Todd, R. (2001). Induction from self-selected concordances and self-correction. System, 29, 91-102
This research investigates whether university-level L2 learners of English are able to induce patterns of target words using concordance and self-correct their errors in writing based on their induction. The two key terms, induction and self-correction are defined as the ability to generate rules or patterns based on the examples including target words (induction) and learners’ ability to apply induced patters in self-correction (self-correction). The research question is whether the learners can induce rules using concordance and use the rule induced to self-correction their errors in writing. Procedures are as follows; after lexical items causing errors in writing were identified, the students self-created 23 concordances of the lexical items, induced patterns from the data and are asked to apply the rules in self-correction of their errors. The participants were generally able to induce valid patterns from their own concordance and make valid self-correction. There was a strong correlation between induction and self-correction, meaning that induction and self-correction are likely to occur together. It is also revealed that induction and self-correction are possibly affected by several factors such as the part of speech of the lexical items, effects of number of parts of speech, the number of patterns of usage, the number of meanings.
It is somewhat useful to read this article since it gives couple of ideas for further study. First, it is necessary to do further study whether induction leads to self-correction. This study found a strong correlation between induction and self-correction; however, a strong correlation between the two abilities does not necessarily mean induction of rules causes self-correction. Second, it would be another research topic for further study to investigate the effects of several factors (e.g. the part of speech of the lexical items) that has significant correlation with inducement and self-correction in this study. Again, this article reported a correlation between the factors and inducement and self-correction, therefore whether such factors actually affect inducement and self-correction needs to be investigated in future study. Last, it would worth examining which of these factors has greater effect than the other on induction and self-correction.
I personally enjoyed reading this article very much. The concepts of induction and self-correction are very attractive since these abilities enable L2 learners to be autonomous. These concepts are also interesting in a sense that it sheds light on how incorporation of technology leads to learner autonomy. However, I was a bit confused when the author mentioned inducement as a prerequisite for self-correction and the factors affecting inducement and self-correction since it seems that he misinterpreted correlation as cause and effect.
My conclusion is that I do recommend this article to be added to the reading packet. Above all, studies about concordance seem to be rare in the literature, and it would add a new perspective for self-feedback and computer mediated feedback with further studies, e.g. inducement as a process of self-feedback.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Evaluation of McDonough (2006) by Sorin
McDonough, K. (2006). Interaction and syntactic priming. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28, 179-207.
Syntactic priming, which has been vigorously investigated in 1st language acquisition and psycholinguistics research, is a “phenomenon that is characterized by a speaker’s repeated production of a previously spoken or heard structure across successive utterances” (p. 181). This study, as the first research to adopt syntactic priming in second language interaction research, explores whether syntactic priming plays a role in L2 development through interaction. Two research questions were posed: (1) Does syntactic priming occur during interaction between L2 English speakers?; and (2) Do English L2 speakers show increased use of the target structure following exposure to syntactic priming? English dative construction, which has two interchangeable forms (prepositional datives-PD, and double-object datives-DOD) was the target structure of this study, and two experiments were conducted with advanced English learners. The first experiment showed that syntactic priming occurred only with PD even though the participants were exposed to both PD and DOD priming, and the number of PD production increased over time (through baseline, priming, and post-priming). The second experiment, which then investigated DOD construction only, again failed to show the evidence of syntactic priming, indicating that most of the participants might not have been ready for the DOD construction as shown in the ad-hoc analysis. In the ad-hoc analysis of production data, those participants who produced DOD construction in the baseline data, showed increased production of DOD in priming session. The current study did not directly investigate the issue of error correction (only positive evidence provided in the form of syntactic priming by the interlocutor was examined in this study), however, it showed the potential role of syntactic priming in error correction research by demonstrating L2 learner’s more frequent production of target forms due to syntactic priming.
Here are some implications of this study. First and foremost, this study showed that syntactic priming did occur in L2 interaction, and L2 learners produced target structure more as a result of syntactic priming provided by the interlocutor. Since syntactic priming can occur across several turns, although this study was limited to learner’s subsequent production following syntactic priming, the findings can offer an invaluable insight to error correction research, particularly on the effectiveness of implicit error correction such as recasts, as shown in McDonough and Mackey (2006). Second, this research suggested that positive evidence provided through syntactic priming not only offered models but also triggered target language output leading to L2 learning. Third, the findings demonstrated the crucial role of development sequence on syntactic priming. In order to ensure the effect of syntactic priming on learner’s subsequent production and eventually acquisition, it seemed that learners should be at the right development sequence (in this study, learners produced more PD but not DOD, which is considered to be more difficult).
With regard to usefulness, comprehensive review of syntactic priming research (including definition and different types of syntactic priming, empirical studies conducted on syntactic priming-although most of them were on L1 acquisition and only a few on L2-, and the elicitation techniques used in those studies) will be very useful resources to those who are interested in this line of research. In addition, this research newly adopted confederate scripting technique, in which a participant carries out tasks with a confederate of the researcher instead of another participant. This technique allowed the researcher to control more carefully participants’ exposure to and production of target structure. Thus, those students who are seeking ways to hold more control over input and interaction of the participants, will find this technique useful.
Overall, the idea of adopting syntactic priming in L2 acquisition research was very interesting to me. Also I enjoyed following the logical development of research questions building on the findings of previously studies, as shown in the current study (from previous research to current study and from experiment 1 to experiment 2) as well as in her next study which was based on the current study (McDonough & Mackey, 2006). However, while development of arguments was logical and easy to follow, there were some details and terms that were not so clearly written and confusing; it made me stop and ponder what the researcher meant. Thus, this article may not be so easy to read for those who are not familiar with this line of research.
As for course reading, I do not want to recommend this article. It is not because this article is not worth reading, but because the follow-up article, McDonough & Mackey (2006), showed the role of syntactic priming in L2 interaction and development in a more comprehensive and convincing way, with relation to error correction (in their study, recasts), learner’s different responses (repetition and primed production), and L2 development. Thus, I would recommend including McDonough & Mackey’s article in our reading packet, and leave this article as “highly recommendable” for those who are interested in syntactic priming.
Syntactic priming, which has been vigorously investigated in 1st language acquisition and psycholinguistics research, is a “phenomenon that is characterized by a speaker’s repeated production of a previously spoken or heard structure across successive utterances” (p. 181). This study, as the first research to adopt syntactic priming in second language interaction research, explores whether syntactic priming plays a role in L2 development through interaction. Two research questions were posed: (1) Does syntactic priming occur during interaction between L2 English speakers?; and (2) Do English L2 speakers show increased use of the target structure following exposure to syntactic priming? English dative construction, which has two interchangeable forms (prepositional datives-PD, and double-object datives-DOD) was the target structure of this study, and two experiments were conducted with advanced English learners. The first experiment showed that syntactic priming occurred only with PD even though the participants were exposed to both PD and DOD priming, and the number of PD production increased over time (through baseline, priming, and post-priming). The second experiment, which then investigated DOD construction only, again failed to show the evidence of syntactic priming, indicating that most of the participants might not have been ready for the DOD construction as shown in the ad-hoc analysis. In the ad-hoc analysis of production data, those participants who produced DOD construction in the baseline data, showed increased production of DOD in priming session. The current study did not directly investigate the issue of error correction (only positive evidence provided in the form of syntactic priming by the interlocutor was examined in this study), however, it showed the potential role of syntactic priming in error correction research by demonstrating L2 learner’s more frequent production of target forms due to syntactic priming.
Here are some implications of this study. First and foremost, this study showed that syntactic priming did occur in L2 interaction, and L2 learners produced target structure more as a result of syntactic priming provided by the interlocutor. Since syntactic priming can occur across several turns, although this study was limited to learner’s subsequent production following syntactic priming, the findings can offer an invaluable insight to error correction research, particularly on the effectiveness of implicit error correction such as recasts, as shown in McDonough and Mackey (2006). Second, this research suggested that positive evidence provided through syntactic priming not only offered models but also triggered target language output leading to L2 learning. Third, the findings demonstrated the crucial role of development sequence on syntactic priming. In order to ensure the effect of syntactic priming on learner’s subsequent production and eventually acquisition, it seemed that learners should be at the right development sequence (in this study, learners produced more PD but not DOD, which is considered to be more difficult).
With regard to usefulness, comprehensive review of syntactic priming research (including definition and different types of syntactic priming, empirical studies conducted on syntactic priming-although most of them were on L1 acquisition and only a few on L2-, and the elicitation techniques used in those studies) will be very useful resources to those who are interested in this line of research. In addition, this research newly adopted confederate scripting technique, in which a participant carries out tasks with a confederate of the researcher instead of another participant. This technique allowed the researcher to control more carefully participants’ exposure to and production of target structure. Thus, those students who are seeking ways to hold more control over input and interaction of the participants, will find this technique useful.
Overall, the idea of adopting syntactic priming in L2 acquisition research was very interesting to me. Also I enjoyed following the logical development of research questions building on the findings of previously studies, as shown in the current study (from previous research to current study and from experiment 1 to experiment 2) as well as in her next study which was based on the current study (McDonough & Mackey, 2006). However, while development of arguments was logical and easy to follow, there were some details and terms that were not so clearly written and confusing; it made me stop and ponder what the researcher meant. Thus, this article may not be so easy to read for those who are not familiar with this line of research.
As for course reading, I do not want to recommend this article. It is not because this article is not worth reading, but because the follow-up article, McDonough & Mackey (2006), showed the role of syntactic priming in L2 interaction and development in a more comprehensive and convincing way, with relation to error correction (in their study, recasts), learner’s different responses (repetition and primed production), and L2 development. Thus, I would recommend including McDonough & Mackey’s article in our reading packet, and leave this article as “highly recommendable” for those who are interested in syntactic priming.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Nelson & Carson (2006) evaluation by Ping
Nelson, G. & J. Carson. (2006). Cultural issues in peer response: Revisiting ‘culture.’ In K. Hyland & F. Hyland (eds.), 42-59.
This article is quite easy to read. I was able to read it without constantly thinking of getting more coffee, so that's good. And it's short, too. I'm very grateful I picked this one :)
In the article, Nelson and Carson argue that culture could be a contextual factor in the effectiveness of peer response. In their study on peer group interactions, they found the three Chinese participants all expressed their reluctance to disagree with other peers' comments and their desire to maintain the harmony of the group. Their shared cultural expectations seem to explain why they didn't give negative feedback to their peers and why they held back their criticism. The students found it difficult to participate successfully in peer response interactions because giving negative feedback works against their cultural values. Therefore, the effectiveness of peer feedback is discounted. Nelson and Carson then hypothesize that cultural backgrounds may influence the dynamics of group interactions and further play a role in the effectiveness of peer feedback.
They also pointed out that the construct of “culture” is controversial. Using it as a contextual factor has been critiqued by postmodern, post-structuralist, and post-colonial theorists as reductionist, assuming culture to be static and coherent. The authors illustrate the debate on culture-stereotype connection at some length and, in the end, they take a stance by saying that there is “a systematic, culturally determined way in which all members in a certain culture think, behave, and act” (Nelson & Carson, 1994, p. 14). There are multiple causes of successful and unsuccessful peer feedback. By examining possible cultural effects in peer feedback, the study aims to highlight the complex variables in providing quality feedback.
Overall, I enjoy reading it. I'll recommend it to anyone who is interested in cross-cultural issues and contextual elements of peer feedback interactions. The article doesn't require any background knowledge. Even if you are not familiar with peer response, you will not have much trouble reading it.
However, my problem with the article is I still don't know how to tease apart the contextual factors the authors investigated. I mean, how much can we say that the effectiveness is culture-related? How much can we say we are not making stereotype connection when we talk about cultural homogeneity? These questions seem to linger in my mind.
This article is quite easy to read. I was able to read it without constantly thinking of getting more coffee, so that's good. And it's short, too. I'm very grateful I picked this one :)
In the article, Nelson and Carson argue that culture could be a contextual factor in the effectiveness of peer response. In their study on peer group interactions, they found the three Chinese participants all expressed their reluctance to disagree with other peers' comments and their desire to maintain the harmony of the group. Their shared cultural expectations seem to explain why they didn't give negative feedback to their peers and why they held back their criticism. The students found it difficult to participate successfully in peer response interactions because giving negative feedback works against their cultural values. Therefore, the effectiveness of peer feedback is discounted. Nelson and Carson then hypothesize that cultural backgrounds may influence the dynamics of group interactions and further play a role in the effectiveness of peer feedback.
They also pointed out that the construct of “culture” is controversial. Using it as a contextual factor has been critiqued by postmodern, post-structuralist, and post-colonial theorists as reductionist, assuming culture to be static and coherent. The authors illustrate the debate on culture-stereotype connection at some length and, in the end, they take a stance by saying that there is “a systematic, culturally determined way in which all members in a certain culture think, behave, and act” (Nelson & Carson, 1994, p. 14). There are multiple causes of successful and unsuccessful peer feedback. By examining possible cultural effects in peer feedback, the study aims to highlight the complex variables in providing quality feedback.
Overall, I enjoy reading it. I'll recommend it to anyone who is interested in cross-cultural issues and contextual elements of peer feedback interactions. The article doesn't require any background knowledge. Even if you are not familiar with peer response, you will not have much trouble reading it.
However, my problem with the article is I still don't know how to tease apart the contextual factors the authors investigated. I mean, how much can we say that the effectiveness is culture-related? How much can we say we are not making stereotype connection when we talk about cultural homogeneity? These questions seem to linger in my mind.
Evaluation of Morris (2002) by Myong Hee
Morris, F. (2002). Negotiation moves and recasts in relation to error types and learner repair in the foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals, 35(4), 395-404.
This study investigates interaction of adult beginning learners of Spanish in the foreign language classroom. Forth-two students formed pairs and worked on the same jigsaw task. Their interaction was coded for types of error (syntactic/lexical), types of negative feedback (explicit/recasts/negotiation moves), and repair. Findings show that (1) they did not use explicit negative feedback; however, they provided implicit negative feedback (70% of errors received); (2) syntactic errors tended to invite recasts, whereas lexical errors tended to invite negotiation moves; (3) they tended to repair ill-formed utterance immediately, but the frequency of repaired errors followed feedback was low; and (4) all syntactic repairs and the majority of lexical repairs followed negotiation moves.
I found this article useful. The role of interaction has been central in SLA and accordingly pair and small group activities have been promoted in the L2 classroom. Along with a CLT approach, a small group activity has been highly encouraged in order to promote student-centered class and to improve fluency through practicing a target language. In the case of EFL context, a small group activity is the major source of learner interaction, along with teacher-learner interaction. As I promote a lot of group work in my classes, I have been curious to know whether it is beneficial to my students. This study reveals what is going on between NNS learners while interacting in dyads. It may be a good example to those who want to investigate a similar study in other FL classrooms.
I’d like to recommend this article to be added to our SLS 750. As I mentioned above, peer correction is another important feedback area to explore. I guess there are some (at least a few) who are planning to look into peer feedback in the FL/SL classroom. For those, this study may be a good reference.
Morris, F. (2002). Negotiation moves and recasts in relation to error types and learner repair in the foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals, 35(4), 395-404.
This study investigates interaction of adult beginning learners of Spanish in the foreign language classroom. Forth-two students formed pairs and worked on the same jigsaw task. Their interaction was coded for types of error (syntactic/lexical), types of negative feedback (explicit/recasts/negotiation moves), and repair. Findings show that (1) they did not use explicit negative feedback; however, they provided implicit negative feedback (70% of errors received); (2) syntactic errors tended to invite recasts, whereas lexical errors tended to invite negotiation moves; (3) they tended to repair ill-formed utterance immediately, but the frequency of repaired errors followed feedback was low; and (4) all syntactic repairs and the majority of lexical repairs followed negotiation moves.
I found this article useful. The role of interaction has been central in SLA and accordingly pair and small group activities have been promoted in the L2 classroom. Along with a CLT approach, a small group activity has been highly encouraged in order to promote student-centered class and to improve fluency through practicing a target language. In the case of EFL context, a small group activity is the major source of learner interaction, along with teacher-learner interaction. As I promote a lot of group work in my classes, I have been curious to know whether it is beneficial to my students. This study reveals what is going on between NNS learners while interacting in dyads. It may be a good example to those who want to investigate a similar study in other FL classrooms.
I’d like to recommend this article to be added to our SLS 750. As I mentioned above, peer correction is another important feedback area to explore. I guess there are some (at least a few) who are planning to look into peer feedback in the FL/SL classroom. For those, this study may be a good reference.
Evaluation of Bitchener, Young, & Cameron (2005) by Hung-Tzu
Bitchener, J., Young, S., & Cameron, D. (2005). The effect of different types of corrective feedback on ESL student writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 14, 191-205.
Bitchener, Young, and Cameron (2005) examined how different types of corrective feedback on linguistic errors determine accuracy performance in learner writing. 53 post-intermediate adult ESL learners were divided into three treatment groups: direct written feedback on the target features, direct written corrective feedback + 5 minute student-researcher conference, and no corrective feedback on the target features. In four different pieces of writing within 12 weeks, learners’ errors on the use of preposition, simple past tense, and definite articles were corrected. The study found that when the three targeted errors were considered as a single group, the type of feedback provided did not have a significant effect on accuracy, however, when linguistic categories were considered separately, the types of feedback had a significant effect on the accuracy performance. Learners who were in the written feedback + conference group outperformed the other two groups significantly in accuracy performance of simple past tense and definite articles, but not prepositions.
The researchers indicated that the difference of learner improvement on the three linguistic errors could be explained with the notions of “treatable” and “untreatable” errors proposed by Ferris (1999). Ferris distinguished “treatable” and “untreatable” errors, defining the former as rule-governed error (such as verb tense forms) and the letter as idiosyncratic error, which require learners’ acquired language knowledge to correct the error (such as word choice). Based on the results of Bitchener et al., more “treatable” errors (in this case, the use of simple past tense and definite articles) were amendable through explicit written feedback and one-to-one conferences in which rules were explained and clarified.
Rather than examining the accuracy performance with text revision on the same writing, Bitchener et al. specifically stated that this study attempted to investigate long-term improvement of linguistic features by using four new pieces of writing within 12 weeks. Since one of the most crucial factors contributing to the diverse results in written corrective feedback research lies in the difference on how researchers define effectiveness, Bitchener et al. were careful in formulating what they intend to measure. The results showed that there was significant variation in accuracy performance across the four pieces of writing and that learners’ progress did not show a linear and upward pattern, leading the researchers to suggest that in order to measure long-term effect of corrective feedback on writing, a period longer than a semester is needed.
I think the article is straightforward and therefore fairly easy to read. With a brief summery of the Truscott and Ferris debate as a start, the study offers a clear picture of the research and discussion involved in whether and how to give L2 learners feedback on their written grammatical error. For those who are familiar with the domain, this article could be a nice review, and for those who are more interested in oral corrective feedback, this could be an introduction to read without going much into details. My overall evaluation to the article is therefore “recommended”.
One article that seem particular interesting to me when reading this study was:
Ferris, D. R., & Roberts, B. (2001). Error feedback in L2 writing classes: How explicit does it need to be? Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 161-184.
The distinction on “treatable” and “untreatable” errors was examined in this study. Since lexical errors were categorized as a more “untreatable” error, looking at how lexical errors were treated in this study will help me fine-tune my own research.
Bitchener, Young, and Cameron (2005) examined how different types of corrective feedback on linguistic errors determine accuracy performance in learner writing. 53 post-intermediate adult ESL learners were divided into three treatment groups: direct written feedback on the target features, direct written corrective feedback + 5 minute student-researcher conference, and no corrective feedback on the target features. In four different pieces of writing within 12 weeks, learners’ errors on the use of preposition, simple past tense, and definite articles were corrected. The study found that when the three targeted errors were considered as a single group, the type of feedback provided did not have a significant effect on accuracy, however, when linguistic categories were considered separately, the types of feedback had a significant effect on the accuracy performance. Learners who were in the written feedback + conference group outperformed the other two groups significantly in accuracy performance of simple past tense and definite articles, but not prepositions.
The researchers indicated that the difference of learner improvement on the three linguistic errors could be explained with the notions of “treatable” and “untreatable” errors proposed by Ferris (1999). Ferris distinguished “treatable” and “untreatable” errors, defining the former as rule-governed error (such as verb tense forms) and the letter as idiosyncratic error, which require learners’ acquired language knowledge to correct the error (such as word choice). Based on the results of Bitchener et al., more “treatable” errors (in this case, the use of simple past tense and definite articles) were amendable through explicit written feedback and one-to-one conferences in which rules were explained and clarified.
Rather than examining the accuracy performance with text revision on the same writing, Bitchener et al. specifically stated that this study attempted to investigate long-term improvement of linguistic features by using four new pieces of writing within 12 weeks. Since one of the most crucial factors contributing to the diverse results in written corrective feedback research lies in the difference on how researchers define effectiveness, Bitchener et al. were careful in formulating what they intend to measure. The results showed that there was significant variation in accuracy performance across the four pieces of writing and that learners’ progress did not show a linear and upward pattern, leading the researchers to suggest that in order to measure long-term effect of corrective feedback on writing, a period longer than a semester is needed.
I think the article is straightforward and therefore fairly easy to read. With a brief summery of the Truscott and Ferris debate as a start, the study offers a clear picture of the research and discussion involved in whether and how to give L2 learners feedback on their written grammatical error. For those who are familiar with the domain, this article could be a nice review, and for those who are more interested in oral corrective feedback, this could be an introduction to read without going much into details. My overall evaluation to the article is therefore “recommended”.
One article that seem particular interesting to me when reading this study was:
Ferris, D. R., & Roberts, B. (2001). Error feedback in L2 writing classes: How explicit does it need to be? Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 161-184.
The distinction on “treatable” and “untreatable” errors was examined in this study. Since lexical errors were categorized as a more “untreatable” error, looking at how lexical errors were treated in this study will help me fine-tune my own research.
Evaluation of McDonough(2005)'s article by Yun Deok Choi
McDonough, K. (2005). Identifying the impact of negative feedback and learners' responses on ESL question development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 79-103.
The article has a purpose to pinpoint if both negative feedback and learners’ response to it, or modified output, can notably predict the development of ESL question formation, based on Pienemann & Johnston’s developmental sequence for that structure. As for research method, the researcher used both sixty university students in Thai who were all assessed at stage 4 and five native speaker interlocutors. At stage 4, pseudo-inversion and yes/no inversion occur. Sentences like “Where are they now?” and “*Could you gave me some suggestion?” can be exemplars for this stage. The researcher employed a pretest and post-test design and all participants were equally assigned into four groups during three treatment sessions: an “enhanced opportunity to modify” group in which the NSs responded to students’ inaccurate question forms through repetition with stress and rising intonation and then they offered open-ended clarification request like “what?” and stop for a moment for giving an opportunity to the students for modifying their previous erroneous utterance, an “opportunity to modify” group where the NSs responded to learners’ inaccurate question forms just by providing an open-ended clarification request, a “feedback without opportunity to modify” group in which the NSs highlighted students’ inaccurate question forms by repetition with stress and rising intonation but they did not give chances to the students for modifying their utterance and continued their conversation, and “no feedback” in which the NSs did not offer any kind of feedback in response to the students’ inaccurate expressions. During treatment sessions, while the students completed three sets of two communicative activities eliciting question forms, they also kept writing learning journals, which were used to identify whether the students paid attention to target forms. After the treatment, all students finished four oral production tests that consisted of a warming-up activity and two activities eliciting question forms.
As to analysis of treatment task data, the students in “enhanced opportunity to modify,” “opportunity to modify,” “feedback without opportunity to modify,” and “no feedback” groups got different amount of negative feedback in decreasing order although the difference was not significant. And also the students in both “enhanced opportunity to modify” and “opportunity to modify” groups produced modified output while the others didn’t; however, the difference was not significant, either. Interestingly, the learning journals revealed that only the students in “feedback without opportunity to modify” group did not attend to the target forms. In terms of data analysis on oral production tests, the students should produce two question forms at a higher stage, stage5, in order to be judged to be developed or advanced to a higher level. At stage 5, “wh question + auxiliary verb” forms appear, and we can take “why is the girl looking at the moon?” for an example. Based on the data analysis, the researcher discovered that only modified output related to a more advanced level could critically predict the development of ESL question formation. She also suggested that “clarification requests” played a role indirectly in development of the target structure by promoting students’ production of modified output.
I think this article is pretty useful and interesting since it examined whether implicit negative feedback, namely “clarification request,” and modified output had beneficial effects on English question formation, separately or in combination. The researcher also tried to control the students’ attention to the target structure by manipulating the salience of inaccurate utterance provided by the interlocutors with a couple of techniques such as repetition, stress and rising intonation. I got the impression that the study is very similar to that of Doughty and Varela (1998) in light of not only using highlighting techniques (repetition, stress and rising intonation) with negative feedback (“clarification request” versus “recast”) in order to draw students’ attention to the target language features (English question formation versus English past tense) but also offering a time for the students to respond right after the feedback from the interlocutor while the other independent variables are different. In addition, I also thought that the study is unique in terms of distinguishing “clarification request” from other types of prompts such as “elicitation,” “metalinguistic clues,” and “repetition” based on the degree of explicitness even though the researcher just mentioned that the reason that she chose “clarification requests” among other types of negative feedback because the earlier research proved that they provide learners with more chances to produce modified output, especially compared with “recasts.” However, I was wondering whether the researcher made use of “clarification requests” per se while I was reading the article since she also included other elements such as “repetition, which is one of the other types of prompts,” stress, and rising intonation to “clarification requests” like Doughty and Varela did in their study and this point has been criticized by other researchers. What would have happen if she had only used “clarification requests?” I think it’s a remaining question to solve in the future research.
Actually I hardly enjoyed reading this article, especially when I was reading the result section. It was because the researcher mentioned various statistical terms such as a Kruskal-Wallis test, a Mann-Whitney test, and logistic regression. Since I am a novice in Statistics, it was a bit difficult and frustrating to interpret the data. However, if someone who is good at various Statistical techniques, it would be very rewarding work to read the article.
I don’t strongly recommend that it should be added to our 750 reading packet since it’s similar to Doughty and Varela (1998)’s study and I assume that almost everybody in our class already read it. Besides, it dealt with various Statistical terminologies that maybe some of us don’t know at all. If it isn’t enjoyable for almost everybody for any reason, there’s no need to add it since there are a lot of more interesting articles that are easy to follow.
Sachs and Polio (2007) by Kevin
Learners' Uses of Two Types of Written Feedback on a L2 Writing
Revision Task SSLA, 29, 67-100
This study is an attempt to determine the effectiveness of two types of feedback in improving learners written grammatical accuracy. The two types are error correction; here defined as direct correction of student's mistakes with the correct forms provided by the teacher, and reformulation; here defined as maintaining the meaning but not necessarily the form by rewriting the student's incorrect sentences in a more native like way. Reformulations with think-aloud comments were also examined to study student's awareness of their reformulations and the effect that this has on the effectiveness of the reformulation. Because of possible problems with the error correction part of the first study, a second study was done with a larger n size was done to control for these effects. In both studies, error correction was shown to be more effective than both kinds of reformulations in improving students written grammar. In addition, reformulations + think aloud were shown to be of limited use in studying awareness and noticing due to the interfering effect and extra cognitive load that is required to verbally report on awareness.
On the bright side, this article mentions the idea of depth of processing, which is popular among vocabulary acquisition researchers and which we talked about on the second day of class. The researchers believe that this concept should be imported to error correction research in general, which I think may be a good idea. This article also discusses in some detail the idea of how noticing is related to acquisition through error feedback. Examining the role of noticing at the level of awareness (superficial linguistic level) and at the level of understanding (knowledge of linguistic rules and metacognitive linguistic knowledge) is a secondary goal of the research here.
Both depth of processing and a more nuanced notion of noticing are important ideas and this article may prod other researchers into taking a look at these areas. Unfortunately this study doesn't contribute much to the discussion.
In addition to the awkward title of this paper, there are several problems, which for the most part, the authors are aware of and state clearly, with the design of the experiment. While it is interesting that the authors bring up the idea of depth processing, they choose direct reformulations as a way to test their hypothesis. According to the authors, the following sentences are examples of a reformulation and error correction:
As he was jogging, his tammy was shaked ORIGINAL
As he was jogging, his tummy was shaking. REFORMULATION
As he was jogging his tammy(crossed out and rewritten) was shaked(crossed out as rewritten as shaking)
As is obvious, they are very nearly the same thing. The first reformulation would not require much depth of processing and most likely result in students just copying the answer.
At any rate, the results show that error correction is more effective, but the researchers admit that the design of the experiment encouraged students to simply memorize the correct feedback and that the error correction results were better simply because the format, and not the type of feedback was different. So at best, we have superficial, short term improvement of grammar points that may or may not be due to the type of feedback, which doesn't tell us much.
One interesting result of the experiment is that it reinforced the idea that students providing verbal feedback about their state of awareness during error correction interferes with the error correction and should therefore be controlled for.
This was not an especially thrilling read. If you are in love with quantitative statistical analysis (Here is a test, what is the exact definition of a Kruskal-Wallis Test?) then you might be interested in this one because the authors use every trick in the book to make up for the fact that their n size is too small and there is no normal distribution to work with. Otherwise, you will find yourself skipping down to the results and discussion.
I don't recommend this one, but it raises a few good questions.
Learners' Uses of Two Types of Written Feedback on a L2 Writing
Revision Task SSLA, 29, 67-100
This study is an attempt to determine the effectiveness of two types of feedback in improving learners written grammatical accuracy. The two types are error correction; here defined as direct correction of student's mistakes with the correct forms provided by the teacher, and reformulation; here defined as maintaining the meaning but not necessarily the form by rewriting the student's incorrect sentences in a more native like way. Reformulations with think-aloud comments were also examined to study student's awareness of their reformulations and the effect that this has on the effectiveness of the reformulation. Because of possible problems with the error correction part of the first study, a second study was done with a larger n size was done to control for these effects. In both studies, error correction was shown to be more effective than both kinds of reformulations in improving students written grammar. In addition, reformulations + think aloud were shown to be of limited use in studying awareness and noticing due to the interfering effect and extra cognitive load that is required to verbally report on awareness.
On the bright side, this article mentions the idea of depth of processing, which is popular among vocabulary acquisition researchers and which we talked about on the second day of class. The researchers believe that this concept should be imported to error correction research in general, which I think may be a good idea. This article also discusses in some detail the idea of how noticing is related to acquisition through error feedback. Examining the role of noticing at the level of awareness (superficial linguistic level) and at the level of understanding (knowledge of linguistic rules and metacognitive linguistic knowledge) is a secondary goal of the research here.
Both depth of processing and a more nuanced notion of noticing are important ideas and this article may prod other researchers into taking a look at these areas. Unfortunately this study doesn't contribute much to the discussion.
In addition to the awkward title of this paper, there are several problems, which for the most part, the authors are aware of and state clearly, with the design of the experiment. While it is interesting that the authors bring up the idea of depth processing, they choose direct reformulations as a way to test their hypothesis. According to the authors, the following sentences are examples of a reformulation and error correction:
As he was jogging, his tammy was shaked ORIGINAL
As he was jogging, his tummy was shaking. REFORMULATION
As he was jogging his tammy(crossed out and rewritten) was shaked(crossed out as rewritten as shaking)
As is obvious, they are very nearly the same thing. The first reformulation would not require much depth of processing and most likely result in students just copying the answer.
At any rate, the results show that error correction is more effective, but the researchers admit that the design of the experiment encouraged students to simply memorize the correct feedback and that the error correction results were better simply because the format, and not the type of feedback was different. So at best, we have superficial, short term improvement of grammar points that may or may not be due to the type of feedback, which doesn't tell us much.
One interesting result of the experiment is that it reinforced the idea that students providing verbal feedback about their state of awareness during error correction interferes with the error correction and should therefore be controlled for.
This was not an especially thrilling read. If you are in love with quantitative statistical analysis (Here is a test, what is the exact definition of a Kruskal-Wallis Test?) then you might be interested in this one because the authors use every trick in the book to make up for the fact that their n size is too small and there is no normal distribution to work with. Otherwise, you will find yourself skipping down to the results and discussion.
I don't recommend this one, but it raises a few good questions.
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