Eliciting wh-questions through collaborative

syntactic priming activities during peer

interaction

Kim McDonough presented by Takashi Oba

APLI 624 October 16th

Dr. Kim McDonough

• Effects of face-to-face interaction on L2

performance through feedback, modified

output, and syntactic priming tasks

• Psycholinguistic methods

• Task-based second language teaching

and assessment

Source: http://education.concordia.ca/~kim.mcdonough/index.html

Outline

• Background and importance of the study

• Literature review

• Previous studies

• The present study: lexical boost

• Research question and hypothesis

• Method

• Analysis & results

• Discussion and implication

• Discussion questions

Background of the study

• Previous studies have examined the most effective

task types, features & complexity to elicit peer

interaction with feedback, modified output and

attention to form

• Recent research has indicated that collaborative

syntactic priming activities may be effective in

eliciting L2 subsequent production of target form (McDonough & Kim, 2009;McDonough &Mackey, 2008; McDonough &

Chaikitmongkol, 2010)

Importance of the present study

• Task feature of syntactic priming activities

→lexical boost (prime & prompt components)

• Eliciting L2 production of target form in classroom

Effects of syntactic priming

- Convergence: ”residual activation” will lead speakers to

produce the same structure encountered in the recent

discourse (prime) rather than generating a new structure (Pickering & Branigan, 1998; Collentine, & Collentine, 2013)

- Implicit learning: unconsciously associate form and

meaning (form-meaning mapping) to facilitate the

subsequent use of L2 (Bock & Griffin, 2000)

L2 syntactic priming previous studies

• Information-exchanging tasks with prime and lexical

prompts (i.e. “what benefit / vitamins”)

- Ex.1 Lab-based studies: McDonough & Kim (2009);McDonough &Mackey (2008)

- Ex. 2 Classroom-based study: McDonough & Chaikitmongkol (2010)

• Indicated that collaborative syntactic priming

significantly influenced on L2 learners’ subsequent

production of wh-questions with supplied auxiliary

verbs

Then, what kind of task features are most effective to

maximizing the effects of syntactic priming?

The present study

The primary focus of syntactic priming tasks is eliciting the

production of target form rather than alternative form in

interlanguage L2 development

↓

Implementing “lexical boost” in the priming tasks will elicit

larger amounts of prompt-generated questions using the

same lexical items in prime questions

What is the “lexical boost” and why using it?

• The “lexical boost” is the repetition of an open-class

lexical item (verb and/or noun) in the prime and

prompt

Prime: “the father gave the ball to his son”

Prompt: lexical prompt : give (x pass, hand)

Expected production: “the student gave an apple to the teacher”

• Syntactic priming…

- not explicitly require lexical repetition for L2 learners

- but its effect will be greater if the same verb and

noun appears in both the prime and the prompt

Research question and hypothesis

• RQ:

Do syntactic priming activities with the lexical boost elicit

greater production of wh-questions with supplied auxiliary?

• Hypothesis:

Learner-learner interaction during collaborative syntactic

priming tasks with the lexical boost will elicit greater

production of target form (wh-questions) than tasks without

lexical boost

Method

• Participants

- 33 Thai EFL learners (average age:18.6)

- Majors: medical science, engineering, industry, & business

- EFL skill integrated course: travel, alternative medicine, and advertising

• Materials

- Four collaborative syntactic activities

- Short reading passages & partially completed tables followed by set of

question primes and prompts

- Topic: “alternative medicine”

(1) Lexical boost: the health problems, massage therapies

(2) No lexical boost: alternative therapies activities, the nutrition quiz

- In lexical boost, same verbs or nouns were used in both prime and

prompt (ex. “cause”, “have”, “provide” appeared in pairs)

- Prompts pattern: (wh-/verb), (wh-/noun), (wh- /verb/noun)

Nutrition quiz (no lexical boost)

Learner A: fruits and vegetables Learner B: vitamins

PrimePrompt

Nutrition quiz (no lexical boost)

Learner A: fruits and vegetables Learner B: vitamins

Example (1) collaborative dialogue during the priming activities

• Procedure

- 6-7/15 weeks course

- Instruction for the activities + vocabulary presentation

Self-select the pair who has different reading text

collaborative syntactic priming activities (10-15 mins)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11

12

13

14

15

4/10 classes

(75mins)

mp3 recording

Analysis: production of wh-questions

- Interaction during the tasks was audio-recorded and transcribed

- The transcript was analysed in terms of, (1) accuracy of primes, (2) amount of wh-questions, (3) proportion scores of each wh-question type

Results

Prompt-generated questions

- Total # of wh-questions : lexical boost > non-lexical boost

- wh-questions with supplied aux verb : lexical boost > non-lexical boost

Proportion of target wh-questions by activity and feature (n=15)

- Proportions of target structure production by15 learners

target form (wh-questions with supplied aux. verbs)

total wh-questions - Proportion scores =

Lexical

boost!

- Production of wh-questions with supplied aux. verbs

Lexical boost group >> no lexical repetition group (p<.01; r=.88)

Syntactic priming activities with lexical boost will be

effective on eliciting more L2 production of the target

language (wh-questions with aux. verbs) compared to

activities without lexical repetition

However, will the activities with the lexical boost

(repetition) positively influence on L2 learners’

subsequent production of the target form?

- Short-term effect? (Hartsuiker et al, 2008)

- Lexical diversity (no lexical boost/repetition) will more facilitate subsequent L2 production? (McDonough & Kim, 2009 etc)

Post-hoc: correlation between subsequent production and

syntactic priming activities

- Two oral posttests (info-exchanging activities without primes):

one week & five after the activities

- Priming activities with no lexical boost (lexical diversity) may have

positively influenced on subsequent production of target form

Key findings

• A task feature, lexical boost / repetition, may have

positively impacted on prompt-generated questions

(production of target structure)

• However, unlike activities with lexical diversity,

activities with lexical boost / repetition negatively

associated with the L2 learners’ subsequent

production

Other factors??

Discussion & implication

• Other factors…

- Task format

- Length and difficulty of the reading texts

- Task sequencing (ordering of primes and prompts)

- Proficiency level (Nakagawa et al, 2011; Morishita et al, 2013; Collentine, & Collentine, 2013)

- Cognitive load (Morishita, 2013)

No questions from

prompts !!

First time to use prompt!!

• Not only QUAN, but also QUALI impact on L2

development (considering “lexical diversity” effects)

• Need to investigate the effect of syntactic priming on

not only production, but also comprehension of L2

learners

• More tightly controlled classroom-based research with

diverse constructions, languages, modality

(spoken/written) of primes, and proficiency level will be

required

Finally…

Syntactic priming activities with lexical diverse (no

lexical boost) elicited very few target structure, but

were positively correlated with the learners’

subsequent production.

- Why did it occur?

- What the role of priming effect in the process of L2

learning?

Do you think some other activities may be more useful

for “pushing” learners to produce L2 and enhance L2

development?

Two aspects of L2 processing (Segalowitz et.al 2011,pp.172-173 )

Easier for FonF

(cognitive load ↓)

Reduced lexical

competition（AB↓）

Greater lexical

competition (AB↑）

Recruitment of

attentional resources

while using L2

(cognitive load ↑）

Skehan’s “dual coding system”(Skehan, 1998)

Rule-based

system

Exemplar-

based system

controlled practice

(focused task)

communicative

practice

(un-focused task)

language

awareness

spontaneous

production

Final comments

• Use both types of learning tasks; “repetition-rich” and “open-

ended” types,and promote “automaticity” and “attention-based”

processing (lexical boost → no lexical boost)

• Low proficient learners (reduced competition) need more form-

focused type (repetion-rich) to enhance automaticity of their

lexical access (i.e. training via syntactic priming tasks?)

• Engaged in more meaning-rich, cognitively demanding

communicative tasks, requiring use of greater lexical items, to

further facilitate attention-based processing (no lexical boost)

Your turn! Discussion Questions

Q1. How can we effectively incorporate the syntactic priming

tasks in the classroom-based L2 learning? (Ex. Do you have

brilliant ideas to better alter the sequence of the syntactic priming

tasks ?)

Q2. Do you think syntactic priming activities will equally elicit

low- and high-proficiency learners’ production of target

structures? Does the proficiency level affect the result?

Q3. Can adult L2 learners, unlike children, implicitly construct

or restructure complex structures? When they encounter

language problems in producing L2, how can they sort them

out?

References Bock, K., & Griffin, Z. (2000). The persistence of structural priming: Transient activation or implicit learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129, 177–192.

Collentine, J., & Collentine, K. (2013). A corpus approach to studying structural convergence in task-based Spanish L2 interactions. In K. McDonough & A. Mackey (Eds.), Second language interaction in diverse educational contexts (pp. 167-188). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Gatbonton, E., & Segalowitz, N. (2005). Rethinking communicative language teaching: a focus on access to fluency. Canadian Modern Language Review, 61, 325–353.

Hartsuiker, R., Bernolet, S., Schoonbaert, S., Speybroeck, S., & Vanderelst, D. (2008). Syntactic priming persists while the lexical boost decays: Evidence from written and spoken dialogue. Journal of Memory and Language, 58, 214–238.

McDonough, K. (2011). Eliciting wh-questions through collaborative syntactic priming activities during peer interaction. In P. Trofimovich & K. McDonough (Eds.), Insights from psycholinguistics: Applying priming research to L2 learning and teaching (pp.131-151). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

McDonough, K., & Chaikitmongkol, W. (2010). Collaborative syntactic priming activities and EFL learners’ production of wh-questions. Canadian Modern Language Review, 66, 811–835.

McDonough, K., & Kim, Y. (2009). Syntactic priming, type frequency, and EFL learners’ production of wh-questions. The Modern Language Journal, 93, 386–398

McDonough, K., & Mackey, A. (2008). Syntactic priming and ESL question development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30, 31–47.

Morishita, M. (2011). How the difference in modality aflrects language production: A syntactic experiment using spoken and written sentence completion tasks. JACET Journal. 53, 75-91.

Morishita, M. (2013). The effects of interaction on syntactic priming: A psycholinguistic study using scripted interaction tasks. Annual Review of English Language Education in Japan. 24. 141-156.

Morishita, M, & Yamamoto, T. (2013). How syntactic processing training affects oral production of elementary level Japanese EFL learners. Linguistic Research. 30-3, 435-452.

Nakagawa, E, Morishita, M. & Yokokawa, H. (2013). The effects of lexical processing and proficiency on syntactic priming during sentence production by Japanese learners of English. Annual Review of English Language Education in Japan. 24. 189-204

Pickering, M., & Branigan, H. (1998). The representation of verbs: Evidence from syntactic priming in language production. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 633–651.

Segalowitz , N., Lacroix, G. L., & Job, J. (2011). The L2 semantic attentional blink: Implications for L2 learning. In P. Trofimovich & K. McDonough (Eds.), Insights from psycholinguistics: Applying priming research to L2 learning and teaching (pp.155-178). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Skehan, P. (1988). A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.