RONALD GOBBIKARINA HANSONTHEORIES IN SLA

DR. ALEJANDRO CUZANOVEMBER 11 , 2010

“Negative Feedback as Regulation and Second Language Learning in the Zone of Proximal Development”

James P. Lantolf and Ali Aljaafreh.

I. Introduction

Qualitative study investigates the effects of corrective feedback within the Social Cultural Theory (SCT) developed by L. S Vygotsky.

Negotiation process between learners and their tutor in an ESL context.

Feedback: Both implicit and explicit feedback impact linguistic development, but the relevance of the type of feedback.

1.1 Mediated processes: (socioculturally constructed)

Human mental activity is essentially a mediated process in which language plays an essential role in the mental life of the individual.

“Linguistic activity, including speaking and writing,voluntary memory, voluntary attention, planning, monitoring, the formation of intentions, rational thought, and learning.”

1.2 Genetic Law of cultural development:

Internalization: An evolution from external into internal (mental) activity. (linguistically mediated)

The transition from inter to intramental functioning whether in ontogenesis or microgenesis, is a dynamic process of reconstruction and qualitative change in which novice and the expert collaborate in constructing mutual activity frame. (ZPD)

1.3 ZPD as main analysis framework:

ZPD – From current developmental level to the potential development

The very goal of interaction in the ZPD is for novices to appropriate the responsibility for their own linguistic performance

kinds of assistance

Mechanisms of Effective Help in the ZPD:Intervention (assistance) should be

graduated: estimate the minimum level of guidance. No more help provided than the necessary.

Help should be contingent: help (assistant) offered only when needed, and withdrawn when there are signs of self-control.

Collaborative frame: is the dialogue established between the leaner and the tutor in which correction is to occur. It is a source of implicit/explicit corrective feedback

II. Antecedents

Experimental research on error correction:Late 60's – Pit Corder , Burt and Kiparsky,

George, and Richards – Study of learners errors As a reflection of hypothesis testing on the part

of second language learners - Analysis of errors in their own right.

As indications of hypothesis testing and interlanguage development to the potential effects of corrective procedures on language learning.

Antecedents

DeKeyser Although error correction results in some improvement for some learners, it fails to achieve much in the way of cross-the-board impact on learning.

Birdsong Influenced by individual and/or situational variation

Day Learner personality defines the amount/type of feedback supplied.

Sharwood Smith and Schachter

Learner internal strategies and linguistic development may play an important role in determining the effectiveness of negative feedback.

Spada and Lightbrown

Whether different types of error correction strategies are more effective at different times in learners' development and teachers vary feedback strategies according to their perception of learners' development.

Carroll and Swain Learners who received explicit feedback performed better on grammatical experiments than those given implicit feedback.

III. Objectives:

To examine how the negotiation of corrective feedback, or other-regulation, in the ZPD promotes learning.

To investigate the correction/learning interface within ZPD to analyze the interaction between error correction and the learning process.

III. Research Questions and Hypotheses

Does error correction lead to learning or are corrective moves by teachers or other caretakers ineffective?

IV. Experimental design

Participants:9 volunteered students in total, but only 3

ESL learners were considered in this study (same ZPD zone). 1 Japanese, 1 Spanish and 1 Portuguese.

8 sessions once a week of 30 to 45 minutes long.

4 grammatical problems were analyzed: articles, tense marking, use of prepositions, and modal verbs.

Methods Tutoring sessions were collected exclusively in audio format.Written texts: They would facilitate interaction between the

expert (researcher) and the learners.  Procedures:Write one in-class essay per week (free topic)Prior to each tutorial, tutor read each essay in order to

detect problems.Learners read the essay, underline whatever errors they

could find and correct them if they could.Tutor offered assistance to encourage and guide the learner

to participate in the activity and to assume increased responsibility for arriving at the appropriate performance.

Providing feedback

Developmental criteria:

Criteria used to determine the microgenetic growth of the learner’s interlanguage.

1. Product-oriented criterion:Search for signs of improvement2. Does the learner show signs of movement

away from other-regulation to self-regulation?Determined by the frequency and quality

Levels of Transition (from intermental to intramental functioning)

Level Learner Tutor Stages

1 is not able to notice the error

assumes full responsibility for correcting the error

Other-regulation

2 is able to notice the error, but cannot correct it

assumes partial responsibility

3 is able to notice the error, but only under other-regulation

4 notices and corrects an error with minimal feedback

Partial self-regulation

5 the correct target form is automatized

not intervention form tutor

Self-generated, automatized

external

Internal

V. Results and Conclusions

Effective feedback correction and language learning depend crucially on mediation provided by other individuals.

The types of error correction that promote learning cannot be determined independently of individual learners interacting with other individuals. All types of feedback are relevant for learning, but their relevance depends on where in the learner’s ZPD a particular property is situated.

Tutorial is not the uniquely framework for constructing the ZPD. Collaborative feedback between learners engaged in problem-posing tasks, use of portfolios, dialogue journals are different ways where the ZPD can be co-constructed and learning can emerge.

Analysis of the interactions showed changes in grammatical competence that illustrated learners were moving from the need for other-regulation provided by the tutor to the partially or completely self-generated capacity to notice and correct errors.

The novice’s linguistic performance is mediated and enhanced by the tutor. Each of the participants demonstrated that they had internalized aspects of assistance and gained a greater ability to function autonomously.

VI. Critique

Numbers of participants were not representative.

Van Lier: too much guidance might inhibit or retard the development of self-regulation.

No video recording that would have captured the meaning displayed by learner-tutor.