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The scope of language teaching studies

Article  in  Language Teaching Research · July 2015

DOI: 10.1177/1362168815591391

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research-article2015
LTR0010.1177/1362168814591391Language Teaching ResearchNassaji

LANGUAGE
TEACHING
Editorial RESEARCH

Language Teaching Research

The scope of language

2015, Vol. 19(4) 394­–396
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1362168815591391
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Hossein Nassaji
University of Victoria

The scope of language teaching studies is wide and varied. This is because language
teaching is complex and involves an array of interacting factors. Similarly, studies in
this field have been addressing diverse issues, ranging from describing and understand-
ing what goes on in the classroom to the examination of the effects of various types of
instruction on learning to the study of the qualities and characteristics of the teacher and
the learner as well as the various classroom settings in which instruction takes place.
Studies of language teaching also include examination of strategies that aid not just
learning but also processing or retaining various forms of linguistic knowledge obtained
through instruction, including both written and spoken knowledge. Language Teaching
Research has been publishing studies in all these domains. The six articles published in
this issue of the journal fall into two of the categories described above. While three of
them examine the effect of instructional strategies on learning outcomes, the other three
focus on specific techniques that help learners process or retain information. In what
follows, I will briefly summarize and then comment on the results and contributions of
these studies.
Hinenoya and Lyster report a quasi-experimental study that investigates the effect of
instruction on learning the English definite article the by Japanese second language (L2)
learners. They compared two types of instruction, one that was more linguistic, focusing
on the as a grammatical structure to identify a referent, and the other that was more con-
ceptual, drawing on the notion of schemata and mental space in interpreting the meaning
of the article. Overall, the results showed an advantage for the more conceptually ori-
ented instruction. The effects of the two types of instruction were also mediated by the
nature of the article used. This study demonstrates the potential effectiveness of an
approach to teaching English articles not typically used by teachers, but this type of
instruction merits further investigation.
Nakata’s and Rassaei’s studies focus on the role of feedback. Feedback is an important
aspect of second language classroom instruction, and its examination has recently attracted
the attention of many researchers. Nakata addressed the important issue of the timing of
feedback (immediate versus delayed) and its effect on L2 vocabulary learning among
Japanese learners of English. The study also examined whether the effect of timing was
mediated by the frequency of practice and also lag to test (i.e., the period between the final

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Nassaji 395

treatment item and the posttest). Based on the findings of some previous first-language-
based studies, it was expected that delayed feedback might have a superior effect.
However, the study found no significant difference between the two types of feedback. It
was thus concluded that delayed feedback might have limited value for learning L2
vocabulary, particularly when lag to test is controlled. Of course, there could be a number
of reasons for this lack of differential effect. One reason, which was also acknowledged
by the author, could be the very short delay (92.77 seconds on average) between the
occurrence of an error and the delayed feedback. Thus, although the feedback was consid-
ered delayed, the delay was not long enough compared to delays used in some previous
studies. Another and perhaps more important reason could be that both the immediate and
the delayed feedback groups received a final common review session. This procedure was
adopted to control for lag to test. However, this could have influenced and indeed over-
shadowed any possible effect due to the timing of feedback.
Rassaei examines the effect of feedback in relation to learners’ cognitive styles. He
reports a classroom study that examines whether learners with field-dependence and
field-independence cognitive styles benefit differently from recasts. The results showed
that recasts were effective for only field-independent learners. This advantage was inter-
preted in terms of learners’ attentional control and the idea that field-independent learn-
ers are more analytic and hence may be better able to detect the correction in recasts than
field-dependent learners, who are usually more holistic and message-oriented in their
approach. This study contributes to the growing body of research on the role of individ-
ual differences in mediating the effectiveness of recasts.
Whereas the above three studies concern the effects of instruction or feedback on
learning, the other three focus on strategies to aid processing or retention of information.
Hagiwara examined the effect of visual aid and, more specifically, pictorial information,
on enhancing the processing of multiclausal sentences among L2 learners of Japanese.
Using elicited imitation tasks, 32 learners of Japanese were required to reproduce as
accurately as possible a series of sentences presented with or without pictorial support.
Learners who received visual aid were better able to reconstruct the sentences than those
who did not receive visual aid. The study provides support for the idea that language
processing is enhanced when learners obtain input through both visual and auditory
modalities. Santos investigates the role of colors, voices, and images in processing and
retaining grammatical gender of German nouns. The results showed that, among the
mnemonic devices employed, images had the most positive effect. The author concludes
that the use of images can be considered as a useful vocabulary learning tool in both
German language classes and textbooks. A worthwhile extension of this study would be
to examine the role of such devices in learning other aspects of vocabulary and in other
languages. Wang, Lawson, & Curtis’ study addresses the effect of mental imagery train-
ing on improving reading comprehension in English as a foreign language (EFL), and
also how these effects interact with individual learner differences such as gender, work-
ing memory, ability to make images, and motivation. The results showed that imagery
training, particularly the one with more specific guidance, produced a more positive
effect than no imagery training, and this effect was more pronounced among females
than males. No clear relationship was found between the effect of training and other
individual learner differences such as working memory or ability to make images, which
was attributed to how these variables were measured.

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396 Language Teaching Research 19(4)

All the articles published in this issue of Language Teaching Research are well
designed and well conducted. They also address issues that are not only pedagogically, but
also theoretically, significant, contributing importantly to our understanding of how sec-
ond language teaching and learning takes place. One issue is that similar to many of the
past research in this area they have used tests that mainly measure learners’ grammatical
accuracy or their conscious and declarative knowledge rather than implicit spontaneous
knowledge. Hinenoya and Lyster, for example, used fill-in-the blank tests or tests that
required learners to supply a missing article somewhere in a sentence. Although such tests
may assess learners’ grammar knowledge, they do not show whether learners are able to
use that knowledge in communicative contexts. Nakata used tests that asked learners to
provide translations of single words and not tests that assess learners’ ability to process or
make use of that knowledge in communicative discourse. Santos’s study also examined
learners’ ability to retain discrete lexical items. He asked participants to memorize and
then recall the meaning of separate German nouns rather than using them in communica-
tion or production. Of course, the focus of the latter two studies was on lexical learning,
which is different from grammar learning. Lexical learning often involves item learning,
that is, the retention of lexical forms and their meaning, whereas grammar learning
involves system learning or the development and consolidation of underplaying rules.
Hagiwara’s study examined how pictorial support facilitated sentence processing. This
study also assessed accuracy of processing and not efficiency and focused on processing
isolated sentences and not those in the context of a text or communicative discourse.
Given the above issues, it might be useful to further investigate the strategies examined
in the above studies by going beyond examining their effects on declarative knowledge to
exploring learners’ ability to process or make use of that knowledge in communicative
discourse. Also, given the importance of implicit knowledge and the question of the rela-
tionship between the two in second language acquisition (SLA), it might be useful to
conduct studies to assess the effectiveness of instructional strategies for the development
of both implicit and explicit knowledge (see Ellis, 2005). This is particularly important in
the case of examining the effect of explicit instruction. When L2 learners receive explicit
instruction, they may develop explicit or declarative knowledge. However, a key and
controversial issue is whether and how such instruction can help the acquisition of implicit
knowledge. Of course, although this is an essential question, tests that measure implicit
and spontaneous knowledge may not be easy to develop. In recent years, some attempts
have been made to design tests that may tap into implicit knowledge (e.g. tests that put
learners under time pressure; see, for example, Ellis, 2005; Ellis, Loewen, & Erlam,
2006). However, although such tests are useful, it is hard to control or eliminate the learn-
er’s reliance on explicit knowledge even during communicative production.

References
Ellis, R. (2005). Measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of a second language: A psychometric
study. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 141–172.
Ellis, R., Loewen, S., & Erlam, R. (2006). Implicit and explicit corrective feedback and the acqui-
sition of L2 grammar. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28, 339–369.

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