APPROACHES TO

LANGAUGE IN THE

CLASSROOM CONTEXT

Student’s full name: Lucía Callero Djambolakdjian

Group: advanced part – third term

Date: 7th January 2022

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INDEX

1. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………….. 2

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK …………………………………………. 2

3. CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………….. 7

4. BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………... 8

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1. INTRODUCTION

This essay aims at relating the various approaches listed and developed in the subject
to their implementations to specific cases provided. Language is a complex system to be
acquired thus are the different fields of studies. Therefore, the present essay attempts to
put into practice the interrelated elements and concepts such as interlanguage, that
conform different psycholinguistic approaches as well as strategies necessary for the
analysis of the cases for study. Due to format constraints, it is unlikely to apply every
single concept seen in the subject to the case of study. However, should the main notions
be applied.

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: INTERLANGAUGE GENERALISATIONS,

STRATEGIES AND SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHERS.

To start with the analysis of the 9 cases described in the case for study, as teachers, we
may notice that the common core of the mistakes committed by students who produced
the compositions are focused on form since they belong to the morphology field.
Although the mistakes made, sentences are quite understandable and that is also a
feature that mainly belongs to formation error. Therefore, paraphrasing Ellis, should
these types of errors not tackled during transfer of training, they may very well be
fossilised, and therefore, stop learners’ interlanguage development. Henceforth, in
order to analyse whether the mistakes extracted are fossilised or not, in which point of
the fossilisation errors are and in order to find out which possible causes lead to
fossilisation, some more information about factors causing fossilisation may be
required, such as internal factors as the age of the students -brains losing plasticity-, lack
of desire to acculturate and therefore losing interest in IL development -reluctant to adopt
L2 culture-; and external factors such as lacking learning opportunities for input and
producing correct output in previous courses, type of feedback, if any, provided by
students as communicating not understanding something in order to avoid fossilisation
or expressing full understanding of the target language (Ellis) which stimulates
fossilisation since it stops instruction and input from the teacher. Nevertheless, according
to Selinker, in order to avoid fossilisation a change of interlanguage should take place
but as a result of teachers’ instructions and not in the light of fossilised errors. Also, to
prevent fossilisation from happening, teachers here should focus on external factors
since they are the ones that the teachers have the power to affect through, for example,
appropriate communicative demands and focusing more on form rather than on function
(Ellis) at the same time.

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The mistakes collected in the data provided may cause a stop of IL development so
becoming fossilised- might be caused, in the words of Van Patten, given the limited
capacity for consciously processing learning of intermediate stages of acquisition who
are unlikely to pay conscious attention to form in the input, as might be the case when
students were writing the sentences. In order to assert this hypothesis, we should know
if conscious awareness is being worked in previous classes or not.

In order to avoid fossilisation and to enhance feedback, which will be closely examined
later on, some learning strategies that may have been applied by learners should be
analysed. Some that may be seen through the sentences include cognitive strategies
(Ellis 1997) when students transform learning materials, and therefore, input as seen in
using supported meaning the noun support so the implicit knowledge of transforming the
word was right but not the way it was carried out. In order to address this type of
problems, students may want to work on mind maps, discussions, mnemotechnics to
change their IL. Overgeneralisation and language transfer -which will be developed
later on- are also included within the previously mentioned learning techniques since
when students say or write schooling (overgeneralising continuous forms for infinitive
forms) or studied (which might be the same grammatical category in learner’s L1) they
are, according to Ellis, applying techniques to try to learn an L2. We may add that it is
better that they try and make mistakes and apply the techniques previously mentioned,
which can be later corrected through feedback, that giving positive feedback (e.g., say “I
understand”) or applying avoidance communicative strategies (e.g., abandon the
message or simply avoiding talking) which encourage fossilisation of errors, and
consequently, stopping students to develop their interlanguage.

Let us now examine the role of transfer on the data collected. Thus, teachers may wish
to know the mother tongue of the individuals in order to determine whether L1 and L2
are similar, since, in the words of Jordan, the distance between L1 and L2 is a decisive
factor and we could argue that the closer the L1 is from the L2 in terms of origins, the
better L2 will be acquired. Although transfer here is negative in nature since students
may use elements of their L1 which are not appropriate for the L2, and therefore, leading
to errors these do not impede understanding the sentences such as can be the case for
studied. Also, if we consider the influences of students’ mother tongue, we may refer to
the importance of language universals in transfer. These types of morphological
mistakes may refer to the unmarked structures which are basic structures that are likely
to be transferred (Ellis) probably due to closeness to the L2. By knowing in which point
in their learning process students are (e.g., previous knowledge, which term students
are, point of progression within the teaching programme), we could hypothesise if the

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erroneous IL features are caused by the way in which learners were taught, and
therefore, determine if transfer of training should be involved in this equation. In
addition, by knowing what type of activities (e.g., sentences transformation) students are
encouraged to tackle, we may know whether what Richards states occurs or not, that of
the teacher overemphasising elements of the language, for example the overuse of -ing
or -ed forms (e.g., sporting, studied) as nouns and adjectives, respectively; where they
are not required and leading to errors of overgeneralisation as can be seen when, for
instance, learners use the regular form -ed, as in supported, to form nouns –
regularisation way of overgeneralising.

After having broadly examined the point of overgeneralisation in the learners of the
intermediate level interlanguage, we may argue that the first “steps” of becoming
conscious about acquisition / IL development are not achieved. Within these “steps” we
find implicit and explicit knowledge. Thus, these students were not able to intuitively
produce abstract language which were externalised in an appropriate way, and doing so,
using their implicit knowledge. However, through teacher feedback -via, for instance,
enhancing input- learners may be aware of their explicit knowledge in order to develop
their interlanguage. In other words, for learning to take place, noticing language should
be incorporated into learner’s working hypothesis about how grammar is constructed
(Batstone 1994). However, this noticing cannot be done if students do not receive
instruction and, above all, if their mechanisms to integrate noticing are ready to acquire
new structures (Ellis 1993). Thus, learners may have needed to hear or see target
language repeatedly -noticing and re-noticing skills-before it is integrated into their
developing IL, which apparently did not occur in our case of study. We will be looking at
noticing in greater detail at the end of the essay.

Closely related are the notions of conscious attention to form. As can be seen through
the error made by learners during their interlanguage development, learners did not
apparently achieve the conscious attention to form at the expense of attention on
meaning, and therefore, mistakes becoming evidence that input was not easily
understood so learners could not yet include the focus on form as part of their intake
process (Van Petten).

Some additional information about previous teacher practices and knowledge of these
students may be seen as fundamental when we come to input and interaction.
Therefore, we may say that these intermediate level students did not receive appropriate,
sufficient and quite frequent input and/or comprehensible input about the target language
they made mistakes so they did not turn this kind of language into their interlanguage.

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However, it must be said that, normally, in intensive courses, grammar is at a certain
extent leaving a part so that a focus on form of the possible official test is regarded as
“more important” to tackle. Within input, we may find that by giving students
personalised input, although it depends on the time and type of classroom context -
whether it is formal or informal teaching, learners will be learning more efficiently.

Another additional factor that should be important to know in order to analyse students’
interlanguage development is whether the teacher carrying out the intensive course is
native and experienced. In this way, we may say that in this case the teacher is not really
experienced since comprehensible input did not take place in, for instance, form of
verbs in sentences. Alongside this, by knowing the teacher’s background, we may
hypothesise that his/her skills in simplifying input was not completely applied in class
as well as it is the case of encouraging a positive atmosphere since input is not yet
transformed into intake within the interlanguage process of the learners.

As we have seen the main traits of input that are apparently not present in the case of
study, we will now move onto the very related section, that of output. Whether the task
issue was in written or spoken formats, with implicit instruction and correction
encouragement, students may be able to notice the gap between input and what they
actually wrote or said as well as testing hypothesis about language. If we assume that
the compositions were part of oral production, then we can assure that negotiation of
meaning played a role in the wrong use of words in bold. However, we should know
more about the responses to those sentences in order to determine if the interaction
generates comprehensible input or not. Thus, students might have received some
negative input (Schachter 1983) from the receiver, such as any type of gesture or
sound, to inform them that there was a problem in communication with it resulting in
avoiding the fossilisation of the mistake made.

If we take the compositions to be oral production, we may agree that they might have
taken place in a formal environment -inside a classroom- but with a combination between
natural context, supposing that for the intensive course students are receiving input
from a native teacher, and formal context. Thus, we may hypothesise that students
were making these transfer, overgeneralisation and some fossilised mistakes during, for
example, a role play where both contexts can be easily combined (Krashen, Ellis,
Selinger). This is better understood if we think that the mistakes were a result of
unplanned speech since for intermediate students some mistakes such as will
graduation are not common as long as they have time to plan it previously, and therefore,
they might be a result of pressure that spoken communication entails.

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All the aforementioned draws us to the important issue of feedback and, in our case,
how teacher practices will encourage IL development for late appropriate second
language acquisition. Thus, feedback from teachers to students will help learners to
notice the gap between the current state of their own interlanguage and the input in a
conscious way, according to Schmidt and Frota (1986). There are several ways of aiding
students in noticing their gap. For a start, students may be encouraged to conscious
raising process where they focus their attention on understanding formal and functional
properties (e.g., -ing can be added to form nouns, progressive aspect and infinitives in
initial sentences) thus facilitating intake (Ellis 1993). So, for correction to have any effect
learners must be aware that they are being corrected (Schmidt and Frota 1986), and a
way of applying this is through enhancement input as can be seen in written codes, for
example, vb for verb in the case of sporting, salient method -highlighting error
graphically- or through garden path technique (Tomasello and Herron 1988) if mistakes
were made in oral compositions. Another way of helping these students with noticing
strategies, will be through having them written a diary -or even at the end of their
notebook- where their reflect the differences they notice between L2 and L1 in the cases
of forming verbs, past participles, adjectives, etc. Additionally, for re-noticing skills
students may very well want to do short translation activities and two way translations in
order to notice the gap an redraw their attention to key aspects of the target language
(Doff and Jones 1991). Then, reformulation and reconstruction activities can also
promote noticing the gap in both oral and written compositions respectively through
having students, for example, through questions such as “So Soccer is the most common
sport?” students should reformulate their sentence and by so doing being aware of their
mistake to correct it, and through carrying out a dictogloss (Thornbury) to reconstruct in
a written composition the mistakes dictated by the teacher. Indeed, without teacher’s
feedback all the previously mentioned techniques will become useless.

Thus, we should bear in mind the vernacular style within the stylistic continuum of
the interlanguage, which occurs when the compositions are oral. As aforementioned,
these mistakes may show that the sentences were produced in informal situations where
less attention is paid to speech and the more likely they are to make spontaneous
choices in terms of linguistic forms such as the problems on overgeneralisation of
sporting.

A question may raise among teachers after having seen all the possible scenarios and
reasons why these particular students commit those errors, and that question is Why
should we teachers know all the concepts and approaches aforementioned if it is not to
hypothesise about approaches that might help students sort out mistakes in the demands

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of a proper IL development in order to acquire language appropriately? For this to
happen, we should pay special attention to some useful teaching techniques. These
teaching strategies, closely related to input and interaction, for the IL development of
these learners should be considered, such as promoting interaction in more reduced
groups so as to facilitate negotiating meaning (Pica and Long), and therefore, correctin g
mistakes; scaffolded input and output techniques, i.e., going from more simple to more
complex input such as explaining that after will the verb must be in the base form to elicit
why conflicting should be conflict; teacher feedback being as clear as possible so that
students can have the opportunity to self-correct properly; through generalising feedback
to the whole class by changing the mistakes and, in reduced groups, they should all
discuss on language and see where is the mistake, why there is a mistake and then
correct it. This last technique will serve as a big group or, even better, with reduced
groups. Indeed, if students work in small groups, we must ensure that there is a mixed
of high input generators with low input generators so they are balanced groups and
seriously work on the corrections. For that to happen, learners’ age, social context and
acculturation motivations should be known.

3. CONCLUSION

In short, there are a vast majority of principles and theories that are involved in the
analysis of the case of study of certain intermediate level students. Some of these
principles can be summarised in (Ellis) that instruction from the teacher through, for
instance, a garden-path technique, should help students to develop rich lexical repertoire
and rule-based competence; that instruction needs to focus mainly on meaning but also
on form through, for example, scaffolding input and output techniques; instruction also
need to develop implicit and explicit knowledge of the second language; for language
acquisition to happen enough opportunities for students’ output should be provided for
students as, for instance, a role play task; also interaction plays an important role in
instruction in order to develop second language proficiency which can also be seen in
role plays activities; instruction must take into account individual differences in learners
through, for example, individual input if possible; and finally, assessment on both free
and controlled production may be required in oral production for the sake of learners’
second language proficiency.

We have also seen some possible techniques in order to fulfil the principles listed
above. Some of these techniques include different types of translation, avoiding
sentences transformation to prevent intermediate students from overgeneralisation,
encourage self-correcting through implicit feedback to students so that students become

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conscious of their learning process, and therefore, interlanguage development can take
place; garden-path technique is a very captivating way of drawing students to grammar
point and also to lexical mistakes made as could be seen in the data collected. And
finally, the diverse ways of providing students of feedback are also included in order to
prevent errors from fossilising.

As a final reflection as teachers, we should not get stuck with endless hypothesis which
need to be urgently responded. In fact, in order to enhance the sense of discovering, and
therefore, the entrepreneurial competence, some questions can be elicited from students
and some should be answered and some others which entails more abstract concepts
can be left for future research from the students. Hence, learners are also offered the
opportunity to be motivated to find out language, rules, ambiguities, etc. so to develop
their interlanguage properly, and therefore, being engaged into acquiring English as a
second language.

4. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chomsky, N. (1969): The Acquisition of Syntax in Children from five to ten. Cambridge,
Mass.: M.I.T. Press.

Corder, S. P. (1967): Language-learner language, in J.C. Richards (Ed.) Understanding

Second and Foreign Language Learning: Issues and Approaches. Rowley, Mass.:
Newbury House.

Corder, P. (1978): Strategies of communication. AFinLa 23. Also in Corder, 1981.

Corder, P. (1980): Formal Simplicity and Functional Simplification, in R. Andersen’s (Ed.)

Second Languages. A cross-linguistic perspective. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

Corder, S. P. (1981): Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dulay, H.; Burt, M. & Krashen, S. (1982): Language Two. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Ellis, R. (1994): A theory of instructed second language acquisition, in N. Ellis (Ed.),

Implicit and explicit learning of languages. Academic Press.

Ellis, R. (1997): Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter
3 - 7.

Lenneberg, E. (1967): Biological foundations of language. New York: Wiley.

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Long, M. (1990): Maturational constraints in language development. Second Language
Acquisition, 12: 251-186.

Nemser, W. (1971): Approximate systems of foreign language learners. International

Review of Applied Linguistics, 9: 115-123.

Richards, J. C. (1974): Error Analysis. Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition.

Harlow, Essex: Longman.

Selinker, L. (1972): Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics in

Language Teaching, 10: 209-241.

Swain, M. (1985): Communicative competence: some roles of comprehensible input and

comprehensible output in its development, in Gass and Madden (Eds.) 1985.

Tarone, E. (1979): Interlanguage as Chameleon. Language Learning 29/1: 181-191.

Thornbury, S. (1997): Reformulation and Reconstruction: Tasks that Promote Noticing.

ELT Journal, 51/4: 326-335.

Thornbury, S. and Slade, D. (2006): Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy

Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.