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Lita Brusick Johnson LING 559 Seminar in Linguistics

Teaching Observation and Analysis March 20, 2013

When I initially set up my observation of an Advanced Speaking and Writing class at [---------] University, I approached it with a wide-angle lens, intending to observe the ways that instruction and feedback are provided to learners in one of the four core speaking skills areas described by Goh and Burns (2011, p. 59). This paper does, in fact, focus on two of these skills areas, interaction management and speech functions. However, the analysis of what I observed was aided by use of a more narrow, research-based lens: one that focuses on teaching cycles that include elements of pre-planning and repetition of simple tasks within a communicative setting, a process that I observed producing changes in learner fluency and complexity (and, perhaps accuracy, though this is harder to determine). Research Two resources authored by Martin Bygate provided a valuable foundation for integrating other studies into a framework to analyze elements of the listening-speaking course I observed; key elements are indicated by bold-face type. In the chapter on Speaking in the Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, Bygate (2001) summarizes the results of his earlier studies. He underscores the value of learner practice of different discourse patterns (interaction routines, or information routines) and the importance of repetition of task cycles, which appears to assist speakers produce more idiomatic and more accurate speech. He notes, however, that the integration of fluency, accuracy, and complexity will not come early in the cycle, but rather at its end. This enables learners to become increasingly familiar with the content of speech, in terms of meaning. Bygate observes that pedagogical materials increasingly use the notion of content recycling to facilitate the integration of work within a familiar conceptual frame (p. 18). Looking to the future, he also suggests that the role of routines in developing discourse skills would be a productive area for exploration with the critical goal of integrating fluency, accuracy, and complexity.

In his later (2005) article, Bygate picks up on this theme, suggesting that the main puzzle for language pedagogy and research is to understand how the holistic capacity needed for language expertise can be built up (pp. 105-106). He advocates an expertise approach to second language learning that integrates learners strategic mapping of the language (including attention to subsystem skills) with strategic control; the goal of such teaching is for students to be able to speak fluently and understandably in situations where they want to and need to engage. Bygate argues that simply providing classroom opportunities for speech is not sufficient. Rather, appropriately targeted effort is required: Activities and the way they are used can encourage fluency or accuracy whether by asking students to pre-plan; or by creating time pressures; by using task repetition or recycling; by encouraging participatory discussion, or by using feedback. Attention to language can be encouraged by providing tasks with complex content; or by adding pre-planning time with a focus on content complexity, or by task repetition or recycling. Attention to accuracy can be encouraged by explicit briefing, or by encouraging the use of on-line planning, or by structuring tasks with an observer. A focus on accuracy can also be linked to the use of task repetition or recycling. This means paying attention to different ways of introducing planning, both pre- and on-line; and to different ways of introducing repetition (p. 122). The research he cites supports his view that a combination of planning and repetition can, in different ways and contexts, promote fluency, accuracy, and complexity. Bygate also cites research by Machado (2000), Ko, Schallert and Walters (2003), and OKeefe (2004) that affirm the positive role of peer-to-peer interaction in this cycle, a finding that complements the findings of his own study (with Samuda, 2005): that task repetition enables speakers to frame and expand narratives more effectively the second time they do the task. Bygate argues that the evidence is compelling: through repeated encounters with similar activities, speakers' gradually improve their ability to find words and grammatical items, to use them accurately, and to add relevant supportive material into their talk so as to frame what they say (p. 120). In her longitudinal, classroom-based study of how pairs work together, Storch (2002) found that collaborating pairs or expert-novice pairs are more conducive to language learning than other configurations (dominant-dominant or dominant-passive dyads); the key element seems to be mutuality. Storch concludes
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from her in-depth study of ten pairs that collaborating and expert-novice dyads engaged in the co-construction of knowledge about language and each member appropriated and internalized that knowledge. (148) In pair work, Storch found, learners provide scaffolding to each other, in the obvious configuration between expert and novice, but also in collaborative situations, where learners often pooled resources in situations of uncertainty about language choices, a process that is described as collective scaffolding (after Donato, 1988) (147-148). Lynch and Maclean (2001) reported on their focused study of repetition in a specialized English for Medical Congresses study, employing the poster carousel task, which allows for meaningful repetition (but not duplication) of explanations and opportunities for question and answers. Part of an ongoing study of the possible benefits of building repetition into a communicative task, this study focused narrowly on two learners at different levels of proficiency in English, both of whom benefitted from the recycling process. The authors concluded that repeating the same task assisted these learners to strengthen different areas within their developing interlanguage. They note that the positive changes they observed arose from mere practice, from learner-to-learner talk in which the teacher did not intervene in any way. While not arguing that repetition along will eliminate mistakes, the authors suggest that a combination of task conditions and professional curiosity meant that the visitors prompted the hosts towards more accurate performance without the need for direct intervention by the teacher (p. 245). However, they also note the potential importance of teacher-guided language work following completion of the task. Derwing, et al (2010) review the literature on L2 learners oral fluency and analyze the presence of fluency activities in textbooks and teacher resources. They report that there is a significant focus on freeproduction tasks in these resources, with a significantly lower emphasis on repetition, rehearsal, and use of formulaic sequences with a dearth of explicit instruction related to oral fluency skills development. Arguing (like Bygate, above) that free-production activities are not sufficient to improve oral fluency, the authors both advocate for utilization of rehearsal and repetition, consciousness-raising, and attention to discourse markers; they also provide relevant activities that could be utilized in classrooms to fill this gap.

Reflections on the Observation The course I observed was an advanced speaking and listening course1 for exchange students who are currently studying at [----------] University. The teaching/learning context embodied a communicative and learner-centered approach to ESL learning, incorporating both top-down and bottom-up processing, within the courses specific focus on listening and speaking. Eight of the nine students were female, and all but two came from South Korea. The class session I observed had three major goals: (1) improving pronunciation of an element that learners had identified as particularly difficult (/); (2) improving listening skills; and (3) building learner confidence in oral production through peer discussion in meaningful activities and tasks. This analysis will focus on the third element. A variety of teaching activities were used, involving whole class and pair/group work, along with individual work. The teacher effectively used individual outside-the-classroom homework as input to in-class group discussions. Two more complex tasks relating to the unit theme complemented simpler activities: student compilation of answers each had gathered from five native speakers to questions about paying/not paying for downloaded music, drawing conclusions, and presenting them to the class; and a group task relating to the listening skills activity, where students worked together to pool knowledge about different elements heard and report their part to the class, where the full picture was compiled. These were relatively complex tasks that helped students to strengthen both speech function skills (e.g., requests, explanations, descriptions) and interaction management skills that are needed for group work that has a product. However, I want to focus on two more simple tasks/activities that integrated different types of pre-planning and task repetition ones that seemed to produce significant results in increasing both the fluency and the complexity of students oral production.

Advanced Speaking and Writing class at [-------] University, taught by [----------] on February 27, 2013. The class meets during the semester on Mondays and Wednesdays, from 8:15 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. and uses the textbook: Lecture Ready (3): Strategies for Academic Listening, Note-taking, and Discussion. (2007). Laurie Frazier, Shalle Leeming, Peg Sarosy, and Kathy Sherak. Oxford University Press.
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(1) Journal Activity. A journal activity, the final activity of the 2 hour and 15 minute class, brought to mind Bygates (2001) highlighting of the role of routines within the classroom context. This pair discussion of written Listening and Speaking Logs that students produce each week was one of the two classroom activities that generated the most interest and engagement. Students follow guided instructions as they reflect on their L2 encounters over a weeks period of time (e.g., with prompts to record what they had encountered in terms of language that was interesting or challenging, what words were learned). Each week students bring to class a one-paged, double spaced summary that is turned in to the teacher. In effect, this writing task served as a preplanning activity that prepared students to first share in pairs, and then then circulate and share with other students what they had discovered (recycling/repetition). Because of time constraints, only the pairs activity was done the day I was present. But it was clear that students not only knew what to do and how to do it, but they were looking forward to it and they engaged in animated pairs conversation. Every student (even those who had been more reticent and the one student who had checked out of some other activities ) was actively engaged, utilizing a range of interaction strategies (Goh and Burns, 2012, p. 65-66), including exemplification (giving specific examples of English speech they had encountered), checking for comprehension (e.g., You know what I mean?), repetition and clarification requests (e,g.,What do you mean?), and assistance appeal (including several students calling over the teacher to ask how to describe a peculiar aspect of English they had encountered). Speakers seemed to be spurred on to more depth of speech by the curiosity of their interlocutors (as noted by Lynch and Maclean, 2001). I do not know what students sounded like when they first started doing this task. But observing this activity mid-stream in the semester and comparing it what I heard in other classroom tasks and activities, I believe it generated relatively high levels of comfort, fluency, and complexity of thought and expression, as well as students genuine enjoyment in talking to each other about what was meaningful to them. Arguably, this is a repeated task, of the type described by the researchers cited above, which affords an excellent opportunity for

students to engage in conversation about English language forms in a way that is actually meaningful to them, because it arose from personal experience. (2) Vocabulary building. In a very effective group exercise the teacher chose not to just do the textbooks vocabulary matching exercise (preparation for the listening exercise). Rather, in an exercise that both reviewed vocabulary and activated schemata, she distributed a nametag to each student with one of the fifteen target words on it words that they had encountered earlier and would be hearing in the CD lecture (the listening exercise). These were complex words like innovative, enforce, and distribution. Students were asked to pair up, each partner introducing her/himself as the vocabulary word and then defining it and then get up and circulate as one would in a cocktail party, making and hearing introductions. I was a bit skeptical about this, as students frantically looked up their word in the matching exercise in the book and, in the initial stage, stiltedly introduced themselves to their partner in formal terms. But, it was the task repetition that turned this rather meaningless activity into an energizing exchange (and a meaningful one, I would argue). With each subsequent repetition of the task, I observed students language (and body language!) became more natural; their definitions became less repetitive of the formal textbook language as they began to express their internalization of the meaning. As a degree of learner comfort with the content (perhaps indicating decreased cognitive load) and a degree of automaticity was achieved, answers quickly went from repetition to more complex, personalized expressions. (Hi! My name is promote. I make people know about me, and do something about it, like buy something. Hello. My name is democratize. I help everyone to have a voice in something.) Students then started to cluster in groups of three or four, adding new ideas to their self-introductions, and suggesting elements for others to use, which were incorporated into the definitions as the students moved on an example of collective scaffolding not just in pairs (Storch 2002) but in groups. As the decibel level in the classroom approached that of a real cocktail party, I observed students correcting their language based on input from other students, actively and with little self-consciousness utilizing a range of interactional strategies to get their meaning across, and adding additional information/complexity to their definitions some
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of which related to what they had experienced in the real world (e.g., being pitched to in advertising, relative to the word promote). It seemed to me the play acting activity (becoming a word/concept) after initially increasing anxiety, quickly lowered it and facilitated the production of conversational speech. This whole vocabulary activity took about seven minutes. But I believe that the target vocabulary words introduced were, in that short time, deeply processed, both because of students speec h production and their listening to and engaging with others. No questions about vocabulary were asked during the subsequent listening exercise. In both these exercises, as well as the journal exchange, students were communicatively engaged and yet attended to form, whether vocabulary words, grammar or discourse elements they encountered over the past week. These activities had a clear instructional purpose and they fully engaged students by linking with their real lives, providing opportunities for fun and meaningful exchanges. For both, there was a degree of pre-planning: in the vocabulary exercise in what students were supposed to have done by completing the textbook matching exercise prior to class, and in the journal task, the written summary students were to have prepared. There was a comfort in the routine, which allowed learners attention to be directed to actually doing the task, rather than figuring out how to do it. (The journal task was a weekly event and the vocabulary activity an occasional in-class one.) There was planned task repetition (actualized in the vocabulary activity in the cocktail party format and in the journal task when the teacher floated from group to group, and students reiterated their findings to her). These activities were not simply free production; they were quite focused and involved many of the techniques described in the research cited above. It might have been helpful for the teacher, on occasion, to pull from these conversations problematic grammatical elements and provide some feedback on those elements (though some individual feedback was provided directly as the teacher engaged with pairs and groups). However, overall, I observed in this classroom setting how pre-planning and task repetition, in a communicative context where students learn from each other, can enhance their ability to speak more fluently and with greater complexity and, arguably, with a greater degree of accuracy as well.
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References

Bygate, M. (2005). Oral second language abilities as expertise, In K. Johnson (ed.) Expertise in Second Language learning and Teaching, Baisingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 104-127. Bygate, M. (2001). Speaking. In Carter, R. and Nunan, D. Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages . Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. 14-20 Derwing, T., Manimtim, L., Rossiter, M., Thomson, Ron. (2010). Oral Fluency: The Neglected Component in the Communicative Language Classroom. The Canadian Modern Language Review. 66(4):583606
Goh, Christine C. M. & Burns, Anne. (2012). Teaching Speaking: A Holistic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lynch, T. and Maclean, J. (2000). Exploring the benefits of task repetition and recycling for classroom language learning. Language Teaching Research 4(3): 221250.
Nation, I. S. P., & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL listening and speaking. New York: Routledge.

Storch, N. (2002) Patterns of interaction in ESL pair work. Language Learning. 52(1):119-158.

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