Weekly Reflection (W9) by Hung-Tzu

This week, we continued our oral update on the projects. Four presentations with diverse topics were presented.

Project by Sangki and Mune

Conceptualizing agents in discourse and frequency effects in English L2 learners’ overpassivization errors: A replication and extension of Ju (2000)

Based on cognitive explanation proposed by Ju (2000), overpassivization errors will be examined against three independent variables, causation types ( 2 levles: external vs. internal causers), word token frequency (2 levels, high frequency verbs vs. low frequency verbs), and types of unaccusatives (2 levels, alternating vs. nonalternating unaccusatives). A grammatical judgment test will be used to test intermediate learners (N=20), advanced learners (N=20), and native speakers (N=10).

The class had a brief discussion on the grammatical judgment test including what the participants were asked to judge the sentences, the specific items on the test, and also the distracters included. Since overpassivization is an error commonly found in advanced learners, learners will not have overpassvization errors untill they have passive knowledge. The distracters are designed to test learners’ past knowledge. No errors on overpassivization might either mean that learners are so advanced that they have no problem, or that learners may simply have not acquired passives yet.

Project by Luciana

Focus on form and self repair: Some insights into foreign language learning

Luciana gave us a brief report on the dissertation that she is currently working on. The study asked the following five research questions (1) How do task types influence focus on form and self-repair? (2) To what degree does learners’ proficiency level affect their focus on from and self-repair? (3) What is the nature of linguistic knowledge targeted in focus on form and self repair? (4) How does the interaction depth influence focus on from and interaction pattern? (5) Do learners perform similarly in focus on form and self repair?
This is a very rare study since Luciana looked at group interaction instead of dyads. From her preliminary data analysis, the class suggested using medium to look at group distribution and also individual learner participation within group activities. We also discussed the term ‘depth of LRE’ and it was mentioned that a lower inference label closer to how the study is operationalized such as length of LRE might be able to avoid mis-interpretation from readers.

Project by David

David presented an interesting CALL project in which an alien interacted with learners and give feedback on errors through negotiation of meanings. Suggestions on how the alien project could be expanded included tracking student responses after feedback is given, choosing more generative target structure for the study and providing theoretical ground for this alternative way of giving feedback (i.e. justifying the pedagogical reasons). Yao mentioned that this type of study might be related to human computer interaction or ethnographic research within computer environment. The followings are references that Yao sent to the class list.

Hampel, R. (2003). Theoretical perspectives and new practices in audio-graphic conferencing for language learning. ReCALL, 15(1), 21-36. CALICO (Vol. 20, No. 3); Pujolà (2001) and Bangs (2003); Toole and Heift (2002); Heift (2003).

Project by Dan

Promoting grammar awareness with color-coded feedback

Dan reported his pilot study of color-coding method to give feedback on student writing. The interview from this pilot study revealed that students perceived the system as beneficial in terms of raising meta-awareness. With the short treatment period, Dan suspected that there might not be significant improvement in accuracy of writing, yet, the followings are possible ways to demonstrate the benefit of the color-coding system. (1) Looking into students’ self revision ability at the beginning and at the end of the color-coding treatment might be a way to quantify student learning. (2) Survey designed with Likert scale asking students’ preference in receiving feedback both before and after the treatment. (3) Semi-structured interviews eliciting information on how learners engaged in the revision process using the color-coding system.

Followed by the discussion on the project, we did a hands-on activity applying Dan’s color-coding system to student writing. The activity led to discussion on realistic classroom problems such as how much feedback to give and the many decisions that teachers go through when giving feedbacks.