1. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND INSTRUCTION IN L2

2. Revision: some terminology
Input
Overuse
Developmental pattern
Variability in learner language
Form-function mapping

3. LAD
Language typology
Universal grammar (UG)
Learnability

4. Social aspects of interlanguage
Interlanguage as a stylistic continuum
A number of different styles that learners access
according to a variety of factors
The Accomodation Theory
Social accomodation and the part this plays in L2
acquisition
Social identity; a learner’s social identity is ’multiple and contradictory’
Explain!

5. Discourse aspects of interlanguage
The role of input and interaction in L2 learning
Grammatical foreigner talk
Krashen’s input hypothesis (comprehensible input)
Long’s interaction hypothesis
What is negotiation of meaning?

6. Psycholinguistic aspects of interlanguage
L1 transfer (negative and positive)
Avoidance and overuse
What is Contrastive analysis?
The role of consciousness in L2 acquisition (Schmidt: noticing)
Communication strategies

7. Individual learner differences
Affective factors:
Learners’ personalities: are they anxious or prepared
to take risks in learning and using an L2?
Learners’ learning styles and strategies
Aptitude
Motivation
Instruction
Aptitude and motivation come back here to be dealt with in more detail

8. Learner styles
Extrovert vs. introvert learners Thinking (the truth even if hurts other people’s feelings) vs. feeling learners Intuitive-random (theories, new possibilities, don’t like deadlines) vs. sensing-sequential learners (facts, specific, completion, clarity, instructions from the teacher)

9. Learning strategies
Learning strategies can be cognitive, meta-cognitive and social/affective

10. Strategy training:
How can you train your students to use strategies and why should you use strategies as a learner?

11. Strategies
”make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and more transferable to new situations” (Oxford 1990: 9)
Research text: p (from Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know)
Oxford (2011) Teaching and researching language learning strategies

12. Aptitude, motivation and instruction
Phonemic coding ability, the ability to handle sound-symbol relationships
Grammatical sensitivity, the ability to recognize the grammatical functions of words in sentences
Inductive language learning ability (discover patterns between form and meaning)
Rote learning ability (to form and remember associations between stimuli, important in vocabulary learning)
Grammatical relations: subject, object. Inductive: The opposite is deductive. To, at = location
Rote learning ability (form and remember associations between stimuli). This is in vocabulary.

13. Motivation
Instrumental motivation: learners learn an L2 for some functional reason
Integrative motivation: interested in the people or culture; English-speaking Canadians learning French
Resultative motivation: If learners are successful, they become more interested to learn. Is also the opposite true? Do they become less interested?
Instrumental: learning a foreign language
Also integrative (interested in the people or culture): English-speaking Canadians learning French
Resultative motivation (if learners are successful, they become more interested to learn). Is also the oppsite true? Do they become less interested?Intrinsic motivaton: no particular reason for learning an L2. Foreign language learners?
Cognitive:analysis, constructing a sentence from known elements, metacognitive: planning, selective attention, social: interaction with other speakers.
Rote learning ability (form and remember associations between stimuli). This is in vocabulary.

14. Intrinsic motivation: no particular reason for learning an L2
Intrinsic motivation: no particular reason for learning an L2. Foreign language learners? Unmotivated?
Unmotivated? Certainly not! Remember when I asked you about your reasons for learning English

15. What are good language learners like?
A checklist:
Pay attention to both form and meaning
Very active
Show awareness of the learning process and their own personal learning styles
Flexible and appropriate in their use of (more) learning strategies (metacognitive strategies), different strategies for different aspects and stages of L2 learning
Metacognitive: planning, evaluation

16. What impact does instruction have on L2 learning?
Production-based instruction
Input-based instruction (see the model, p. 84 in Ellis); could induce noticing in learners
Consciousness-raising (positive or negative evidence can be supplied)
Form-focused instruction? Does it work? In teaching items but not in teaching systems?

17. Ellis, p. 81:
The acquisition of the French definite articles: le, la + a special noun but no real understanding of why a noun is masculine or feminine
German word order: (adult classroom learners vs. migrant workers) teaching had no effect on the processing strategies involved in acquiring these word-order rules

18. Quite a few interesting studies: Pica, Pienemann and others; tutored vs. untutored learners (Ellis pp.80-83)
The Pica study: the tutored group more accurate on pl –s but less accurate on the progressive than the untutored group. No accuracy differences between the groups as regards the acquisition of articles

19. Conclusion: the effects of instruction are highly dependent on the target structure that is being taught
The Pienemann study: (German word order, inversion) important to be on the right stage, i.e. when the structure is acquired naturally, of your learning process – The Teachability Hypothesis

20. The Trahey study on the acquisition of English adverbs by 11-year old French learners (input-flooding)
Anne quietly watched television but also
Anne watched quietly television
Positive evidence not sufficient to reset a parameter at this age!

21. The White study: explicit information about English adverbs + negative evidence did enable learners at least temporarily to reduce their errors in the SVAO pattern

22. How to teach grammar Grammar-translation method
Audiolingual method – Dialogues, listening and speaking first, then reading and writing, grammatical structures and rules are taught inductively (through planned exposure).

23. Communicative language teaching (CLT) – the goal
of language teaching is the learners’ ability to communicate in the target language.
There is no place for the direct teaching of grammar except in communicative situations, it should be grammar in functional terms (asking the way etc.)
Task-based learning

24. Why teach grammar. (Thornbury 2008: Ch
Why teach grammar? (Thornbury 2008: Ch. 2) The case for teaching grammar
The sentence-machine argument: The ability to form sentences, not just use words
The rule of law argument: Grammar offers teachers a structured system that can be taught and tested in methodological steps
The fine-tuning argument: Grammar allows for greater subtlety of meaning
The learner expectations argument