Conditions for Learning Dr. Ali BakhshiBy: Sh. TamizradFall 2014

Content

• Acculturation• Input and interaction

Acculturation

• Target discourse communities

• Schumann (1986): Success or failure was

linked to differences in the levels of social and

psychological contact that the groups of

second-language learners had with the target

language group.

Acculturation

• Schumann (1986): The degree to which a

learner acculturates to the target language

group will control the degree to which he

acquires the second language.

Factors Affecting the Level of Acculturation

1. Power Relations Between the Two Groups

2. Desire to Assimilate

3. Extent of Shared Facilities

4. Psychological (Language and Culture Shock)

Research

• Kirkgoz (1999)

• Aim of study: If studying in a program geared

toward acculturation led to better learning of

English

• An English medium university in Turkey

• 1-year pre-university English-language program

(Department of Economics and Business)

• Two groups: Control group + treatment group

The treatment

A number of acculturation-oriented interventions:

1. The treatment group was formed into a replica

target discourse community.

2. They were required to periodically attend the

lectures held in the Department of Economics and

Business.

3. EAP instruction for the RDC group included

content from Economics and Business studies.

Result

• The treatment group members

outperformed the control group members.

• Students who had more social and

psychological contact with the target

discourse community, the Department of Economics

and Business, were more successful than those

who had more limited contact.

Applications

• Benson (1994) There are some “structures, values,

norms, and procedures of that culture, which may or

may not parallel his or her background knowledge from

the first language environment”.

• Swales (1990): Genres are understood to signal a

discourse community’s norms and ways of thinking

and constructing knowledge.

Applications

Wharton (1999): Three models of acculturation in relation

to genre-based approaches in ESP

1. Induction: A weak version of acculturation theory

The aim is for the students to learn not only the genre conventions (linguistic

information), but also the ways of thinking and the belief systems of the community

2. Adjunct: Kirkgoz’ study (1999): A strong version

3. Apprenticeship or Mentoring: the study reported by Parks

(2001): The strongest version

Input and Intraction

• (Stern, 1992): The concepts of linguistic input and

interaction as requisites for language learning

• Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (1982)

• Long (1996): Developed Krashen’s Input Hypothesis,

Interaction Hypothesis

Corrective feedback (Negative feedback)

Input and Intraction

• Schmidt,1994; Sharwood Smith, 1993: More noticing

leads to more learning.

• The level of attention learners pay to the input in the

language environment plays a role in intake, that is, a

language form or use is incorporated into the learner’s

developing second language in relation to the level of

conscious attention the learner pays to it.

Research

• Pica, Young, and Doughty (1987):

Learners who were allowed to ask questions

about a written text had better comprehension

of it than those who did not but read a simplified

version of the text.

Research

• Robinson, Strong, Whittle, and Nobe (2001): An

experiment to assess the effect of a task-based approach on the

development of EAP oral discussion skills.

• Structured focus on form, where teachers provide many

activities for directing learner attention to aspects of their

task performance that differ from native speaker norms,

plus extensive whole task practice is equivalent to carefully

targeted and sequenced micro-skills teaching.

Applications

• Input and interaction hypotheses have also led to

proposals for task-based language teaching.

• Tasks: Pieces of work in everyday life with a specific

objective, such as painting a fence, filling

in a form, making an airline reservation. They are

nonlinguistic units.

• Jasso-Aguilar (1999): Task-based Vs. Text-based

Applications

Long and Crookes (1992): The design of task-based syllabuses for ESP

needs to include:

• Identification of target tasks (target situation tasks).

• Breaking the tasks down into target task types (subtasks/tasks

within the task)

• Development of pedagogical tasks.

• Assessment of students by task-based criteria—as established by

experts in their field, not language.