Declarative and Procedural Knowledge (Lêda's final paper) 2010 01

UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINAPROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM LETRAS INGLÊS / LINGUÍSTICA

APLICADAPGI3401 – MEMORY, LEARNING AND THE BRAIN

Profª Lêda Maria Braga Tomitch

Jair Luiz Alves da Silva FilhoJoão Fábio Sanches Silva

Vanúbia Araújo Laulate Moncayo

Declarative and Procedural Knowledge as Components in the Process of Reading for Specific Purposes

Introduction

Declarative and procedural knowledge have long been studied as forms of knowledge

representation, both in long-term and working memory, representing images, words,

and things that we do without being aware of. These types of knowledge have different

mental representations. Once we understand how this knowledge is mentally

represented, we may be able to relate them to teaching objectives, such as reading for

specific purposes.

According to Gagné et al (1993), declarative knowledge represents a type of

knowledge individuals have conscious access and which can be stated directly. It

represents knowledge of facts, theories, events, and objects, and presumably the type of

mental representation which might be more present while reading for specific purposes.

But as reading may produce a form of behavior, we need another way to

represent the knowledge that produces such behavior; this type of knowledge is called

procedural knowledge (Gagné, et al, 1993). In procedural knowledge individuals have

no conscious access and its presence can only be demonstrated indirectly through forms

adj. Activated or transferred by dopamine (type of neurotransmitter - transports chemical signals between neurons) (Babylon electronic dictionary)

of action. As can be seen, this distinction between declarative and procedural

knowledge states that while performing a task, such as reading, dimensions of our

knowledge are not open to conscious inspection.

Declarative knowledge, by its characteristics, is flexible, and can be used in

different situations and accessed in different ways. As it is open to conscious inspection,

it can easily be modified by both new experiences and internal thought processes; on the

other hand, procedural knowledge is inflexible. This study, thus, deals with these two

forms of mental representation and how they work as components in the process of

reading.

Declarative and procedural knowledge interact in a variety of ways during

learning and problem solving. Productions typically require data from declarative

knowledge to continue executing. Two other kinds of interaction between declarative

and procedural knowledge occur when declarative knowledge is used to build new

productions. When domain-general procedural knowledge such as weak methods are

used to build new schemas, it may help to explain how these two forms of mental

representation work as components in the reading for specific purpose process.

Declarative and procedural knowledge form the basis of Anderson’s Adaptive

Control of Thought theory. The basic idea of this theory means that to acquire any skill,

such as reading individuals will rely initially on declarative knowledge; however, with

practice, transfer the skill to procedural knowledge (Anderson, 1987). One of the

important features that concerns transferring of performance from declarative to

procedural based knowledge is that it reduces the amount of conscious processing effort

required in performance of that skill.

Procedural knowledge produces new declarative knowledge. Therefore, this

study aims to evaluate to what extent declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge


are used as components in the process of reading for specific purposes during the

classes of Inglês Instrumental at Extra Curricular Project, run by the Federal University

of Santa Catarina.

In order to better evaluate this condition we propose four specific objectives: 1)

To analyze to what extent declarative knowledge is employed as reading classes

progress; 2) To evaluate how much of procedural knowledge is used during the classes;

3) To state how declarative and procedural knowledge are integrated components in the

process of reading for proficiency examinations. 4) To check the effects of the use of

these components to develop the students’ reading skill.

Review of Literature

The Role of Schema Theory and its relation to Declarative and Procedural

Knowledge as Components in the Process of Reading for Specific Purposes

To understand relations between declarative and procedural knowledge as components

in the process of reading for specific purposes, we will present some studies in the area

of reading, integrating to its specificities the role of reading strategies and the schema

theory for building up the framework of this research.

Goodman (1967) and Smith (1971) reading model have influenced research and

teaching of L1 and L2 reading in the 1970’s. Goodman’s reading model is classified as

a top down model in which the text is experienced and predicted. Reading for this

model is a psycholinguistic predicting game (Goodman, 1967). In contrast, the bottom

up reading model emphasizes the priority of the text as input. Therefore, it happens by

recognizing the reduced parts of the text, such as letters and words.


As one can assume, studies in L1 and L2 would offer a binary division, then, of

the cognitive strategies as being bottom-up and top-down (Block, 1986; Carrel, 1989;

Davis and Bistodeau, 1993). These two forms may activate these schemata: the top

down process, leaving from the macro to the microstructure, and from the function to

the form, and the bottom up process, making a linear and inductive use of the visual and

linguistic information.

According to Aebersold and Field (1977), during reading the mind repeatedly

gets involved in a variety of processes. By using bottom up strategies readers process

information in a sentence level. That is, they indentify the meaning and the grammatical

category of a word, its syntax and textual details. As they process the information that

each sentence offers, they check in which way such information fits using top down

strategies, such as prior knowledge, prediction and skimming (Barnett, 1988; Carrel,

1989).

According to several researchers, however, it would be simplistic to imagine

reading as being only a resultant force of the mentioned processes. Through the report

of some experiments, it was demonstrated that reading involves a continuous interaction

between several levels of analysis, leading readers to use the two types of processing.

The current views on the topic see comprehension considering the top-down

and bottom-up processes as an interactive process. The bottom-up processes influence

the top down and vice versa. This will result in a type of process that will take place if

there will be any problem with other (Maciel, 2004).

Goodman and Smith have emphasized prediction as the first component of the

process of perception. According to Smith, the readers firstly formulate hypotheses

(predictions) on the material they read. If the hypotheses are confirmed, they identify


the material and interpret it. Besides, readers formulate new hypotheses for the

subsequent material. When the hypotheses are unconfirmed, they formulate new ones.

Goodman’s description is similar to Smith’s, since it understands the process of

reading as cycles, such as selecting, predicting and confirming. Readers use mental

processes that select more productive cues. This would depend on the objectives of the

reading activities and on the reader capacity of suiting to the proper agreements.

For predicting, identifying and interpreting facts readers need to organize these

three elements. Smith (1971) indicated that this organization occurs by establishing

categories and relations between the categories expressed in terms of rules. This

categorization allows us to separate experiences in events we consider equivalents and

those we want to differentiate.

Schema Theory Integrating Declarative and Procedural Knowledge

Among the current models of reading, one stands out for the use of the most abstract

knowledge, using personal or cultural experiences to operate mental representations

associated with the words that are activated in our mind. This schematic knowledge is

known as "schemata" (Maciel, 2004). A schema, then, is an abstract structure

representing concepts stored in the memory. “Script” is also a term used for the same

concept (Schank and Abelson, 1977; Wallace, 1988).

Schema is a mental model of representation, built up through experience, about a

person, an object, a situation, or an event. A schema represents an organized body of

general information or beliefs, about some topic or concept. People experiencing similar

situations and events will develop similar schemas. (Searleman & Herrmann, 1994, p. 124)


According to this theoretical framework, a spoken or written text does not carry

meaning. Instead, they direct listeners or readers to use their knowledge stored in

cognitive structures to recover and construct meaning. A schema is, then, a structure to

represent generic concepts in the memory, orienting approval and recovery of

information, affecting the way we process new information and how we recover old

information from the memory. Schema, then, specifies the interface between the reader

and the text.

Schemata have been described as "cognitive constructions that allow an

organization of information in the memory" (Widdowson, 1983, p.34). Cook (1989,

p.69) declares that "the mind stimulated by keys words or sentences in the text, or for

the context, activates a schema of that knowledge". Widdowson and Cook emphasize

the cognitive characteristics of schemata that allow us to report information that get for

the already known information. Schemata also allow us to predict the continuation of a

spoken or written speech.

Anderson and his colleagues have also carried out studies on the theories of

schemata. Anderson (et al, 1977) discovered that comprehension of an ambiguous

passage depended on prior knowledge and on the experiences of the reader. Freebody

and Anderson (1983) conclude that in reading, prior knowledge was more significant

than the difficulties in comprehending vocabulary.

Readers background knowledge influence recall and how they understand the

text. In this way, schemata are seen as mental structures that interconnect the

representations of the readers’ knowledge. When readers process text, they integrate the

new information with their preexistent schemata. According to Anderson, schemata

influence the way they recognize information, as well as the way they store it.


In this perspective, one may distinguish different types of knowledge or

schemata, such formal schemata from content ones. Formal schemata relate to the

knowledge of language and of its linguistic conventions, including the knowledge text

organization, whereas content schemata concern the world knowledge, including the

key subject of the text. So, it would not only be the case of accessing prior knowledge,

but that this knowledge should be activated by the reader or by the text itself.

As it was seen, over the last years there were changes about the conceptions of

reading and the way of implementing them pedagogically. In this rereading of the ways

of understanding reading, the positive balance that has been debated is the fact that a

broader conception of the processes of production and understanding of the language

has been defended. It returned to the text its open character and to the reader – active

subject in the process – the possibility to, effectively, construct meaning from the

information provided by the author at a determined political, historical and social

moment.

Therefore, reading is a very selective act. However, within this dynamic

practice, three risks may arise: first, a fascination for the techniques that can help

learners to develop their proficiency in L2 reading, disconsidering reading as an act of

education, but as a process.

Second, the risk of turning teachers again as the knowledge keepers, leading

students to the answers that they want to get from what they see in the text. Third, the

activity of reading may be limited to the search of information, forgetting that a text is

the realization of a determined social speech and of that any reading act takes place

inside a social and historical situation, carried out by subjects also inserted in this

context.


Method

We carried this study as an exploratory research in a qualitative basis. Gil (1999)

defines exploratory research as a method whose primary focus means to search for

every piece of information that sustains the proposed object of the study, and the

observational process as an important device for data collection.

We use observation as the research instrument for data collection. An

apprenticeship of observation was aiming to accomplish the objectives stated. Such

observational guidance entails questions with regards to the material used in class, the

teacher’s teaching practice and the effects upon students developing reading skills

(Annex I).

The study was carried out at Extra-Curricular Program, run by the Federal

University of Santa Catarina. After the consent of the English coordinator in charge of

the program and the English instructor teaching ‘Inglês Instrumental I, six-hour classes

served as basis for the gathering of the data.

The observations took place at two classes of three hours each taught once a

week during the first fortnight of June. There was an average of twenty students in both

classes attended. The purpose of staying in class was to ascertain how declarative and

procedural knowledge work as components in the process of reading for specific

purposes.

Results and Discussion


Closely allied to the group investigated are a number of didactic material and

activities used that made classes flow intelligibly and dynamically. Chapters six and

seven from the textbook “Ler e aprender’: Inglês Instrumental I’ in addition to a

supplementary material, ‘English File I: Grammar and Vocabulary – Review,

organized by the English instructor, were taught in class. These lessons comprised

comparative and contrastive texts in which word groups and degree of adjectives

(language usage) served as basis for the construction of meaning of those texts.

Throughout the classes we observed interaction processes, such as, pair work,

group work activities, teacher-students and students-teacher interactions, as well as the

use of videos, games, and exercises of fixation, which showed to be useful in the

knowledge representation.

In representing such knowledge, the teacher showed great ability to encourage

students to combine the knowledge of theories, facts, events and objects conveyed with

the handling of their motor skills, cognitive skills and cognitive strategies – embodying

the concepts of both declarative and procedural knowledge, as defined by Gagné (1993).

Instances of such embodiment were grounded on the teaching style and on the

activities proposed along the two consecutive classes attended. Not necessarily

declarative knowledge anteceded procedural knowledge all the time. There were

occasions when the inverse took place. That is, learners experienced the knowing of

how to do something and were afterwards introduced to the ‘what’ – the knowing that

something is the case.

Within this situation lies the event when the teacher helped students construct

text contextual meaning before its interpretative reading. The teacher started the class

distributing an envelope containing slips of paper (adjectives/nouns) to the students,

aiming to stimulate the construction of as many word groups as they could, which were


part of the vocabulary to be presented in the text. Once corrected, the teacher explained

its formation and usefulness in comprehending a message.

Likewise, it was with the teaching of specific vocabulary and expressions.

Slips of paper were spread and students formulated coherent word groups and

expressions, then as they saw a scene of the movie ‘Matrix’, they recognized the

vocabulary spoken in the video. Its aim was to help learners understand lexical choices

under the different situations presented in context.

Another teaching of a piece of grammar structure, degree of adjectives, was

sequenced. In it, the teacher stated the rules of superiority and superlative of short and

long adjectives, giving examples to illustrate it. Learners were provided with

propositions generally containing relations and two more arguments: Pete is taller than

Susan, to exemplify, in that be performs a relation and Pete and Susan

(pronouns/adjective) form arguments – appropriation of declarative knowledge was

testified, thus.

After that, enough time was intended to perform the activities proposed in

the supplementary material, making procedural knowledge fulfill its role.

Once having had the language usage structured, the proposed texts were

introduced. The teacher, in its introductory phase, has elicited propositions through

brainstorming by manipulating images, titles, and subtitles. Nonverbal contexts aided in

producing the basic unit of information from the text.

Under the instructor’s guidance, learners read the text to identify structures

previously taught. After that, they have transfered declarative knowledge received into

procedural knowledge, seeing that through the identification of the grammar pieces they

could compare and contrast the propositions in contextualization. Thereafter, exercises


of reading interpretation were suggested and then correction was made. Localization of

the responses within the context was the strategy used to evaluate understanding.

The class events described above revealed that declarative and procedural

knowledge were intertwined. Notwithstanding this, the teacher seemed to recognize the

time headed for practicing was paramount to use procedural knowledge. That is, she

centered classes more on ‘knowing how to do things rather than ‘the what things were’,

to internalize and automatize the contents in long-term memory. Gagné (1993) stated

that declarative and procedural knowledge are acquired at different rates, and that the

latter is acquired slowly.

Declarative and procedural knowledge as components in the process of

reading for specific purposes have changed attitudes and behavior in learners of the

group investigated. Whenever the instructor posed declarative knowledge, students’

attention was drawn to the contents explored. According to Paradis, the explicit concept

(declarative knowledge) entails a metalinguistic knowledge considering it provides

motivation and it will result in a “*dopaminergic” system. Hence, it will improve

performance in both learning and acquisition.

As for procedural knowledge during the observational process, evidences

showed that classroom interaction has favored, as the exercises proposed were done,

promoting an environment of comfort and confidence through which learning and

information processing occurred. For Paradis, practice will accelerate control process

and promote implicit competence (Procedural Knowledge).

Conclusion

In light of what has been written so far, we can mention that declarative and

procedural knowledge may play a significant role as components in the reading


processes for ESP classes. Although more studies need to be conducted to sustain our

claims, declarative and procedural knowledge during this investigation have shown to

interact. As mentioned before, knowledge representation throughout the activities

proposed in the data collection has indicated that teachers can skillfully motivate

students to combine theoretical knowledge, facts, events and objects with motor and

cognitive skills, as well as strategies. Ultimately, according to Gagné (1993), this would

integrate concepts of both declarative and procedural knowledge.

In sum, to verify more deeply what has been observed in this work, more studies

need to be carried out. That is to say, observations during data gathering, for example,

should take more than two classes and a longer period of time. Moreover, more

hypotheses could be checked to conclude how effective these components at a long term

may represent to develop students’ reading skills.

References

Aebersold, J. A. & Field, M.L. (1977). From reader to reading teacher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Anderson, J.R. (1987). Skill acquisition: Compilation of weak method problem solutions. Psychological Review, 94, 192-210.

Anderson, R.C., Reynolds, R.E., Schallert, P.L., & Goetz, E.T. (1977). Frameworks for comprehension discourse. American Education Research Journal.

Baddeley, A.D. (1990). Human Memory: Theory and Practice. Hove, UK: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd.

Barnett, M.A. (1988). Reading though context: How real and perceived strategy affects L2 comprehension. The Modern Language Journal, 72(2), 150-162.

Block, E. (1986). The comprehension strategies of second language readers; TESOL Quarterly, 19, 727 – 757.


Carrell, P.L. (1989). Metacognitive awareness and second language reading. The Modern Language Journal, v. 73, p. 121-134.

Cook, G. (1989). Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Davis, J. N., & Bistodeau, L. (1993). How do L1 e L2 reading differ? Evidence from think aloud protocols. The Modern Language Journal, 77(4), 459 – 471.

Freebody, P. & Anderson, R.C. (1983). Effects of Vocabulary difficulty, text cohesion and schema availability on reading comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly.

Gagné, E.D., Yekovich, C.W. & Yekovich, F.R. (1993). The cognitive psychology of school learning. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers.

Goodman, K.S. (1970). Reading: A Psycholinguistic guessing Game, 1967, reprinted in Singer, H.e, Reddell, R. Theorical Models and Process of Reading.

Perfetti, C.A. & Bolger, D.J. (2004). The brain might read that way. Scientific Studies of Reading, 8(3), 293-304.

Maciel, R.F. (2004). Schema Theory: Contributions to the field of reading in a foreign language teaching. Calidoscópio – Revista de Lingüística Aplicada, Universidade do Vale dos Sinos, Vol. 02 N. 01 p. 95-100.

Schank, R.C. & Abelson, R. (1977). Scripts, plans, goal and understanding. Hellsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.

Searleman, A. & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. Singapore: McGraw-Hill, Inc, chapter 6.

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