Transcript A Survey of Unanswered Questions in CALL

Linguistics and Second Language
Teaching
Phil Hubbard
Linguistics/English for Foreign Students
Linguistics 1
November 30, 2011
Who am I?
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Outline
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Overview of linguistics in language teaching
Key points from Rothman (2010)
Communicative language teaching model
Some examples of linguistics in action
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Linguistics in Language
Teaching
• Structuralist influence (1950s-60s)
– Audio lingual method
– Contrastive analysis
• Transformational grammar I (1970s)
– Innatism; Critical Period Hypothesis
– Interlanguage – learner’s language as a system
– Cognitive code approach
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Linguistics in Language
Teaching
• Communicative approaches (1970s-80s+)
– Influence of sociolinguists (Hymes)
– Focus on communicative competence
• Transformational grammar II (1980s)
– Innatism; Krashen’s Input Hypothesis; Natural
Order
– Critical period replaced by affective filter
– UG approaches (e.g., parameter setting)
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Linguistics in Language
Teaching
• Interactionist approaches (1990s)
– Both input and output necessary
– Noticing hypothesis
– Processability theory
• Sociocultural approaches (1990s)
– Collaboration & scaffolding
– Closer links to sociolinguistics
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Rothman (2010)
• Relation of linguistics and teaching
• Types of grammars
– Prescriptive – tells NS’s what is “right”
– Pedagogical – tells NNS’s what is “right” and
how to learn it (often by contrast with L1)
– Descriptive – systematizes NS intuitions and data
from language use
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Rothman (2010)
• Example: pronominal subjects in Spanish
– Grammatical distinctions
• John believes that we/*Ø are good people
• Juan cree que nosotros/Ø are good people
– Pragmatics in “optional” use
• Who spoke to Roberto yesterday? I/*Ø spoke to him
• ¿Quien habló con Roberto ayer? Yo/*Ø le hablé
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Linguistics in perspective: a
“standard” communicative model
Learning goal: develop “communicative
competence”: (Savignon, 2001)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communicative_competence
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Grammatical competence
Sociocultural competence
Discourse competence
Strategic competence
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Linguistics in perspective: a
“standard” communicative model
• See also the
SIL classification
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Useful knowledge for teachers
• Phonetics and phonology
• Teaching lexical items: challenges
– Idioms
– Synonyms, antonyms, and items in the same
semantic fields
• Speech acts (English is more indirect than
students believe)
• Verb subcategorization
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Verb subcategorization
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The woman boiled the water/*cried the baby.
I am studying/*knowing French.
Fred called his friend up/*ran his friend into.
She told/*explained me the schedule.
They didn’t allow/*let him to come
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Examples
• For each set of sentences in the handout, try
to determine the nature of the problem (if
any) and what you might do to help ESL
learners understand it.
• Work in groups of 2-3—feel free to link to
outside sources if you have the means.
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Group 1 Examples
• Infinitive vs. gerund
• Gerund after a preposition
• Test for preposition: can you replace the verb
form with a noun phrase while maintaining
the basic meaning?
– I look forward to the party.
– I’m not accustomed to such treatment.
– We were used to his complaints.
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Group 2 Examples
Bolinger Principle (from The Grammar Book):
• To-infinitive = hypothetical, future,
unfulfilled relative to the main verb time
• Gerund = real, vivid, fulfilled relative to the
main verb time
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Group 3 Examples
All the verbs are unaccusative. That is, they have a
single argument that is semantically more like what
we expect to see as a direct object in a transitive verb
(e.g., a patient). Such verbs behave differently in
many languages, and thus language learners often
produce passive-like structures with these verbs, but
not with agentive intransitives: “John was spoke first.”
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Conclusion
• Knowledge of linguistics is quite helpful for
language teaching
• However, being a linguist doesn’t
automatically make you a better language
teacher
• If interested, consider Linguistics 191/291
next quarter (shameless plug):
www.stanford.edu/~efs/ling291
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