Palma Lara_Gildardo_review of Foster and Eckerth
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Transcript of Palma Lara_Gildardo_review of Foster and Eckerth
Transferability from lab conditions to real classroom setting
In commenting a core issue in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research
traditionally considered to favorably endorse successful acquisition of an L2, that is,
negotiation for meaning to obtain and generate comprehensible input Foster (1998)
expanded the research path from the traditional lab that is singularly prepared for data
collecting to a real classroom context. Foster (1998) carried out this in order “to see what
the student in the classroom does with the negotiation of meaning” (p. 5). She also added
task type (optional versus required information exchange) and participant structure (dyad
versus small group) to monitor if these variables influence the amount of language and
interactional adjustments that individual students generated. To bracket the focus of the
present study, specific research questions were posed in three regions, which involved
language production (the amount of talk), comprehensible input (comprehension checks,
clarification checks, and clarification requests), and modified output (semantic,
morphological, phonological and syntactic adjustments to language turning it out more
comprehensible). These specific questions were woven with how the variables of task type
and participant structure influence the frequency of incidences of student output within the
three areas aforementioned.
The three aspects that Foster (1998) selected as the main focus of the study:
language production, comprehensible input, and modified output, are frequent issues within
the SLA literature, some causing debate. The general goal of Foster’s paper, thus, in
researching how individual learners act in response to varying sorts of meaning negotiating
activities in the classroom situation, seems to be a judicious choice. She evaded adding
additional inconsistent data to the state of knowledge as to whether negotiation of meaning
activities promotes SLA, whilst giving data about the helpfulness of these activities in the
classroom.
By recording intermediate students standing for different ages and nationalities on
audio in ‘a natural classroom scenery’ as they carried out optional and required information
exchange tasks in either dyad (pair-work) or small group participant configuration over four
ongoing class periods, Foster (1998) as teacher-researcher, could effectively gather three
sets of oral discourse production data for four tasks used in the research which included one
optional and required information exchange activity in a dyad structure, and one optional
and required information exchange in a small group arrangement.
“By transcribing the data and calculating the speech production in measures of c-units, Foster tried to quantitatively analyze the frequency of occurrences of language produced within the three areas of the study: language production, comprehensible input, and modified output. Subsequent comparisons between the areas were then undertaken to compare the affect that the variables of task type and participant structure had on the frequency of occurrences of student output within the three areas mentioned above” (Witten, 2005).
In the results, Foster (1998) informs no clear effect for task type or grouping on the
frequency of incidences of student output in the three areas of the study. Conversely, there
was an understandable trend for dyads carrying out a two-way activity to produce more
negotiated interaction moves. In addition, it was evident that several students in the small
groups did not speak at all, and many more in both participant arrangements did not start
any negotiated interaction. A minute number of students in either setting generated
interactional adjustments (Foster 1998). Foster (1998) assumed the setting of the study
within a real classroom as opposed to traditional laboratory-like conditions to be a
noteworthy variable in the research paper and suggests that negotiating for meaning is not a
strategy that most learners are inclined to use when coming across a breakdown in
communication in the classroom.
Foster (1998) also found that students working in groups or pairs did not always work
collaboratively or show any notable L2 acquisition. In her study, she compared the
language produced by intermediate EFL students between small groups and dyads based on
tasks that required the negotiation of meaning. The process of negotiating meaning takes
place when a speaker requests clarification (asking for repeating or rephrasing),
confirmation (e.g. tag questions) and makes self and other repetitions (Ellis 1994). Foster
found that this process was frustrated by the personalities of the learners and the roles that
they 'acted-out' during the task. Foster also found that the type of task had a significant
effect on the social interaction.
Currently the value of negotiation of meaning in communicative activities is being
questioned. In theory, tasks which require ‘negotiation of meaning’ should result in learner
exchanges but it has been revealed that students often do not negotiate meaning if they do
not understand something, but hope to make sense of it through the context of what comes
later, Foster (1998, p.23) calls this “the strategy of pretend and hope rather than the strategy
of check and clarify”. Overall, it should be stated that the general goal and reasons that
Foster (1998) cited to conduct the research to bridge gaps between SLA research and actual
classroom praxis is quite pertinent since she called into question whether studies conducted
in lab conditions could be transferred to classroom unique context.
In the same vein, Eckerth (2009) presents an approximate replication of Foster’s (1998)
study on the negotiation of meaning. The replication study duplicates the methods of data
collection and data analysis of the original study, but alters the target language (L2
German) and adds a stimulated recall methodology. Eckerth (2009) partially confirms
Foster’s results, and introduces some further differentiated findings: the frequencies of
speech occurrences across the different variables of task type and participant’s structure
(students just working in dyads as opposed to Foster’s strategic grouping) in relation to
three core aspects of comprehensible input, speech production and modified output showed
a similar statistical distribution of c-units as compared with Foster’s study. Due to
technology advancement Eckerth was able to collect crystal-clear audible data which in
turn was transcribed in c-units and produce a more representative corpus of 2175 vs. 918 c-
units in Foster’s original study. Negotiation moves increased considerably in the replica
provided that it is difficult for an interlocutor in dyadic interaction to drop out conversation.
A balanced statistical computation is also noticed regarding comprehensible input
production and modified output. I.e., one participant who dominated in one task seemed to
do the same across all tasks. In addition, the recall sessions of an overnight period had
Eckerth make accurate informed decisions whether to typify some speech production as a
particular negotiation move or modified output move. This in turn, revealed the necessity of
using qualitative procedures woven with statistical calculations without diminishing the
importance of both traditions, but enriching data analysis. They were however time
consuming and not advisable for teachers to carry it out in typical classroom settings
(Foster, 1998). An ecological perspective is thus needed in order to strengthen external
validity of the study in terms of how participants are supposed to behave in accordance
with the researcher’s original psycholinguistic assumptions (Bronfenbrenner; 1979; cited in
Eckerth, 2009). Similarly, some sociolinguistic and pragmatic studies are required to
explore participants’ assumptions about the perception of tasks being performed as
communicative events or social relationships (Roebuck 2000; Lantolf & Thorne 2006; cited
in Eckerth, 2009).
REFERENCES
Foster, D. (1998). A classroom Perspective on the Negotiation of Meaning, Applied
Linguistics, 19, 1-23.
Eckerth, J. (2009). Negotiated interaction in the L2 classroom. Lang. Teach., 42 (1), 109–
130
Witten, M. (2005). A Critical Review of: ‘A Classroom Perspective on the Negotiation of
Meaning’. Pauline Foster. Applied Linguistics (1998) 19(1), 1-23.
GILDARDO PALMA LARA IS A LECTURER WITHIN THE FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AT BENEMERITA UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE PUEBLA, HE HOLDS A B.A. IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AND A M.A. IN TEACHING ENGLISH.