Examining the Interface between Metalinguistic ... - Semantic Scholar

Examining the Interface between Metalinguistic Task Performance and Oral Production in a Second Language Joanna White TESL Centre, Department of Education, Concordia University, Canada

Leila Ranta Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, Canada Different theories of SLA offer conflicting views of the relationship between metalinguistic task performance and oral production. We examined this relationship with respect to the possessive determiners ‘his/her’in English. Learners’ oral production was elicited using a picture description task and described according to developmental stages; a parallelframework was developed to classifylearners’ performance on a metalinguistic task. Two classes of French-speaking children in an intensive ESL programme in Quebec participated in the study. Both received instruction which can be characterised as communication-oriented. In addition, the Rule class was given metalinguisticinformation about the possessive determiner agreement rule and participated in a series of cooperative learning activities which provided practice in articulating and applying the rule. The Comparison class received no special treatment with respect to possessive determiners. We found that there was considerable correspondence between oral and metalinguistic task performance for the Comparison class. In contrast, the instructional intervention appeared to alter the relationship between performance on the two tasks in the Rule class. These findings are considered from the perspective of five hypothetical positions posited to exist between oral production and metalinguistic task performance.

In the Language Awareness literature, it is widely accepted that learners benefit from pedagogical activities which promote a heightened awareness of language forms, whether in the mother tongue or in a foreign language (e.g. Hawkins, 1979; James, 1996, 1998). In the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) literature, in contrast, there is much less certainty about the benefits of metalinguistic activities with respect to the learning of L2 grammar. For example, Lightbown concludes in her 1985 review paper that ‘Knowing a language rule does not mean one will be able to use it in communicative interaction’ and ‘being able to use a rule does not mean that one will be able to state it explicitly’ (p. 177). As Lightbown pointed out, the theoretical explanation for differences in learners’ performance on metalinguistic and oral production tasks is that the two types of tasks make differential demands on two qualitatively different kinds of knowledge. A large number of labels have been used by scholars to describe this distinction (see Table 1). Lightbown noted that controversy reigned as to the extent to which the types of knowledge interact in the mind of the learner, some theorists viewing them as independent while others as interdependent. Recently, Lightbown (2000) has revisited this issue with respect to the findings from research investigating the impact of ‘form-focused instruction’ in communicative L2 classrooms. Based on the findings from a variety of studies (e.g. 0965-8416/02/04 0259-32 $20.00/0 LANGUAGE AWARENESS

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Table 1 Distinctions between two kinds of linguistic knowledge in SLA Knowledge underlying Knowledge underlying production/comprehension metalinguistic task performance Acquisition Learning Implicit Explicit Automatic processing Controlled processing Communicative system Cognitive system Language specific structure Problem solving structure Basic interpersonal Cognitive academic communication skills language proficiency (BICS) (CALP) Conversational proficiency Academic proficiency Procedural Declarative Submeta (default) mode Meta mode

Author

Krashen (1978) Bialystok (1978) McLaughlin (1978) Lamendella (1977) Felix (1981) Cummins (1980)

Cummins (1991) Anderson (1983) Sharwood Smith (1993)

Doughty & Varela, 1998; Lightbown & Spada, 1990; Lyster, 1994) and a meta-analysis by Norris and Ortega (2000), Lightbown concludes that metalinguistic instructional input does influence L2 acquisition. While the preponderance of empirical findings may be consistent with this conclusion, we feel that, in order to adequately evaluate the effects of form-focused instruction, it is essential to determine the nature of the relationship between metalinguistic task performance and spontaneous oral communication. Consider, for example, a much-cited quasi-experimental study conducted in the context of intensive ESL classes in Quebec (Spada & Lightbown, 1993; White et al., 1991). Students whose normal pedagogical diet was almost exclusively meaning-oriented received an instructional treatment consisting of metalinguistic information, practice activities and corrective feedback focusing on subject-verb inversion in yes/no and wh- questions. As a group, the instructed learners improved significantly in their performance on a grammaticality judgement task and a controlled written production task in comparison to a control group (White et al., 1991); oral production, which was analysed in terms of developmental stages, also improved. We do not know, however, whether this was due to the instructional treatment or to exposure to questions in the teacher talk (Spada & Lightbown, 1993). Nor do we know how performance on the metalinguistic tasks correlated with development in oral production. Yet, it is exactly this information that is most needed in order to understand how metalinguistic instruction may influence L2 acquisition. In this paper we report the findings from a study of the relationship between L2 learners’ performance on a metalinguistic task and on an oral production task with respect to a particular feature of English grammar. The study was conducted among young French-speaking learners of English in Canada, and the target language feature was the possessive determiners ‘his’ and ‘her’. The findings are discussed with reference to five hypothetical relationships which are posited to exist between qualitatively different kinds of linguistic knowledge. These relationships are characterised in terms of the type of interface involved (following Ellis, 1994; Krashen, 1985). We begin with the ‘no-interface’, and

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‘full-interface’ positions, and then move to what we refer to as the ‘implicit-to-explicit’ and ‘explicit-to-implicit’ interfaces, and finally to the ‘weak interface’ position. Rather than attempting to provide exhaustive coverage of all of the available SLA models, we present one theoretical model to illustrate each position. The results of our empirical study are then discussed in light of the different predictions made by these models.

Definition of Terms The term ‘metalinguistic’ is typically used to define tasks that require the ability to look at language as an object. Ryan and Ledger (1984: 157) characterise metalinguistic development as ‘the ability to decenter, to shift one’s focus from the most salient attribute of a message (its meaning and contextual setting) to structure (the ordinarily transparent vehicle by which meaning is conveyed)’. We often think of metalinguistic performance as relating to such tasks as sentence parsing or grammatical rule explanation. In fact, metalinguistic ability is best considered as involving a continuum of abilities ranging from ‘sporadic insights into aspects of language’ at one end, to the ability to generate the elaborate metalinguistic explanations that linguists enjoy at the other (Sharwood Smith, 1991: 20). What Ellis (1994; Han & Ellis, 1998) refers to as ‘metalingual’ knowledge involves the use of technical language to describe linguistic phenomena; it thus represents the extreme endpoint on the metalinguistic skill continuum which begins with such abilities as being able to self-repair and constructing puns and riddles (see Clark, 1978: 34 for a taxonomy of metalinguistic skills in L1). The child’s ability to perform metalinguistic tasks develops as a function of biological maturation (Gleitman et al., 1972), and is influenced by the onset of literacy (Olson, 1996) and early bilingual exposure (Bialystok, 2001b). In the L2 literature, performance on metalinguistic tasks such as grammaticality judgements has been found to co-vary with proficiency in the L2, and with levels of L2 aptitude (Masny, 1987, 1992). In the sections that follow we illustrate five hypothetical positions posited to exist between metalinguistic performance and oral production.

Theories of Two Kinds of Linguistic Knowledge The ‘no-interface’ position: Krashen’s Monitor model Krashen (1982, 1985) made a distinction between acquired knowledge and learned knowledge. In his view, each is a product of a different process which he terms acquisition and learning, respectively. According to Krashen, acquired knowledge results from the input processing of the Language Acquisition Device which proceeds subconsciously when L2 input is comprehended and the learner is in a positive affective state. The acquired system is what underlies spontaneous oral production. The process of learning, on the other hand, is more general in nature: information about language such as that typically provided in formal grammar lessons is handled by the same cognitive processor that handles other kinds of encyclopaedic information such as facts about history or mathematics. Learned knowledge is only available for use as a ‘monitor’ which operates upon what has been produced by the acquired system, under optimal

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conditions. These conditions are met when learners know the rule, tasks demand a focus on form, and there is sufficient time (Krashen, 1982). It is important to note that, although a written metalinguistic task provides the right conditions for accessing learned knowledge, it is also possible to use acquired knowledge on this type of task. This is often referred to as ‘operating by feel’ which contrasts with ‘operating by rule’ (Ellis, 1991). Krashen’s model represents the no-interface position because acquisition and learning are viewed as independent, and what is learned never directly feeds into the acquired grammar. A learner may first learn a particular grammatical rule before acquiring it, but this does not mean that acquisition was a result of learning. In support of the no-interface position, Krashen (1982) cites case studies of individual learners such as those described by Cohen and Robbins (1976), Krashen and Pon (1975) and Stafford and Covitt (1978). In these studies, learners’ oral or written production was analysed, and then the learners were interviewed and asked to comment on their own errors. For example, Learner P studied by Krashen and Pon made errors in agreement and past tense forms while speaking but was able to correct these errors and explain the grammatical rules when the errors were presented to her. On the other hand, Hung, studied by Cohen and Robbins (1976), was unable to self-correct his own errors in written English or to explain the rules that had been violated. Since only some of the learners were able to self-correct or to explain their errors, Krashen (1982) interprets these case studies in terms of the independence of the acquisition and learning processes. The other type of empirical evidence that Krashen (1982) invokes in support of his dichotomy comes from the morpheme order studies (e.g. Larsen-Freeman, 1975). The morpheme orders derived from data collected on monitored tasks (e.g. writing) are skewed from the ‘natural order’ derived from data collected under monitor-free conditions (e.g. oral production); the discrepancy is largely due to learners’ increased accuracy in their use of late-acquired morphemes on the monitored tasks. The ‘full-interface’ position: Bialystok’s 1978 model Krashen describes ‘acquisition’ as being implicit and ‘learning’ as being explicit (e.g. Krashen & Terrell, 1983). This distinction between implicit and explicit knowledge was used by Bialystok (1978) in her early model of L2 learning and use. She defined the difference as follows: Explicit Linguistic Knowledge contains all the conscious facts that the learner has about the language and the criterion for admission to this category is the ability to articulate these facts … Implicit Linguistic Knowledge is the intuitive information upon which the language learner operates in order to produce responses (comprehension or production) in the target language. Whatever information is automatic and is used spontaneously in language tasks is represented in Implicit Linguistic Knowledge. (1978, p. 72) Language exposure feeds directly into implicit linguistic knowledge, explicit linguistic knowledge, or other knowledge. The type of input will determine which type of knowledge is affected. For example, traditional grammar-oriented instruction leads to explicit linguistic knowledge, while learning subject matter


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through a L2, as in immersion programmes, leads to implicit knowledge. Different types of learner strategies can facilitate the development of the different types of knowledge: functional practising, which means using the L2 for communicative purposes, facilitates the development of implicit knowledge, while formal practising, which involves focusing on the language code itself, facilitates the development of explicit knowledge. Bialystok’s 1978 model offers a ‘full-interface’ view of the relationship between the two kinds of knowledge because formal practising can transfer explicit knowledge which has become automatic into implicit knowledge, and inferencing can transform implicit knowledge into explicit knowledge. The output stage of the model distinguishes between two types of responses: Type I responses are spontaneous and immediate, relying totally on implicit knowledge, while Type II responses are deliberate and follow a delay which allows for explicit knowledge to be utilised along with implicit knowledge. Thus, it is predicted from Bialystok’s model that performance on oral communication tasks proceeds from implicit knowledge while metalinguistic performance involves both implicit and explicit knowledge. The distinction between implicit and explicit L2 knowledge as embodied in this model has been investigated in studies by Bialystok (1979) and by Han and Ellis (1998) using experimental task features such as time constraints and requirement for detail to elicit either implicit or explicit knowledge. Han and Ellis included an oral production task in addition to timed and untimed grammaticality judgements; all of these tasks focused on verb complementation. In the principal components analysis, the oral production task and the timed grammaticality judgement tasks loaded on the same factor, while the untimed grammaticality judgement task loaded on a separate factor. The authors argue that the timed tasks accessed implicit knowledge whereas the untimed grammaticality judgement task involved both implicit and explicit knowledge. As Han and Ellis admit, the fact that tasks assumed to access the two types of knowledge were shown to be independent does not in itself prove that explicit knowledge can be converted into implicit knowledge. The ‘implicit-to-explicit’ position: Bialystok’s Analysis/Control model Bialystok’s theorising has evolved over the years in important ways. Her present model has at its core the distinction between linguistic knowledge and the learner’s ability to access that knowledge in real-time processing (Bialystok & Sharwood Smith, 1985). In the Analysis/Control model, the term ‘implicit’ is used exclusively to refer to the nature of the linguistic representation. The kind of implicit knowledge that arose out of explicit knowledge through formal practising in the 1978 model is now accounted for by the development of processing control. In the new model, proficiency is described in terms of two dimensions: analysis of knowledge and control of processing. As learners progress in the L2, they develop greater cognitive processing control and more analysed representations of linguistic knowledge. In contrast to the 1978 model, where implicit and explicit knowledge were viewed as being dichotomous, the Analysis/Control framework (e.g. Bialystok, 1994; Bialystok & Ryan, 1985) places the two types of knowledge on a single continuum. The new framework offers a general model for language development in both

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L1 and L2. In L1, it is clear that implicit knowledge is ontogenetically prior to explicit knowledge. For the L2 learner, the case is more complicated. Greater control leads to more effective manipulation of attention, while movement along the analysis dimension leads to more explicit representations. Characteristics of the learning situation that the L2 learner experiences will influence which dimension is emphasised; a grammar-based course develops analysis whereas a content-based approach to L2 instruction develops processing control (Bialystok, 1991). The model predicts that performance on two L2 tasks will be similar only to the extent that the tasks make similar demands on both analysis and control. Metalinguistic tasks are generally characterised as involving high analysis and high control, while face-to-face conversation is considered to be low analysis and low control. Given this framework, one might assume that performance on metalinguistic tasks will not be correlated with performance on oral production tasks. However, this relationship depends crucially on how oral production ability is being assessed. For example, referential communication tasks (such as describing unseen objects to a partner) require learners to be very precise in both vocabulary and structure, thus making demands on the learner’s ability to quickly access specific linguistic knowledge. This means that referential tasks require greater levels of both analysis and control than is the case for face-to-face conversation where predictable formulae are used and, consequently, one would expect a closer relationship to metalinguistic performance. The Analysis/Control model has been tested extensively by Bialystok (e.g. 1986, 1987, 1988), with respect to the development of L1 skills in schoolchildren. In Bialystok (1982), the findings from two experiments in which adult L2 learners and native speakers of English performed a variety of oral and written tasks are reported. In both experiments, the tasks were carefully chosen with respect to their demands for analysed knowledge and for automaticity (this was the earlier label for control; see Bialystok, 1990, for discussion of the evolution of the model). In the initial experiment, the tasks included a paper-and-pencil grammar test and oral communication tasks. It was found that the pattern of intercorrelations between scores on the different tasks was qualitatively different for advanced level learners when compared to the intermediate level learners. For the less proficient group, who performed relatively poorly overall, performance on all of the tasks was correlated while this was not the case for the advanced learners, whose performance depended on the task demands. This pattern was further explored in a second experiment which only included advanced level learners. In keeping with Bialystok’s predictions, performance on tasks requiring analysed knowledge correlated significantly with each other, but this was not the case for the tasks presumed to be based on unanalysed knowledge. The ‘explicit-to-implicit’ position: Anderson’s ACT* model The explicit-to-implicit interface is best illustrated by the model of skill acquisition developed by Anderson (1983) known as Adaptive Control of Thought (ACT).1 Anderson’s skill model is grounded on a basic distinction between declarative and procedural knowledge. Declarative knowledge refers to knowledge about facts and things whereas procedural knowledge refers to knowledge about how to perform various cognitive activities (Anderson, 1990). In the


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model, skill learning involves proceduralisation of rule-bound declarative knowledge through practice and feedback. Learning takes place in three stages: at the cognitive stage, learners either receive instruction on how to do the task, observe an expert, or attempt to figure it out and study it themselves. This involves conscious activity on the part of the learner and the knowledge gained at this stage is typically declarative and can be described verbally by the learner; performance is slow and full of errors. At the next stage, termed associative, declarative knowledge is turned into procedural knowledge but the declarative representation is not lost. Here, performance is still slower and more errorful than expert performance. The final, autonomous stage is characterised by performance which is virtually automatic, error-free with little demand on working memory or consciousness. Learners are usually consciously aware of rule applications during initial stages of acquisition and unaware of rules once proficiency has been achieved. In applying this model to the context of classroom foreign language learning, DeKeyser (1998) emphasises that initial instruction must allow learners to make connections between form and function, and that practice activities must aim to anchor declarative knowledge solidly in the learner’s memory. Despite the status of Anderson’s model in the cognitive psychology literature, it has had relatively limited impact on SLA research. DeKeyser (1997) represents one of the few studies that have put the model to the test. The participants were first provided with explicit instruction concerning four grammatical rules and 32 vocabulary items in an artificial language. After attaining criterion on metalinguistic tests of grammar and vocabulary, they were engaged in computer-controlled comprehension and production practice of the learned material over a period of eight weeks. DeKeyser found that learners’ improvement over time followed the same power function learning curve as has been found in other cognitive domains when declarative knowledge is turned into procedural knowledge. While the findings from this laboratory study reveal the potential explanatory power of ACT* for L2 learning, it has yet to be tested using a natural language on tasks for which learners have a communicative purpose.2 The ‘weak interface’ position: Gass’s Selective Attention model The weak interface position regards the implicit processing of input for meaning as the ‘default’ process in L2 acquisition but sees explicit instruction as playing a facilitative role (Ellis, 1993). Sharwood Smith (cited in Rutherford & Sharwood Smith, 1985: 275) argued that drawing learners’ attention to structural regularities in the target language ‘will under certain conditions significantly increase the rate of acquisition over and above the rate expected from learners acquiring that language under natural circumstances’. We will use as our example of a weak interface model the one proposed by Gass (1988, 1991; Gass & Selinker, 1994).3 In her model, explicit instruction plays the role of a ‘selective attention device’ (Gass, 1991) within a framework of five stages by which input is converted into output. The five stages are: (1) apperceived input, (2) comprehended input, (3) intake, (4) integration and (5) output. The first stage involves noticing some feature of the target language in the ambient speech. In the next step, the feature which has been noticed is comprehended at some level (i.e. ranging from understanding the general message to performing a mini-structural

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analysis). When the comprehended item has been ‘assimilated’, it is considered to have become intake. During the stage of integration, features that have been apperceived, comprehended and then become part of intake are either integrated into the L2 system or are stored for later integration. Finally, the language feature that has become integrated is available for output, although factors such as level of confidence and the strength of knowledge representation will determine what the output will look like. The factors that influence what gets noticed are: frequency in the input, affective variables, and selective attention. While explicit language knowledge does not have a place in this processing model, Gass (1991) proposes that explicit grammatical teaching can influence acquisition at the apperception phase where learners can make use of such information in order to selectively attend to the target feature in the input. Thus the effects of explicit instruction will not be evident immediately, but will influence the process that is responsible for the acquisition of structures through meaningful input. This theoretical position differs from the full-interface and the explicit-to-implicit interface in that the impact of form-focused instruction is predicted to be more haphazard. As evidence in support of the weak interface position, Gass (1991) cites two studies (Gass, 1982; Eckman et al., 1988) which deal with the acquisition of relative clauses in English using the Keenan and Comrie (1977) accessibility hierarchy. In both these studies, when learners were instructed on the relative clause positions lower down on the hierarchy (i.e. more marked structures), they were able to generalise to the higher positions (i.e. less marked structures). In contrast, generalisations from the lower to the higher positions did not occur. Gass concludes that the learners who received instruction that provided maximal generalisation were able to acquire forms more quickly than would be the case if they were to rely on naturalistic exposure alone. A note about the term ‘implicit’ One of the difficulties that arises in addressing the issue of two kinds of linguistic knowledge is that the word ‘implicit’ is used to describe different things in the SLA literature. It can be used to describe a process of learning (Reber, 1989), a type of memory (Schacter, 1987), or the type of representations that are the outcome of learning (see relevant discussion by Williams, 1999). In the models discussed here, it is particularly important to be clear about how Bialystok uses the term and how it is used in other information-processing approaches. For Bialystok, it is the linguistic representation itself that is characterised along a continuum that goes from implicit to explicit; the issue of how that knowledge is accessed is an independent dimension (i.e. control). In Anderson’s information-processing model, the qualifier ‘implicit’ is used to describe proceduralised declarative knowledge, that is, both the linguistic representation and access to that representation in use (i.e. what Barsalou, 1992: 152 refers to as a ‘representation-process pair’). Given the potential for confusion, we will use the term ‘implicit’ only in conjunction with Bialystok’s theoretical work.

Research Design Issues It is apparent that no consensus exists in the empirical evidence concerning


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the relationship between metalinguistic performance and oral production. On the one hand, the number of studies directly addressing this research question is rather small despite the fact that a fair number of SLA studies, particularly those investigating the effect of form-focused instruction, have involved the analysis of learners’ performance on both metalinguistic and production tasks (e.g. J. White, 1996; L. White et al., 1991). On the other hand, interpretation of the findings of the studies that have directly investigated the relationship is hampered by the fact that different approaches to measurement and research design have been used. We have identified the following issues as having particular relevance to the present discussion. Oral production tasks Most would agree that when Lightbown (1985, 2000) talks about language production, she is referring to the use of the L2 for the purpose of conveying meaningful messages. In contrast, most of the existing studies have assessed oral production through what can be characterised as discrete-point, limited response items rather than open-ended measures (Genesee & Upshur, 1996). For example, Seliger (1979) asked his learners to name objects in pictures, whereas Greidanus and Van der Linden (1986) had learners translate from the L1 to the L2. Other studies have elicited specific forms using pictures and a written cue or response frame (e.g. Han & Ellis, 1998; Hulstijn & Hulstijn, 1984; Leow, 1996). It is very likely that the positive relationships found in these studies between the oral and metalinguistic measures are due to the fact that the oral measures were in fact oral grammar tests. Analysis Researchers who have adopted an open-ended oral production task, such as a picture description or an interview, face difficulties with respect to the analysis of learners’ oral performance. For example, tasks may not elicit a sufficient number of exemplars of a given target feature. To deal with this, Bialystok (1982), Masny (1992) and Sorace (1985) used composite scores. For example, Bialystok combined learners’ production of six distinct grammatical features (e.g. modals, question forms, logical connectors); Sorace derived a syntactic composite score from the transcripts of an oral interview, whereas Masny (1992) measured speaking by using a global rating from an oral interview. In all three studies, the metalinguistic task focused on a variety of L2 structures. While the advantages of using a composite score may facilitate statistical analysis, grouping different types of linguistic features is also likely to obscure acquisitional patterns of individual items. Correlational design The prototypical way of measuring relationships is by computing a correlation. However, such an analysis assumes a linear relationship between the variables. It is entirely possible that a threshold may be involved, as was the case for the intermediate vs. advanced learners in Bialystok (1982). Furthermore, significant but moderate correlations between metalinguistic and oral tasks, such as that found by Leow (1996), are not very informative about the relationship between the two types of knowledge because so much of the total variance

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remains unexplained. Clearly, additional analytic approaches are needed to provide insight into complex relationships. Learners’ language analytic ability It is well established that metalinguistic performance is subject to individual differences. Children acquire the ability to perform such tasks as interpreting ambiguity at different rates (Kessel, 1970). Differences have also been found in terms of adult performance. A study by Gleitman and Gleitman (1970) revealed enormous differences among adults in their ability to execute metalinguistic tasks involving syntactic as opposed to semantic novelty. Learner differences in the ability to deal with language analysis have been studied under the heading of aptitude, specifically, the component of grammatical sensitivity (Carroll, 1962) or language analytic ability (Skehan, 1998). (See Ranta, 1998, 2002 for discussion of the relationship between the concepts of aptitude and metalinguistic skill.) The relevance of language analytic ability is particularly pertinent in school-based studies where a more normally distributed population is found. Ranta (1998; Ranta & Derwing, 1999) found that within a population of francophone children participating in the same intensive ESL programme, it was possible to identify two subgroups of learners who were similar in attaining higher levels of performance in their use of possessive determiners in oral production, but differed markedly in their metalinguistic performance with respect to this feature. This suggests that for some learners metalinguistic tasks will always be more difficult than oral production tasks. Participants’ instructional experiences Most of the studies which have explicitly examined the relationship between metalinguistic performance and oral production have been conducted among classroom learners who presumably have received metalinguistic instruction dealing with the target feature. Some of these have been conducted in foreign language settings (e.g. Leow, 1996; Sorace, 1985) while others were carried out in settings where learners had both formal instruction and naturalistic exposure (e.g. Bialystok, 1982; Han & Ellis, 1998). We would argue that in order to fully understand the impact of metalinguistic instruction on the relationship between communicative and metalinguistic task performance, it is necessary to examine learning under conditions where it can be established that metalinguistic instruction has not been provided. The present study attempts to fill a gap in the research by examining learner performance on an oral production task which is relatively open-ended. In the present study, we chose to explore how production and metalinguistic task performance are related by looking at French L1 learners’ knowledge of the possessive determiners ‘his/her’ in English. These target forms have the advantage of being developmental in nature and thus provide a fine-grained way of assessing learners’ progress. Furthermore, we examined the relationship between oral production and metalinguistic performance under two different learning conditions, one where instruction was communicative in nature and did not include any explicit focus on the possessive determiners, and another where learners received metalinguistic instruction concerning the target forms in


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Table 2 Predictions about the relationship between metalinguistic and oral task performance Type of interface No interface Full interface Implicit - explicit Explicit - implicit Weak interface

Communicative only Meta = Oral Meta = Oral Meta = Oral No prediction Meta = Oral

Communicative + form-focused Meta > Oral Meta > Oral Meta = Oral Meta = Oral Meta = Oral

addition to their regular communicative instruction. The specific research questions addressed by this study are as follows: (1) What is the relationship between oral production and metalinguistic task performance with respect to the possessive determiners ‘his/her’ when instruction does not focus on the target feature? (2) What effect does the provision of form-focused instruction have on the relationship between learners’ oral production and metalinguistic task performance with respect to ‘his/her’? We can derive the following predictions from the five interface models. These predictions are summarised in Table 2.

No-interface: Krashen’s Monitor model Learners who experience communicative language teaching without form-focused instruction will operate by a feeling of correctness; therefore performance on a metalinguistic task will correlate with performance on an oral task. In contrast, form-focused instruction will enhance learners’ performance on a metalinguistic task, but will not be available during spontaneous oral production; in this case, performance on the two types of tasks will not be correlated. Full-interface: Bialystok’s 1978 model Performance on a metalinguistic task will be correlated with performance on an oral production task when learners rely solely on implicit knowledge for both tasks. This will be the case for learners who experience communicative teaching only. Those learners who receive form-focused instruction in addition will have access to both implicit and explicit knowledge when carrying out a metalinguistic task with no time contraints. Therefore, performance on a metalinguistic task will be superior to performance on an oral production task. Implicit-to-explicit interface: Bialystok’s Analysis/Control model Performance on a metalinguistic task and on an oral communication task where grammatical accuracy is required will be correlated because both tasks make high demands on analysis and control. However, learners who have received communicative teaching only must move from unanalysed to analysed representations and will probably display low levels of performance on both types of tasks. Those learners who receive analysis-oriented instruction will develop analysed representations; in this case, scores on both types of tasks will be enhanced and correlated.

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Explicit-to-implicit interface: Anderson’s ACT* model The proficient L2 learner’s performance on a metalinguistic task will be governed by procedural knowledge just as in oral production; therefore we would expect similar levels of performance on both tasks. Learners who are offered opportunities to develop declarative knowledge of a given L2 structure and to proceduralise this knowledge will attain higher levels of performance on both tasks than learners who have not had such instruction. Weak interface: Gass’s Selective Attention model Learners exposed to communicative teaching will acquire the target forms through input processing, and this will lead to knowledge which is available for both oral and metalinguistic tasks. The provision of form-focused instruction will lead learners to selectively attend to the target form in the input resulting in a quicker rate of acquisition for these learners. Performance on both types of tasks will improve and be correlated.

Method Target feature The third-person singular possessive determiners, ‘his’ and ‘her’ were chosen as the linguistic focus of this study. Deciding between ‘his’ and ‘her’ is difficult for many French-speaking learners of English, presumably because of the way the two languages differ in their assignment of gender. In French, the choice between masculine and feminine third-person possessive determiners is based on the grammatical gender of the possessed entity, while in English, the choice depends on the natural gender of the possessor (for further discussion of this difference, see J. White, 1998). ‘Kin-different’ contexts, that is, contexts in which the natural gender of the possessor differs from the natural gender of the entity possessed, provide the clearest window on whether francophone learners are using the French or the English rule. Thus, learners who produce a substantial number of sentences like ‘He made a sandwich for his daughter’ and ‘She helped her son get dressed’ provide evidence of applying the English rule for both his and her (i.e. given contexts in which the anaphoric reference for the determiner is the subject of the sentence). On the other hand, learners appear to be using the French rule when they produce ungrammatical sentences like ‘He told her mother a story’ and ‘The mother took care of his little boy’ (again, given a context where the grammatical subject is the antecedent of the possessive determiner). The developmental stages for ‘his’ and ‘her’ were established by previous research with French L1 learners of English in Canada (Lightbown & Spada, 1990; Martens, 1988; Zobl, 1985). J. White (1996, 1998) fine-tuned earlier descriptions of the interlanguage development of this feature into a framework consisting of eight stages. She documented the developmental patterns in the use of ‘his’ and ‘her’ in oral production among a large number of young francophone L2 learners in a classroom setting in Quebec. White found that, in order to interpret the patterns in the data, it was useful to group the eight stages into three broader categories: Pre-emergence, Emergence, and Post-emergence. In the Emergence stages, the target forms begin to appear in the learners’ oral production. In the Post-emergence stages, learners gradually differentiate between ‘his’ and ‘her’,


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using these forms correctly in a wider variety of linguistic contexts until they become fully accurate in their use of the English possessive determiner rule. Research context The study reported here was carried out in Quebec in two intact intensive ESL classes at Grade 6 level (11–12 year olds). In the intensive programme, students received five months of intensive study of English and five months of intensive study of their academic subjects in French (for more information concerning intensive ESL in Quebec, see Lightbown & Spada, 1994, 1997). A characteristic of the setting is that students had little exposure to English outside of school; in this sense, it could be considered a foreign language context. However, English was consistently used for all functions in the classroom (i.e. pedagogical, disciplinary, transactional) and frequently used in the school environment, outside the classroom. Pair- and group-work activities predominated over teacher-centred activities, and teacher–student interaction was characterised by negotiation of meaning. It is important to note that, as English was never used as the medium of instruction for their Grade 6 academic subjects (e.g. maths, social studies, science), students had no immediate need for English academic language skills. Thus, the teaching focused much more on the development of oral communication skills than on reading and writing. Although there was considerable emphasis on vocabulary-building activities, in class and for homework, grammar was never presented in isolation, and any focus on grammar that occurred was in the context of correcting the previous night’s homework. The participants in this study (n = 59) began the academic year with their French language programme, which lasted from September until January; the ESL component of the intensive year began in February and ended in June. The study was carried out between April and June. Procedures To address the research question concerning the effect of form-focused instruction, an instructional treatment was developed by the researchers for one of the groups, which we refer to as the Rule group (n = 29). The instructional materials were taught by the classroom teacher once a week over a period of six weeks. We were in close contact with the teacher during the six weeks and were confident that she was following the procedures we had specified. The other group, referred to as the Comparison group (n = 30), did not receive any kind of focused instruction concerning the target form. This teacher did not have access to the experimental materials and reported that she had neither provided explicit information about ‘his’ and ‘her’ to the students nor provided opportunities for learners to practise using these forms. During the first lesson, which lasted about 40 minutes, the Rule group received two types of metalinguistic information about ‘his’ and ‘her’: (1) learners were taught a rule of thumb (ask yourself ‘whose __ is it?’), and (2) their attention was directed to the contrast between the possessive determiner agreement rules in their L1 and L2. In this lesson, and in each instructional session that followed, learners worked through a series of rational cloze passages in small cooperative learning groups. Each blank in the passages required ‘his’ or ‘her’; students first filled in the blanks and drew arrows from each possessive deter-

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miner to the referent individually, then justified their choices within their groups, and reached a group consensus.4 The group decisions were then shared with the teacher and the other groups, and the teacher provided feedback to the class as to the correctness of the final choices. There were numerous instances of students referring to the rule of thumb during their discussions. This approach to form-focused instruction can be characterised as ‘consciousness-raising’ in the sense of Fotos and Ellis (1991) since the task required students to talk about ‘his’ and ‘her’, rather than to use the target form in communicative activities, as has been the case in other teaching experiments conducted in intensive ESL classes (e.g. Spada & Lightbown, 1993; J. White, 1998; L. White, 1991). Once a week for five more weeks, the students in the Rule group had a brief refresher lesson in which they were reminded of the rule of thumb and were given cloze passages to complete in groups.5 The whole-class discussion and correction procedure described above was followed each week. These small 30-minute ‘shots’ of form-focused instruction were embedded within their regular meaning-oriented ESL lessons. Outside of the pedagogical intervention, which totalled slightly more than two hours, the teacher did not give corrective feedback on ‘his’ and ‘her’. However, she observed that it was not long before the students began to self-correct and correct each other when they used these target forms during their other activities. Students in the Comparison group carried on as usual with the same communicative programme. Pre-tests were administered to the students in the Rule group the day before the possessive determiner activities were introduced. Post-tests were given seven weeks later, one week after the end of the instructional treatment. There were no follow-up post-tests since the school year ended soon after that. While the Rule group was given pre- and post-tests, the learners in the Comparison group were tested only once, in June at the end of the school year. The decision not to pre-test this group was made with due consideration to the well-known biasing effect of pre-testing in intervention studies (see Campbell & Stanley, 1963; Cook & Campbell, 1979). In an early study of the effects of form-focused instruction, Ellis (1984) suggested that testing procedures need to be considered as additional exposure to the target feature. In a study of three intensive ESL classes in Quebec, J. White (1996, 1998) speculated that the pre-tests had drawn learners’ attention to the target forms in unanticipated ways for both the experimental and comparison groups. In the intensive ESL context, as is the case in the present study, the goal is for learners to develop interpersonal communication skills in their L2. Since learners rarely take part in metalinguistic activities, pre-testing procedures which focus on a particular language form are likely to increase its saliency. This is a serious problem when the researcher wishes to examine learning in a truly uninstructed setting, as is the case in this study. We did realise however, that a decision not to pre-test the Comparison group would compromise the internal validity of the study. How can we ensure that the two groups are truly comparable? In this particular context, we have supporting evidence relating to the comparability of the two groups. (1) The research took place in a school in which all students were in Grade 6 and were either studying ESL intensively or doing their Grade 6 academic subjects in French intensively (see Lightbown & Spada, 1997, for more about


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this intensive ESL school). While it offers a special programme, the school draws students with a wide range of academic abilities from across the school board. Students are randomly assigned to classes in September and are regrouped in February when they change from ESL to their academic programme or from their academic programme to ESL. The regrouping is based on classroom management issues and aims to provide heterogeneity with respect to overall academic performance. (2) The teachers work closely together and follow the same instructional programme consisting of a variety of mainly oral activities such as games, puzzles, surveys, interviews, and discussions organised around themes relevant to the interest of children of this age. The programme does not include any kind of focus on the possessive determiners (or any other grammatical form). From long-term association with these teachers, we knew that neither of them believed in ‘teaching grammar’. This is based on both informal and formal observations, the latter using the Communicative Orientation to Language Teaching (COLT) observation grids, Part A (Spada & Fröhlich, 1995), and on their responses to a questionnaire (Ranta, 1998). For example, when their opinion about grammar was elicited on the questionnaire, they commented: ‘teaching grammar or concentrating on it to learn a language is a false concept’ and ‘they can communicate with kids their age and understand the messages without the grammar’. Nonetheless, the Rule group teacher agreed to implement the instructional material and carry out the activities as requested, and, importantly, not to share them with her colleague. At the same time, the Comparison teacher emphasised that she had no interest in ‘teaching grammar’. (3) The comparability of the two groups was further confirmed by the fact that there were no significant differences between them on an end-of-programme listening/reading comprehension test which sampled a wide range of linguistic features (F(1, 57) = 2.22, p = 0.14). This measure has been widely used to compare different intensive ESL groups (Lightbown & Spada, 1997). Given the fact that the Rule and Comparison groups are comparable on an independent measure of proficiency, we feel confident that they do not represent two distinct populations. Measures Two types of measures were used in this study: a measure of oral production ability and a measure of metalinguistic knowledge. There were two versions of each task: for the Rule group, Version 1 was used as the pre-test and Version 2 was used as the post-test; the Comparison group received only Version 2. Oral production ability was operationalised as performance on a picture description task. Students were asked to describe a series of cartoon pictures representing family situations which offered contexts for the use of ‘his’ and ‘her’, but did not involve any explicit cuing of the target feature. The task was administered to the students individually, one picture at a time, and interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed, and coded for grammatical and ungrammatical use (for more information about this task, see J. White, 1996, 1998).

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Metalinguistic knowledge was operationalised as performance on a passage correction task that required the students to read a story and identify and correct a number of possessive determiner and distracter errors. The number of correctly corrected possessive determiner errors was converted to a percentage score for each learner. As noted above, performance on this task does not require ‘metalingual’ knowledge but does require that the learner have an analysed representation of this grammatical rule. Analysis For the oral production task, we assigned learners to oral developmental stages which were based on emergence, rather than accuracy, criteria. The Pre-emergence stages are characterised by avoidance of ‘his’ and ‘her’ (Stage 1) or the use of one form, typically ‘your’, for all persons, genders and numbers (Stage 2). In the Emergence stages, a few instances of ‘his’ and/or ‘her’ appear in the learners’ oral production (Stage 3) or there is a preference for ‘his’ or ‘her’, accompanied by overgeneralisation to contexts for the other form (Stage 4). In the Post-emergence stages (Stages 5–8), learners gradually develop the ability to differentiate between ‘his’ and ‘her’ in all linguistic contexts, including those in which the gender of the possessor is different from the grammatical and natural gender of the possessed entity (e.g. Bill and his mother; Mary and her father). Examples of learners’ oral production at different stages may be found in the Appendix. 6 For the passage correction task, we adapted criteria from the oral developmental stages in order to assign learners to a ‘meta-level’ (metalinguistic level). To be assigned to the low meta-level, accuracy levels in correcting errors in contexts for ‘his’ and ‘her’ were below 50%. For the mid meta-level, this accuracy level was 50%–75%, and for the high meta-level, it was above 75%, as well as above 50% accuracy in kin-different contexts. This classification corresponds to the criteria for assignment to Post-emergence stages in the developmental framework used for oral production, where accuracy in kin-different contexts increases as learners progress through stages 5, 6 and 7. In carrying out these analyses, no data were discarded as uncodable.

Results Comparison group In order to address the first research question concerning the relationship between production and metalinguistic performance when learners have not received form-focused instruction, we examined the results of the Comparison group on the two measures. The results for the Comparison class on each measure are presented in the third row of Tables 3 and 4. Table 3 reveals that 13 (43%) of these learners are classified as being in the Post-emergence stages. This means that they demonstrated some ability to apply the agreement rule for ‘his’/’her’ in their spontaneous oral production. These students were able to do so despite the fact that the rule was not an explicit focus of instruction. Most of the remaining students (11, or 37%) are in the Emergence stages, using ‘his’ and ‘her’, but not in a consistently target-like way. The rest (6, or 20% of the total group) are


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Table 3 Distribution of learners at each development stage for ‘his/her’ on the oral production task Group Rule: pre-test April (n = 29) Rule: post-test June (n = 29) Comparison June (n = 30)

Stages 1–2 Pre-emergence 11 (38%) 0 (0%) 6 (20%)

Stages 3–4 Emergence 14 (48%) 10 (34%) 11 (37%)

Stages 5–7 Post-emergence 4 (14%) 19 (66%) 13 (43%)

Table 4 Distribution of learners in each meta-level on the passage correction task Group Rule: pre-test April (n = 29) Rule: post-test June (n = 29) Comparison June (n = 30)

Low meta 18 (62%) 3 (10%) 12 (40%)

Mid meta 4 (14%) 11 (38%) 12 (40%)

High meta 7 (24%) 15 (52%) 6 (20%)

classified as being at a Pre-emergence stage, which means that they use a definite article or ‘your’ where ‘his’ and ‘her’ are required. Turning to the passage correction task (Table 4), we find the reverse pattern in that most of the learners in the Comparison group are found in the low and mid meta-levels (12, or 40% at each level) and very few are in the high meta-level (6, or 20%). Thus, it appears that the learners in the Comparison group perform in a more target-like way in oral production than on a metalinguistic task. In order to further understand the relationship between the two tasks, we carried out a Spearman rank order correlation. The significant correlation of r = 0.56 accounts for approximately 25% of the variance on the other task. Figure 1 helps us to understand the remaining 75% of the variance. In this figure, the distribution of learners’ oral production stages is presented using the meta-level as a grouping variable; in other words, for each meta-level, we see the distribution of learners (expressed as a percentage of the total number of learners) in each of the three oral production stages. For example, of the twelve Comparison group learners at the low meta-level, four were at a Pre-emergence stage on the oral production task, six were at Emergence, and two were at Post-emergence. What is striking about the distribution in Figure 1 is that all six of the high meta-learners are in the Post-emergence stages. The pattern of results suggests that there is greater variability in oral stage distribution for the low and mid meta-learners than for the high meta-learners. Rule group Before we address the second research question concerning the effect of metalinguistic instruction on learners’ performance, let us consider the pre-test results in Tables 3 and 4. Note that these tests were administered in April, approximately halfway through the learners’ intensive ESL programme. At that

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Pre-emergence Emergence Post-emergence

Oral production stage Figure 1 Distribution of Comparison group learners into oral production stages by meta-level grouping for ‘his/her’: June (n = 30)

time, their overall proficiency was lower than that of the Comparison group, who were tested in June. Nonetheless, the two groups exhibit a similar pattern in that their oral stage performance is in advance of their metalinguistic performance. The pre- and post-test results of the Rule group for the oral production task are presented in Figure 2 and for the passage correction task in Figure 3. When the post-test results for the Rule group are compared to the results of the Comparison group (Tables 3 and 4), we find that the former are ahead on the developmental continuum for ‘his/her’ on both tasks. A larger percentage of students in the Rule group are found in the Post-emergence stages of oral production (66% vs. 43% for the Comparison group). Strikingly, no learners in the Rule group remain in the Pre-emergence stages. A similar pattern is found for the passage correction task, where a larger percentage of students are in the high meta-level (52% vs. 20% for the Comparison group) and fewer in the low meta-level (10% vs. 40% respectively). Examination of the changes from pre- to post-testing reveals that the within-group pattern parallels the between-group pattern (Figures 2 and 3). There is a general movement out of the lower stages in oral production to the higher stages, and there is a corresponding movement from the low meta-level to the high meta-level. The relationship between the two tasks before and after the experimental instruction was examined using the Spearman rank order correlation. At the pre-test, a significant correlation of r = 0.52 was obtained. At the post-test, the correlation was 0.21, which was non-significant. It appears from the correlational analysis that metalinguistic instruction altered the relationship between metalinguistic performance and oral production. This can be seen in Figures 4 and 5, which display the distribution of learners’ oral stages when grouped by


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Pre-emergence Emergence

Per cent of learners

Post-emergence

Oral production stage

Figure 2 Distribution of Rule group learners into oral production stages for ‘his/her’ (n = 29)

Low meta-level Mid meta-level


High meta-level

Meta-level

Figure 3 Distribution of Rule group leaners into meta-levels for ‘his/her’ on passage correction task (n = 29)

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Post-emergence

Oral production stage

Figure 4 Distribution of Rule group learners into oral production stages by meta-level grouping for ‘his/her’: April pre-test (n = 29)



Post-emergence

Oral production stage Figure 5 Distribution of Rule group learners into oral production stages by meta-level grouping for ‘his/her’: June post-test (n = 29)


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their meta-level. At the end of their five-month intensive programme, there appears to be less spread overall in terms of oral stage for the low meta- and the mid meta-level learners in the Rule group than for the Comparison learners (Figure 1). However, this is not true for the high meta-level learners who demonstrate a greater amount of variability when compared to the high meta-learners in the Comparison class. Some of the learners in the Rule group who were classified as being high on the metalinguistic task are at Emergence stages in oral production whereas all of the high meta-level learners in the Comparison class were in the Post-emergence stages in oral production. These results will be discussed in the next section with respect to the effect of metalinguistic instruction.

Discussion The main findings of this study are the following. (1) Learners in this communicative language teaching setting who had not received instruction targeting ‘his/her’ were more advanced in oral production stages than in metalinguistic performance. (2) Some learners were able to attain the highest levels of performance on both the oral and the metalinguistic tasks without having had focused instruction or practice. (3) Metalinguistic instruction was associated with higher levels of performance on a metalinguistic task which targeted the use of ‘his/her’. (4) Metalinguistic instruction was also associated with higher stages of development in the use of ‘his/her’ in oral production. (5) Performance on the two tasks correlated significantly and moderately for the Comparison group, and for the Rule group when tested in April before the metalinguistic instruction, but not in June after instruction. The first finding is consistent with the fairly uncontroversial view that learning outcomes reflect instructional content. Since the intensive ESL programme emphasises the development of oral fluency in the L2 rather than formal accuracy or language for academic purposes, it is not surprising that learners found the metalinguistic task more difficult than the oral production task. Nonetheless, there were some learners in the Comparison class and in the Rule group at the pre-test who were able to acquire the grammatical rule on their own. These learners did not need to have their ‘consciousness raised’ concerning the use of ‘his’ and ‘her’ through explanation or focused practice. We would argue that these individuals have higher levels of language analytic ability and were thus able to impose structure on the naturalistic input they received in class (Ranta, 1998, 2002; Skehan, 1998). In contrast, it is likely that learners who cannot readily perform such an analysis on the input unaided will benefit from form-focusing instruction (Skehan, 1998). It appears that this was the case with the Rule group. The fact that these learners improved on the metalinguistic task is again fairly uncontroversial. The experimental instruction was metalinguistic in nature although the nature of the test was different from what the learners did in class. What is more striking with respect to Skehan’s claim is that the Rule group learners also improved on the oral task. This provides evidence for the view that there is an interface between

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Table 5 Relationship between performance on oral and metalinguistic tasks

Meta = Oral Meta > Oral Meta < Oral

Comparison (n = 30) Rule (April) (n = 29) Rule (June) (n = 29) 15 15 15 (50%) (52%) (52%) 2 5 4 (7%) (17%) (14%) 13 9 10 (43%) (31%) (35%)

metalinguistic knowledge and the knowledge that underlies spontaneous language use. Finally, it appears from the Spearman rank order correlation that learners in the Comparison group and in the Rule group at the pre-test relied on the same knowledge to perform both tasks. The non-significant correlation at the post-test for the Rule group suggests that the instructional treatment disrupted the normal pattern of acquisition. It has been suggested that form-focused instruction may lead to ‘restructuring’ which causes temporary decrements in performance (McLaughlin, 1990; J. White, 1996). However, the superior performance of the Rule group on both tasks is not consistent with this notion. Another school of thought views reduced variability as an outcome of explicit instruction (VanPatten, 1988; Zobl, 1995). Indeed, Figures 2 and 3 reveal that the distribution of learners in the Rule group is skewed towards the higher oral stages and, to a somewhat lesser extent, to the higher meta-levels. Inspection of the scores for this group thus suggests that the low and non-significant correlation is due to restriction in range, a factor which always affects correlations (Hatch & Lazaraton, 1991). Table 5 presents the data in a different way. Here we see that the Comparison and Rule groups do not differ greatly with respect to the percentage of learners who demonstrate parallel performance across the two tasks. Approximately half of the learners in both groups are consistent, that is, either low meta-level /Pre-emergence, mid meta-level/Emergence, or high meta-level/ Post-emergence. In the Rule group, however, 11 of the 15 consistent learners are in the high/Post-emergence category compared to 6 out of 15 in the Comparison class. This means that a larger proportion of those who received form-focused instruction demonstrate mastery of the agreement rule for ‘his/her’.

Evaluation of the Models Now let us consider these findings from the perspective of the five interface models discussed above. This is no small task since each model overlaps with at least one other model (see predictions summarised in Table 2), and all are supported to some degree by the findings of this study. Krashen’s Monitor model As Krashen’s model predicts, performance on the oral and metalinguistic tasks was correlated for the Comparison group learners, thus suggesting that the error correction task was completed ‘by feel’. The superior performance of the Rule group over the Comparison class on the metalinguistic task would be


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explained by the fact that the experimental instruction promoted learning which learners were able to use because the conditions for monitoring were met. The Monitor model does not, however, account for the superior performance in oral production stages of the Rule group. According to Krashen (1982), it is possible for acquisition from comprehensible input to follow learning, although the former is not caused by the latter. He would thus ascribe to the benefits of comprehensible input and a low affective filter the fact that 19 learners in the Rule group had attained the Post-emergence stages in oral production. But this does not explain why there were so many more learners in the higher oral stages in the Rule group than in the Comparison group who received the same kind of communicative input in their regular ESL activities. Instead, the findings suggest that the metalinguistic instruction and consciousness-raising activities facilitated the development of ‘acquired’ knowledge. Anderson’s ACT* model The superior performance of the Rule group on both tasks is accounted for by the ACT* model in terms of declarative knowledge becoming proceduralised via automatisation practice (DeKeyser, 1998, 2001). One difficulty with this explanation is that the form-focused practice activities used in this study did not involve drilling or ‘creative automatization’ (Gatbonton & Segalowitz, 1988) but rather consisted of small-group and whole-class discussions focusing on the application of the grammatical rule for choosing ‘his’ and ‘her’ in cloze passages. As can be seen in a typical student utterance, ‘I put his because Charlie it’s a boy’, the learners discussed the form but did not practise using the possessive determiners in different contexts. It is, of course, possible that the automatisation practice took place outside of the experimental treatment during the regular communicative activities of the intensive ESL programme. Although no recording was made of classroom interaction during the six weeks of the study, we do know that the teacher of the Rule group noticed that students were engaging in self- and peer correction with respect to ‘his/her’ during regular activities. Following DeKeyser’s (1998) reasoning, proceduralisation was able to occur during communicative activities because declarative knowledge had been well anchored through the cloze passage discussions. That the process of proceduralisation was not complete is evident in learners’ self-correction behaviour. Examination of the transcripts from learners’ production reveals that those who were classified as being in the highest oral stages in the Rule group appeared to be more prone to self-correction than Comparison group learners who were at the same stages. In the Rule group, 10 out of 19 (53%) produced 3 or more self-corrections involving a third-person singular possessive determiner while only 2 out of 13 (15%) did so in the Comparison group. As full proceduralisation takes time and practice, the greater frequency of self-correction during production can be interpreted as a sign that the learners were in the process of proceduralising the rule they had been taught. One difficulty for the ACT* model is that it does not readily account for the acquisition of interlanguage rules that takes place without explicit instruction. Some learners in the Comparison group and in the Rule group at the pre-test were able to acquire the knowledge of ‘his/her’ without the benefit of explanation, practice, and feedback, all essential ingredients of this skill-learning model.

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Nor does Anderson’s model adequately account for the performance of the eight learners in the Rule group who improved on the oral production task but not on the metalinguistic task despite the fact that the experimental treatment gave them practice in the type of language analysis that would help them in the metalinguistic task. Bialystok’s 1978 model As Bialystok’s model predicted, performance on the metalinguistic and the oral task was correlated for both the Comparison group and the Rule group at the pre-test. Presumably, in both cases learners were operating with implicit knowledge which would account for their low levels of accuracy on both tasks. The full interface model is bi-directional, allowing implicit knowledge to become explicit as well as explicit knowledge to become implicit. This might account for those six learners in the Comparison group who acquired the agreement rule without having had form-focused instruction. With respect to the Rule group, the model predicts that performance on the two tasks would not be correlated. Technically, this is confirmed by the Spearman rank order correlation, but we have already noted that there is more consistency in their performance on the two tasks than is apparent from the correlation. Furthermore, as with the ACT* model, we can only explain the positive impact of the pedagogical treatment by assuming that explicit knowledge became implicit through formal practising which occurred outside of the experimental activities. Finally, the prediction that metalinguistic task performance will be superior for the Rule group because both explicit and implicit knowledge can be accessed when testing conditions do not involve time constraints was not supported. In this study, a larger percentage of Rule group learners were classified as Post-emergence (Table 3) than were classified as high-meta (Table 4). That is, learners used ‘his/her’ more accurately on the oral task than on the passage correction task. Bialystok’s Analysis/Control model The Analysis/Control framework makes predictions about learner performance on the basis of task demands. Metalinguistic tasks such as the error correction task are characterised by Bialystok (1991) as making high demands on both analysis and control. We believe that the task demands for the oral task are also high for the analysis and control dimensions in the case of these particular learners. The correct choice of third-person determiner cannot be accessed as an unanalysed whole; it must be ‘computed’ each time it is used. For these beginner-level learners, this is a processing burden since they have not yet attained high levels of automaticity with respect to language processing. Thus the relationship between oral and meta task performance for the high meta-level learners in both groups is accounted for by the model. In the model, the process of analysis moves from implicit to explicit and never from explicit to implicit (Bialystok, 1994). While this is clearly the case in L1 development, cognitively more mature L2 learners are typically exposed to metalinguistic instruction and thus, according to Bialystok, acquire analysed representations directly, rather than starting with unanalysed chunks. It was noted that instruction may emphasise one dimension over another. Bialystok (1991) suggests that when language-instruction programmes focus on the devel-


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opment of fluency over accuracy, learners develop control of processing. In the case of the two intensive ESL classes in this study, the regular communicative instruction served to develop control while the learners in the Rule group experienced analysis-oriented instruction in addition. This accounts parsimoniously for the fact that learners in the Rule group developed control over ‘his/her’ on the oral and on the meta task despite the analysis-orientation of the experimental materials. If the opportunity to develop processing control was present in both classes, one would not expect to find differences among the advanced learners in the two groups. But there is some evidence that the Rule group learners varied in their degree of processing control over the target forms. Specifically, four high meta-level learners in the Rule group were still in the Emergence oral stages (Figure 5), more Rule than Comparison group learners were higher in their meta-level than in their oral stage (Table 5), and there was a greater amount of self-correcting behaviour in the oral production among the Rule group learners in the Post-emergence stages. This raises the possibility that analysed representations that have evolved through naturalistic L2 exposure are qualitatively different from those that derive from ‘externally created salience’ (Sharwood Smith, 1993). Clearly, further empirical testing of the model with L2 learners is needed to clarify this point. Gass’s Selective Attention model The findings from this study are also consistent with the view that explicit instruction speeds up the normal acquisition process through selective attention. The learners who only received communicative input performed the metalinguistic task on the basis of ‘feel’. According to this view, the metalinguistic instruction caused learners to selectively attend to the target form in the input and thereby sped up the normal process of intake. It is, however, impossible for us to say with certainty whether the effect of metalinguistic information was to facilitate intake, or whether improvement in oral production was due to proceduralisation of explicit knowledge through automaticity practice that occurred outside of the experimental treatment. Although the greater propensity to self-correct found among the learners in the Rule group might be evidence of proceduralisation, it is hardly sufficient evidence to decide between a production-oriented vs. an input-oriented explanation of learners’ improvement in the use of ‘his/her’. It is also not clear to us just what kind of evidence would be needed to support Gass’s model and what would disconfirm the predictions of a model like ACT*. We welcome a clearer specification of the weak interface position so that further hypothesis-testing research can be carried out. In summary, we find the results of this study are least well accounted for by Krashen’s and Anderson’s models and, to some extent, Bialystok’s 1978 model. The Analysis/Control and Selective Attention models are most compatible with our data. Of the two, Bialystok’s Analysis/Control model offers the advantage of a general framework that accounts for L1 acquisition and makes testable predictions about performance across a range of tasks (see, for example, Bialystok, 2001a: 16–17).

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Concluding Remarks The findings of this study provide evidence that the relationship between metalinguistic task performance and oral production with respect to the use of ‘his/her’ in English is not chaotic. Unlike many previous studies, our study benefits from two methodological features: we used an oral production task which elicited the target form in an open-ended task without cuing, and carried out the study in a context where the provision/non-provision of form-focused instruction dealing with the rule for choosing the appropriate possessive determiner could be controlled. Our study is, however, a quasi-experimental study and suffers from the deficiencies associated with intact classes. We feel that the groups we studied are comparable, given the use of an independent measure of L2 proficiency, the high degree of homogeneity with respect to learners’ L1 background, out-of-school contact with English, and in class ESL instruction; nonetheless, the possibility that the Comparison and Rule groups differ from each other in some unmeasured way that influenced learner outcomes constitutes a limitation of this study. Although a relationship between oral production and metalinguistic performance was found in this study, we would not necessarily expect this to be true for all L2 learning contexts. It is possible that such factors as the age of the learners, the communicative language teaching context of the intensive ESL classroom, and the metalinguistic nature of mother-tongue instruction in French make this learning context unique. Nor would we necessarily expect the same relationship for other aspects of the L2. Unlike other grammatical structures, it is not possible to be communicatively effective on the basis of unanalysed knowledge of ‘his’ and ‘her’. In any given situation, the correct referent has to be determined. Furthermore, it is very confusing for the listener if the wrong possessive determiner is used, which suggests that there is a strong communicative motivation for figuring out this particular rule. We conclude that there is a relationship between learners’ ability to use grammaticalforms on metalinguistic tasks and in oral production but that this relationship may vary depending on the target feature and the type of learning environment involved. Acknowledgements This research was funded by a grant to the first author from the Faculty of Arts and Science Research Fund, Concordia University. We are grateful to the two teachers and their students for their participation in this study, to Randall Halter, Christine Brassard, Lucy Lightbown, and Virginia Parker for their help in the data collection and analysis. Tracey Derwing, Patsy Lightbown, Roy Lyster and Nina Spada made insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. We also appreciate the helpful comments made by an anonymous reviewer. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Joanna L. White, TESL Centre, Department of Education, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1M8 ([email protected]).


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Notes 1. ACT* refers to the 1983 version of the model. The latest version (Anderson, 1993) is referred to as Adaptive Control of Thought – Rational (ACT–R). In this paper, we will only consider the ACT* model because it clearly articulates the explicit-to-implicit position which we are discussing. 2. Some studies of foreign language learners who have received grammar-based instruction could be interpreted as providing support for parts of the ACT* model. For example, Towell et al. (1996) used the concept of proceduralisation to account for the improvements in fluency of British students of French. Green and Hecht (1992) examined the relationship between being able to correct errors and the ability to offer a metalinguistic explanation of the error. They found that German learners of English, who had received formal grammatical instruction on all the items tested, were better able to correct common errors than to offer an explanation (78% vs. 46%, respectively). These percentages across the sample were not dissimilar to those of a comparison group of native speakers (96% for corrections vs. 42% for explanation). Green and Hecht conclude that the learners used implicit (i.e. proceduralised explicit knowledge) to make the corrections, but called upon explicit knowledge for the explanation of the rule. 3. Note that Gass does not refer to her own model as a ‘selective attention model’. 4. In working through the instructional material in their cooperative learning groups, students had many opportunities to practise applying the rule of thumb. It is noteworthy here that the terminology used during this metalinguistic instuction and practice involved semantic categories, primarily questions such as ‘Whose mother is it’, ‘Who does it belong to’, ‘Who is the possessor’, rather than terms like ‘pronoun’, ‘referent’, or ‘antecedent’. 5. Students were not reminded each week about the contrast between the possessive determiner rules in English and French. 6. The criterion in Stages 3 to 7 is four correct uses in different utterances regardless of the number of incorrect utterances that may be produced. See White (1996, 1998) for more information about the coding procedures.

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Appendix: Sample Transcripts from Picture Description Task Pre-emergence R: S: R: S: R: S: R: S: R: S: R: S: R: S: R: S:

Can you tell me about this picture? Can you tell me about this little boy? Uh, the boy, uh, um, have a [pansement]. He has a -? Uh, the boy have a [pansement]. Oh, okay, band aids. Mm hm. Where are the band aids? Hm, on the, on the leg. Mm. Uh, two on the arm. Mm hm. Um, /? /. The boy, uh, have a accident. Yes. /? / Yeah, and who’s this, do you think? Who’s that? Mm hm. I’m not sure, but, the fathers or the doctor. Okay, and who do you think this is then? Mothers.

Emergence R: S: R: S: R: S: R:

Can you tell me about this little boy? Okay, the boy, he, he have, um, very much, um, [plaster]. Mm hm. Her mother, uh, (laughs) (laughs) I think, uh, she, uh, she laugh. Yeah, why?

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S: R: S: R: S: R: S:

Uh, she, because he, the, your son, /? /, he put, uh, very much, uh, [plaster], uh – Uh huh – and, uh, funny. Okay, and who, who’s that? Her father. Mm hm. Her father, uh, he, um, he stare on her boy.

Post-emergence R: S: R: S: R: S:

Okay, so the first one I’m going to ask you to, um, tell me about this boy. He (laughs) he, he, I don’t know, um, which accident, accident he do. Um, he, uh, him, his, um, I don’t remember the name of that. Band aid. Band aid, yes. His, uh, band aid, uh, he had mad, many band aid. He do an accident. Um, his mother, uh, laughed. And where are the band aids? Um, in his knee, [ben], on his leg, uh, and on, um, his, uh, body everywhere.

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