feedback. I observed a teacher who

constantly gave very detailed and extensive feedback to her students. At times she would

even complete the task or assignment for the students as a way of answering the student’s

questions. The teacher claimed that her students were able to outperform any of the

previous classes she had taught. When I had an opportunity to interact with her student

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however, I found that they were unable to use many of the concepts that she had helped

them with. I learned that it is more important to provide support for students in order to

allow them to arrive at the answer than to give them the answers.

The next change I made from my observations is the way in which I take

attendance. Previously I had called attendance every day to ensure that I had an accurate

role. However, after observing a university Spanish class I have amended my practices.

The observed teacher placed a role on a table, as the students entered the room they were

responsible to mark that they were present. The teacher reported that attendance is a large

portion of the students’ grade, therefore students should be responsible for it. I agree with

the idea the students need to be responsible for their grade, this is a way of allowing

students to be responsible for something as simple as attendance.

The first thing I learned from observing the English teachers was how to

effectively use technology in the classroom. On one occasion I was observing a classroom

designated as low proficiency. The first thing the teacher did when he arrived in the

classroom was open a word document, then using a projector he typed the key words from

his speech for students to read. This was brilliant; the teacher was able to facilitate student

comprehension of spoken instructions by scaffolding with written text. This is a practice I

have not yet implemented in my classroom but this is something that I am excited to use

this in future classes.

The second observation was from a content based English course. The lesson was

on agriculture, specifically irrigation. The teacher presented the concepts of furrows,

which students did not understand. At first the teacher tired to draw an example of a

furrow on the whiteboard, but this only caused more confusion. The teacher then decided

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to use the computer and find a picture on the internet and show the students what a furrow

was. Once the students saw a furrow many realized what the teacher was talking about,

some of the students appeared to know what a furrow was. This is a practice I use when I

am conversing in Spanish with my students. I have found that showing the students what I

mean circumvents the need to translate words for my students.

The final observations I would like to mention I saw in an English reading class.

Prior to assigning a reading the teacher went through and identified what she considered to

be difficult words. The teacher then wrote each of those words on the board and taught

them before the students began reading, however the teacher did not teach the vocabulary

she co-constructed meaning with her students. Occasionally she would write on the board

the meaning that was co-constructed with the students. The students were able to refer to

the pre-taught words while they read the text they were provided with. I believe that co-

constructing vocabulary meaning will facilitate retention of new vocabulary. This is a

practice that I am excited to implement into my classroom.

These are several practices that have learned through observation. I am excited to

implement some of them into my current teaching, the practices that I have implemented I

have been happy with. Upon reflecting on my observations of other teachers I realized that

there is a lot that can be learned by observing how others teach. It is my hope that through

observation of other teachers that I may glean from their best practices and become a

better teacher.

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The Communicative Classroom: Insights on Perceptions and Practice

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Introduction

This paper was written for Dr. María Luísa Spicer-Escalante in the Linguistics

6800 course. I originally wrote this paper with a partner, Dora Brunson. In preparing this

paper for my portfolio I have made substantial changes to what was originally written. I

chose to include this paper in my portfolio because of the effect it has had on my teaching.

Through observations and semi-structured interviews, I examined how two foreign

language teachers applied their beliefs about effective language teaching in their

classrooms. During the interviews, they were asked about effective teaching practices.

Both teachers described what they believe effective teaching is and how they apply their

beliefs in their classrooms. When the teachers were observed however, I noted that the

manner in which the teachers applied their beliefs in the classroom did not match the

teachers’ descriptions. I noted that the teachers appeared to be unaware of these

discrepancies. From this observation I learned the importance of reflecting upon my

lessons, students, and self within the classroom.

I may one day find a teaching approach or strategy that provides many benefits for

students. However, if I am unable to apply that approach or strategy in my classroom, then

students may not receive those benefits. Reflecting upon my practice is essential if I am

going to improve my teaching. Within the last year I have placed greater effort on

reflecting upon and evaluating my teaching practices.

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The Communicative Classroom: Insights on Perceptions and Practice

I. Introduction:

Perceptions and reality often do not match; often instructors believe that they are

performing one way when in reality they are not. The same can be said about the

application of second language acquisition (SLA) research to classroom practices.

Teachers perceive themselves to be teaching according to guidelines of specific

researchers, in this case a communicative approach (CA), when in reality their classroom

practices do not match what the researchers define as a CA, nor does it match what the

instructors themselves define as a CA. The research questions addressed in this study are

the following: 1) how do the perceptions match the practices of foreign language teachers?

and 2) do those perceptions and practices match current SLA theory? Because of the

complexity of the questions, three specific aspects of CA will be examined: 1) target

language use, 2) student-centered activities, and 3) task-based instruction.

II. Literature Review:

a. Target Language:

Target language (TL) use, by instructors and students alike, is crucial for the

acquisition of foreign languages (ACTFL, 2010; Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell,

2001; Bateman, 2008; Brown, 2009; Lee & Van Patten, 2003;). In line with SLA research,

the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) has produced a set

of guidelines recommending that “language educators and their students use the target

languages as exclusively as possible (90% plus) at all levels of instruction during

instructional time and, when feasible, beyond the classroom” (ACTFL, 2010). When

teachers and students use the TL, students are provided with invaluable benefits. First, it

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creates an atmosphere in which the students must pay attention to and negotiate meaning

(Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro & Mandell, 2001; Lee & VanPatten, 2003).Second, student

participation will be in the TL which facilitates language acquisition (Swain & Lapkin,

1995).

However, TL use by itself is not enough; students need to be able to negotiate

meaning through the language used. Negotiation of meaning refers to processes followed

by learners to establish comprehension of the message conveyed to them by the input

given (Lee & VanPatten, 2003). To facilitate negotiation, it is the responsibility of the

instructor to provide adequate input. Input as defined by Lee and VanPatten (2003) is:

Language embedded in some kind of communicative interchange no matter how

trivial or how important. The role of the learner is to attend to the meaning in order

to respond to the content or perform a task. Embedded in input are many subtle

clues about the way language works, and it is only by getting lots of input that

learners can build up an implicit linguistic system (p. 16).

Hatch (1983, as cited by Lee & VanPatten, 2003) asserts that good input consists of input

that is meaning-bearing and comprehensible. Meaning-bearing input is input that carries a

message of value to the learner (Lee & VanPatten, 2003). Input is made comprehensible

through the use of a slower rate of speech, high-frequency vocabulary, simple syntax,

repetition, and longer pauses. Comprehensible input provides vast resources which in turn

assist students in the acquisition of a language.

Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro and Mandell (2001) state, that language that is not

simplified requires much more effort on the students’ part to be useful for acquisition.

VanPatten (1996, as quoted by Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001, p. 65) labels

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students “limited capacity processors,” meaning that students are unable to focus on

multiple aspects of language at once. However, languages are complex systems that

require students to focus on many aspects of each word, “how it sounds, how it is

pronounced, how it modifies other words, how it can be modified, what it means, and

where it can appear in a sentence” (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, p. 65). If

students are required to spread their focus among several different language features, their

attention will be divided, limiting students’ ability to negotiate meaning (Ballman, Liskin-

Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001; Crawford, 2004). It is therefore important that teachers

simplify their output, allowing students to focus on the meaning of the words and

sentences and not on the form.

It is also argued that students involved in immersion programs, where they are

surrounded by meaningful input, acquire the language with greater ease (Rifkin, 2005).

However, this does not necessarily mean that an immersion program must be located in a

county where the TL is commonly spoken. Through consistent use of the TL, instructors

can create an immersion-like environment that facilitates language acquisition(Anthony

Brown, 2009). Instructors should create environments in which students are able to step

into a role, such as that of a school teacher or a shop keeper or any other situation that

would allow learners to interact in ways that native TL speakers interact in the real world

(Coleman & Klapper, 2005; Littlewood, 1996).

b. Task-Based Activities:

Much like an immersive experience, activity design can facilitate language

acquisition (Anthony Brown, 2009; Willis & Willis, 2007). When students participate in

well-structured activities, students improve their language skills, allowing them to

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accomplish more in the TL. Effective activities such as task-based activities (TBA) can

provide appropriate structure to expand students’ skills. TBA are activities composed of

multiple tasks. Researchers define tasks as “[activities] in which meaning is primary, there

is a problem to solve, there is a relationship to the real-world, and … there is an objective

that can be assessed in terms of an outcome” (Skehan, 1998, as cited by Huang, 2010, p.

32). According to Skehan (1998, as cited by Nunan, 2004), tasks have five characteristics:

first, meaning is primary. Second, learners are not to recite memorized phrases created by

others; they need to create their own meaningful output (Long, 1996; Swain, 2005). Third,

tasks must have a connection to the real-world. Fourth, completion of a task must be a

priority. And fifth, assessment of the task is accomplished by looking at the outcomes of

the task. Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro and Mandell (2001) provide a series of characteristics

similar to Skehan’s. One major difference is the inclusion that teachers must guide

participants through a series of predetermined steps which lead to a communicative goal,

meaning tasks should be organized in steps leading to the tasks’ completion (Ballman,

Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001). Language instructors assign tasks to slowly expand

upon the students’ language skills until the students are able to perform tasks that they

would not have been able to accomplish without the structure of a TBA. Task design is

key. The purpose of each activity needs to be made clear to students, as does a specific

time limit to accomplish each step of a task (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001).

It is important that each portion of the activity require meaningful exchange of

information between students. Students must have a reason for seeking information from

their partners (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001).

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Effectively designed TBA allow students to accomplish tasks with minimal

dependence on the instructor. “Task-based instruction is learner-centered in that successful

completion of a task is only possible as a result of student-to student interaction”

(Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001, p. 76). TBA force students to use the TL to

communicate. Savignon (1983, as cited by Lee and Van Patten 2003) states that, “those

students who [have] been given the opportunity to use their linguistic knowledge for real

communication [are] able to speak [the TL]. The others [are] not” (Ballman, Liskin-

Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001, p. 50). Students are able to expand their language skills once

tasks are broken into manageable sections. Use of TBA provides opportunities for students

to see that they are able to break down large tasks and accomplish them. The goal of

communicative language teaching is, “to teach students to express themselves, understand

others, and to request clarification or express lack of comprehension to others all in [the

TL]” (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001, p. 62). Teachers using TBA provide

opportunities for students to interact in the TL in real-world situations, which achieves the

goal of communicative teaching.

In my own teaching with TBA, I have observed students accomplish tasks that are

above their language level. For example, when students were presented with a topic that

related to university studies, I set a goal that students would be able to converse about

their university class schedules. At that point in the course, students had just learned how

to describe objects. On the first day of with this new topic, I told the students that by the

end of the day they would be able to interview another classmate and identify what time,

where, and which classes he or she was taking. The students expressed their concern about

accomplishing this task as they had only been in the class for approximately five weeks.

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The first task required students to identify college courses offered at their university. The

second task was to identify the courses they were taking and to write them down in a

schedule. The students had been exposed to Spanish question words previously, but in

order to assure that students would be able to complete the task, question models were

provided. Students then found a classmate and began to ask questions about their class

schedules. The questions and answers were simple; nevertheless students were able to

accomplish the task. I observed how TBA facilitated student interaction in the TL. My

students were able to accomplish a real-world task having only mastered basic descriptive

skills in the TL.

c. Student-Centered Activities:

To facilitate language acquisition, it is important that teachers place the focus on

topics that interest students, which they know about and want to talk about. This is part of

a student-centered classroom (Lee & VanPatten, 2003). By contrast, teachers who use a

teacher-centered approach view instruction as passing information and skills to their

students. In a teacher-centered classroom, students are “receptive vessels” (Lee &

VanPatten, 2001, p. 6), their role, “is to watch, listen, write down, and understand”

(Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandel, 2001, p. 7). Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, and

Mandell (2001) relate this to Reddy’s “conduit metaphor” which, “implies that knowledge

can be transmitted from one person to another like a platter of food being passed at the

dinner table” (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001, p. 6). The burden of learning

is placed on the teacher and how well the teacher can explain the information (Ballman,

Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandel, 2001).

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In contrast to a teacher-centered classroom is a student-centered classroom. In

student-centered classrooms, the responsibility of acquiring language belongs to the

students. The instructor provides an environment of support and opportunities that aid in

language acquisition. “Students [should] use all of the resources at their disposal, both

internal and external, to create and express meaning” (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, &

Mandell, 2001, p. 8). This relates to instructors’ responsibilities as defined by current SLA

researchers: facilitating and planning student learning. It is the teacher who designs the

coursework but the students who do it (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001; Lee

& VanPatten, 2003; Littlewood, 1996; Sung, 2010).

Sung (2010) states that implementing student-centered activities produces positive

reactions from students. Students believe that activities focused on them are fun.

According to Sung (2010), student-centered activities provide opportunities for students to

express their individual personalities, promoting real-world communication. Utilization of

student-centered activities hence promotes TL use and acquisition.

In a study by Lee (2000, as cited by Lee and VanPatten, 2001), it was observed

that student-centered classroom activities engaged the entire class. Lee compared teacher-

led discussions and activities to student-led discussions and activities that took place in

small groups. Students who participated in student-led discussion and group work were

able to, “[recall] almost twice as many ideas as did those who participated in the [teacher-

led] discussion. The finding was true immediately after the learners did the discussion or

activity and one week later” (Lee & VanPatten, 2003, p. 58). Lee concluded that teacher-

centered activities allowed only the students called upon to participate, leaving the

majority of the students without practice. However, students in student-centered

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classrooms not only use the TL but have higher retention rates of the material covered in

class.

III. Method:

As indicated above, there are numerous benefits provided by TL use,

implementation of TBA, and a student-centered classroom. This study therefore examines

how teachers’ perceptions of foreign language teaching match their practice in the

classroom, and if their perceptions and practices are in accord with current SLA research.

The research questions addressed are: 1) What do teachers believe about TL use and how

do they apply what they believe in their classrooms? 2) What do teachers believe about

activity design, and how do they apply their beliefs about activity design in everyday

classroom activities? and 3) What do teachers believe about student-centered activities and

how do they apply their beliefs about student-centered activities in their classrooms? This

study was conducted at a large university in Utah. The following is a report based on six

in-class observations and a series of four in-person interviews of two female language

teachers; one who taught Chinese and the other who taught Spanish. The observations

were conducted in classrooms and followed by interviews outside the classroom. The

Chinese observations were conducted in two classes—levels one and two—and were

taught by the same teacher. The Spanish observations were carried out in a level one class.

Both teachers were asked the same set of questions, topics covered in the interviews were

teaching materials, teacher and students roles in the classroom, communicative language

teaching, and activities in the classroom (For a list of the questions see Appendix A); the

teachers were encouraged to expand on their answers as they saw fit. The interviews were

recorded and transcribed. Bartels (2005) mentions that observations are effective in

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determining how teachers apply their knowledge about teaching in their classrooms.

Bartels emphasizes the importance of interviews, which allow teachers to explain why

they do what they do, providing the interviewer with explicit information about beliefs

and attitudes towards specific concepts. The goal of this study is to compare perceptions

and practices of the communicative approach, hence these two data collection techniques

were considered the best approach for attaining the desired information.

IV. Results:

After the interviews, the instructors’ stated beliefs were compared with their

teaching approaches. Both instructors articulated what they believe about TL use, TBA,

and student-centered activities. However, one of the teachers supplied definitions that did

not match how the concepts were applied in her classroom.

a. Target Language:

Both instructors were asked how they used the TL in the classroom. The Chinese

teacher explained that it is very important that the TL be used in the classroom. Using the

TL achieves what she has declared as an aspect of her teaching philosophy, “[helping]

students achieve their communicative [competencies]; the four skills (reading, writing,

listening, and speaking).” She continued, “depending on [students’] current levels, my

goal is to help students to reach i + 1, to help students achieve the next level of language

learning.” The Chinese teacher believed that using the TL will develop the students’ TL

abilities.

From the observations it was determined that the TL was used in the Chinese

classrooms 60% to 70% of the time in the first-year class; the language was used in

student-to-student and teacher-to-student conversations. In the level two class, the TL was

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used 95% of the time, which exceeds the 90% recommendation from ACTFL (2010). The

interactions in the level two class consisted mostly of student-to-student interactions; the

activities the students participated in fostered the use of the TL. The use of the TL in the

Chinese classes reflected the belief of the teacher. The teacher, when speaking about

student-centered activities, mentioned that a student-centered classroom includes using the

TL as frequently as possible.

The Spanish instructor, when asked about TL use, responded that using the TL is

requisite if one is to acquire a second language. The Spanish instructor emphasized the

importance of the TL several times during the interview. When talking about classroom

roles, she mentioned that it is the responsibility of teachers to create opportunities for

students to use the TL. However, the observations of the Spanish classroom demonstrated

that what happed in the Spanish classroom did not match the teacher’s responses.

The Spanish instructor used the TL 85% to 90% of the time with all students,

nevertheless when interacting with each other, the students did not use the TL with the

same frequency (the percentages of language use were generated from the classroom

observations). From the observations it was estimated that student-to-student interactions

occurred 15% to 20% of the time in the TL. According to the interview, the Spanish

teacher believed that the TL was being used appropriately and frequently by all students.

However, while the teacher used the TL with high frequency, the students did not.

One of the reasons that students may not have used the TL in class is due to the

lack of comprehensible input. The teacher did many things to be understood, yet not

everything she did falls under the umbrella of best practices (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro &

Mandell, 2001). The instructor frequently used Total Physical Response (TPR), and

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scaffolded output – often the scaffolding was in English – yet students appeared unable to

negotiate meaning. Scaffolding is “providing temporary contextual supports for meaning,

including modeling, visuals, and hands-on experiences” (O’Malley & Pierce, 1996, p. 28).

When employing difficult lexical variations, the teacher only simplified output when

interacting with individual students. When addressing the entire class, the instructor spoke

as if she were speaking to more experienced TL users. Often the instructor spoke faster

than the students were able to process. Whether the teacher was aware of her output is

unclear; there were several instances when the teacher said something, then sighed when

realizing what she said was not understood. When the teacher noticed that what she had

said was not understood, she rephrased and repeated what was said, employing the

mentioned characteristics of comprehensible input (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, and

Mandell, 2001). The teacher did this only when a misunderstanding was noticed, normally

the teacher addressed the students as advanced TL users.

The Spanish teacher believed that the TL was being used by all students in the

classroom. It was observed that as the teacher moved throughout the room, the TL

followed; when the teacher was close to a particular set of students, those students

frequently used the TL. As the teacher got farther away, the amount of TL used by those

students began to decrease. Because of this phenomenon, it is possible that the instructor

believed that all the students were using the TL, contributing to her belief that the

frequency of TL use was high.

However, the Spanish teacher was not altogether unaware that the students were

unable to negotiate meaning. In her interview the Spanish teacher spoke about motivation,

linking TL use with motivation levels of students. The teacher stated that students, when

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able to operate in the TL, are more motivated to study the TL. It is when they come to a

foreign language classroom and cannot negotiate meaning that students become frustrated.

It is with the lower-motivated students that the instructor stated, “maybe it is the target

language [that prevents students from being motivated], maybe I have to say it slower and

it seems like you have to repeat it and do more.” The teacher recognized what she could

do to improve student motivation; however, she did not connect these practices with

providing comprehensible input for the whole class, nor did she provide opportunities for

them to practice and to use the TL in a meaningful way.

Both teachers valued using the TL with high frequency in the classroom, and both

teachers used the TL in the classroom with high frequency. The difference is that the

Chinese instructor used the language that students could negotiate and provided

opportunities for students to interact in the TL with each other. The Spanish teacher on the

other hand provided some scaffolding, but mainly when she noticed that the students were

unable to understand her. Students in the Spanish classroom were not surrounded by

comprehensible input, which if properly used would allow students to acquire the

language more effectively (ACTFL, 2010; Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001;

Bateman, 2008; Brown, 2009; Lee & Van Patten, 2003).

b. Task Based Activities:

Both teachers were asked about activity design, specifically TBA. The Spanish

teacher was able to describe what makes a TBA and even gave examples of how teachers

could structure TBA. She described the importance of taking the final communicative goal

and breaking it down into steps that facilitate that goal’s completion. During the

observations, the Spanish instructor used TBA. The activity was centered on a worksheet.

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Students used demonstrative adjectives to label vocabulary terms and identify their

location on the worksheet. The activity was divided into two steps. In the first step,

students wrote the vocabulary terms wherever they wanted on the worksheet. In the

second step, the students asked each other questions using prepositional phrases and

demonstrative adjectives; their goal was to create a worksheet identical to their partner’s

based on the questions and answers. The teacher modeled the second step with a teaching

assistant, the students then followed the model. The teacher made the activity successful in

regards to the day’s objectives, but the students appeared to struggle between step one and

step two. It appeared that while the tasks were equal in their degree of difficulty, they did

not build on each other. Students could not complete the second step without having

completed the first; however, doing the worksheet did not seem to help much with the

conversations that students were asked to have. In fact, students began to memorize the

question and answer forms that allowed them to complete the required work. While the

teacher believed this activity to be task-based, according to her own description of TBA,

the activity cannot be classified as such. The two steps were only slightly related.

Moreover, it was noted that there was no communicative objective to this activity.

The students were not interacting in a meaningful way; their goal was to complete an

assignment. The activities’ goals that were implicitly conveyed to students were strictly

grammatical. The teacher may have had a communicative goal, but it was not made

explicit to the students. Because students want to know why they are doing the things they

are asked to do, teachers needs to provide that information. Students must know how to

apply what they are learning in real-world contexts (Brown, 2009). Students need to know

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the goals for an activity to know when they have successfully accomplished what is being

asked (Willis & Willis, 2007).

When asked about TBA, the Chinese teacher stated that these activities are a key

element of communicative language teaching. The teacher then mentioned an article

written by Sung (2010) entitled Promoting Communicative Language Learning through

Communicative Task and indicated that her goals matched those stated in the article;

“[her] goals for the communicative task include developing human relations through the

exchange of information, thoughts and feelings, and completing an action” (Sung, 2010, p.

705). Furthermore, “Activities are what learners are expected to do with the input for the

task. Three characteristics are emphasized for activities in a communicative task. First, the

activities must be authentic in terms of reflecting real-world tasks. Second, the activities

should stimulate learners to apply newly acquired linguistic knowledge to real

communication. Finally, the activities are designed to help develop the accuracy and

fluency of learners’ target language” (Sung, 2010, p. 706).

In the Chinese classrooms, TBA were frequently used. The teacher gave the

students in the second-year class an article to read. The students then formed groups and

began to read aloud in the TL. In the same groups, students discussed the content and how

it related to their everyday lives; their goal was to discuss their views on vegetarianism.

They expressed opinions, and had the opportunity to defend their individual beliefs based

on content from the article and personal opinions. In the third observation, the students’

focus was on introducing significant others to their family. The teacher taught a new set of

vocabulary that would aid in the students’ success of the cumulative goal. Students were

then asked to write a story using the new vocabulary. After having written the stories,

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students were asked to role play what they had created in front of the class. The students

were able to choose how to address this situation, and using new material, created

authentic stories that were shared with the class through role play.

c. Student Centered Classroom:

When asked about their role in the classroom, both teachers stated that teachers

need to be facilitators of learning, architects who design activities with students doing the

work, which follows closely with what SLA researchers have said (Ballman, Liskin-

Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001; Lee & Van Patten, 2003; Littlewood, 1996; Sung, 2010).

However, the application of this idea was different for both teachers. The Chinese teacher

achieved a student-centered classroom, but the Spanish teacher, believing her focus was

on the students, appeared to have done most of the work.

When the TL was used, as mentioned above, it was observed that the Chinese

teacher focused language use and classroom activities on students’ everyday lives.

Students were not given many constraints on their choice of topics; activity guidelines

were made clear and students were allowed to create meaning according to their own

interests. The Spanish class on the other hand had many constraints; the Spanish teacher

gave the students specific objectives that were to be met through each activity. The

conversations and the interactions did not allow students to create their own meaningful

output or develop their own ideas. The Spanish teacher was specifically asked about the

activities used. She said that the course was designed by a different person, and, when that

person designed the course, the only directive had been to follow the textbook. In order for

the teacher to meet pre-assigned benchmarks, activities that she did not fully agree with

were used.

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In both classes, the cumulative goals of each activity were not made explicit, yet in

conversing with the teachers it became clear that they had goals for each activity. The

Chinese teacher mentioned to the students how the activities they were doing were

applicable to real-world situations, but did not convey a specific goal for the activities in

the classroom. The Spanish teacher knew what she wanted the students to accomplish, but

failed to express any real-world application of the materials covered in class. The goals of

the Spanish teacher were however expressed in her interview, along with ways in which

the students would be able to use what they had practiced in real-world situations. The

teacher had goals, but those goals were not made known to the students.

A student-centered class will foster student-to-student interactions. In the Chinese

class, the students were actively participating in meaningful conversations for a large

portion of class time. The Spanish class spent almost the same amount of time in different

activities; however the language was not used for meaningful purposes. Activities in the

Chinese classroom focused on students’ personal interest; as most of the students are

young, single adults in Utah topics such as dating, careers, marriage, family, school, and

even religion dominated conversational themes as decided upon by the students. In the

Spanish classroom, activities were focused on practicing new vocabulary and grammatical

concepts. Students were given limited opportunities to create meaningful output that they

would use in real-world contexts.

Activities observed in the Spanish classroom were designed to practice specific

grammatical concepts that were being studied. There was limited freedom to create

meaningful output. While students were not required to memorize scripts, they were

nevertheless required to employ specific forms to achieve success in each activity, which

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caused several students to memorize and recite one or two question and answer forms.

Katz and Watzinger-Tharp mention that, “the focus on form approach attempts to create

ideal conditions for grammar learning by drawing students’ attention to a linguistic form

in a real communicative context” (Katz & Watzinger-Tharp, 2009, p.8). This statement

accurately reflects what the Spanish teacher believed. The teacher said, “I really like [the

students] practicing the grammar in the activities and not necessarily the grammar

principle. I want them to practice the grammar not focus on the grammar. I want them to

use the concept in the activity without the grammar looking over them the whole time.”

The activities used in the classroom, however, reflected a focus on grammar approach.

These activities did not permit the students to create meaningful output.

In a student-centered classroom, grammar instruction is not the focus but a

byproduct. Katz and Watzinger-Tharp (2009) claim:

Students who engage in communication invariably experience moments when they

need a particular form or construction to express their message. The teachable

moment arises whenever a student realizes the gap between his or her

communicative need and his or her limited linguistic repertoire. It is at the ‘ah ha’

moment that a linguistic form becomes cognitively salient (p. 8).

Grammar is not the focus, but when the students notice a gap between what they are able

to do and what they need or want to do, teachers are there to support students by offering

the required grammatical instruction. Student-centered courses are not designed around

grammatical principles; they are designed around communicative activities that focus on

students. This is what was observed in the Chinese classroom; students were allowed to

choose their topics and the teacher then constructed communicative activities around what

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the students had chosen. When the need for help arose, the teacher was there to correct and

help the students. The Chinese teacher did not focus on grammatical structure; the focus

was on student participation in activities. The teacher was there as a resource and a

facilitator to help students succeed (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001; Katz &

Watzinger-Tharp, 2009).

V. Discussion:

It has been shown that although teachers believe they are using communicative

practices, their teaching practices may not match their beliefs. The ability and willingness

to apply what one knows about SLA play a critical role in the way classes are conducted.

Teachers need to evaluate their practices to determine if the activities and practices used

are meaningful to students, and that the teachers’ beliefs are accurately portrayed. The

ultimate goal is that teachers apply theory to practice, as they foster in students the ability

to speak the language with confidence (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001)..

The observed teachers both used their TL in the classroom; both stated that it was

important for SLA. However the Chinese teacher used the language in effective ways. The

teacher used the TL in a manner that required her students to listen in order to obtain a

message. According to SLA researchers, using the TL for meaning-bearing exchanges is

essential to facilitate language acquisition (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro & Mandell, 2001;

Lee & VanPatten, 2003). The Chinese teacher also constructed activities that fostered

student-to-student communication. Student use of the TL is another important factor in

SLA (Swain & Lapkin, 1995).

While the Spanish teacher also used the target language, she used it at a level that

was beyond her students. Students were not able to negotiate meaning from what the

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teacher said. The teacher failed to use the suggestions provided by Hatch (1983, as cited

by Lee & VanPatten, 2003) to simplify what she said. Using advanced-level TL provided

too much linguistic complexity for the students (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell,

2001). Students could not focus solely on the meaning of the message, but instead were

required to focus on the form and the message that was being conveyed to them. This

counters what the Spanish teacher said when speaking about grammar. The teacher said

she wanted the students to be able to focus on the meaning of the language and not have

the grammar, “looking over them the whole time.” Inadvertently, the Spanish teacher

caused her students to focus on the form due to her use of more advanced language. In the

Chinese classroom, the TL was used according to the beliefs of the Chinese teacher. In the

Spanish classroom, the teacher believes the language is being used appropriately, but in

reality the language is not used with the frequency or quality the Spanish teacher believes

necessary for language acquisition.

When comparing the activities used by the teachers, it was observed that both used

TBA. Both teachers recognized the advantages of using TBA but both teachers deviated

from what researchers have emphasized regarding TBA. Neither teacher established

connections with the classroom goals and real-world applications of what they were

practicing. The Chinese teacher told the students how they could apply the current activity

in the real-world but failed to express the goal for each activity. The Spanish teacher in the

classroom did not establish any goals, nor did she mention any applicable situations where

students would be able to use what they were practicing. SLA researchers have stated the

importance of conveying goals to students (Brown, 2009). Making goals known to

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students provides benchmarks against which students can assess their own progress

(Willis & Willis, 2007). Neither teacher provided any goals.

SLA researchers have also stipulated that TBA are designed with predetermined

steps that lead to the cumulative goal (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro, & Mandell, 2001). In

other words, tasks build upon each other. The Chinese teacher’s tasks built upon each

other. The students were first given an article which was read in small groups. The

students then had the opportunity to discuss and express their opinions, during which the

students participated in a meaningful exchange. The Chinese teacher’s practice in this

situation matched what she believed.

The Spanish teacher, however, did not apply her beliefs to her practice. The TBA

that the Spanish teacher used had two tasks, which did not build upon each other. There

was limited meaningful exchange of information. The teacher modeled the activity with a

teaching assistant and then the students copied and memorized what they had been shown,

thereby not creating output but reciting memorized phrases.

In the observed student-centered activities there was a large disparity between the

two classrooms. The Chinese teacher allowed students to choose the topics they wanted to

converse about. The activities that the Chinese teacher used were focused on the chosen

topics which follows what SLA researchers have said about student-centered activities

(Lee & VanPatten, 2003). On the other hand, the Spanish teacher, who mentioned the

desire to have students practice language use without being concerned with the grammar,

used activities that focused on grammar principles. The Spanish teacher stated that

according to her superiors she was required to meet certain benchmarks regarding

grammar. Whether or not meeting those benchmarks determined which activities the

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Spanish teacher used is not clear. What is clear is that in the Spanish class students were

focusing on form and not on the meaning.

VI. Conclusion:

Addressing the first research question, how do perceptions match practice, it was

observed that teachers may not teach according to their beliefs. The Chinese teacher was

more aware of what was happening in her classroom. The aspects of CA that were

important to her were observed and they matched her stated beliefs. The Spanish teacher

believed she was effectively implementing what she believed. The observations of her

class revealed that in fact she was not effectively doing what she believed. For example,

she believed the TL was being used by all students, when in reality not all students were

using the TL in meaningful ways. The Spanish teacher also believed that she was using

TBA effectively. However, the TBA that the teacher had her students accomplish were not

in accord with her own description of what TBA should be like. The same pattern is seen

with student-centered activities: the Chinese teacher focused the activities on what the

students wanted to talk about, while the Spanish teacher focused on grammatical

principles.

The answer to the first question is therefore inconclusive. Some teachers may be

more aware of what happens in the classroom than other teachers. This study is however

limited in that only two teachers were observed. To derive any conclusions about

perceptions and practices would require that more teachers were observed and

interviewed. Moving on to the second question, do perceptions and practices match

current SLA theory, through this study it was observed that they do. Perceptions of

teachers matched current SLA theory. During the interviews both teachers made

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references to theories they believed essential in the classroom. However the application of

those principles varies according to teacher as previously discussed.

The third question, what do teachers believe about student-centered activities and

how do they apply their beliefs about student-centered activities in their classrooms, is

also inconclusive. Both instructors recognized the importance of student-centered

activities. The Chinese teacher created activities that focused on the students’ real-life

situations. The Spanish teacher expressed a desire to do the same, but she was not in

control of the course she taught. She was required to cover specific material with a

specific timeframe. The first part of this question can be answered; both teachers

recognized the importance of student-centered activities. Nevertheless, due to course

constraints and the inability of the Spanish teacher to use activities she preferred, it is not

possible to conclude whether the Spanish teacher would have used student-centered

activities. As a result, it is not possible to make a conclusion about how teacher use

student-centered activities.

Teaching languages is a world profession, and teachers worldwide have the same

goals, wanting their students to use languages in an effective manner (Holliday, 2005).

Therefore it is important that teachers implement practices that develop students’ language

proficiency. To that end, teachers need to become aware of their teaching practices. Being

aware of their practices, in turn, aids teachers’ application of theory to practice; improving

language instruction, and fostering in students the ability to communicate in real-world

situations.

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Storytelling in a Foreign Language Classroom

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Introduction

An earlier version of this paper was written for Professor Schroeder in the

Linguistics 6900 course. I first wrote this paper after a class in which we discussed

multiple aspects of culture, including the phenomenon of oral traditions. I became

fascinated with the idea of using stories as a means of instruction. This paper started as a

report on oral traditions. Through extensive editing and rewriting, it has become an

analysis of storytelling in a foreign language classroom. I conclude this paper stating how

I would incorporate stories into my classroom.

Over the course of writing this paper I have learned two important lessons; one

about teaching and the other about writing a paper. In regards to teaching, I realized that I

am the one who chooses how to implement teaching strategies in my classroom, which

means I do not have to follow steps set forth by others. During my studies as an MSLT

student, I have been introduced to many teaching strategies, some of which I have

disregarded because of one or two things I do not agree with. In writing this paper, I came

to recognize that I can pick and choose what I like from a variety of teaching strategies to

create something that I believe is effective.

What I learned about writing papers is that sometimes I just have to start over with

a blank sheet of paper. When I was in high school, I took a photography class in which the

teacher would frequently tell us that we could not turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. I

originally started this paper off on the wrong foot and in place of starting over, I tried to

create a masterpiece. It was not until I started over with a blank piece of paper that I was

able to write something that I am pleased to add to my portfolio.

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Storytelling in a Foreign Language Classroom

I. Introduction:

As a child, I was often entertained by stories. When I went to my grandparents’

house, I frequently would listen to old records that contained the stories my mother

listened to while growing up. As I got older, I never lost my passion for a good story.

However, the stories I was told served different purposes. Through some stories, I learned

about my ancestors and the hardships and trials they faced along with how they overcame

those challenges. Some stories were used for mere entertainment such as the stories about

the crazy things my father did as a child. My favorite stories, however, are stories that

were used to teach me something. For example, my father and grandfather are avid

fishermen who have endeavored to teach me all they know about fishing, and they teach

me through stories. Fishing stories usually begin with being told about the fish that got

away and ending with a lesson on which knot should have been used and the appropriate

way to tie it.

My family, however, is not the only group of people to use stories for more than

entertainment. In fact narratives are present in all cultures and are the most studied literary

genre (Spicer-Escalante, 2012). Throughout the world, many cultural groups have relied

on stories, commonly referred to as oral traditions, to preserve their identity (Čvorovi,

2009), teach their children (Ishengoma, 2005; Thao, 1970, 2006), and to interpret the

world around them (Einhorn, 2000). As a language teacher, I wish to follow the examples

set by cultural groups and incorporate stories into my language teaching. In this paper, I

will discuss the benefits of using stories for language teaching as well as methods used to

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incorporate stories into the classroom. I conclude this paper describing how I plan to

incorporate storytelling in my classroom.

II. Stories in the Classroom:

Storytelling is a powerful teaching tool that has been used for centuries (Tsou,

Wang & Tzeng, 2006). According to Isbell (2002), storytelling encourages the listeners to

get involved with what they are hearing; many times listeners will even retell the story.

This would lead one to conclude that storytelling fosters storytelling. Once students

become active storytellers, their oral proficiency as well as their attitude toward the

language class improves (Tsou, 2005). Because of the potential that stories have to

improve language acquisition, it is important to investigate how stories have been

implemented in classrooms. It is important to note that storytelling has a variety of

definitions, with little consistency throughout the research literature (Roney, 2009). For

the purposes of this paper, storytelling refers to stories shared orally. Within this

definition, I include personal narratives as a form of storytelling.

Narratives have many uses in the classroom. For example Roberts and Cook

(2009) argue that narratives should be used in the classroom as they are more authentic

than many activities provided within textbooks. They claim that narratives are frequently

used throughout authentic discourse, specific reference is made to job interviews, but they

emphasize that narratives are frequently used in a variety of situations. They assert that,

“narrative telling is a fundamental human activity which is essential for creating and

maintaining a sense of ourselves and our communities” (Roberts & Cook, 2009, p. 635).

Using narratives in a classroom allows students to express themselves the way one would

outside of a classroom. Narrative use therefore facilitates authentic language use.

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Van den Branden (2006, as cited in Nicholas, Rossiter & Abbott, 2001) adds that,

“stories like other tasks, ‘invite the learner to act primarily as a language user and not as a

language learner” (p. 252). Nevertheless, according to participants in a study conducted by

Nicholas, Rossiter and Abbott (2001), “telling and listening to personal stories provided

opportunities […] for enhanced language learning” (pp. 263-264). Stories transform

students into language users. However, Nicholas, Rossiter and Abbott (2001) claim that in

order for stories to be used effectively in a classroom, students must first be instructed on

how to structure a story.

Sauvé (2002) claims that interactions between interlocutors are occasions in which

people share their stories. “One person starts and the other takes the cue and adds a story

of her own. You laugh, commiserate, share concerns, reflect on decisions, and in so doing

you come to know one another” (p. 89). Telling stories switches the focus from learning a

language to sharing personal experiences, which, as previously stated, converts students

into language users. However, when students share personal stories caution must be taken

not to trivialize what it being shared (Sauvé, 2002).

One way in which students may share stories without putting themselves in

threatening situations is to create stories similar to the way Rowe (2011) creates stories

with her students. Rowe’s students begin the semester with a blank poster, upon which

students attach a picture of themselves. As students learn how to describe themselves they

add their descriptions to their poster. As the course progresses, students add more

information to their poster until, by the end of the semester, students have filled their

poster with information about their family, friends and educational/occupational goals. At

the end of the class students share their stories with each other, using their poster as a

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guide for what they share. This type of project allows students to slowly develop a story,

which, in my opinion, can help prevent students from encountering threatening situations.

III. Storytelling in My Classroom:

The preceding has been a description of the usefulness of storytelling in the

classroom. The following describes two teaching methodologies that I will combine to

incorporate storytelling into my classroom. Each of the teaching methods will be

described along with changes that I will incorporate before implementing them into my

classroom. I believe the changes I make will improve storytelling in my classroom, and

make it a valuable tool for language learning. The first method that I will describe is the

PACE teaching method.

IV. PACE:

The first method I adapt and incorporate into my storytelling is the PACE teaching

method. The PACE teaching method is intriguing because it requires that students work

with authentic literature and stories from which they acquire a language (Adair-Hauck &

Donato, 2002a; 2010). Authentic texts are texts “produced by members of a language and

culture group for members of the same language and culture group” (Galloway, 1988 as

cited in Shrum and Glisan, 2010, p. 85). The following is a brief description of a PACE

lesson. Following the description I will highlight the changes I will make to PACE

activities.

PACE activities are carried out in four steps: presentation, attention, co-

construction, and extension activities (Adair-Hauck & Donato, 2002a and b, 2010;

Groeneveld, 2011). The presentation step is subdivided into two parts: pre-reading

activities and the presentation of the story. Adair-Hauck and Donato (2002b) say that a,

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“[teacher] needs to set the stage for the storytelling” (p. 281). To prepare students for

storytelling, pre-reading activities need to take place. Adair-Hauck and Donato (2002a,

2002b, 2010) emphasize that when teachers present stories to students, they need to be

comprehensible; preparing students before the story is presented aids in creating a

comprehensible story.

The second part of the presentation step is telling the story. Adair-Hauck and

Donato (2002a, 2002b) emphasize that the focus of the story be on its meaning. In some

cases, this means that teachers need to edit the story. For example, in place of using future,

present, and past tense in a story, it might be more beneficial to use just the present tense

(Adair-Hauck & Donato, 2002a). To ensure that students understand the story, it is

suggested that comprehension be checked throughout the storytelling process;

comprehension checks can be simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down questions (Adair-Hauck

& Donato, 2002b). It may even be necessary for teachers to retell the story to ensure that

students have comprehended its meaning. Meaning is essential. As Celce-Murcia (1985)

claims “one of the best times for [the students] to attend to form is after comprehension

has been achieved and in conjunction with their production of meaningful discourse” (p.

301). This is why meaning is crucial, for it is after establishing meaning that students

should focus on grammar (Adair-Hauck & Donato, 2002a).

The second step in a PACE lesson is to call attention to a specific grammatical

concept (Adair-Hauck & Donato, 2002b, 2010; Groeneveld, 2011). It is in this step that a

shift from meaning to grammar is made. In this step, teachers call students’ attention to

grammatical structures being studied. The attention step can easily be accomplished.

Teachers present to students example sentences from the story that have grammatical

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structures to be studied clearly marked (Adair-Hauck & Donato, 2002b). Although this is

a short step in a PACE lesson, it is very important. “The attention phase is a necessary

instructional detour from the main stream of meaningful language in order to call attention

to some salient parts or linguistic elements” (Adair-Hauck & Donato, 2002, p. 283). Once

students’ attention is called to specific grammatical structures, students can begin to infer

grammar rules. It is important to note that PACE lessons work only with general grammar

rules; if there are exceptions to any rule, PACE lessons are not effective in addressing

those exceptions (Adair-Hauck & Donato, 2002b).

The third step of a PACE lesson is co-construction (Adair-Hauck & Donato,

2002b, 2010; Groeneveld, 2011). In the co-construction step, students examine the parts of

the story that their attention has been called to. The purpose of this step is for students to

discover how the language works. Working together, students examine the function of the

language and work together to infer grammatical rules. It is important however that

teachers be available to guide students, and to assure that students infer accurate

grammatical rules. “By paying close attention to the learners’ contributions during the co-

construction phase, teachers can determine how much assistance is warranted to help the

learners attain the grammatical concept” (Adair-Hauck & Donato, 2002b, p. 286). Adair-

Hauck and Donato (2002b) also suggest that students be grouped together during the co-

construction step to allow all class members the opportunity to infer grammatical rules,

this prevents one student from consistently shouting out answers.

The final step in PACE lessons is extension activities (Adair-Hauck & Donato,

2002b, 2010; Groeneveld, 2011). The extension activities provide students the

opportunities to put together the previous steps and create their own output. Adair-Hauk

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and Donato (2002b) state that the possibilities with extension activities are, “endless” (p.

286). The types of activities that students do in this step are left to the discretion of

teachers. However, Groeneveld (2011) says that it is important that extension activities be

connected to the presented story. When teachers link the extension activities to the story,

students are inspired to, “use meaningful language based on the content or form exposed

in the presentation” (p. 28). Students are able to create output using the presented words

and structures.

PACE provides a model that uses stories in place of textbooks, and that the focus

of each story be primarily on meaning. The criticism that I have of PACE lessons is that

they require that students are forced to use outside materials. Using authentic literature as

a means to acquire a language is intriguing, but in my opinion, allowing students to create

their own stories, and then using those stories to discover how language works would be

more effective. Nicholas, Rossiter and Abbott (2011) claim that, “stories and storytelling

in the language classroom can provide the means for learners to find their own voice in

their new language, first by listening to others’ stories and then by telling their own” (p.

255). Using stories from authors outside of the classroom exposes students to the target

language but takes away the opportunity for students to create and use their own stories to

discover how languages work.

I recognize that Adair-Hauck and Donato (2002b) state that there are many things

that can be done as extension activities, which includes having students create stories of

their own. My argument does not reflect what can be done in the extension activities. I

argue that the original story that students use should be one of their own creation. This

means students must first be taught how to create a story. One manner in which teachers

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can facilitate story creation is by using an abbreviated form of Total Physical Response

Storytelling (TPRS).

VI. TPRS:"

TPRS, as describe by Ray and Seely (2008), is a teaching method that is focused

on the creation of stories. TPRS activities are teacher-led activities. The teachers ask a

series of questions about a story that they narrate for their students. TPRS activities are

three-step activities. The first step is to establish meaning (Beal, 2011; Gross, 2007; Ray

& Seely, 2008). This is done with pre-reading activities to prepare students for the story to

come. The second step is asking a story (Beal, 2011; Gross, 2007; Ray & Seely, 2008). To

ask a story, students must first be prepared for the questions and statements they will be

exposed to.

When asking a story, teachers can elicit student output with questions or

statements. They may ask questions to which the answers are known or that require the

students to guess answers or they may offer a statement of fact (Gross, 2007; Ray &

Seely, 2008). Each type of prompt requires students to respond in a predetermined

manner: stating the known answer, guessing an answer, or expressing interest in the new

fact. The story is created by using the answers to the questions in this step; essentially

teachers structure a story and the students create the details.

The third and final step in a TPRS story is to read a story similar to the one created

in the second step; students should translate the story paragraph by paragraph (Beal, 2011;

Gross, 2007; Ray & Seely, 2008). It is here that TPRS has a major flaw, which is the

necessity to translate everything (Beal, 2011; Gross, 2007; Ray & Seely, 2008). Ray and

Seely (2008) claim that “teaching methods that establish meaning by gestures or pictures

often leave students wondering exactly what the teacher is trying to say. Even though the

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teacher gestures the meaning or uses pictures, students often don’t understand since the

picture or gestures can have multiple interpretations” (p. 21). It is this statement that

translation is justified as necessary. Researchers of TPRS also claim that translation

should be used specifically in the third step, but also whenever students may not

understand the target language (Beal, 2011; Gross, 2007; Ray & Seely, 2008). From

personal teaching experiences, I have seen how translation can hinder students’ language

acquisition. Therefore, due to its requirement to translate everything, TPRS, as described

by Beal (2011), Gross (2007), and Ray and Seely (2008), is not a teaching method I will

use in my classroom. However, I will use aspects of TPRS in my classroom as will be

described.

The final criticism I have with TPRS it is that it requires teachers to ask the story

from students, TPRS is a teacher-centered approach. However, if students were taught

how to ask stories then this would become a student-centered activity. Once students learn

how to ask stories from others, there are situations in which this would be effective. For

example, asking a story would be useful to guide students in creating a story.

Combining to my criticism of PACE lessons with my criticism of TPRS, I believe

that story analyzed should be of the students’ own creation. I recognize that it may be

difficult for students to create a story with the grammar structure to be studied; therefore, I

would use the second step in TPRS to help my students create a story which could be

analyzed to help students infer grammar rules. Well planed, a teacher can ask a story that

contains the desired grammatical structures. As Ray and Seely (2008) describe TPRS, the

teacher is the person in charge of the overall story. Students provide details through their

answers to questions that keep the story progressing, but the teacher is in charge. The

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combination of PACE and TPRS allows student-created stories to become the medium of

language instruction.

The drawback to a teaching method as I have described is that students may not yet

be able to create a story in the first few weeks of beginning-level classes. Asher (2006),

the originator of TPR, claims that students must have at least three weeks of practice with

TPR before students can begin storytelling. In the first few weeks, I plan on creating

stories with my students in the same manner that Rowe (2011) does with her students. I

will have my students create stories that will serve as an introduction to the target

language, and as a way of aiding students to introduce themselves to the class.

VII. Conclusion:

Stories are more than sources of entertainment. As has been described, stories aid

in developing a rich language learning environment. Storytelling among students

transforms language learners into language users. I believe that by making the mentioned

changes to PACE and TPRS, and incorporating those changes into storytelling lessons,

that stories will facilitate the creation of a language program that is student-centered.

Furthermore, designing a course in which students provide the content for the language

course will enrich my teaching and promote their negotiation of meaning.

Just as I am entertained by stories, I believe that students will also be entertained.

The students will no longer focus on learning the language and will place more effort into

sharing stories. It is my hope that students come to class excited to share their stories with

each other, and that as a product of sharing stories students will acquire the target

language. I believe that involving students in creating the materials that will be used in

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the classroom will invest the students further in their learning. Once students are invested

in their education, I believe they will be active participants in their learning.

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Progressive Glossing

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Introduction

This paper was written for Dr. Thoms in Linguistics 6520. It is a proposed study

on incidental vocabulary acquisition, specifically through the use of computer-assisted

glosses. In this study I examine current glossing practices, from which I create a new type

of computer-assisted gloss which I call progressive glossing. I speculate that using

progressive glosses would allow vocabulary to be developed efficiently by reading

authentic texts. If the process of teaching vocabulary through reading is perfected, that

would mean that students no longer have to use lists for vocabulary acquisition, but can

use content in its place.

I chose to include this paper in my portfolio because it was the first paper I wrote

of its kind. Previous to this paper, I had been assisted by professors in creating papers of

this type. However, this was the first time I was allowed to choose and develop a topic

which I wished to study. This was a difficult paper to write as I was specifically worried

about the research design and statistical processes that I would propose for this study. I

was surprised as I did my research that I was able to glean from others the solutions to my

concerns. One important lesson I learned from writing this paper is that I do not have to

re-invent the wheel. This means that I do not have to discover new ways in which I should

design my experiments. In seeking advice from several of my professors, I was told to find

a research paper that asks similar questions to mine and then look at how the researchers

designed their experiments and then base my design on what they did. I followed this

advice and found a design that I liked. Moreover, upon finding what I was looking for, I

was able to design this study. Replication studies, if designed and implemented

thoughtfully, have much to contribute to our field.

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Progressive Glossing

I. Introduction:

SLA theorists recognize that language learners are “limited capacity processors”

(Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro & Mandel, 2001; Lee & VanPatten, 2003). The act of reading

in a second language (L2) requires that students simultaneously pay attention to multiple

aspects including, but not limited to, vocabulary, syntax, morphology, and comprehension

(Gettys, Imhof, & Kautz, 2001). Students’ ability to divide their cognitive processes is not

innate, rather, it requires training and “[without] special training most humans are able to

pay attention to only one thing at a time” (Gettys et al., 2001, p. 92). Therefore, one may

ask when providing support for an authentic text, what can instructors do to take

advantage of the limited processing power of students?

To answer this question, instructional strategies should be examined such as top-

down and bottom-up strategies (Gettys et al., 2001). Instructors who use top-down

strategies focus on global tasks and not on the steps required to achieve tasks (Gettys et

al., 2001; Shrum & Glisan, 2010). Instructors who implement bottom-up strategies look at

all of the requirements needed to complete a task and then separate each requirement and

teach it individually, building up to the final goal (Gettys et al., 2001; Shrum & Glisan,

2010). When teaching reading, instructors may use a top-down strategy, reading for

comprehension (Chun & Plass, 1996), or a bottom-up strategy focusing on structure and

vocabulary (Chun, 2001; Chun & Plass, 1996; Gettys et al., 2001). Both strategies are

beneficial, but reading to acquire new vocabulary in the L2 in addition to comprehending

a text requires that instructors expose students to a balance of top-down and bottom-up

strategies given that “neither alone is sufficient” (Chun & Plass, 1996, p. 195). In the

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following study proposal, I examine the relationship between cognitive load and incidental

vocabulary acquisition. The literature review begins in the following section starting with

authentic texts, followed by cognitive load theory. The literature review concludes with

current gloss practices.

II. Literature Review:

a. Authentic texts:

Although not agreed upon by all SLA researchers (Badger & MacDonald, 2010;

Widdowson, 1998), authentic literature, as defined by Shrum and Glisan (2010) as texts

written by native speakers for native speakers of a target language, can be used as a tool

for foreign language instruction (Abraham, 2008; Gettys, Inhof, & Kautz, 2001; Hulstijn,

Hollander, & Greidanus, 1996; Kern, 2003; Louchy, 2010; Nagata, 1999; Taylor, 2006;

Yoshii, 2006). Furthermore, some researchers advocate that authentic literature is essential

for students to acquire, “linguistic skills” (Liu & Lin, 2011, p. 373). As access to authentic

material has become easier with the aid of the internet, implementation of authentic

materials for language learning has increased (Liu & Lin, 2011). Authentic literature

exposes students to new ideas through the content of what they read and also gives

students the opportunity to acquire more vocabulary (Liu & Lin, 2011). As stated by Kern

(2003), “given that language learners in academic settings have limited opportunities to

use the language, it is incumbent on educators to provide learners with the broadest and

deepest exposure to the language that we can with the limited time we have available” (p.

42). Authentic literature provides an avenue through which students may be exposed to a

wider variety of language. The difficulty with authentic texts is that they are frequently

beyond the linguistic level of students (Gettys, Imhof & Kautz, 2001; Yun, 2011).

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Glossing, however, is a tool that students can use to help make authentic texts

comprehensible. According to Gettys, Imhoff and Kautz (2001), “on-line glosses allow

instructors to increase students’ exposure to authentic learning materials that are beyond

the learners’ linguistic level, thus challenging students to read authentic, unabridged texts.

Thus, instructors can use on-line glossing to significantly increase comprehensible input –

an important condition of successful L2 acquisition” (p. 91). Using glosses can therefore

facilitate the use of authentic texts in the L2 classroom setting. However, there are a

variety of gloss types to incorporate when exposing students to an authentic text in an

online environment. Therefore, instructors should choose an appropriate gloss type for

specific pedagogical goals.

b. Cognitive Load Theory:

Before an analysis of the effect of gloss type can be undertaken, it is important to

understand why some glosses are more effective than others. The theory that will be

examined to explain this is the cognitive load theory (CLT) (Sweller, 1988). CLT theorists

propose that the more cognitive effort one exerts towards acquiring a particular concept, in

this case L2 vocabulary, the better the concept will be acquired (Hulstijn, 1992; Liu &

Lin, 2011; Nagata, 1999; Paas, Renkl, & Sweller, 2004). Each person has a set quantity of

attention resources that can be dedicated to tasks (Abraham, 2008; Kuiken & Vedder,

2008; Lee, & VanPatten, 2001). Cognitive loads can be categorized into groups ranging

from the cognitive effort required when learning to the required effort when processing

and filtering outside distractions (Liu & Lin, 2011; Paas, Renkl & Sweller, 2004; Paas,

van Gog, & Sweller, 2010). Because each person has limited processing resources, it is

important that instructors use materials and methods that allow students to process the

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information effectively. Any task that requires too many or too few cognitive resources is

detrimental to student learning (Paas, Renkl & Sweller, 2004). One of the purposes of this

proposed study is to provide varying cognitive load to students and observe how that load

variation affects incidental vocabulary acquisition. This leads to a discussion of incidental

vocabulary acquisition.

c. Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition:

Vocabulary that students use extends beyond the vocabulary that they have been

explicitly taught (Hulstijn, Hollander, & Greidanus, 1996). Some researchers have

explained this by saying that students pick up new vocabulary as they are exposed to it

(Hulstijn, Hollander, & Greidanus, 1996; Liu & Lin, 2011). This is known as incidental

vocabulary acquisition. Hulstijn, Hollander, and Greidanus (1996), define incidental

vocabulary acquisition as, “the accidental learning of information without the intention of

remembering that information” (p. 327). Researchers agree that incidental vocabulary

acquisition facilitates lexical development (Hulstijn, Hollander, & Greidanus, 1996; Liu,

& Lin, 2011; Paribakht & Wesche, 1999; Pellicer-Sánchez & Schmitt, 2010).

Pellicer-Sánchez and Schmitt (2010) conducted a study in which students read an

authentic text for pleasure. Students were introduced to a novel that contained a series of

Ibo words; Ibo is a language that is spoken in Nigeria. The text was chosen because any

acquisition of the Ibo words would be due to reading the story; none of the students had

previous exposure to the language. The students were given a month to finish the novel

after which testing accompanied by interviews was conducted to determine which words

had been acquired. As a result of reading for pleasure, students were able to spell,

recognize, and recall the target words from the novel. Pellicer-Sánchez and Schmitt

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conclude that reading promotes incidental vocabulary acquisition (Pellicer-Sánchez &

Schmitt, 2010). Lin and Liu (2011) posit that glossing an authentic text may facilitate

incidental vocabulary acquisition and comprehension of the text. An authentic text is a

text which is, “written to be read by native speakers of the language” (Maxim, 2002, p.

20). The objective of this study is to combine both authentic texts with glosses to

investigate incidental vocabulary acquisition.

d. Current Gloss Practices:

The importance of having access to a gloss is shown in Abraham’s (2008) analysis.

He conducted a study to identify the effectiveness of glosses with computer-mediated

glossing programs. He reviewed eleven studies and discovered that learners who had

access to glosses did much better with text comprehension than those without glosses;

incidental vocabulary was also reported to be higher. Along with the previous finding,

Abraham stated that glosses were not effective for beginning-level students. He posits that

novice learners need more than vocabulary glossing, which might have affected the

effectiveness of the glosses he tested.

There are a variety of gloss formats, many of which have been studied in an

attempt to identify which is the most effective (Acha, 2009; Chun, 2001; Chun, & Plass,

1996; Gettys et al., 2001; Hong, 1997; Hulstijn, 1992; Hulstijn, Hollander, & Greidanus,

1996; Liu, & Lin, 2011; Louchy, 2010; Nagata, 1996; Peters, 2006; Peters, 2007; Taylor,

2006; Yoshii, 2006; Yun, 2011). In the following I will examine several gloss formats

along with studies that have been conducted with each format.

Dictionary or traditional glosses have been studied by many researchers. Hulstijn,

Hollander and Greidanus (1996) compared the effectiveness of dictionary glosses against

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marginal glosses and no glosses. A marginal gloss is a gloss that provides a definition of a

target word in the margin of a text; a dictionary gloss refers to using a dictionary to look

up any unknown vocabulary terms. Hollander and Greidanus found that student retention

of marginally glossed words was better than dictionary glossed words. Similarly, Lin and

Liu (2011) compared computer-mediated glosses with dictionary glosses to see which

better facilitated vocabulary acquisition and text comprehension. Lin and Liu concluded

that students who had access to a dictionary had to process too much information, as the

dictionary provided more information than students required. Students were unable to

maintain focus on the text. Therefore, students who used dictionaries had poorer

comprehension than those who had access to computer-mediated glosses. Using a

dictionary is better than having no gloss at all but dictionaries have been shown to be the

least effective in comparison with other glossing methods.

The second type of glosses examined are multiple-choice glosses which offer the

reader a set of possible word meanings. Readers must then choose which option best

represents the glossed word. Watanabe (1997) concluded that multiple-choice glosses are

more effective for vocabulary retention than single-word glosses alone. Hulstijn (1992)

discovered that multiple-choice glosses were effective in word retention due to the

cognitive load placed on the readers when inferring word meaning. While word retention

was higher, Hulstijn noted that if students are not given immediate feedback, then it is

possible that students recall the word-meaning they inferred and not the correct meaning.

Nagata (1999) conducted a study using multiple-choice glosses with the assistance of a

computer. Using a computer allowed the students to receive instant feedback on their

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inferences of vocabulary terms. All three researchers concluded that multiple-choice

glosses are more effective than single-word glosses for vocabulary retention.

The next type of glosses examined are multi-media glosses, of which a variety has

been proposed and tested. Chun and Plass (1996) compared several types of these glosses:

text and picture, text and video, or text alone. They concluded that text and picture glosses

were the most effective for vocabulary acquisition. The researchers were somewhat

surprised at the text and video results as they originally hypothesized that text and video

glosses would better facilitate vocabulary acquisition. They offered two explanations for

their findings. First, the text and video required that students focus on too many things at

once. The second explanation was that, due to the short length of each video, students did

not have enough time for the acquisition and retention of vocabulary.

Acha (2008) also used multimedia glosses, specifically pictures, to teach

vocabulary younger students. Her results contradict those of Chun and Plass (1996). In her

study, students who had access to pictures and text during vocabulary instruction did not

perform as well in vocabulary retention as did students with access to direct text

translations. However, Acha does mention that multimedia programs may help facilitate

vocabulary acquisition by allowing students to learn the words according to their preferred

learning style.

The final glosses examined are single-word glosses. Many studies have compared

different variations of single-word gloss formats (Gettys et al., 2001; Hong, 1997;

Hulstijn, 1992; Liu & Lin, 2011; Nagata, 1999; Yoshii, 2006; Yun, 2011). Hulstijn (1992),

Nagata (1999) and Liu and Lin (2011) concluded that students prefer the single-word

glosses over any other gloss format. They also conclude that single-word glosses are the

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least effective for vocabulary acquisition and retention, although single-word glosses do

promote comprehension of the texts (Hulstijn, 1992; Liu & Lin, 2011; Nagata, 1999).

Researchers have found that computer-mediated glossing aids in language

acquisition. Different glossing types have been studied in an effort to discover which type

is the most effective (Abraham, 2008; Acha, 2009; Chun, 2001; Chun, & Plass, 1996;

Gettys et al., 2001; Hong, 1997; Liu & Lin, 2011; Louchy, 2010; Nagata, 1996; Peters,

2006; Peters, 2007; Taylor, 2006; Yoshii, 2006; Yun, 2011). It has been observed that

glosses requiring cognitive effort from students are more effective in vocabulary

acquisition and retention than glosses that provide L1 equivalents (Gettys et al., 2001;

Hong, 1997; Hulstijn, 1992; Liu & Lin, 2011; Nagata, 1999; Yoshii, 2006; Yun, 2011).

What is not known about glossing is whether varying the cognitive load of each gloss

facilitates vocabulary acquisition and text comprehension.

III. Rationale for this study:

Researchers have claimed that authentic texts provide opportunities for students to

acquire more vocabulary (Kern, 2003; Liu & Lin, 2011). The difficulty with using

authentic texts is that many of them are beyond the language ability of language learners.

For this reason, glosses have been implemented to allow students to work with authentic

texts and gain the benefits from using these kinds of texts, such as incidental vocabulary

acquisition and the acquisition of linguistic skills (Liu & Lin, 2011). The question that

remains to be answered is: Which type of gloss is the most effective? Research has shown

that there is a higher probability of retention when students are required to carry a higher

cognitive load (Hulstijn, 1992; Liu & Lin, 2011; Nagata, 1999; Paas, Renkl, & Sweller,

2004). This potentially means that if students have to use more cognitively demanding

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processes to infer the meaning of a vocabulary term, they are more likely to retain that

vocabulary. One method of increasing cognitive load is by implementing progressive

glosses. Progressive glossing is a form of computer-mediated glossing. Progressive

glossing works with the principles of cognitive load (Liu & Lin, 2011; Nagata, 1999) in

that students are offered a series of glossing options. Each option in the series

progressively requires less cognitive effort for the selected word meaning to be inferred or

understood. Thus, according to cognitive load theory, students are allowed to infer

vocabulary meaning, which encourages vocabulary retention. Yet if students are not able

to infer vocabulary meaning, they are provided more options to infer meaning until they

are eventually given a definition of the glossed word, which allows students to maintain

focus on the meaning of the text.

Progressive glosses provide an opportunity for students to focus on the meaning of

the text and to infer vocabulary meaning. Thus, the questions this study addresses are the

following:

1. Does progressive glossing facilitate incidental acquisition of new vocabulary?

2. Does progressive glossing facilitate retention of new vocabulary?

For the purposes of this study, incidental vocabulary acquisition refers to students’ ability

to infer the correct meaning of the glossed term. Retention refers to students’ ability to

retain the meaning of the term over a period of time. I hypothesize that progressive glosses

will facilitate incidental vocabulary acquisition as well as promote comprehension of

authentic texts.

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IV. Methods:

The participants of this study will be university students in an introductory Spanish

literature course. The students’ proficiency level is not critical for the results this study, as

long as the proficiency level is similar which is expected in an introductory literature

course. This study will be carried out in two phases. The first phase will be a vocabulary

identification phase. Similar to Liu and Lin’s (2011) procedure, ten students from an

intermediate-level Spanish literature course will be invited to read the two Spanish fairy

tales that will be used in phase two. The ten students who read the fairy tales will be

instructed to mark unfamiliar words. Once the students have finished reading, the stories

will be collected and a list of words that have been marked by many as unknown will be

constructed. From the list of unknown words, the top ten from each story will be selected

as the glossed words used in the data collection phase of this study.

Fairy tales were selected due to their repetitive nature. Tatar (2002) points out that

one of the characteristics of a fairy tale is repetition, stating that fairy tales repeat key

words usually three times. As previous studies have indicated that students experiencing

only one occurrence of unfamiliar words are less likely to recall these words for their own

use (Chun & Plass, 1996; Nagata, 1999; Hulstijn, 1992; Hulstijn, Hollander, & Greidanus,

1996), repetition is desirable for incidental vocabulary acquisition.

The second phase begins with a new set of thirty students. The new set of thirty

students will begin with a pretest. The pretest will be similar to the posttest in that it will

contain a vocabulary matching section and comprehension questions about the stories

students will be reading. The purpose of the pretest is to eliminate the words that the

students already know, thus ensuring that there be no false positives on the post test

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(Gettys et al., 2001). Because comprehension and incidental acquisition will be measured,

it must be ensured that the students are tested on new information, not on prior knowledge

(Gettys et al., 2001; Louchy, 2010; Nagata, 1996).

After the pretest, students will be randomly divided into two groups of fifteen and

taken into two different rooms. Following the crossover study format as described by

Kuehl (2000), students will read two stories, one with a traditional gloss and the other with

a progressive gloss embedded in the texts. Once the students are divided into groups and

taken to two different locations, they will be instructed on how to use the glosses available

to them. It is necessary that students know how to use the glosses they have at their

disposal to eliminate the possibility that the glosses will not be effectively used (Louchy &

JoGakuin, 2010; O’Bryan, 2006; O’Bryan, 2008).

The first group of students, group A, will begin with story 1. These students will

only have access to traditional pop-up glosses. A pop-up gloss is a gloss that students

access by moving the mouse over a given word and clicking on that word; upon clicking

students are provided with a direct translation of the unknown word (Liu & Lin, 2011).

When students in group A read story 2, the glossing format will be progressive glosses as

will be described below. Group B on the other hand will begin story 1 with access to

progressive glosses. With story 2, group B will have access to a traditional pop-up gloss.

An important aspect of crossover studies is that all treatments are, “administered to an

experimental unit for a specific period of time after which another treatment is

administered to the same unit. The treatments are successively administered to the unit

until it has received all treatments” (Kuehl, 2000, p. 520). Each student who participates in

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this study will be exposed to both gloss treatments. Students will also be given a thirty-

minute time limit to read each story.

Progressive glosses gradually lessen the cognitive effort required for students to

infer word meaning while facilitating the reading of an authentic text. Glossed words will

be italicized. The gloss will appear when a student clicks on a selected word. In place of

offering only one gloss format (i.e., just a direct translation, or just an audio file),

progressive glosses provide multiple gloss formats. The progressive gloss starts with the

target word in a different context (i.e., the context will construct the same semantic

meaning as in the current text). If the students are able to infer the meaning of the word

from the first gloss provided, then they may return to the reading by clicking “return to

story.” However, if the students are unable to determine the meaning of the word, they

will be given the option of additional glossing. This will be done by clicking a “next”

button. The student will then be provided with a picture representation of the word. If

students are able to infer meaning from the picture, they may return to the original text. If

not, then students may continue with additional glossing. The students will have one more

opportunity to infer meaning; this will be a multiple-choice gloss. The students will be

presented with the word and then allowed to choose from four different text options. If

they select the correct word, they receive a message indicating such and will be returned to

the reading. If they choose incorrectly, they will be taken to the final gloss which is a

direct translation of the target word (an example of progressive glossing can be seen in

Appendix C).

Students will be informed before they begin the readings that they will be required

to recreate the story in writing. After a story is read, two tasks will follow immediately.

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Students will first be asked to summarize the story they have just read. Along with the re-

creation of the story, students will be presented with an unannounced vocabulary post-test.

The post-test is the instrument that will be used to measure incidental acquisition of new

vocabulary. The quiz will be unannounced because of the study’s focus on incidental

vocabulary acquisition (Hulstijn, 1992). Peters (2006) found that directing students’

attention to an upcoming task caused students to perform better on that given task.

Specifically, if students are told before carrying out a reading activity what they will need

to do before carrying out a reading activity, students focus on that information during the

reading. If students in this study were told before they began the readings that they were

going to have a vocabulary test, then the students would pay more attention to the glossed

vocabulary. Prior knowledge of a vocabulary quiz would compromise the validity of the

results when looking at incidental vocabulary acquisition. To measure vocabulary

retention, students will be given a delayed post-test two weeks later. This test will be the

same as the post-test taken immediately after the reading. This follows practices

established in previous studies (Abraham, 2008; Acha, 2009; Chun & Plass, 1996; Peters,

2007; Yoshii, 2006; Yun 2011).

To fully record student actions, screen recording software, specifically Camtasia2,

will be used. How students use the provided tools has the potential to directly correlate

with student scores on both the immediate and delayed post tests (Lie & Lin, 2011). The

recordings will be observed and the different gloss steps annotated to compare with

student scores. The story summaries will also be collected and will be reviewed by two

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

2 Camtasia is a program that can be purchased from the following web site:

http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia-

1111.html?gclid=CNOArOXj86wCFQh9hwodQTTWTw

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raters. The raters will be looking for accuracy in the re-creation of the stories. The raters

will use the rubric found in Appendix C. The rubric is adopted from O’Malley and

Pierce’s Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners (1996, p. 152). Other

mechanics of writing will not be examined in this study.

V. Future Implications:

With the results from this study, I plan to identify which gloss type students used

with higher frequency. That information will allow me to compare the high frequency

gloss used with the post test results and quality of the story summaries. I recognize that

progressive glosses are not practical for every teaching situation since they are time-

consuming to create. I plan to conduct further investigations to see if the high-frequency

glosses used by students are applicable to a wider variety of authentic materials. My goal

is to identify the most beneficial type of gloss that adequately challenges learners and does

not burden their cognitive load while reading an authentic text in Spanish. This can, in

turn, lead to a high probability of incidental vocabulary acquisition and the comprehension

of an L2 text.

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Looking Forward

After completing the MSLT program I plan to pursue a PhD, for which I will focus

on teaching and learning languages. As a Spanish teacher, I have noticed that many of the

available materials are not communicative and are limited to certain teaching styles. I am

going to create materials that teachers who ascribe to communicative teaching styles can

use in their classes.

I am also going to continue to study second language acquisition. I am fascinated

by the complexities of language learning. In my professional career, I will develop

materials for classroom use. One of my professional goals is to teach future foreign

language teachers. I am going to teach them how languages are learned and how this

knowledge about language acquisition can be applied to classroom practices. I am going

to help future teachers discover and develop their own teaching philosophies. Language

teaching is exciting and I want to foster that excitement in future teachers.

Finally, I am going to continue teaching Spanish. My passion for teaching has

developed as I have taught Spanish. I do not want to lose the connection I have with the

teaching field, especially since Spanish teaching is what first sparked my teaching passion.

As well, I wish to stay connected to the teaching field so that I may discover gaps in

teaching practices and use those gaps to develop research questions. I specifically wish to

teach introductory Spanish classes. It is exhilarating to observe students as they begin to

speak Spanish. I am going to stay connected to the teaching field as a way of assuring

myself that the research I will be doing is applicable to actual teaching situations.

I have already taken steps towards accomplishing these goals. I have recently been

accepted to a PhD program in the University of Iowa, which I will enter in the fall of

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2012. The focus of my PhD program is foreign language and ESL education. While

attending Iowa I wish study program and course design along with language assessment.

After completing my PhD program I will teach courses for future foreign language

teachers."

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Annotated Bibliography

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Introduction

The following is an annotated bibliography that contains the most important articles and

books I have read while in the MSLT program. It was difficult to decide which items to

include in this bibliography as I read many things that have impacted how I view language

education. While I do not entirely agree with what the researchers have said, I believe

there is valuable information to be gleaned from each reading. The bibliography is

organized thematically, the themes include: activities, classroom, computer-aided

language learning, culture, glossing, language learning theories, and students. Each

annotation contains the bibliographic references, a brief description of the article or book,

and a reaction.

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Activities

Adair-Hauck, B., Glisan, E. W., Koda, K., Swender, E. B., & Sandrock, P. (2006). The

integrated performance assessment (IPA): Connecting assessment to instruction

and learning. Foreign Language Annals, 39(3), 359-382.

Summary:

The authors of this article reviewed a study that was conducted by ACTFL in an

effort to improve assessment procedures; this study was a response to a call to

reconceptualize language testing. The authors mentioned that far too often educators do

not adhere to current research, perhaps because multiple-choice tests are easier to grade.

The use of open-ended questions, however, allows stakeholders (e.g., learners, teachers,

parents, program coordinators, administrators) to see the effectiveness/usefulness of

student learning. IPA assessments are conducted through task-based instruction; each step

takes learners through the interpretive, presentational, and interpersonal modes of

communication. Keys to this assessment approach are: the students must have a complete

picture of what they are going to be doing, students must have examples and models of

what is expected of them, students must have a rubric that details what is required to be

successful in each task, and quality feedback must be given throughout the assessment.

Tasks must also be related to each other and have an important part in the completion of

the final cumulative goal.

Reaction:

Creating an assessment from a task-based activity is an interesting approach to

assessments. Using activities that students would be accustomed to allows students to

demonstrate what they are actually able to do without having to learn a new method to

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demonstrate their knowledge. This is also something that could be done as part of an

everyday activity which would not create the anxiety that is associated with taking a

written test. IPA tests also allow instructors to test students in real-life situations. IPA

however, requires a lot of planning to effectively assess what the teachers want to assess.

If the instructors are going to assess a certain linguistic skill, then it is important that the

activities focus on the desired skill. The authors also called for quality feedback, which

takes time. Teachers need to plan time when they can sit down and give quality written

feedback.

Elola, I., & Oskoz, A. (2010). Collaborative writing: Fostering language and writing

conventions development. Language Learning & Technology, 14(3), 51-71.

Summary:

The authors of this study examined the effectiveness of collaborative writing for

language learners. Two assignments were given to a group of students. One assignment

was completed on their own and the second was completed in a group. The authors

discovered that then individuals worked together they were more conscious of their own

grammatical errors in the L2. This resulted in constant revisions of their work before and

after they submitted it to their partners. Also when students worked together they

developed a structure for their paper and did not deviate from that structure. Conversely

when students worked alone they used a different writing process altogether, grammatical

errors were the last things identified and fixed. The structure of their writing was not as

rigid. When working on their own, their work was guided by a thesis statement and not by

a predesigned plan. Learners reported liking individual work more than group, as it

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offered an opportunity to bring their own voice to the paper. However, learners also

recognized that when working with others each individual did have something different

contribute to the final product. The authors concluded that while a very useful tool,

collaborative writing should not replace individual writing, because both approaches

complement each other.

Reaction:

It is interesting to note that students focus on grammar when writing

collaboratively. There are advantages and disadvantages to this depending on what

communicative goal the instructor has for each assignment. In a communicative classroom

I believe this is a good thing because students will be consciously looking for the correct

way to express what they choose to say. I believe this promotes gap noticing, and

facilitates independent learning; students actively seek out answers to their own questions.

Also, writing in groups exposes weaker writers to different writing processes and styles

that could improve the skills of weaker writers in the L1 as well as the L2.

Lantolf, J. P. (2009). Dynamic assessment: The dialectic integration of instruction and

assessment. Language Teaching, 42(3), 355-368.

doi:10.1017/S0261444808005569

Summary:

The author begins with the claim that assessment and instruction are the same

process. Along with this, he posits the universal acquisition hypothesis (UAH), which

states that there is an order in which learners acquire language naturally. He urges teachers

to make sure things are presented at the ‘right time’ in order for students to fully acquire

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what they are being taught. The author states that “effective instruction must precede and

indeed lay down the path for development to follow.” Then he presents two forms of

dynamic assessment. The interaction form is conducted through predetermined steps for

error correction, starting with implicit error correction which gradually become explicit

clues until students are able to correct their error. The second type of assessment, the

mediated learning experience, enables students and teachers to work together to achieve

success in a conversation. Both of these approaches have their benefits, and can happen

naturally in a conversation. The author asserts that instructors need to assess what the

students will be able to do and not what they can do now. In closing, the author questions

which is more important: the test or language acquisition.

Reaction:

The first topic the author introduces is interesting, assessing our students to know

what they will be able to do. Is it then more important that we have tests that measure

students’ current abilities, or that we measure the probability of success in a real-world

context? I believe that measuring the probability of success is important if we expect

students to use the language outside of the classroom. But, if by measuring probability of

success, we have to question grades, do we grade students on our predictions or their

current abilities? I believe there is a disconnect between what the stakeholders want and

what using dynamic assessment can provide. Stakeholders want to have the students’

abilities graded now; in contrast, using dynamic assessment helps teachers predict what

students will be able to do later. Until stakeholders and instructors agree on what they

want to know, assessment practices will never satisfy all interested parties.

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Ray, B., & Seely, C. (2008). Fluency through TPR storytelling: Achieving real language

acquisition in school (5th ed.). Berkeley, CA: Command Performance Language

Institute.

Summary:

Ray and Seely begin their book by describing the evolution from Total Physical

Response (TPR) to Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS). Ray

said that TPRS is a combination of Asher’s TPR and Krashen’s theories of

comprehensible input. Ray combines the two concepts together to create TRPS. Ray and

Seely then describe the theory behind TPRS lessons. Emphasis is placed on making the

class 100% comprehensible, which means that teachers needs to translate almost

everything into the native language of the students. The authors then describe the process

of a TPRS lesson. First, the teacher must establish meaning of a story, in this step the

authors state that translation should be used. The second step is to ask a story. In this step

teachers ask a series of questions, all in the target language, to create or recreate a story.

Teachers use the answers that students provide to continue to create a story; the authors

suggest that teachers use the most creative answers as a way to keep the story interesting

and to keep student involved with the story. The final step is reading a story that is similar

to the story that was created by the students. The authors finish the book by describing

how one could implement a language program using courses taught using TPRS.

Reaction:

The authors of this text describe how TPRS should be used. I do not agree with the

authors that this is the only teaching methodology that should be used in a classroom, nor

do I agree with translating in a classroom. Nevertheless parts of the TPRS methodology

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can be used separately as a supplementary activity. The second step of TRPS, asking a

story, would be effective on its own. When asking a story students are working together to

create a unique story. In this type of activity students are responsible for their learning, the

teacher is the facilitator of the activity. The downside to this text is the that the authors

frequently made references to other materials which they produce, stating that in order for

one to learn how to use TPRS effectively one must purchase these other materials.

Willis, D., & Willis, J. (2007). Doing task-based teaching. New York: Oxford University

Press.

Summary:

The book is divided into three sections. In the first two sections the authors

describe task-based instruction and provide many examples of how task-based instruction

can be implemented in the classroom. In the final section, the authors address commonly

asked questions about task-based instruction. The authors begin their discussion on task-

based teaching by identifying what makes a good task. They caution that any activity that

is preempted by any mention of grammar becomes an activity that focuses on grammar.

To prevent grammar focus, teachers must use tasks that elicit natural discussions. Each

activity must also have an engaging introduction that grabs the students’ attention. The

authors finish their explanation of task sequence stating that after a task is completed

teachers should focus on form, meaning after the students have done the activity teachers

should teach about grammar. The authors stated that a focus on form at the end of the task

helps students to reflect upon and make sense of the language they have just used. The

authors dedicate the remainder of the book to examples of different tasks. The tasks

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demonstrate various ways in which teachers can manipulate texts in order to engage

students in conversations.

Reaction:

The authors provide a detailed overview of task-based teaching. The examples are

effective in demonstrating the variety of activities that can be done with tasks. The authors

also compiled an extensive list of examples to illustrate the effectiveness of task-based

teaching. The downside to the example tasks provided is that each task is accompanied by

a required text. The authors emphasize that task-based activities should be used with texts.

The second downside is the suggestion that students focus on form at the conclusion of

each task. I believe that students should be given a chance to ask questions, but that does

not require that the class focus on form.

Sykes, J. M., Oskoz, A., & Thorne, S. L. (2008). Web 2.0, Synthetic Immersive

Environments, and Mobile Resources for Language Education. CALICO Journal,

25(3), 528-546.

Summary:

The authors begin by demonstrating the importance of web-based communication

in everyday life. The authors then discuss several WEB 2.0 tools and their usefulness in

foreign language classrooms. The first tool discussed is wiki pages. The authors state that

in order to adopt this wiki pages, the instructor must agree that L2 learning can take place

during collaborative projects. The authors also recognize that learning to use this type of

tool is difficult and time consuming. That said, the benefits outweigh the negatives.

Students can collaboratively create documents that are of higher quality than if they had

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worked alone. There are features that allow both instructors and students to view the

changes to each document and see who made those changes. As students track changes

they are helping each other acquire a language. The second tool discussed is blogs. When

students write and participate in a blog, they are writing to a wide audience. Many people

read and comment on blogs, making students feel more like authors and empowering them

to say what they want others to read. The authors finish by discussing the implications of

virtual environments on L2 acquisition. The opportunities to use the language are limitless

in a virtual world. Students can be placed in situations where they are able to acquire

communicative competencies that would be difficult to acquire in a classroom.

Reaction:

The potential for technology use in a language classroom are limitless. Willing

educators are able to achieve more through wise implementation of technology. The skills

that blogs and wikis require of students are skills that can be used in more that the

classroom setting. As students work together on these projects they help each other

produce something that on their own they would not be able to produce. Technology

offers tools that would otherwise be inaccessible in a classroom. Students can enter virtual

environments, some of which are designed to mimic actual locations in the world, and

gain real-life experiences. The downside to internet use is the inability to know with

whom students are interacting, therefore instructors must take precautions to protect

students. However, the ability to enter a digital environment and acquire language is

astounding. No longer does it require thousands of dollars in travel to gain authentic

experiences with a second language; authentic experiences can now be had in a classroom

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Todhunter, S. (2007). Instructional conversations in a high school Spanish class. Foreign

Language Annals, 40(4), 604-621. doi: 10.1111/j.1944-9720.2007.tb02883.x

Summary:

Interpersonal communication is achieved by practicing communication with

others. This type of communication is characterized by its spontaneity, and the various

topics that students choose to speak about. It is virtually impossible to practice

spontaneous conversations in a classroom as communicative conversations are planned

and tailored to practice specific concepts; classroom conversations will never truly mirror

what happens in the real-world. The author of this article studied the use of real-world

conversations in foreign language teaching, the conversations were labeled “instructional

conversations.” Instructional conversations were originally developed for language

minority students and generally focused on literary texts. Instructional conversations are

useful because to participate in them, students need to link complex thinking skills with

linguistic abilities. Instructional conversations are different than other types of

conversations because they are dependent upon the responses of participants to keep the

conversations going. The teacher must not use the IRE (initiation-response-evaluation)

approach when using these conversations; in place of evaluation teachers must ask follow

up questions. The author states that these are high-risk conversations as students are

expected to maintain the conversation throughout its entirety. Teachers must be taught

how to conduct these conversations in order for students to benefit from them.

Reaction:

Instructional conversations need to be used more; they promote proficiency, real-

world communication, and motivation. This is the type of communication that the students

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want to do and it is the type of conversation I, as an instructor, want my students to take

part in. In instructional conversations students share power as they ask each other real

questions. Some communicative activities, although intended to be student-centered, are

designed to have students practice what instructors want them to practice, they

occasionally lack authenticity. Teachers need to be taught to notice when an instructional

conversation is starting. Once an instructional conversation has begun, teachers should be

willing to postpone their lesson plan and let their students communicate. The author of the

study admits that these conversations are difficult to maintain, but I believe that once

students are taught how to be an effective interlocutor these conversation will become

more frequent.

Wehner, A. K., Gump, A. W., & Downey, S. (2011). The effects of Second Life on the

motivation of undergraduate students learning a foreign language. Computer

Assisted Language Learning, 24, 277-289. doi:10.1080/09588221.2010.551757

Summary:

The authors examined if using a virtual world is effective for motivating learners

of a second language. The authors mentioned that, despite all the things that an instructor

is able to provide, motivation must come from the student. A virtual world, Second Life,

was introduced as a medium that has the potential to facilitate language acquisition by

providing opportunities to use the language in an authentic manner. The authors state that

virtual worlds provide a way for students to explore different countries, interact with

native speakers and do so without leaving the classroom. In this study, two groups of

students were tested to see if motivation improved with virtual worlds. All students were

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in the same course taught by the same teacher. When the course was over, motivation tests

were conducted. It was seen that there was a positive, while not statistically so,

improvement with students who participated in the online environment. The authors

acknowledge that this may come from the anonymity offered by creating an online

character that acts as a mask for students trying to produce language. In closing the

authors state that virtual environments are a tool that, if/when used appropriately by

instructors, offers many opportunities to foreign language learners.

Reaction:

This is an interesting concept. There is so much that students could be exposed to

by using online environments like the one mentioned in this study. The ability to virtually

take students to places where they could practice authentic language is very exciting.

However, the concerns I have would be the quality of the input that our students would be

receiving. If the input is not comprehensible to the students then it is going to be a

frustrating experience. Also I would be concerned about distractions that can be found in

the virtual environments. Left on their own, what would students be able accomplish?

Major concerns aside, I believe that carefully structured task-based activities could be

accomplished in these types of environments. Virtual environments are an avenue which I

will further research.

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Classroom

Ballman, T. L., Liskin-Gasparro, J. E., & Mandell, P. B. (2001). The communicative

classroom. Boston, MA: Heile & Heinle.

Summary:

The authors focus on developing teaching skills that will help students become

more proficient in a second language. They cite a survey that states that students desire to

develop oral proficiency. The authors suggest that teachers ask their students why they

want to learn the language. When a foreign language becomes more than a school subject,

it becomes a way to connect with the people who speak the language. To begin the

discussion, the authors first discuss what communication is. They state that

communication is divided into three parts, presentational communication, interpersonal

communication, and interpretational communication. The authors describe how different

activities and assessments should work in a communicative classroom. They assert that

grammar should not be the focus of classroom activities, the focus should be on

accomplishing communicative goals. The grammar that is taught should be in “support of

communicative activities” (p. 34). The authors stress that activity construction is essential

for language acquisition. If the students are presented with activities that are sequenced

appropriately, students will learn the grammar by completing the activities. Several

sample activities are provided such as information-gap activities, task-based activities and

interview activities; each activity type allows the teacher to focus on language production.

One of the final sections is on language assessment. The authors state that teachers should

assess the same way they teach.

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Reaction:

Students want to speak the language being studied. I believe that teachers need to

be cautious that they do not focus explicitly on one of the four language skills; speaking a

language is important but being proficient in a language entails more than speaking. The

authors present an approach to teaching a language class that I was not familiar with, thus

challenging the way I had previously taught my classes. Until I read this book, I had

taught grammar and then had the students do activities that I thought would have them

practice what they had been taught. As I have experimented with the approach to teaching

presented in this book, I agree that grammar in support of activities allows students to

focus on activities that aid them in the real-world. Real-world activities aid students when

they are using the language outside of the classroom.

Lee, J., & Van Patten, B. (2003). Making communicative language teaching happen (2nd

ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

Summary:

The authors begin their book by describing the how languages have traditionally

been taught. The Atlas complex, a teaching approach in which instructors are responsible

for relaying information to students, was introduced as a common model used in many

educational fields. A version of the Atlas complex exists today in language teaching, it is

known as the audiolingual method. The audiolingual method is based on memorization

and drills; students in this type of classroom are no more than passive learners repeating

what they have heard or memorized. After presenting the audiolingual method, the authors

change their focus to the communicative method. Within the authors’ discussion of the

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communicative method, they describe a variety of topics, two of which will be described

briefly. First, classroom roles of students and teachers are described as the teacher being a

facilitator of learning, an architect who designs classroom activities so students are able to

accomplish what is asked of them. Students are the active agents in the classroom.

Classroom focus should be on what students will do and not what the teacher will tell

them. The authors also describe the importance of comprehensible input, stating that it is

through exposure to comprehensible input that students acquire a language. The authors

then describe activities which implement the principles of a communicative classroom.

Reaction:

The authors begin by characterizing the nature of many foreign language

programs: students memorize and repeat phrases and vocabulary. The authors then

describe a different way for foreign language classes to operate. At first I was skeptical

about a communicative classroom approach, specifically with the idea of exposing

students to the target language almost exclusively. I believed that students need to have

some instruction in their native language. After experimenting with comprehensible input

and with some of the activities the authors provided, I realized that students are capable of

doing more than I originally thought feasible. Task-based activities are the perfect medium

for introducing new concepts and expanding on what students are able to do in the target

language. The authors create a resource to aid teachers who wish to teach languages in a

communicative way.

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Levine, G. S. (2003). Student and instructor beliefs and attitudes about target language

use, first language use, and anxiety: Report of a questionnaire study. The Modern

Language Journal, 87(3), 334-364. doi: 10.111/1540-4781.00194

Summary:

The author reports that many studies support the use of the target language in the

classroom. The author explored the research literature looking for why, and who uses the

native language in the classroom. Several articles and studies are mentioned as having

shown positive results when using the L1 in a foreign language classroom. In this study

the author examines student anxiety towards target language, as used by the instructor and

students. The author tells foreign language teachers to recognize that their classrooms are

not monolinguistic, but they are multilinguistic environments. The author suggests that

there are important functions that the L1 can provide in a classroom. L1 use should not be

marked as inappropriate in the classroom; doing so increases students’ language anxiety.

The final finding is the positive correlation between the amount of target language used in

the classroom and the anxiety levels of each student. The author concludes that excessive

use of the target language will increase the anxiety of the students, which in turn will

inhibit their acquisition of the target language.

Reaction:

This study contradicts other theories on exclusive use of the target language (TL)

in the classroom. The author mentions that students become anxious at the idea of having

to use the TL, but other researchers have said using the TL is motivating. The conclusion

is potentially intriguing, but the author does not supply the necessary data to draw this

conclusion. The idea that the students’ anxiety would increase at the thought of not being

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able to use their L1 seems unfounded. If the students know the expectations and benefits

of using the TL, then I believe that the motivation to use the language is a natural

consequence. I would agree that there are occasions in which the L1 should be used in the

classroom, but not to the extent this author suggests it should be. I would like to conduct

further research on this topic.

Thoms, J., Liao, J., & Szustak, A. (2005). The use of L1 in an L2 on-line chat activity.

Canadian Modern Language Review, 62, 161-182

Summary:

The authors begin by discussing Vygotsky’s theories of social interaction in

relation to acquiring a second language. The authors also discuss research which was

conducted to see what tools students use when learning a language. From this research

foundation the authors conducted a study during which students had to instruct each other

through chat sessions in order to complete a series of tasks. Throughout the study the

authors recorded several types of L1 use. First students used their L1 to keep the task

moving along. Before the task was started students structured the work they were going to

be doing in their L1. The second use of the L1 was to define vocabulary that the students

did not know. Thirdly the L1 was used when students focused on grammatical forms. The

final observation was that when students participated in off-task behaviors it was done in

their L1. In conclusion the authors suggest that the L1 is not counterproductive to L2

acquisition. In fact there are times when students are able to accomplish tasks they would

not have been able to accomplish if they did not have access to their L1.

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Reaction:

This changes the idea of L1 use in the classroom. This is by no means a reason for

teachers to abandon L2 instruction, but the authors explain why students use their L1 in

the classroom. Instructors should recognize the occasional need for students to use the L1

when working on tasks. Cognitively challenging tasks are better achieved by students

when they are able to use their L1 as a tool. In place of penalizing students for L1 use,

instructors should recognize the reasons for which the students have used their L1.

Instructors can use that information to reflect on how to plan future lessons. L1 use can be

used as a tool by both instructors and students and should be not be viewed entirely

negative in a foreign language class.

Computer-Aided Language Learning

Acha, J. (2009). The effectiveness of multimedia programmes in children’s vocabulary

learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40(1), 23-31.

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.008.x

Summary:

The author of this study investigates the effectiveness of multimedia presentations

on vocabulary acquisition. The three types of media examined are plain text, a picture

without text and a picture with a text. The author explaines that texts, accompanied by

pictures, facilitate vocabulary acquisition because in place of trying to create meaning for

the text, meaning is already given with the picture. The author states that using pictures

may be ineffective because of the cognitive load required by students when they process

texts with pictures. However, she concedes that this approach may still prove adequate for

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children learning a foreign language. The author conducted a study in which the students

were exposed to each of the three vocabulary presentations. The results confirm what the

author believed: pictures accompanied with text were not effective for vocabulary

retention. According to the author, the results of this study indicate that the best way to

present new vocabulary is by using text alone. The author concludes stating that using

both pictures and text is a cognitively demanding process. Pictures with text may be an

effective teaching approach in some situations; however, it was not effective for

vocabulary retention.

Reaction:

The author focused this study on younger children who are still developing their

cognitive processes. It would be interesting to conduct this study with a group of older

language learners who have more established cognitive processes. One of the reasons the

author conducted this study was to look at the effectiveness of language learning computer

programs. The author concluded that even though this method of vocabulary instruction is

not the most effective, yet computer programs that offer this type of instruction are still

being used. People in the world want to learn languages but, due to a lack of space in

foreign language classrooms, they resort to ineffectual programs to achieve their desires. It

is important that instructors in the classroom use effective methods of instruction,

otherwise they are not any better than ineffectual language programs.

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Arnold, N., & Ducate, L., (Eds.) . (2011). Present and future promises of CALL: From

theory and research to new directions in language teaching (2nd ed.). San Marcos,

Texas: CALICO.

Summary:

The editors present a collection of articles about Computer Assisted Language

Learning (CALL). The editors begin by describing how computers were first used in

language learning primarily as testing or tutoring tools. As computer capabilities have

improved so have the possibilities of CALL. The editors then present articles that explain

how CALL is a useful tool pedagogically, stating that CALL provides opportunities for

students to be exposed to authentic input and to produce output. The contributors also

examine popular language teaching approaches and explain how CALL can facilitate

those approaches. After the editors establish the utility of CALL from a variety

perspectives, they introduce various articles describing specific uses of CALL in the

classroom. One of the mentioned uses is the ability to facilitate reading in a second

language (L2). The author of one of the articles states that CALL provides access to

authentic texts and a means of comprehending those authentic texts that normally are too

difficult for students. When CALL tools are used, students are able not only to read

authentic texts with high comprehension rates, but also to acquire new vocabulary. The

book ends with an article describing the future of CALL. The contributor of the final

article claims, that while teachers and students have a desire to use technology in the

classroom, teachers need to be better trained so they can take advantage of CALL tools

available to them.

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Reaction:

The editors compiled research about technology use in foreign languages

classrooms. Previously I had not had positive experiences with technology; I saw it as a

method of circumventing language teachers. From the research provided in this volume, I

see how CALL can be positively implemented. There are two advantages that particularly

appeal to me. First, the internet facilitates students’ access to more authentic texts, and

with the help of computer programs those texts are no longer too advanced for language

learners. Students can click on unfamiliar words to get their definitions, which allows

students to focus on the overall meaning of the text. Secondly, I am intrigued by the non-

academic use of technology. People have learned languages because of the social

interactions that they have online, specifically in computer games. I am astounded at

students’ academic accomplishments when they are not focused on academic work. When

classroom activities are patterned after normal student activities, I believe language

acquisition is facilitated.

Hampel, R. (2006). Rethinking task design for the digital age: A framework for language

teaching and learning in synchronous online environment. ReCALL, 18(1), 105-

121. doi:10.1017/S0958344006000711

Summary:

In the beginning of the article the author states that online technology brings

limitless opportunities to the types of task-based activities that students may accomplish.

Tasks need to be reanalyzed to identify if it is possible to transfer the everyday classroom

task-based assignments to the digital environment. A study was conducted at an open

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(online) university, where students did not have the opportunity to meet with their

classmates or their instructors. Instructors were given a set of tasks that needed to be

accomplished through the online learning atmosphere. How the instructors used the

activities was up to them. The classroom procedures were also up to the discretion of the

instructors. The author examined if teachers could effectively apply task-based activities

to an online environment. In conclusion the author found that not all tasks can

appropriately be altered to fit an online setting. Students lose a lot of information when

they cannot interact directly with a person. If a task is to be adapted to an online

environment, instructors need to tailor aspects of each task to appropriately fit an online

environment.

Reaction:

One of the reasons that CALL has become popular is because of the lack of

classroom space to adequately accommodate each student wanting to learn a language.

While a computer will never allow an individual to completely acquire communicative

competence, appropriately designed tasks will allow more students to have opportunities

to be successful when learning a language. Online tasks help extend the classroom beyond

the wall of any building and the benefits are becoming more apparent for the

implementation of online learning systems. Instructors should begin to implement

technology in their classrooms as doing so has the potential to create independent learners

who interact in authentic environments with higher frequency. However, when designing

activities instructors need to take into consideration where the activity will take place,

online or in a classroom.

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Culture

DeCapua, A., & Wintergerst, A. C. (2004). Crossing cultures in the language classroom.

Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Summary:

This book serves as a guide to individuals not aware of cultural differences. The

main focus is the classroom setting but the principles discussed apply both in and outside

of the classroom setting. Tangible aspects of culture are first discussed, starting with

monochronic and polychronic time and continuing to the concepts of face. After

discussing visible characteristics of culture, the authors begin a discussion of culture

shock, describing it as process and analyzing its causes as well as the factors that aid in the

production and continuance of the individuals cultural shock. The next section deals with

the complicated nature of nonverbal communication. Understanding the differences and

similarities in nonverbal actions is crucial in enabling effective communication across a

variety of cultures. The authors also discuss social roles and pragmatics, claiming that

miscommunication occurs because words and phrases may have different meanings for

different people. One important aspect of this text is the practice section that accompanies

each chapter and includes a variety of activities for each topic covered.

Reaction:

This is a very useful text for teachers who wish to be more aware of cultural

aspects of education. Many of the skills and insights associated with culture learning seem

to be the same for language learning. The layout of this text is very practical, enabling the

reader to take the principles discussed and easily apply them to a classroom. The inclusion

of practice with each chapter helps to make the application of these concepts accessible.

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Language and culture are so intertwined that it is impossible to truly separate them. As

teachers of foreign languages it is important that we understand that when we are teaching

languages we are teaching culture. This idea is recognized within the five C’s of foreign

language teaching.

Moran, P. R., (2001). Teaching culture: Perspective in practice. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Summary:

Moran uses his personal experiences to inform language teachers on how culture

should be taught. Moran explains that there are four “knowings” that should be addressed

when teaching culture; knowing why, knowing how, knowing about, and knowing oneself.

With these four ideas, Moran makes the argument throughout the book that learning

culture is a process by which people learn about themselves. As students learn about their

own culture, they begin to develop empathy for and understand other cultures. A large

portion of the book is dedicated to defining the characteristics of cultures. Moran explains

that culture can be defined by examining products, practices, perspectives, communities

and persons. Moran then dedicates a chapter to each of the cultural characteristics,

emphasizing the links between culture and language. Moran calls language a window to

the culture: when one learns a language one also learns about the culture of those who

speak the language. The book contains appendices full of activities that can be tailored to

any level. The activities allow students to reflect on other cultures as much as on their

own.

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Reaction:

I really liked the portion on language and culture. I agree that students can only

learn so much about a culture from books; experiencing the culture is the best way to fully

understand it. In order for students to be able to experience a new culture they need to

have second language skills. Moran uses the metaphor of an iceberg to describe culture,

meaning that most of what is seen is only a fraction of what exists below the surface. I like

this metaphor and believe that it is the teachers’ responsibility to make students aware that

there is more to culture than what is seen. Students need to be taught how to investigate

and make appropriate inferences about different cultures.

Regan, T.G., & Osborn, T. A. (2002). The foreign language educator in society: Toward a

critical pedagogy. New York, NY: Lawrence Erllbaum Associates.

Summary:

Reagan and Osborn address a variety of topics, beginning with reflective practices.

Regan and Osborn state that in order for teachers to become effective decision-makers for

their classes, they must develop reflective practices. There are three types of reflection:

reflection-for-practice (reflection during planning), reflection-in-practice (reflection

during classroom activities) and reflection-of-practice (reflection after the activity). The

authors discuss the importance of recognizing that all languages are valid; specific

reference is made to three languages, Esperanto, Sign Language, and Ebonics, that have

not always been recognized as valid languages. The authors then describe constructionist

ideas of language learning, dealing specifically with radical and social constructions. The

difference between the two is that radical construction is based on the way the students

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perceive the world. Learning/construction is placed completely on the students’ shoulders.

Social construction is based on groups helping each other to construct their understanding

of the world. The authors conclude by discussing the ethics of language teaching. Some

places use language as a way to control others, to keep them in the socioeconomic or

political stations that they currently occupy. They also discuss how individuals’ rights are

violated when they are forced to use a foreign language to conduct their lives.

Reaction:

Language carries with it rights; it identifies who an individual is and in some cases

what one is capable of becoming. As globalization becomes more prevalent in everyday

society it is important that teachers develop skills that address the needs of all their

students. The ability to critically reflect upon one’s own practice is something that

teachers must develop or foreign language education will stop improving. Knowing how

languages are learned and how to reflect upon one’s own teaching, are essential for

teachers to develop to ensure that students are receiving the best education possible.

Glossing

Gettys, S., Imhof, L. A., & Kautz, J. O. (2001). Computer-assisted reading: The effect of

glossing format on comprehension and vocabulary retention. Foreign Language

Annals, 34(2), 91-99. doi:10.1111/j.1944-9720.2001.tb02815.x

Summary:

The authors of this article investigate whether sentence-level equivalency glosses

are more effective than dictionary glosses. A sentence-level equivalency gloss is a word

that is glossed according to the context of the sentence. A dictionary translation is a word

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glossed out of context thereby allowing students the opportunity to infer word meaning.

The glosses are compared to top-down and bottom-up approaches. Glosses that allow

students to focus on the global meaning of a text are top-down glosses, these are sentence-

level equivalency glosses. Glosses which require student to infer vocabulary meaning are

bottom-up glosses, which are the dictionary glosses. Students place the majority of their

effort on a bottom-up approach; students desire to understand each individual word. After

conducting a study the authors conclude that providing a dictionary gloss is more effective

than sentence-level equivalents. The authors also note that, while less effective, students

prefer to have the sentence-level equivalents as it provides them with a sense of being able

to read an authentic text.

Reaction:

Glossing is more than defining words. Glossing facilitates students’ negotiation of

a text. According to the authors the decision should not be whether to gloss but how to

gloss. If instructors want to focus on text meaning they should offer a sentence-level

equivalency gloss. If instructors want to focus on vocabulary acquisition then a dictionary

gloss should be implemented. I believe that both glossing methods are effective tools that

should be implemented in the classroom. One concept mentioned by the authors, which I

believe to be essential, is depth of processing. I believe that activities addressing the four

language skills should require more than lower-level thinking skills. According to the

depth of processing theory, when students rely on higher-lever thought processes, such as

vocabulary inferring and multiple-choice glosses, they retain and recall concepts with

greater accuracy.

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Liu, T-C., & Lin, P-H. (2011). What comes with technological convenience? Exploring

the behaviors and performances of learning with computer-mediated dictionaries.

Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 373-383. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2010.08.016.

Summary:

The authors of this article designed a study based on cognitive load theory (CLT).

The questions the authors pose are centered on the cognitive load placed on readers using

different glosses. Each gloss presented variations of the same words. The authors looked

at the time students spent with a text; claiming that if students spend more time processing

a text then they are able to retain more. The authors also tested how dictionary type affects

incidental vocabulary acquisition. The final question posed by the authors is how

dictionary type affects comprehension. The three dictionary types tested were pop-up

dictionaries, type-in dictionaries, and traditional book dictionaries. The results of the study

show that the pop-up dictionary was by far the most popular. Students accessed this

dictionary significantly more than the other dictionaries. The least effective was the book

dictionary, students spent more time with the book dictionary but the majority of their

time was spent navigating through all the words. No difference was noted in the incidental

vocabulary acquisition.

Reaction:

The type of gloss used not only affects where student attention is directed, but also

the attention resources needed for comprehension of a text. These authors identify three

cognitive process types that require resources. The first is extraneous processes which are

the loads placed on a learner by unnecessary words and information. If learners are

looking through a dictionary they are needlessly expending valuable resources. The

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second are intrinsic processes, which are the processes required to remember an item

while doing something else. The third are germane processes, which are the cognitive

loads used for conscious learning. Each student has a fixed amount of resources; these

resources must be properly managed. Instructors need to have a pedagogical reason for a

way in which they gloss a text. I believe each glossing approach is valuable when used

appropriately; but each approach must match the goals of the course if it is going to be

effective.

Louchy, J. P., Tuzi, F.,(2010). Comparing foreign language learners’ use of online

glossing programs. International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning

Environments, 1(4), 31-51. doi:10.4018/jvple.2010100103

Summary:

The authors have set a high standard for internet tools. They looked for existing

tools that allow students to access authentic texts not requiring simplification. The authors

state that in order for students to focus on the context of a text, vocabulary cannot be a

hindrance. The authors mention a threshold vocabulary limit to access most readings of

nearly 9,000 words. The authors recognize the difficulty in selecting a text and in glossing

the right words, as there is not enough time to do all of this for each class. For this reason

the authors examined several web tools that facilitate both glossing and comprehension

quizzes. In this study the authors also compare two gloss types, a pop-up gloss, and a

clickable gloss. The authors conclude that when students have a gloss it needs to be easily

accessible or students will not use it. The authors also report that when students had

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glossing options that would take them away from the reading, the students would become

too distracted and were unable to remain focused on the reading task assigned.

Reaction:

Students need to have access to appropriate resources. Web tools that can create

glosses for individual readings have a lot of potential. Web tools that create glosses for

students selected texts put students in charge of choosing texts that interest them. If

students are allowed to choose the articles they are going to read for themselves, the

articles will have more meaning for them, thus increasing motivation for the students. I

think that being able to enter any selected text into a program and have that program create

an effective gloss is a lot to ask for from a computer program. The authors were able to

learn valuable information, but they were not able to find a web program that created the

desired glosses. I believe that there is no substitute for instructors preparing material for

their students.

Language Learning Theories

Lightbown, P.M., & Spada, N. (2006). How languages are learned (3rd ed.). Oxford, NY:

Oxford University Press.

Summary:

In this book the authors combine research from a variety of language learning

topics to create an overview of language learning research. The authors begin by

discussing how children learn their first language. Theories such as behaviorism, the

innatist perspective, and interactionist perspectives are described. The authors then use the

theories of first language learning and combine them with theories of second language

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learning. The authors also mention that characteristics of the learner and the environment

in which one learns a language affect language learning. In the third chapter characteristics

of language learners are examined in greater detail. Along with the characteristics of the

learners, group dynamics are mentioned as a factor influencing student perceptions and

desires to learn a foreign language. The authors use chapters four through six to discuss

what happens in the classroom. Topics such as vocabulary acquisition, asking questions,

wait time after a question, and context of language learning are presented. In the final

chapter the authors examine several popular language learning notions. They neither

confirm nor deny the notions, but rather point out the truths and the falsehood found in

each notion.

Reaction:

The authors of this book presented a variety of language learning theories, such as

the critical age hypothesis, and teaching approaches, such as innatist and behaviorist.

Many of these theories I have heard mentioned by colleagues and in research papers. This

is however, the first book I have encountered with references to these language learning

theories. The authors of this book covered a variety of language learning topics, for which

they provided references to further research. One of the topics the authors explored were

the characteristics of language learners. Other researchers have addressed learners

characteristics but not with the degree of detail that these authors have provided. This

book is an excellent starting point for one who is interested in conducting research on how

languages are learned.

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Shrum, J. L., & Glisan, E. W. (2010). Teacher’s handbook: Contextualized language

instruction (4th ed.). Boston: Heinle Cengage Learning.

Summary:

This resource for foreign language educators begins with a brief history of foreign

language education. Following the discussion of several prominent theories and their

impact, the authors then provide information on lesson and curriculum planning. The idea

of backwards planning is introduced along with bottom-up and top-down approaches to

instruction. After explaining the benefits of those approaches the authors discuss various

methodologies that facilitate language instruction. They highlight the shift to standards-

based education and how it has affected foreign language classrooms, now that

proficiency in the target language is the new goal of instruction. Ideas on how to plan

lessons so students can achieve these standards are introduced and discussed. The rest of

the book offers teaching suggestions to aid in developing student proficiency. Supported

by current research, this text is a guide for creating a classroom that promotes language

acquisition. Each chapter has a practice section containing case studies which illustrate

how principles are put into practice. Along with the case studies are comprehension

questions that promote further understanding of the teaching methodologies presented.

Reaction:

This book is a great resource that provides information to teachers who wish to

expand their current knowledge and skills. When looking for new ideas one can refer to

the content of this book for inspiration. The authors cover a variety of topics supporting

each with current research. What I especially like about the book is the bibliography that

accompanies each chapter, which makes it possible to take a deeper look at the research of

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each method. The case studies, with the accompanying questions, have been instrumental

in clarifying the application of different concepts for me.

Students

Hoang Oanh, D. T. (2007). Meeting students’ needs in two EAP programmes in Vietnam

and New Zealand. Regional Language Centre, 38(3), 324-349.

doi:10.1177/0033688207085850

Summary:

The author describes needs assessment as having three parts similar to a triangle.

One part is the perceived needs of the instructor, another part is the perceived needs of the

students, and the final part is the educational institution’s needs. The author explains that

it is imperative that all these needs be taken in consideration when a course is designed.

The author acknowledges that one set of needs can place constraints on another set, but,

when each part works together, all parts benefit. The author focuses specifically on student

needs. As he presents assessment types that are considered to be of high value in assessing

student needs. Hoang Oanh claims that the most important assessment is self-assessment:

students who were trained to recognize their own needs reported that they became more

independent in their learning. Students taught to self-assess when given the opportunity to

choose elective courses made their choices based on self-identified needs and not on

superfluous motivators. Two universities were compared, one in New Zealand and one in

Vietnam. The New Zealand program used a needs assessment program to guide their

instruction. The Vietnamese program was not using this system, but is moving slowly

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towards one similar. The Vietnamese instructors have seen benefits of needs assessment

and would like to offer those benefits to their students.

Reaction:

Needs assessment is systematical and must be repeated throughout a course to be

effective. It is not possible to administer one test and from that one tool know what the

students need. Students must constantly be assessed to judge the needs they have.

Instructors’ must find ways to stay vigilant when it comes to the needs of students.

Instructors responsibilities include designing courses to meet the needs of their students.

Nevertheless, learning to self-evaluate is an essential skill for independent learners. This is

similar to gap noticing, students need to be taught how to notice gaps in their education.

Once students know how to identify their needs, they will increase their autonomy.

Macintyre, P. D. (2007). Willingness to communicate in the second language:

Understanding the decision to speak as volitional process. The Modern Language

Journal, 91(4), 564-576. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00623.x

Summary:

The author of this article examines factors that can hinder or encourage student use

of the target language in a classroom. The factors explored make up what the author calls

willingness to communicate (WTC). The author began with trait specific and state specific

anxiety. Trait specific is defined as the long-term or typical pattern of the learners’

behavior while state specific refers to different situations that learners find themselves in

that cause anxiety to be at higher levels. The author recognizes that the amount of anxiety

fluctuates as students learn to cope and manage their anxiety. The author states that it is

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important to recognize that today one students may not function well because of their

anxiety but tomorrow they may do better. Of particular interest is what happens once a

student decides to communicate. The author uses a metaphor to illustrate the student’s

attempt at communication. When students produce language it is like crossing the

Rubicon, it is an action that they cannot take back. Students are met with varying

responses to their language production; one common and damaging response is when the

teachers respond in the L1. When this happens students receive the that their language is

not good enough.

Reaction:

It is daunting to choose to use a foreign language, and once a student has made the

choice they need to be met with a positive response. It is the responsibility of the

instructor to use the foreign language with every student with every answer. It is also the

responsibility of the instructor to guide the students across the Rubicon by ensuring that

instructions facilitate and promote language use. While not the main focus of the article

the authors mention the negative effect a native language response can have on a student.

When instructors choose to respond in the native language they are telling the student

what they believe about their language skills.

127"

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139"

Appendix A

1) Why are you in this profession? How would you define your teaching philosophy?

2) What is the role of the teacher in the classroom?

3) What is the role of the students in the classroom?

4) What strategies do you use in your classroom to achieve these roles?

5) What materials do you use in your classroom?

6) What is communicative teaching?

7) Do the materials you use accommodate communicative teaching? What do you do

to tailor your text and other materials to your teaching method?

8) What aspects of teaching are important to you?

9) What is task based instruction?

10) How do you implement task based instruction into your classroom?

11) How do you use the target language in your classroom?

12) How do you design your classroom activities to keep them student centered?

13) What do you do to assure the activities will allow the students to use the language?

140"

Appendix B

Figure 4. Progressive glossing step 1. The text will appear to students on the screen like

this. Italicized words are linked to progressive glosses. For example, the reader might not

know the words ‘mascota’ and click on it. This would open up a pop-up gloss as shown in

Figure 5.

141"

Figure 5. Progressive glossing step 2. The first gloss format presents the target word in

another context. The word has the same semantic meaning. From here students may click

“Próximo” (next) to continue with the gloss or “Volver al cuento” (return to story) to

continue reading the story. If the reader clicks on “Próximo” they will be presented with

Figure 6.

Siguiente"

142"

Figure 6. Progressive glossing step 3 The students are presented with a picture

representation of the word and are again given the option to return to the story or to

continue to the next gloss format.

Volver"al"cuento"

143"

Figure 7. Progressive glossing step 5 The final gloss option presented to the student is a

multiple-choice gloss. Students will be able to choose what they believe the target word

means. If the appropriate word is selected a message will appear allowing the student to

know the correct option was selected. If the student selects an incorrect word, the correct

word will be highlighted and the other words will disappear.

Volver"al"cuento"

Siguiente"

144"

Appendix C

Student ____________________________________

This Student Never Sometimes Often Always

Identifies the topic 1 2 3 4

Identifies the main idea 1 2 3 4

Combines/chunks similar ideas 1 2 3 4

Paraphrase accurately 1 2 3 4

Deletes minor details 1 2 3 4

Recognizes author’s emphasis 1 2 3 4

Recognizes author’s purpose 1 2 3 4

Comments:

ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.

Who are the Luo? Oral tradition and disciplinary practices in anthropology and history *

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2006

John R Campbell

What is oral tradition, and how can it help elucidate the past and understand the relationship between culture, social organization and identity today? It turns out that this question is complicated by the influence of early European narratives that described and defined African society and which have also indelibly marked the methods, assumptions and forms of narrative writing used by contemporary social science. This paper addresses this vexing issue with respect to research on the Luo-speaking peoples of Eastern Africa by examining how anthropologists and historians have approached ‘oral tradition’ and how their approach has influenced the way they write about Luo culture, society and identity.*I would like to thank Donald Crummey and David Anderson for their helpful comments and suggestions.

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Elke Peters

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K. Wiredu

An oral tradition is a transmission of thought over generations by the spoken word and techniques of communication other than writing. Under this definition, such items as poems, lyrics, proverbs, and maxims, of course, qualify as elements of our oral traditions. So too do drum texts and art motifs. But languages do have embedded in their syntax and semantics various notions about reality and human experience. Through these, our habits of speech influence our habits of writing. And so we cannot regard written traditions as altogether independent of orality. I illustrate this point with a brief discussion of the influence of orality in the empiricism of John Locke and in the normative conception of personhood in African philosophy.

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Applied Linguistics and Language Teacher Education is aimed at applied linguists who are interested in understanding more about the learning of novice teachers in their classes. The 21 studies in this volume provide information on the complexity of novice teachers’ learning and use of knowledge in a variety of applied linguistics classes such as SLA, Syntax, Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, Phonetics and Phonology, L2 Reading and Writing, Testing, and Content Based Instruction. These studies were conducted in a variety of contexts, from North and South America to Europe, Asia and Australia, and look at the preparation of teachers of English, Spanish and Chinese. The book also includes a state-of-the-art summary of research on knowledge acquisition and use which provides applied linguists with a solid basis for developing their ideas about their students’ learning and use of the knowledge presented in their classes.

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This book explores ways to prepare teachers to teach English as an International Language (EIL) and provides theoretically-grounded models for EIL-informed teacher education. The volume includes two chapters that present a theoretical approach and principles in EIL teacher education, followed by a collection of descriptions of field-tested teacher education programs, courses, units in a course, and activities from diverse geographical and institutional contexts, which together demonstrate a variety of possible approaches to preparing teachers to teach EIL. The book helps create a space for the exploration of EIL teacher education that cuts across English as a Lingua Franca, World Englishes and other relevant scholarly communities. © 2017 Aya Matsuda and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved.

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In an L2 classroom that is taught from heart to heart, story takes on a different role than in the classroom that is primarily about the conveying of information and the development of linguistic skills. In the latter classroom, stories have been about reading comprehension and the acquisition of new vocabulary. In a classroom where the teacher recognizes education as the drawing forth of the individual and the shaping of a community acting on the world, story assumes a central role. In this article the author explores the realm of story in such a classroom and shares many of her own stories. When story is the medium of learning rather than just the end thereof, we come to see that the learners' real needs are much greater than vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. We also see that in such a classroom, community emerges.

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