Transferability from lab conditions to real classroom setting

In commenting a core issue in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research

traditionally considered to favorably endorse successful acquisition of an L2, that is,

negotiation for meaning to obtain and generate comprehensible input Foster (1998)

expanded the research path from the traditional lab that is singularly prepared for data

collecting to a real classroom context. Foster (1998) carried out this in order “to see what

the student in the classroom does with the negotiation of meaning” (p. 5). She also added

task type (optional versus required information exchange) and participant structure (dyad

versus small group) to monitor if these variables influence the amount of language and

interactional adjustments that individual students generated. To bracket the focus of the

present study, specific research questions were posed in three regions, which involved

language production (the amount of talk), comprehensible input (comprehension checks,

clarification checks, and clarification requests), and modified output (semantic,

morphological, phonological and syntactic adjustments to language turning it out more

comprehensible). These specific questions were woven with how the variables of task type

and participant structure influence the frequency of incidences of student output within the

three areas aforementioned.

The three aspects that Foster (1998) selected as the main focus of the study:

language production, comprehensible input, and modified output, are frequent issues within

the SLA literature, some causing debate. The general goal of Foster’s paper, thus, in

researching how individual learners act in response to varying sorts of meaning negotiating

activities in the classroom situation, seems to be a judicious choice. She evaded adding

additional inconsistent data to the state of knowledge as to whether negotiation of meaning

activities promotes SLA, whilst giving data about the helpfulness of these activities in the

classroom.

By recording intermediate students standing for different ages and nationalities on

audio in ‘a natural classroom scenery’ as they carried out optional and required information

exchange tasks in either dyad (pair-work) or small group participant configuration over four

ongoing class periods, Foster (1998) as teacher-researcher, could effectively gather three

sets of oral discourse production data for four tasks used in the research which included one

optional and required information exchange activity in a dyad structure, and one optional

and required information exchange in a small group arrangement.

“By transcribing the data and calculating the speech production in measures of c-units, Foster
tried to quantitatively analyze the frequency of occurrences of language produced within the
three areas of the study: language production, comprehensible input, and modified output.
Subsequent comparisons between the areas were then undertaken to compare the affect that the
variables of task type and participant structure had on the frequency of occurrences of student
output within the three areas mentioned above” (Witten, 2005).

In the results, Foster (1998) informs no clear effect for task type or grouping on the

frequency of incidences of student output in the three areas of the study. Conversely, there

was an understandable trend for dyads carrying out a two-way activity to produce more

negotiated interaction moves. In addition, it was evident that several students in the small

groups did not speak at all, and many more in both participant arrangements did not start

any negotiated interaction. A minute number of students in either setting generated

interactional adjustments (Foster 1998). Foster (1998) assumed the setting of the study

within a real classroom as opposed to traditional laboratory-like conditions to be a

noteworthy variable in the research paper and suggests that negotiating for meaning is not a

strategy that most learners are inclined to use when coming across a breakdown in

communication in the classroom.

 Foster (1998) also found that students working in groups or pairs did not always work

collaboratively or show any notable L2 acquisition. In her study, she compared the

language produced by intermediate EFL students between small groups and dyads based on

tasks that required the negotiation of meaning. The process of negotiating meaning takes

place when a speaker requests clarification (asking for repeating or rephrasing),

confirmation (e.g. tag questions) and makes self and other repetitions (Ellis 1994). Foster

found that this process was frustrated by the personalities of the learners and the roles that

they 'acted-out' during the task. Foster also found that the type of task had a significant

effect on the social interaction.

Currently the value of negotiation of meaning in communicative activities is being

questioned. In theory, tasks which require ‘negotiation of meaning’ should result in learner

exchanges but it has been revealed that students often do not negotiate meaning if they do

not understand something, but hope to make sense of it through the context of what comes

later, Foster (1998, p.23) calls this “the strategy of pretend and hope rather than the strategy

of check and clarify”. Overall, it should be stated that the general goal and reasons that

Foster (1998) cited to conduct the research to bridge gaps between SLA research and actual

classroom praxis is quite pertinent since she called into question whether studies conducted

in lab conditions could be transferred to classroom unique context.

In the same vein, Eckerth (2009) presents an approximate replication of Foster’s (1998)

study on the negotiation of meaning. The replication study duplicates the methods of data

collection and data analysis of the original study, but alters the target language (L2 German)

and adds a stimulated recall methodology. Eckerth (2009) partially confirms Foster’s

results, and introduces some further differentiated findings: the frequencies of speech
occurrences across the different variables of task type and participant’s structure (students

just working in dyads as opposed to Foster’s strategic grouping) in relation to three core

aspects of comprehensible input, speech production and modified output showed a similar

statistical distribution of c-units as compared with Foster’s study. Due to technology

advancement Eckerth was able to collect crystal-clear audible data which in turn was

transcribed in c-units and produce a more representative corpus of 2175 vs. 918 c-units in

Foster’s original study. Negotiation moves increased considerably in the replica provided

that it is difficult for an interlocutor in dyadic interaction to drop out conversation. A

balanced statistical computation is also noticed regarding comprehensible input production

and modified output. I.e., one participant who dominated in one task seemed to do the same

across all tasks. In addition, the recall sessions of an overnight period had Eckerth make

accurate informed decisions whether to typify some speech production as a particular

negotiation move or modified output move. This in turn, revealed the necessity of using

qualitative procedures woven with statistical calculations without diminishing the

importance of both traditions, but enriching data analysis. They were however time

consuming and not advisable for teachers to carry it out in typical classroom settings

(Foster, 1998). An ecological perspective is thus needed in order to strengthen external

validity of the study in terms of how participants are supposed to behave in accordance

with the researcher’s original psycholinguistic assumptions (Bronfenbrenner; 1979; cited in

Eckerth, 2009). Similarly, some sociolinguistic and pragmatic studies are required to

explore participants’ assumptions about the perception of tasks being performed as

communicative events or social relationships (Roebuck 2000; Lantolf & Thorne 2006; cited

in Eckerth, 2009).
 REFERENCES

Foster, D. (1998). A classroom Perspective on the Negotiation of Meaning, Applied

Linguistics, 19, 1-23.

Eckerth, J. (2009). Negotiated interaction in the L2 classroom. Lang. Teach., 42 (1), 109–

130

Witten, M. (2005). A Critical Review of: ‘A Classroom Perspective on the Negotiation of

Meaning’. Pauline Foster. Applied Linguistics (1998) 19(1), 1-23.

GILDARDO PALMA LARA IS A LECTURER WITHIN THE FACULTY OF

LANGUAGE AT BENEMERITA UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE PUEBLA, HE
HOLDS A B.A. IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AND A M.A.
IN TEACHING ENGLISH.

gilpala2003@hotmail.com