Yasser Mohammed Hamid ALrefaee

Second Language Learning Theories M A program
Ministery of Higher Education

Sana’a Univeristy
Education College
M A Program
English Department
Supervised By:
Prepared By:
Dr:Murad Al-Azzany
Yasser Mohammed Al-Refaee
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Table of Contents
Question no ten................................................................................................................. 3
Question no eight ................................................................................................................20
Question no seven...........................................................................................................24
Question no three .............................................................................................................28
Question no five ...................................................................................................................38
Question no nine ..............................................................................................................44
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10- What is the role of feedback in language learning? How important is it to give
learners information about whether they are making errors as they use the new
language? Is it better to correct most or all the errors students make, or should error
correction be minimal in the language classroom? What are optimal ways to provide
feedback to adult foreign language learners?
Abstract
This question mainly concentrates on the role of feedback in learning. The above
question consists of four main parts.Each part is dealing with one aspect of the role
of feedback. In my view, the first part is exclusive while the others are considered
parts of the first question answer. The second one is dealing with the importance of
feedback, and in order to show its importance, it will be required to identify the
different types of feedback. The third part is dealing with the extent of using
feedback: is it better to be limited in giving feedback to classrooms only, or should
the teacher goes beyond that? The last part is dealing with the optimal ways to
provide feed back. Every one will be answered separately though there are
integrative.
In this paper I attempt to analyze and survey the role of corrective feedback -more
specifically recasts- in the interaction between teachers and L2 students in a
classroom. Thus, I explore the effects of recasts on students' self-correction in order
to finally come to the conclusion whether or not students are able to notice this type
of underlying correction and, therefore, reformulate their ill-formed utterances.
In this paper, my main purpose is to provide some crucial information regarding

different types of corrective feedback and mention the notion of recasts and analyze
its effects on second language learning by referring to how effective or ineffective
they are.
Key words: Corrective feedback, recasts, clarification request, reinforcement, positive

feedback, negative feedback
Part one
The role of feedback in SLL

SLL specialists have looked at the notion of feedback as an important term in the
literature of SLL.What is more important is that they have placed its role differently.
The speaker normally wants to maintain contact and to make sure that the listener
perceives and understands. The speaker also needs to find out how the listener
reacts emotionally and attitudinally. S/he therefore needs to have means for
"eliciting" and "giving" such information. These two functions are referred to as -
giving and eliciting.
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For cognitivists, the IL uses feedback to move on, develop, and evolve. Mallows
(2002) proposes that feedback loops as described by Larsen-Freeman can be applied
to second language learning. In cognition, the agents are individual minds; the
learner receives feedback from teachers and/or experience; and the language
improvement is called learning. More importantly, Long emphasizes the role of
feedback as a trigger in bringing about learner noticing (Schmidt, 1993). The learner
gets feedback, whether positive or negative, and as a result, s/he pays attention to
the linguistic feature to be acquired. An adequate theory of SLA, Long argues, must
account for the mechanism that facilitates the change in the SLA.
The learner’s IL is self-referencing, because it is not produced by the known rules of

the L2—the IL reacts to and is changed by the feedback received. If a learner’s IL
fossilizes, then the system closes, settling into a steady state.
Gass (1991) suggests that feedback may act as an attention-getting device that
triggers SLA. Tomasello and Herron (1989) propose that SLA occurs as a result of
learners following the Garden Path technique, in which they generate hypotheses
about the L2 and receive immediate feedback as to the accuracy of their hypotheses
about the L2.
In his renowned review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, Chomsky (1959) ,on the other
hand, moves toward a more aggressive assertion of his innatist theory of language
development in his thorough rejection of Skinner’s doctrine. Skinner posits the
notion of behaviorism which holds that although sentient beings such as animals and
people may have certain thoughts or opinions about what they are doing, in fact
what they do is determined by their observable actions. Skinner further suggests
that what we do by committing various speech acts is influenced by reinforcement.
Chomsky takes issue with Skinner’s definition of reinforcement as too broad, and
argues that reinforcement is not required for language learning to occur. The main
counterevidence is given by the example asserted in 1959 that there was neither
empirical evidence nor known of children’s L1 acquisition, which is a fundamental
process independent of feedback” (Chomsky, 1959, p. 12). Chomsky asserted that
there was neither empirical evidence nor known argument to support the claim of
significance of feedback from the environment in language acquisition. However, his
emphasis was on the structure of the target, not on an internal learning mechanism.
Different types of feedback

While second language acquisition researches (SLA) have agreed that input is
essential and important in second language acquisition, many others still debate the
form that input should take, either positive or negative.
Positive feedback vs. Negative feedback
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Positive feedback, on the one hand, is regarded as important and crucial for adult
second language acquisition (krashen: 1977,1994) whereas, on the other, some
other researches have considered it to be insufficient for second language learning.
Apart from its importance and sufficiency, positive feedback plays a role in language
learning and it refers to those elements and type of evidence given to learners which
tell them what is possible in the TL, as opposed to negative feedback which is related
to the type of information given to learners that tell them what is not possible in the
TL, being the former more descriptive; whereas the latter is more prescriptive as it
tells the learner what s/he is not allowed to say because the target language
structure does not allow it.
Negative feedback is divided into two other types: Preemptive and reactive. The
former tries to prevent learners from making mistakes by giving clear instructions
and explanations together with explicit grammar rules. The latter takes place after
the mistake has been made by the learner. This reaction to error making can be
implicit or explicit on the part of the language instructor, i.e. the way the language
teacher corrects the mistake can be very explicit by telling the student that the
sentence s/he has produced is wrong because of this and that reason. But it can also
bean implicit way of correcting the mistake by repeating the ill-formed utterance, by
using clarification requests, such as Pardon? Sorry?
An Expanded Definition of Positive Feedback

To ensure that “positive feedback” is not confounded with “praise,” the researcher
offers an expanded definition of oral positive feedback, incorporating multiple
definitions included in Imai (1989, p. 17). Positive feedback not only has a
metalinguistic component (praise) but also a linguistic component (affirmation) and
a paralinguistic component (laughter):
Positive Feedback
Spoken feedback of a positive affective nature. Positive feedback contains:
1) A paralinguistic component, such as “Normal conversational responses that one gives in

face-to-face situations. Such responses as uh huh or head nodding convey agreement or that
the message has been received and is understood … can be seen as forms of feedback”
(Seliger, 1983, p. 258). Includes laughter and nonverbal cues, as defined.
2) A linguistic component, including the “personal response” (Imai, 1989, p. 17) —a

mechanism of interpersonal communication that includes a speaker and hearer; manifested
by affirmation as defined.
3) A metalinguistic component, taking the form of evaluative feedback, including praise

markers such as “fine,” “good,” “excellent” (Vigil and Oller, 1976). Recasts fall into the
implicit category of corrective feedback.
Competence vs. Performance

This is one of the distinctions drawn by Chomsky (1965) when he analyzed the
Linguistic theory and made clear assumptions with what Linguistic Theory should be
5
concerned. Competence, on the one hand, is related to psychological and mental

properties of the mind; in other words, it refers to the abstract part of the language:
The knowledge stored in the mind. (Chomsky: 1965, p. 3)
On the other hand, Performance refers to the realization of the abstract part of the
language in the actual production of utterances in a certain place and at a certain
time which includes all the grammatical and non-grammatical features of language
as well as the linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of it, viz. contextual and situational
factors, hesitations, slips of the tongue, body language, and so forth. (Chomsky:
1965)
It is also important to highlight the changes and perspectives the notion of

performance has adopted. For instance, some researchers have put a great deal of
emphasis on pragmatic aspects of the language and performance alike. Situational
and contextual aspects are crucial when thinking of language in use or performance.
Hymes (1972) put it very clearly when he introduced a somewhat different notion of
performance, adding a few components to Chomsky's definition. Communicative
competence, in contrast to Chomsky's definition, has taken the form of
appropriateness of language to particular situations or contexts and its sociocultural
significance, in other words it is the knowledge of how and when to use language
appropriately. This definition seems to be more narrowed-down as language occurs
among people and in context with all its situational components which affect and
interrupt the flow of a conversation at times. In any Second Language classroom,
performance, producing language orally, and communicative competence- knowing
how, when and where to use an utterance appropriately- are two main goals to be
achieved by language teachers. However, when it comes to producing language
orally and using the language in communicative contexts teachers are faced with a
very difficult problem to tackle, that of students' errors and how to treat them.
Corrective Feedback
Error correction has always been a very controversial topic, and per-haps a thorny
issue as there is very little agreement as to how to correct somebody who has made
an error and whether this correction will be effective or not.
Error correction can easily be described on a continuum ranging from the idea that it
can be harmful and ineffective to being very essential and beneficial for some
grammatical structures.
According to recent studies, as it will be shown later on, it has been proved that
error correction is effective, necessary and essential but the obstacle which prevents
error correction from being totally effective lies in teachers' inconsistency and
unsystematic ways of dealing with errors. Whether systematic, consistent or
effective the teacher's reaction is to errors, corrective feedback has been widely
defined as:
".. .The teacher's response to a student error"
(Dekeyser: 1993). * Look at part two for more clarification about the different types
of feedback and their effects.
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Recasts: Are recasts really effective?

As suggested before, negative feedback can also include implicit indications that an
utterance is not well formed. Recasts, for instance, make a complete reformulation
of a learner's ill-formed utterance and provide relevant information which is
obligatory but is either missing or wrongly used in the learner's utterance. E.g. My
dad works from Monday to Friday, as a recast of "My dad work from Monday to
Friday").
Even though recasts are the most frequent type of corrective feedback used by
language instructors, it has been proved that they are not completely effective in the
classroom, that is, recasts have resulted in uptake much less frequently than any
other type of feedback.
By uptake we understand the learner's response to the teacher correction and, at

the same time, the attempt made by the learner to reformulate h/his ill-formed
utterance and produce the correct one.
Part two
The use of classroom feedback
Burnett (2002) surveys 747 Australian elementary school students to
determinewhich types of classroom feedback they prefer. Burnett’s conclusion from
a Likertscale questionnaire is that effort feedback and negative teacher feedback are
related to the students’ perceived relationships with their teachers, and generally
satisfied students feel they receive more positive feedback (characterized as general
praise, general ability feedback, and effort feedback) and less negative teacher
feedback than generally dissatisfied students. In reviewing the education literature,
Burnett lists several definitions of key terms: According to Thomas (1991) and Blote
(1995), praise is positive reinforcement that contains positive affect and is a more
intense response to student behavior than general feedback. Attributional feedback
distinguishes between effort and ability: Effort feedback is given in assessment of
perseverance on a task.
Brophy (1981) suggests that teachers rarely praise students in class, using 6% of the
total instructional time on average to do so (as cited in Burnett, 2002, p. 7). Merrett
and Wheldall (1987) observe that “Even in a classroom, where a teacher praises once
every five minutes, the rate of praise for the average student would be . . . once
every two hours” (as cited in Burnett, 2002, p. 7). In general the frequency of both
positive and negative feedback is low in the elementary L1 classroom.
In “Teacher Praise: What Students Want,” Elwell and Tiberio (1994) administer a
“Praise Attitude Questionnaire” to 620 secondary (grades 7—12) students in three
suburban Rochester, New York-area schools. The researchers attempt to determine
whether students generally value praise, since many teachers and administrators
may, but many students may or may not—especially in a whole-class setting.
Following the Praise Attitude Questionnaire, the researchers conclude that most
students perceive praise as an important element in their social and academic
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behaviors. Students on average prefer private instead of public praise, the more so
with age (the higher the grade, the less the desire for public praise). Ward (1983)
suggests that “praise delivered contingently by a teacher to an adolescent as simple
interpersonal communication is reinforcing; in the presence of a peer group it can be
punishing” (as cited in Elwell & Tiberio, 1994, p. 1).
While not explicitly addressing feedback, Nystrand, Gamoran, Kachur, and

Prendergast (1997) describe the conditions involved for “opening dialogue” (p. 39) in
the standard K—12 English classroom. An indication a message has been received in
dialogue is uptake, defined as occurring when the hearer asks the speaker about
something previously said. The authors stipulate that meanings emerge through
conversation, with the speaker and hearer arriving at a shared understanding, much
in the sense of Vygotsky’s negotiation of meaning. Without this negotiation, learning
essentially stalls, the authors argue. After observing hundreds of 8th- and 9th-grade
English classes in 84 Illinois schools over 2 years, the authors conclude that English
classroom discourse is “overwhelmingly monologic” (1997, p. 33) and that the time
spent on class discussion has a positive effect on learning. This finding is relevant to
this project because uptake is an indicator that feedback has been given or
perceived, and it occurs only if there is a sharing of ideas by interlocutors.
Ferguson and Houghton (1992) conduct an empirical study (N = 24) examining the
effectiveness of contingent teacher praise as applied in Canter’s Assertive Discipline
Program. The researchers tally frequencies of praise in three classrooms in West
Australian elementary schools before the intervention. In the baseline, no teacher is
found to give praise in excess of 10 times per 15 minutes, a normalized rate of .6667
praise tokens per minute. During the intervention—which involves focusing on
positive student behavior to verbally reward rather than negative behavior to
reprimand—the ratio of positive to negative feedback increases along with the
frequency of praise and increased amount of on-task time. With the teachers’
attention redirected to positive student behavior, teachers find more opportunities
to dispense praise. More importantly, Ferguson and Houghton (1992) surmise that
“conversely, it may be that increased levels of on-task behaviour by children
positively reinforced the teachers and contributed to increased levels of praise. This
may be an area deserving further investigation” (p. 5). The present study includes a
discussion of causality following the data analysis.
El-Tatawy (2002) provides a comprehensive survey of negative feedback in SLA. First,

El-Tatawy reviews several definitions of corrective negative feedback, as it occurs in
oral production. Chaudron (1988) identifies corrective feedback as “any teacher
behavior that minimally attempts to inform the learner of the fact of error” (as cited
in El-Tatawy, 2002, p. 1). Lightbown and Spada (1999) similarly define corrective
feedback as “any indication to learners that their use of target language is incorrect”
(as cited in El-Tatawy, 2002, p. 1) and this feedback can be either explicit or implicit.
Schacter (1991) describes implicit feedback as confirmation checks, repetitions,
recasts, clarification requests, silence, or facial expressions. Long (1996), Gass
(1991), and Chaudron (1988) all agree that corrective feedback plays a pivotal role in
SLA. Gass (1991) suggests that feedback may act as an attention-getting device that
triggers SLA, in accordance with Schmidt’s (1993) noticing hypothesis.
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El-Tatawy (2002) continues the summary of research related to the impact of

corrective feedback. Tomasello and Herron (1989) propose that SLA occurs as a
result of learners following the Garden Path technique, in which they generate
hypotheses about the L2 and receive immediate feedback as to the accuracy of their
hypotheses.
What kinds of feedback could these learners receive? Lyster and Ranta (1997)
identify seven types of teacher feedback in the language classroom: “explicit
correction, recasts, clarification requests, metalinguistic feedback, elicitation,
repetition, and multiple forms of feedback” (as cited in El-Tatawy, 2002, p. 8). The
researchers conclude with a finding that recasts are the most common type of
teacher feedback, and also the most likely to lead to additional student response,
also known as uptake (69% of recasts). In a follow-up to Lyster and Ranta’s study,
Mackey, Gass, and McDonough (2000) determine that many learners who did not
give uptake following the recasts do not perceive the recasts as such; this leads to
the hypothesis that corrective feedback is most effective when perceived. In turn
Han (2001) studies fine-tuned feedback, and finds that when tailored to the
student’s ability to perceive feedback, corrective feedback is successful in facilitating
SLA. El-Tatawy recommends longitudinal studies to investigate relationships among
different types of feedback, modified output, and L2 development, and to increase
our comprehension of the nature of fine-tuning corrective feedback.
As a potential component of positive feedback, laughter has been rarely studied

empirically in the second language learning environment. However, use of humor is
a frequently recommended second language classroom teaching strategy.
Broner and Tarone (2001) analyze 13 hours of naturally occurring 5th-grade student
IL in a Spanish L2 immersion classroom. The study focuses on three students and
their interactions, recorded by lapel microphones and transferred to audiotapes.
From the recordings, standard orthographic transcriptions are developed. The
researchersattempt to locate instances of ludic language play, because, in
accordance with Larsen- Freeman’s (1997) conceptualization of IL as a CAS, laughter
may work to destabilize the system. Unfortunately, the ludic play is not evaluated in
a quantitative manner that may have led to a finding.
In an action research case study, Magilow (1999) articulates a link between error
correction and classroom affect in his Princeton German L2 classes he taught while a
graduate teaching assistant. Magilow identifies the complicated balancing act of the
language teacher; that is, providing an inclusive, comfortable classroom environment
while at the same time correcting overt errors in student IL. Magilow proposes that
once positive affect is enacted—by use of humor, anecdotes, and a personable
tone—it is possible for the teacher to correct student errors without damaging
student self-perception. Magilow finds that many students in his class prefer more
negative teacher feedback than had been given, and also for the teacher to allow
more student-to-student talk, time often monopolized by the teacher, as discussed
by Nystrand et al. (1997). The case study conclusion is that the question of feedback
may be inseparable from that of rapport. Once a teacher-student rapport is
established, explicit error correction may be effective.
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Rossiter (2003) tests the effects of “affective strategy training” (p. 1) that is given to
adult Canadian ESL students. An experimental group of intermediate-level students
(N = 15) received 12 hours of training in relaxation techniques, deep breathing
exercises, laughter, making positive statements, and discussing feelings with peers.
After experimental and control groups receive 15 weeks of ESL instruction, Rossiter
makes no finding of differential success between the groups resulting from the
affective training. There is “no significant between-group benefit” (Rossiter, 2003, p.
18) for L2 performance, as determined by dyadic speaking tasks and student surveys
of self-efficacy. Rossiter recommends that ESL practitioners give students relevant
informational feedback in order to enhance SLA.
Burrell (2000) conducts a modified replication of a survey conducted of Japanese

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university students. The study finds that adult
Latino ESL students have a positive affect toward teacher error correction.
The Latino students (N = 172) prefer that the ESL teacher repeat their questions, or
ask the student to repeat their answers if incorrect. The least preferred error
correction method is implicit correction, defined as either nonverbal cues or ignoring
the error. In Burrell’s literature review, Kubota (1994) finds in a study modeled on
one conducted by Carroll and Swain (1993) that an experimental group receiving
explicit metalinguistic feedback performs better on language learning tasks than a
control group receiving no feedback on their IL. Both explicit and implicit feedback
are found to facilitate SLA. As a result, Pica (1994) posits that “what has been
advanced about the role of correction in the learning process mitigates considerably
the claim of Krashen that comprehensible input is all that is needed for successful
language acquisition” (as cited in Burrell, 2000, p. 26).
Imai’s (1989) thesis goal is to determine whether correction or praise is more likely
to improve oral L2 proficiency. Imai hypothesizes that Japanese EFL university
students (N = 40) will have their grammar and pronunciation improve as a result of
error correction, but fluency and comprehensibility would improve by praise. Imai’s
conclusion is that neither praise nor correction has significantly different effects on
pronunciation; correction may have had a positive effect on oral comprehensibility.
Imai’s (1989) literature review discusses the role of feedback in SLA. Seliger (1983)
defines feedback as either teacher correction on isolated forms, adjusted “foreigner
talk” (as cited in Imai, 1989, p. 17), or conversational responses. Vigil and Oller
(1976) propose that positive feedback may take the form of praise markers such as
“OK,” “fine,” “good,” and “excellent” (as cited in Imai, 1989, p. 18), as well as a
positive personal response. Moskowitz (1976) describes teacher techniques related
to feedback. Moskowitz characterizes effective feedback as immediate and direct. It
is best given in a warm, accepting classroom climate. Effective praise for student
behavior is frequent, varied, and often nonverbal. Long (1983) recommends testing
the effects of various kinds of feedback on language accuracy.
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Part Three
Negative evidence in first language acquisition
The existence and usability of negative evidence in child –directed speech has
become important in debates on first language acquisition .The argument sharpened
as studies of child-directed revealed that care-takers' speech with young children
was , in general , regular and well formed ,that is , it seemed to provide essentially
positive evidence on the nature of the language system to be learnt . Moreover, it
seems that explicit negative evidence, in the form of parental correction of children's
grammar mistakes, is rare.
By negative evidence is meant some kind of input that lets the learners know that a
particular form is not acceptable according to target language norms. In second
language interaction this might take different forms, ranging from a formal
correction offered by a teacher, to a more informal rephrasing of a learner's second
language utterance by a native-speaking conversational partner.
Furthermore, children have been shown not to be usually corrected on the form of
their utterance but rather on their truth values .When correction does take place, it
seems to have very little effect on the development of language structure.
Theorists arguing for a strongly innatist model for language learning have claimed
that language is simply not learnable from the normal type of input, which provides
mostly positive evidence of the structure of the target language, and lacks negative
evidence in the form of, for example, grammar correction (Wexler and Culicover,
1980; Pinker 1989) .In the absence of negative evidence, how are learners to
discover the limits and boundaries of the language system they are learning? For
nativists, the answer lies in the existence of some form of Universal Grammar, which
is needed to eliminate many possible generalizations about language structures that
are compatible with the input received, but are actually incorrect.
However, the fact that children don't seem to correct their "errors" on the basis of
others overt or implied correction of children's utterances is well-documented in the
first language acquisition literature.
Some researchers assert that negative evidence is much more prevalent in child-
directed speech than was previously thought, in particular by asserting that care-
takers' recasts of poorly formed child utterances offer implicit negative evidence
about children's interim grammatical hypotheses.
Child language researchers claim that recasts promote grammatical development.

Long concludes that first language acquisition researchers have generally succeeded
in demonstrating that (implicit) negative evidence a) is regularly available in child-
11
directed speech; (b) exists in usable form: and (c) is picked up and used by child
learners, at least in the short term.
It is easy to find that a number of child language researchers have respond to this
view, by re-examining and reinterpreting child-directed speech data. Researchers
such as Bohannon et al. (1990) and Farrar (1992) assert that negative evidence is
much more prevalent in child – directed speech that was previously thought, in
particular by asserting that care-takers' recasts of poorly formed child utterances
offer implicit negative evidence about children's interim grammatical hypotheses.
There is controversy among child language researchers on this issue, particularly
concerning the standards to be applied to evidence supporting claims that recasts
promote grammatical development. From his review, however, Long (1996)
concludes that first language acquisition researchers have generally succeeded in
demonstrating that (implicit) negative evidence: (a) is regularly available in child-
directed speech; (b) exists in usable form; and (c) is picked up and used by child
learners, at lest in short term. Whether negative evidence is necessary for the
acquisition of core aspects of language (e.g. of the principle specified by universal
Grammar theory) still remains less clear, however.
Negative feedback and recasts in native speaker-non-native speaker and non-native

speaker-non-native speaker discourse. In the light of this first language debate,
related questions can be asked about the role of negative evidence in SLL. For
example: to what extent is indirect negative evidence about the nature of second
languages made available to second language learners, in the course of interaction?
And to what extent do learners (a)notice and (b) make use of this evidence?
A number of studies have recently pursued these questions by analyzing spoken

interaction involving second language learners. These studies have looked for
difffernt kinds of negative feedback produced in response to learners' non-standard
utterances, including negotiation moves such as clarification requests and
confirmation checks. However, particular attention has been paid to the occurrence
of recasts, re-defined by second language researchers as "responses to non-target
non-native speaker utterances that provide a target-like way of expressing the
original meaning"(Mackey et al.,2003, pp. 36). An example of a recast offered by
Mackey et al.(2000,p.11) reads:
Student: why does the aliens attacked earth?
Teacher: right. Why did the aliens attack earth?
Here, the speaker does not explicitly criticize the student's utterance, or provide any
grammatical explanation, and this is typical of feedback in the form of recasts.
However, such reformulations of faulty utterances are believed by many
interactionists second language acquisition researchers to provide important indirect
negative evidence for the learner about problems in their output. These researchers
have also been very interested in uptake of the recasts, in immediately following
utterances produced by the learner. The following example comes from Oliver:
Teacher: what did you do in the garden?
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NNS students(child): Mm, cut the tree
Teacher: you cut the trees. Were they big trees or were they little bushes?
NNS student(child): big trees (oliver, 2000, p. 140)
Here, the teacher recasts the child's first utterance "cut the tree", expanding it by
the addition of plural –s. The child's second utterance "big trees" also includes plural
–s, and can be interpreted as reflecting uptake of the foregoing recast.
In order to explore the extent to which negative feedback is actually available to

second language learners, and how far they make use of it, Oliver(1995) recorded
pairs of native speaker and non-native speaker children carrying out problem solving
tasks in English (picture completion). In this study, more than 60% of the errors
made by the non-native speaker children received some form of negative feedback
from their native speaker partner. Most frequent were negotiations of some kind
(clarification requests, confirmation checks); these predominated where non-native
speaker utterances included multiple errors or were semantically ambiguous.
However, recasts also occurred, usually in response to to utterances containing
single errors, and also in association with particular types of grammar mistakes(see
the following example)
The following example illustrates the pattern in which a native speaker responded
with negotiation when the NNS's meaning was ambiguous, such as that caused by
poor word choice:
Part Four
Negative Feedback and Recasts in the Second Language Classroom
In this section, I will make an effort to answer the question "Why is there a
controversy about negative evidence in SLL?"
The problem is that correction often seems ineffective – and not only because
second language learners are lazy. It seems that learners often cannot benefit from
correction, but continue to make the same mistakes however much feedback is
offered. For some current theories, any natural language must therefore be
learnable from positive evidence alone, and corrective feedback is largely irrelevant.
Others continue to see value in corrections and negative evidence, though it is
generally accepted that these will be useful only when they relate to "hot spots"
currently being restructured in the learner's emerging second language system, or to
its more peripheral aspects. Interaction is also interesting to linguistic theories,
because of recent controversies over whether the provision of negative evidence is
necessary or helpful for second language development. Chaudron and Dekeyser
typically evaluate usefulness of recasts as compared with other types of negative
feedback as reflected in student uptake in immediately following interaction
sequences.
13
They noted that recasts were much the most common type of feedback (60%
compared with 34% for negotiation of form and 6% for explicit meta-linguistic
corrections). However, recasts were much less likely to lead to immediate self-
correction by the students, relatively speaking, than where other feedback types. A
further analysis of the same recorded lessons showed that the kind of negative
feedback provided by the teachers varied according to the type of error that had
been made.
In a study conducted by Lyster, it was found that the teachers were much likely to
respond to lexical errors with some kind of negotiation (e.g. clarification requests),
while they typically responded to both grammatical and phonological errors with
recasts .As far as the phonological errors were concerned, recasting seemed an
effective teacher strategy, as the students later repaired more than 60% of these
mistakes. However, recasting was much less effective for repair of grammar
mistakes; only 22% of all spoken grammar mistakes were corrected, and the majority
of these grammar repair happened when the teachers adopted the (less usual)
strategy of negotiation.
Lyster and his colleagues interpret their findings as showing that while recasts may
offer valuable negative evidence, students are not necessarily under pressure to
attend to them, at least in communicatively oriented classroom settings. They
suggested that more interactive feedback modes may therefore be more effective in
pushing classroom learner to amend their hypotheses about second language
grammar, as well as vocabulary.
Part Five
Experimental Studies of Negative Feedback
How can we tell whether negative feedback provided during face-to-face interaction
is promoting second language development? The studies that we have just described
seem to make the assumption that improved performance in immediately
succeeding utterances can be taken seriously as evidence of learning. However, the
researchers responsible for these descriptive studies are generally aware that this is
a somewhat speculative assumption. It is possible that the corrections which are
produced by learners are immediately after negative feedback are quickly forgotten,
and do not affect their underlying interlanguage system; it is also possible that
recasts, etc., can function as effective input and lead to learning, without any explicit
repair being produced.
For these reasons, a number of researchers have moved beyond descriptive

accounts of negative feedback, and have tried to design more focused experimental
studies of its effect on SLL. An example is the study by Mackey and Philip (1998) of
the use of recasts, and their impact on the learning of English as second language
question forms. In this study, 35 adult learners took part in a specially designed
programme of information-gap tasks, which pushed them towards production of
14
English as second language questions (story completion, picture sequencing, picture

drawing). The students carried out the tasks with a native speaker interlocutor, and
also completed a series of pre- and post-tests that identified their level on the
Pienemann and Johnston (1987) developmental scale for English questions.
Some of the adults in the study received intensive recasting from the native speaker
interlocutor whenever they made an error in question formation. Others did the
same tasks, but without receiving the recasting "treatment", whereas a control
group did the pre-and post-tests only. During the actual study, the learners who
received the recasts very seldom repaired or modified their utterances in response
to them (only 5% of recasts were followed by learner repairs). However, the post-
tests showed that most of the learners who began the study at stage 4 on the
developmental scale for questions, and who experienced recasting, progressed by at
least one stage (i.e. to stage 5) in course of the study. No other group made similar
progress; the researchers interpret these results as showing that recasting was
beneficial for learners who were developmentally ready, in spite of the lack of overt
uptake while interaction was actually in progress.
The Mackey and Philip (1998) study compared the effectiveness of interaction plus
recasting, with interaction alone, and found that the inclusion of recasting seemed
to promote interlanguage development as far as question formation was concerned
(though only for the most advanced learners in the study). Similar results have been
found in a small study of English as second language storytelling with and without
interlocutor recasts (Han 2002); in this case, the recast condition led to greater
consistency in use of English past tense inflections as measured on delayed post-
tests. Other experimental studies have compared the provision of models (positive
examples of selected second language structures) with the provision of reactive
recasts (Long et al., 1998; Ayoun, 2001). However, these studies have produced
mixed findings. For example, the carefully designed study of Long et al. (1998) used
communicative games played by learners with native speaker interlocutors, to
explore the effect of recasts versus modeling on acquisition of four grammatical
structures, two in Japanese as second language and two in Spanish as second
language. In this case the "recasting" condition produced significantly enhanced
learning for only one of the four target structures.
As Nicholas et al. (2001) point out the findings to date for "negative feedback"
research are still somewhat inconclusive and difficult to interpret. One increasingly
recognized problem is that we still know very little about how much attention
learners pay to the feedback they receive, or how they interpret it. Some researchers
are now trying to use a variety of introspection techniques, in order to tap into
learners' thought processes during second language interaction. For example,
Mackey et al. (2000) made video-recordings of dyadic interactions, and played them
back to the learners concerned, asking them to recall their thinking during selected
correction episodes, as these were replayed to them. The recall showed that
learners had been aware of lexical and phonological correction episodes, which they
could identify and comment on. However, they were less likely to have noticed
grammatical episodes, or to identify them correctly if they did notice them, as the
learner's comment on the following episode shows:
15
Morphosyntactic feedback without recall of content

NNS (on video): it have mixed colors
NS: it has mixed colors
NNS: mixed colors aha
NNS (subsequent recall): uh, I was thinking …nothing, she just repeat what I said
(Mackey et al., 2000, p. 486)
Here the learner made a verb inflection mistake during the video interaction, which
was recast by the native speaker interlocutor. However, her comments during the
recall activity suggest she was aware only that her message was repeated, and had
not noticed the grammatical correction in the recast.
Chomsky's Innateness Arguments

With discussion of trees and Chomsky, let us revisit some of the classic innatist
arguments, which may work against the notion of an effective external influence on
a learner’s IL. Chomsky (1957) alludes to loops as a potential language mechanism in
his description of a Markov process. In a given sentence, the structure can be
thought of as the state of the sentence. Normally, the flow of words runs in English
from left to right, a unidirectional flow that constitutes a finite state. Though these
fundamental Markovian structures can be enhanced by loop mechanisms, such an
addition cannot still account for all the possible grammatical combinations. Thus,
Chomsky concludes, English is not a finite state language. In his renowned review of
Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, Chomsky (1959) moves toward a more aggressive
assertion of his innatist theory of language development in his thorough rejection of
Skinner’s doctrine. Skinner posits the notion of behaviorism, which holds that
although sentient beings such as animals and people may have certain thoughts or
opinions about what they are doing, in fact what they do is determined by their
observable actions. Skinner further suggests that what we do by committing various
speech acts is influenced by reinforcement. Chomksy takes issue with Skinner’s
definition of reinforcement as too broad, and argues that reinforcement is not
required for language learning to occur. The main counterevidence is given by the
example of children’s L1 acquisition, which is a fundamental process independent of
“feedback” (Chomsky, 1959, p. 12) from the environment. Chomsky asserted in 1959
that there was neither empirical evidence nor known argument to support the claim
of significance of feedback from the environment in language acquisition. However,
his emphasis was on the structure of the target, not on an internal learning
mechanism. Chomsky (1959) mentions studies done in the 1950s finding a positive
result of praise—“right,” “good” (p. 23)—on language acquisition of selected forms.
Piatelli-Palmarini (1980) proposes that cybernetic feedback loops and information

flows are the “cornerstone of cognition” (p. 3) in the context of the 1975 debate on
language and learning between Chomsky and Piaget. Editor Piatelli- mPalmarini
(1980) uses the metaphors of the crystal, “invariance of structures,” and the flame,
“constancy of external forms in spite of relentless internal agitation” (p. 6), to
characterize the conflicting innatist and constructivist positions taken by Chomsky
16
and Piaget, respectively. This debate shifts attention from learning curves and onto
“the mechanisms [italics added] of learning” (Piatelli-Palmarini, 1980, p. 308).
Feedback is sporadically discussed in terms of its workings at the cognitive level: In
neural networks, loops “make possible Piagetian reflectings and setting of
correspondence between levels” (Piatelli-Palmarini, 1980, p. 188); Piaget suggests
that genetic phenocopy contains a feedback mechanism; and Papert, in discussing
the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in psychology, propounds that an artificial
perceptron device contains a learning mechanism that uses feedback to alter its
weighting coefficients. All of this implies that feedback is an agent at the
unobservable cognitive level, the same area where SLA is believed to occur. By
proximity the reader can hypothesize the potential import of feedback in the
cognitive domain.
In An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research, Larsen-Freeman and

Long (1991) raise several objections to Chomsky’s Universal Grammar (UG): The
notion of degenerate input for L1 learners has been proven false; the idea that L1
acquisition is mostly complete by age five is contestable; and the position that
certain syntactic principles are not learnable and therefore innate are being
increasingly challenged. Larsen-Freeman and Long accordingly point toward research
on the multifunctionality of corrective feedback devices in the manner of Chaudron
(1988) as a potentially promising area in SLA.
Kohn (1993) addresses the question of how “rewards punish” (p. 52), citing dozens
of studies in his effort to discredit Skinner’s behaviorism. Within the discussion of
praise at home, school, and work Kohn (1993) distinguishes between forms of
“positive feedback” (p. 96): It can be straightforward information about how well
someone has done at a task. Kohn (1993) terms this type of positive feedback
“informational feedback” (p. 96); elsewhere in this review it may be characterized as
“effort feedback.” Alternatively, there are “verbal rewards that feel controlling and
make one dependent on someone else’s approval” (Kohn, 1993, p. 96). This type of
feedback is arising when there is a discrepancy between the speaker’s intent and the
hearer’s perception: The intent may be to offer useful feedback about the quality of
someone’s work, but the hearer may interpret the message as limiting autonomy.
Kohn’s advice is for the speaker to provide informational feedback without giving
praise. A problem here is the affect involved in the informational feedback; it will be
evaluated as being either positive or negative, depending on the connotation. Kohn
(1993) advises that the speaker “only praise what people do” (p. 108), make the
praise as specific to the task on hand as possible, and to avoid phony praise.
Feedback should be given by teachers to students, Kohn argues: It is an essential
element of the educational process, because students need information to know if
their performance is up to par. However, praise does not need to be included in this:
Brophy (1981) believes that “It is essential that students get feedback about their
academic progress and classroom conduct . . . [but] . . . students do not actually need
praise in order to master the curriculum, to acquire acceptable student role
behaviors, or even develop healthy self-concepts” (as cited in Kohn, 1993, p. 107).
17
What type of teacher feedback do students prefer? Would students rather be

praised or corrected, for example? Prabhu (1992) explores the notion of the
language lesson as a classroom event. A conflict may arise if a method requires a
teacher to be “maximally supportive” (Prabhu, 1992, p. 230) of the students,
highlighting positive feedback, but learners view teacher praise as a form of
surrender or opportunism. For example, a student population may believe “there is
bravery in defying the teacher’s wishes” (Prabhu, 1992, p. 230).
Language teaching research reflects a growing awareness of the complex dynamics

in the language classroom (Tudor, 2001, p. 25). As previously discussed, study of this
phenomenon has connections to findings in complexity science. Van Lier’s ecological
perspective on language learning is a model of the language classroom as a CAS.
Tudor’s reflection considers different interpersonal dynamics involved in creating
this classroom, notably the intersections of perspectives of course planners,
teachers, and students.
Vigil and Oller (1976) posit IL fossilization as a consequence of excess positive

extrinsic feedback for erroneous forms used (as cited in Kuo, 2003). Affective
feedback—including paralinguistic devices such as facial expressions—overrides
cognitive feedback such as affirmations that show whether a speaker’s message has
been understood. Vigil and Oller distinguish between positive affective feedback—
praise, such as “I like it,” or nonverbal cues—and reinforcement from cognitive
feedback, or affirmation, such as “I understand it” (as cited in Kuo, 2003, p. 4). Vigil
and Oller theorize that negative cognitive feedback is required to destabilize IL
fossilization, making a claim that a finding in this thesis would negate. Kuo (2003)
puts forth that a primary task for language teachers is to “discern the optimal
tension between positive and negative feedback” (p. 10) striking a balance that
offers enough encouragement to motivate the learner, but not so much that errors
are overlooked.
Long (1990) emphasizes the importance of mechanisms in SLA. Long defines

mechanisms as devices specifying how cognitive functions operate on input to move
a grammar at a Time 1 to its new representation at a Time 2. A student’s
improvement in learning can be observed in the IL, the observable data. More
importantly, Long emphasizes the role of feedback as a trigger in bringing about
learner noticing (Schmidt, 1993). The learner gets feedback, whether positive or
negative, and as a result pays attention to the linguistic feature to be acquired. An
adequate theory of SLA, Long argues, must account for the mechanism that
facilitates the change in the learner’s IL
Negative feedback and recasts in native speaker- non- native speaker and
non-native speaker-non- native speakers discourse
A number of studies have recently analyzed spoken interaction involving second
language learners .These studies have looked for different kinds of negative
feedback produced in response to learners' non-standard utterances, including
negotiation moves such as clarification requests and confirmation checks.
18
Recasts, redefined by second language researchers as "responses to non-target non-

native speakers' utterances that provide a target-like way of expressing that original
meaning .This is typical of feedback in the form of recasts. Recasts occurred, usually
in response to utterances containing single errors, and also in association with
particular types of grammar mistake.
As well as documenting extensive negative feedback produced by her native speaker

subjects, Oliver also showed that her non-native speaker learners could make use of
the information provided .Oliver found that negative feedback occurs regularly in
most kinds of second language interaction, in response to non-target-like utterances,
and that learners regularly avail themselves of the opportunities offered to produce
more target-like utterances. A study found that the learners who received the
recasts very seldom repaired or modified their utterances in response to them (only
5%) of recasts were followed by learners repairs).
Researchers interpret these results as showing that recasting was beneficial for
learners who were developmentally ready, in spite of the lack of overt uptake while
interaction was actually in progress.
Another study found that the inclusion of recasting seemed to promote

interlanguage development as far as question formation was concerned (though
only for the most advance learners in the study). Another study found that the recast
condition led to greater consistency in the use of English past tense inflections.
Other experimental studies have compared the provision of modals with the
provision of reactive recasts. The finding of these studies indicated that the recasting
condition produced significantly enhanced learning for only one of the four target
structures.
19
8- What is the role of practice in adult language learning? Is language

learning like the learning of other “skills” such as learning to play chess,
where a great deal of focused practice is necessary to become proficient? Or
is language fundamentally different from other form of human learning?
Abstract
Theorists of SLL, whatever their beliefs, have place a great deal of emphasis on role of
practice in language learning ,but such emphasis is different from one to another depending on
each one beliefs and assumptions.
Behaviorists, for example, whose main focus is stimulus-response relation have

mentioned the role of practice as the main way of learning .for them ,a language can be learnt
by repetition and imitation which rely mainly on practice .For them errors were viewed as the
result of bad habits practice, which could be eradicated if only learners did enough rote
learning .
For Universalists, practice is not as important as it is with behaviorists, they see the
language as separate module in the mind ,distinct from other aspects of cognition .Chomsky
has argued consistently fro the view that human language is too complex to be learnt in its
entirety ,from performance data available for the child and by practice .For him ,we ,human
beings ,must have some innate predisposition to expect natural Language to be organized .thus
,practice has no fundamental role in language learning .
For Congintivists, in the other hand, Second language learning is viewed as the acquisition
of a complex cognitive skill. To learn a second language is to learn a skill, because various aspect
of the task must be practiced and integrated into fluent performance. Unlike, universal
grammar-based theories, language learning is just seen as any other kind of learning which
becomes effective by practice. Practice, as it is in Anderson's ACT model and McLaughlin
information processing model, leads to automatization. Learning is a cognitive process, because
it is thought to involve internal representations that regulate and guide performance.
20
The cognitive approach:
McLaughlin as well as Heredia, who claims that the way in which we process information
may be either controlled or automatic and that learn involves a shift form controlled towards
automatic processing. Learners first resort to controlled processing in the second language. This
controlled processing involves the temporary activation of a selection of information node in
the memory, in a new configuration. Such processing requires a lot of attentional control on the
part of the subject, and is constrained by the limitations of the short-term memory. Through
repeated activation, sequences first produced by controlled processing become automatic.
Automatized sequences are stored as units in the long-term memory, which means that they
can be made available very rapidly whenever the situation require it, with minimal attentional
control on the part of the subject. Learning in this view is seen as the movement from
controlled to automatic processing via practice (repeated activation). When this shift occurs,
controlled processes are freed to deal with higher levels of processing (i.e. Integration of more
complex skill cluster), thus explaining the incremental (step by step) nature of learning.
Anderson’s another processing model from cognitive psychology, which has also applied
to aspects of SLL. It leads also to automatization; it enables declarative knowledge to become
procedural knowledge. Anderson posits three kinds of memory: a working memory (short-term
memory) and two kinds of long-term memory-a declarative long-term memory and procedural
long-term memory. What is meant by declarative and procedural knowledge? For example, if
you are learning to drive, you
Will be told that if the engine is revving too much, you need to change to a higher gear,
you will also be told how to change gear. In the early stages of learning to drive, however
knowing that (declarative knowledge) you have to do this does not necessary mean that you
know how (procedural knowledge) to do this quickly and successfully. With practice, however,
the more noise of engine getting louder will trigger your gear changing, without you having to
think about it. Thus, practice has its fundamental role in changing the declarative knowledge
into procedural knowledge. Thus, practice is necessary for a language learner to become
proficient as it appears if the following linguistic example.
21
If we take linguistic example of the third person singular marker on present tense verbs in
English, the classroom learner might initially know, in the sense that she consciously learnt the
rule, that s/he + verb require the addition of an s to the stem of the verb , after much practice,
this knowledge will hopefully become fully proceduralized. And the third person-s will be
supplied when the context require it. In similar way as learning to play chess, she has learnt the
rule of playing the game and role of each piece of the chess in the ground, after much practice,
this knowledge will become fully proceduralized and become then automatic skill.
For Universalists, the Language is fundamentally different from other form of

human learning. Contrasting view was by Chomsky which he criticized skinner 's that
sees learning a language is like other kinds of learning .
Chomsky argued that we must have some innate predisposition to expect natural
languages to organized in particular ways and not others.
Chomsky criticisms centered on the creativity of language. children do not learn and
reproduce a large set of sentences , but they routinely create new sentences that
they have rather than strings of words . for example , uttering such as 'it breaked'
or' mummy goed 'show clearly that children are not copying the language . around
them but applying rules .
Complexity and abstractness of linguistic rules . it is amazing that children are able
to master them so quickly and
Effectively especially given the limited …………they receive .
Chomsky claimed that children have an innate faculty that guide them in their
learning of language.
What supports Chomsky view is the findings of l1 acquisition characteristics which

emerged as follows ;
1- Children go through stages .

2- These stages are similar children for a given language.
3- These stages are across languages .
4- Children language is rule-governed and systematic .
5- Children' processing capacity limits the number of rules they can apply at any
one time .
The findings seemed to support Chomsky in claims that children follow some kind
of pre-programmed internal route in acquiring language . so , if we have these innate
mechanisms these are four logical possibilities .
1- they continue to operate during SLL ,and make key aspect of SLL possible , in
the same way that they first – language learning possible .
2- after the acquisition of the first language in early children ,these mechanisms
cease to be operable , and second language must learnt by another means .
22
3- The mechanism themselves area longer operable , but the first language
provides a model of a natural language and how it works , which can be
copied in some way when learning a second languages must be learnt by
other means .
4- Distinctive learning mechanisms for language remain available only in part ,
and must be supplemented by other means.
23
7- Do language learners acquire grammatical features in a predictable order

when language learning occurs in natural-use situations? Does instruction in
formal classrooms need to follow a "natural order "to be effective?
Introduction
There are some evidences that show that learners acquire grammatical features in
predictable order, and one of these evidences is a research, which has been
conducted by R. Ellis (1994,p.100) and Brown. They found that the emergence of
fourteen grammatical morphemes which students go through while acquiring their
first language .Also , adults go through these stages ,sequences ,orders, while
acquiring their second language .this means that they go through similar manner
while acquiring their L2 language with children acquiring their First language as it
was proved by the research that was conducted by Dully and Burnt this means
learners development follows a common route , even if the speed or rate at which
learners actually travel along this common route may be very different .though ,this
can not be true when it comes to teaching the second language(DR .Murad's lecture)
Natural Order hypothesis
According to the Natural Order hypothesis, the acquisition of grammatical

structures follows a 'natural order' which is predictable. For a given language,
some grammatical structures tend to be acquired early while others late. That is
to say, this hypothesis maintains that acquisition of grammatical structures of a
language proceeds in a predictable order when the acquisition is natural. The
order doesn't appear to be determined solely by formal simplicity and there is
evidence that it is independent of the other order in which rules are taught in
language classes. It seemed to be independent of the learners' age, L1
background, conditions of exposure, and although the agreement between
individual acquirers was not always 100% in many studies, there were
statistically significant similarities that reinforced the existence of a Natural
Order of language acquisition. The American psychologist, Roger Brown, who
investigated the acquisition of a first language by young children, discovered that
they assimilated a number of grammatical morphemes in a predictable
sequence. Grammatical morphemes are those like 'the', 'of', or 'is', and
the 's' of the genitive, the plural, and the 3PS. At first, children tend to leave
them out, using only the lexical morphemes to produce sentences such as:
'Here bed', or ''Not dada'.
When they do acquire them, they appear to do so in a specific order. Krashen,

using the research of colleagues Dulay & Burt, suggests that just as there is a
natural sequence in the way children pick up their own first language, with
24
certain grammatical morphemes being acquired before others, so there is for

second languages.
Average Order of Acquisition of Grammatical Morphemes
for
English as a Second Language (Children and Adults)
ING (progressive)
PLURAL
COPULA (to be)
IRREGULAR PAST
AUXILIARY (progressive)
ARTICLE (a, the)
REGULAR PAST
IlI SINGULAR (-s)
POSSESSIVE (-s)
25
(NOTES :( from Krashen &Terrell):

1-This order is derived from an analysis of empirical studies of second language
acquisition in a 1981 study by Krashen.
2- Most studies show significant correlations with the average order.
3- No claims are made about ordering relations for morphemes in the same box.
Many of the relationships posited here also hold for child first language.
Some of the morphemes have the same rank order as for first language
acquisition, but some do not. In general the bound morphemes have the same
relative order for first and second language acquisition (-ing, Plural, Ir. Past, Reg.
Past, III Singular, and Possessive) while Copula and Auxiliary tend to be acquired
relatively later in first language acquisition than in second language acquisition.)
According to Krashen, this order is found only when the subjects use the L2 in
light monitoring situations. Thus we do not find it in students' answers to formal
grammar test questions, when the 3rd person singular, for example, is
reproduced correctly at quite an early stage.
The studies by Krashen himself, and by Dulay and Burt have been criticized by a
number of other observers. To begin with, it is not clear how we decide whether
a morpheme has been acquired or not - the fact that a learner uses a specific
grammatical feature does not necessarily mean that he uses it in an appropriate
fashion, or that he understands how it works. As Krashen himself recognizes, a
learner may use the feature in one context and not in another. Moreover, the
studies carried out by Krashen's associates have all been cross-sectional. That is,
they have studied different learners at different points in their career: other
longitudinal studies, following the same learners through various stages of the
learning process, have not always found a similar progression.
A more damning criticism is that, although the findings might indeed be true,
they are not open to any theoretical interpretation. This is in large part because
there is no evident linguistic relationship between the different items. Some of
them are free morphemes, whilst some are bound. They pertain to different
areas of grammar-the morphology of the main verb, the morphology of the
noun, the auxiliary verb 'to be' - and there is no attempt to show how they may
be related. They are thus divorced from the system of English grammar, and
grammar is nothing if it is not systematic.
26
At the moment, we may say that there are strong reasons to believe that there
is indeed some kind of an order in the acquisition of certain grammatical
morphemes, but not of all. There is perhaps a stronger case to be made out for
the existence of 'developmental sequences'. This refers not to the fact that one
morpheme comes before or after another, but that a certain rule is acquired
gradually, that the learner makes certain predictable mistakes at each stage in
the learning process, and that these mistakes follow a similar order whatever the
mother tongue of the learner.
Krashen, however, points out that the implication of the natural order hypothesis
is not that a language program syllabus should be based on the order found in
the studies. In fact, he rejects grammatical sequencing when the goal is language
acquisition.
In addition, the comprehensible input hypothesis can be restricted in terms of

the natural order hypothesis. For example , if we acquire the rules of language in
a linear order (1,2,3…..) , then i represents the last rule or language form learned
, and i+1 is the next structure that should be learned .
1- Teaching order is not based on the natural order. Instead, students will
acquire the language in a natural order by receiving comprehensible input.
The natural order hypothesis also states that even though some of the rules
in a language are easy for the learner to memorize ,these rules are often
most difficult to learn . In second language acquisition research conducted in
1974-75, 1980 and 1987, it was postulated that the acquisition of
grammatical forms followed a natural and predictable order. How this
happens is contingent upon multiple factors. The learner's age and the
learner's circumstances seemed not to be a significant influence on this
natural order. Dr. Krashen makes the point that this does not mean some sort
of curriculum should be devised based on this order. Krashen's entire point
seems to be that there is a difference between the conscious learning of
grammatical structures and the unconscious acquisition of speech, no matter
the language. Acquisition of speech is far more important in the
empowerment of someone who wants to speak the language-spoken fluency.
27
3-how does our knowledge of our native language affect our learning of a
new language? Does some of the knowledge we have transfer to the new
language? If so, is this helpful, or can it be a hindrance?
Abstract
It is clear that cross-linguistic influences from the first and other languages are
operating in second language acquisition, but it is also clear that such language
transfer is selective: some first-language properties transfer and other do not. An
important aspect of today's research agenda is still to understand better the
phenomenon of transfer.The topic of "first language interference" has had an
unusual history in second language acquisition research and practice. For many
years, it had been presumed that the only major source of syntactic errors in adult
second language performance was the performer's first language (Lado, 1957), and a
great deal of materials preparation was done with this assumption in mind (Banathy,
Trager, and Waddle, 1966). Subsequent empirical studies of errors made by second
language students led to the discovery, however, that many errors are not traceable
to the structure of the first language, but are common to second language
performers of different linguistic backgrounds (e.g. Richards, 1971; Buteau, 1970).
These findings have led several scholars to question the value of contrastive analysis
and to argue instead for error analysis. The first language, it is maintained, is but one
of several sources of error and other sources need to be considered.
The issue now, as it appears, is not whether first-language-influenced errors exist in

second language performance (they clearly do), or even what percentage of errors
can be traced to the first language in the adult, but, rather, where first language
influence fits in the theoretical model for second language performance.
Part one
General discussion
Our knowledge of our native language affect our learning of a new language . also,
some of the knowledge we have transfer to the new language . Below is an attempt
to present the views of SLL theorists and pioneers.
In the behaviorist view (Watson 1924) Thorndike 1932, bloomfielsd, 1933; skinner
1957) language learning is seen like an any other kind of learning, as the formation of
habits. a kind of behaviors can be learned based on the notions of stimulus and
response which is reinforced if successful .when learning a first language , the
process is relatively simple;………..
All we have to do is learning a set of new habits as we learn to respond stimuli in our
environment, so, the knowledge of our native language which is seen as habit
formation will affect our learning of a new language or learning a new set of habits .
28
When learning a second language, however, we ran into problems: we already have
a set of well-established response in our mother tongue . The SLL process therefore
involves replacing those habits by a set of new ones. The complication is that old
First language habits interfere with this process, either helping or inhabiting it . if
structures in the second language are similar to those of the first , the learning will
take place easily if , however , structures are realized differently in the first the
second language , the learning will be difficult . take the example of an Arabic (as a
first language) learner learning English as a second language and wanting to say a
beautiful scene , which in Arabic is realized as (= man beautiful )and now consider
the same learner learning the same structure German, for example , which is
realized as ( I am twelve years old),according to behaviorist of learning ,the German
structure would be much easier and quicker to learn , and the Arabic one more
difficult . So, the English structure acting as a facilitator in one instance, and inhibitor
in the other.
From a Universal Grammar perspective, the language transfer problem is looked

differently .If second language learners have continuing direct access to their
underlying Universal Grammar, first language influence will affect only the more
peripheral areas of second language development .If, on the other hand , learners '
only access to Universal Grammar is indirect , then the first language influence lies at
the heart of SLL. Here are the different hypotheses of Universal Grammar .
- Hypothesis 1: no access to Universal Grammar;
The view that Universal Grammar is no longer available to second language learners
is still very much alive. proponents of this argue that there's a critical period for
language acquisition during children's early development , and that adult second
language learners have to resort to other learning mechanisms .
- Hypothesis 2: full access to Universal Grammar;
Full access / no transfer: Flynn (1996) adopts this position. that is, she argues that
Universal Grammar continues to underpin SLL, for adults as well as children, and that
there's no such thing as a critical period after which Universal Grammar ceases to
operate .If it can be shown that learners can acquire principles or parameters
settings of the second language, the best interpretation is the continuing operation
of Universal Grammar.
Other researchers who believed that Universal Grammar is still available to second
language learners include Thomas (1991), on the basis of work on the acquisition of
reflexive binding, and White et al (1992), on the basis of work on wh-movement as
well.
The widely belief in the 1950s and 1960s was that the L1 played a decisive and
negative role in SLA, termed "interference", and that this interference could be
predicted by systematically comparing and contrasting the learner's L1 and L2,
looking to points of difference between the two. As we also know, this strong view of
the CAH has, quite simply, not been supported by research findings. The CAH is
problematic on two counts: the predictions have not been borne out, and often it is
29
the similarities, not the differences, that cause the greatest problems. Stated as a
problem by Wode (1978): "only if L1 and L2 have structures meeting a crucial
similarity measure will there be interference, i.e. reliance of prior L1 knowledge".
Wode's principle is an example of what has occupied numerous scholars since the
mid-1970s, not showing that the learner's L1F influences SLA, but rather when it
does. Needless to say, this is not an easy enterprise. K. Flynn (1983) has
demonstrated that transfer can easily be overlooked, especially if one is focused
solely on linguistic form.Flynn found similar frequencies of present perfect verb
forms in the essays of Chinese, Arabic and Spanish learners of English, suggesting a
lack of effect for L1. Further analysis revealed, however,. Clear evidence of transfer
in inter-group differences in the functions expressed by these forms.
In addition to when the L1 affects SLA, researchers these days have been striving to
understand how it does. Recall that under the CAH, the prediction was either that
the L1 would cause difficulty (i.e. cause errors to be committed) or it would facilitate
the SLA. Recent research, however, has shown that transfer manifests itself in
unexpected ways as well. For example, Schachter and Rutherford (1979) noted that
certain of their ESL subjects (one Chinese and one Japanese) overproduced
extraposed and existential sentences with dummy subjects, e.g.
It is unfortunate that ……(extraposed)
There is a small restaurant …(existential)
They hypothesized that the overuse of such sentences was due to the learners'
having seized a particular English syntactic pattern to serve discourse function that
their L1 s, being topic-comment, require. Later, Schachter (1983) speculates that
language transfer is a constraint on the nature of the hypotheses language learner
are inclined to make about the L2. Thus, other ways the L1 may affect SLA are
through causing learner to overproduce certain L2F forms and by influencing the
hypotheses learners are likely to entertain about how the L2 is structured.
The renewed interest in L1 transfer, attested to by such studies, resulted in the

appearance of several anthologies of empirical studies. Some of the researchers
reserve use of "transfer" for cases of incorporation of features of one language in
another, e.g. L1 features in an IL, and have adopted "cross-linguistic
influence"(Sharwood Smith 1983) as a more appropriate, theory neutral cover term
for the far wider range of phenomena that actually result from language contact,
including interference, positive transfer, avoidance, borrowing, over-production and
L2 – related aspects of language loss. Such word also increasingly often involves
cross-linguistic SLA research, in which a variety of L2s being acquired by learner of
varying L1 are examined.(see , for example, Andersen 1984). Researchers have
acknowledged for some time that much of SLA research has tended to focus too
narrowly on ESL and thus was a need to widen the scope of their investigations,
particularly when making claims about L1 transfer.
30
Part two
Different effects of transfer:
Let us look more closely at transfer. It can have several different effects :
a) Negative transfer
• Until the morpheme studies of Dulay and Burt, it was often assumed
that most errors were derived from transfer of the L1 to the L2 - this
was referred to as interference. It is now no longer clear where errors
are derived from. As we have seen, Dulay and Burt believe that the
majority of errors are not based on transfer. However, it is not always
a simple matter to decide whether an error is L1 based or not.
• For example, when French speakers use 'have -en' forms in

inappropriate settings, is it because of overgeneralization, a
developmental error, or an interference error based on the
Passé Composé?
• Indeed, it is not always easy to decide whether an error has occurred

at all. Take again the case of the 'have -en' forms. A French speaker
learning English may use the form in the correct setting, but actually
derive it from the French Passé Composé - he has done the right
thing, but for the wrong reasons. Has an error actually occurred? How
would we know?
• Consider this dialogue, derived from :
• A : I (look for) Bob. You (see?) him.
• B : Yes, I (see) him half an hour ago
• A French learner might produce
• A : I'm looking for Bob. You have seen him?
• B : Yes. I have seen him half an hour ago.
If speakers of different mother tongues do, in fact, make different mistakes,

and if these mistakes do appear to be related to structures in the mother
tongue, then it would seem reasonable to speak of 'interference errors
At the level of phonology, this certainly appears to be the case
- there are typical accents, and it is comparatively easy to distinguish

between the English pronunciation of, say, a German L1 speaker, a French L1
speaker or a Japanese.
However, even here, there appear to be rules that are target language
specific - progress through to full acquisition of the 'th' appears to follow a
31
fairly regular pattern, which is similar to that of an English child learning her
L1.
b) Positive transfer
Not all effects of language transfer are negative - indeed, we may consider
that without some language transfer, there would be no second language
learning. We have seen that, in the cases of Genie and Chelsea, it is very
difficult to master a language after the age of 11 or 12 years of age, unless
one already has a mother-tongue to fall back on. It may be that younger
children are able to pick up an L2 without reference to their L1, but for
adolescents and adults, the mother tongue is a major resource for language
learning.
Where languages are historically and linguistically related to each other, the
positive effects of transfer may be obvious. French-speaking learners of
English and English speaking learners of French quickly come to realise that
they share an enormous amount of vocabulary, for example - there are far
more 'Vrais Amis' than there are 'Faux amis', and it makes sense to take
advantage of this.
For Japanese speakers learning Chinese, there is a great advantage when it

comes to studying the written language in the fact that the Japanese
ideographs are based upon the Chinese. This saves considerable time.
However, the Chomskian perspective has lead specialists in SLA to believe that there
are deeper levels at which the L1 may aid in language learning. If all languages are
fundamentally the same, then it makes a lot of sense to use the rules of the mother-
tongue as initial hypotheses about the rules of the L2. We will come back to this
point in a later lecture, when considering implicational hierarchies.
We must conclude that - The teacher who tries to forbid his students from having
recourse to their L1 may be doing them a disservice, for L1 can, in fact be extremely
helpful.
c) Avoidance
Where certain structures are very different from L1, students may simply
avoid using them. Schachter (1974) found that Chinese and Japanese learners
of L2 English made less errors in the use of relative clauses than did Persian
or Arabic learners - but this was because they tried to use them less often.
This is because Persian and Arabic relative clauses are structured in a similar
way to English ones, while the two Oriental languages treat them in a very
different way.
It is difficult to know when a student is using avoidance as a strategy - he must show

some evidence that he knows of the structure that he is avoiding, and it must also be
so that a normal speaker of the target language would have used the structure in
that situation.
32
Kellerman distinguishes 3 types of avoidance :
1. Learner can anticipate that there is a problem, and has some idea of what
the correct form is like.
2. Learner knows the target form well, but believes that it would be too
difficult to use in the circumstances in which he finds himself - free-flowing
conversation, for example.
3. Learner knows how to use the target form, but will not do so because it
breaks a personal rule of behaviour - ready use of 'tu' form by person coming
from a culture where formality is highly valued.
d) Overuse
This may be a concomitant of avoidance. Students will use the forms that
they know rather than try out the ones that they are not sure of. It may also
reflect cultural differences - thus Olshtain (1983) found that American college
students, learning Hebrew in Israel, were much more likely to use direct
expressions of apology than were native speakers. This also seems to be true
of English speakers of French.
How do teachers actually treat errors? In fact, there is considerable variation from
one teacher to another, and also the treatment of error by any one teacher may vary
from one moment to the next.
Studies of what teachers do have shown that very often they are
inconsistent. Also, some errors are more likely to be treated than others -
discourse, content and lexical errors receive more attention than
phonological or grammatical errors - and here there is variation between
native and non-native-speaker teachers. Many errors are not treated at all.
Further, the more a particular kind of error is made, the less likely the
teacher is to treat it. Moreover, teachers sometimes correct errors that have
not taken place.
Another question is 'Who does the repairing?'. In natural settings, there is a

preference for self-initiated and self-completed repair. However, in the
classroom, it is the teacher who initiates repair - at least during the language-
centred phase - while he expects the student or one of his peers to produce
the correct form.
Error treatment seems to have little immediate effect upon student

production - thus the teacher may correct an error made by student A to
have student B make exactly the same error five minutes later - and hear
student A do it again before the end of the lesson!
Some experts - Krashen among them - have deduced that this suggests that
correction is a pointless exercise. However, we should be aware that there are no
studies as yet of the long-term effects of error correction.
33
What about students' attitudes to error correction? In the main they say that they
want to be corrected, both in the classroom, and in conversation with native
speakers. However, when they are taken at their word, they feel uncomfortable with
the resulting style of discourse.
Our recommendations for action can only be very tentative, and lack
empirical backing. However, it would appear that the following rules are
accepted by most members of the profession now - which does not mean
that they are right!
1. Teachers should respect student errors - they are a part of the learning
process. Respecting does not mean taking no notice of them, but it does
mean that they are not to be treated as necessarily being evidence of
stupidity, idleness or evil intent on the part of the learner.
2. Only treat those errors that students are capable of correcting, according
to the state of their interlanguage at the time of the error. Written scripts
should not be returned with simply everything underlined in red ink.
3. Self-repair is preferable to other-repair, as the student feels better about

it. Being corrected by the teacher, or by other students, may be humiliating.
4. Teachers need to develop strategies for overcoming avoidance. The

student needs to be put in a situation where he or she is forced to use the
unassimilated structure and to think about the problems that this poses.
However, this needs to be treated as a process of discovery rather than as a
minefield.
Most important, remember that the students errors are a precious resource for the
teacher, which inform her about the state of her pupils' interlanguage. This is why it
so important to avoid negative marking, where the student simply learns that if he
makes an error he will lose points.
Part three
A- The Effect of the L1 on SLA: how
In an early review article of studies of this sort, Zobl(1982) identified two patterns of
L1 influence on SLA. These were (1) the pace at which a developmental sequence is
traversed, and (2) the number of developmental structures in such sequences. Zobl
noted that a learner's L1 can inhibit and/or accelerate passage through a
developmental sequence, although apparently not alter the sequence itself, except
by occasionally adding a different initial starting structure. Where an L1 form is
similar to a developmental one, this can make the learner persist with the
developmental form longer that learners without such a form in their L1, and can
also extend the structural domain of the immature form. Thus, Zobl maintains that
(pre-verbal L1 negation) Spanish-speaker's initial No V ESL negation rule is the result
of the developmenta creative construction process, as with speaker of other
languages without a N o V construction in their L1, but that both the Spanish-
speakers' protracted use of the construction compared, say, with (post-verbal
34
negation L1) Japanese speakers, and also their extension of the ruleto modal and
copular verbs, are due to the convergence of the L1 and developmental structure.
Similar generalizations are captured in Kellerman's (1984)"reasonable entity
principle", which holds that transfer operates in tandem with natural developmental
principles in determining the way ILs progress.
While the negation example and other example, illustrated by Zobl, are cases where
L1 and developmental structural congruence inhibits learning, Zoble points to
several cases where the effect of congruence is positive. When L1 and L2 employ the
same device, e.g. inflectional morphology, to encode a given range of meanings, SL
learners still start by omitting the marking in the L2, followed by an often lengthy
period of variable marking before attaining target – like use. By looking at or across
studies involving speakers of two or more different L1 s acquiring the same L2 under
comparable conditions, Zobl concludes, however, that both the omission phase and
the variable marking phase are shorter where the source and target language are
congruent. Thus, when the L1 F (e.g. Swedish or Spanish) and the L2 (e.g. English or
German) both use articles to mark definiteness and indefiniteness, target-like control
is achieved more quickly that in cases of zero contrast, i.e. when the L1 (e.g. Finnish
or Japanese) lacks articles or some other category present in the L2, a finding
obtained for articles in ESL and in German as a SL. (for more reading: Zobl 1982, p.
180).
Zobl interprets the findings of his researches that transfer, rather than working
separately and in competition with the creative construction process, as had once
been thought, actually accommodates to natural developmental processes. L1
influence will not change normal developmental processes. L1 influence will not
change normal developmental sequences but may modify passage through them. Its
effects, Zobl concludes, are subject to two constraints. First, it is fairly, well
established that, in situation of language contact, complex structures typically
undergo modification by formally simpler structures. In keeping with this fact about
historical language change, the developmental complexity constraint, he holds that:
L1 influence may modify a developmental continuum at that point at which a

developmental structure is similar to a corresponding L1 structure and wher further
progress in the continuum amounts to an increase in complexity beyond that of the
L1 structure.
When this condition is met, Zobl predicts, one of three things will happen. First,
there may be a delay in the restructuring needed for the learner to progress to the
next developmental stage (e.g. the case of prolonged No V negation by Spanish
speakers). Such structures may be prime candidates for fossilization. Second, the
scope of the current developmental structure may be extended (he gave the
example of the extension of the Spanish speakers' No V negation rule to modal and
copular verbs. And/or Wode's finding that German L1 learners of ESL place the
negation after the main verb, as in German, once they begin to place it (correctly)
after the English auxiliary). Third, the learners may seek development with the
smallest possible rule change. In this case Zobl (1982, p. 180) claims, they are
behaving under a second constraint, the internal consistency constraint as he terms
35
it, which holds that "in traversing a developmental continuum degree of structural
consistency with the preceding developmental forms". An example of a application
of this constraint is the transitional use of deictic determiners for articles by learner
blacking articles in their L1, there by allowing them to avoid what would be a more
radical restructuring move, from zero marking to full grammaticization (use of an
article system). Another example is the Turkish speaker's protracted use of the verb-
final Dutch constituent order before making the (for them ) more radical switch to
VO word order with simple verbs in Dutch.
B- The effect of the L1 on SLA: when (markedness)
A third constraint on L1 transfer proposed by Zobl and several other theorists is

linguistic markedness. The general claim is that linguistically unmarked features of
the L1 will tend to transfer, but that linguistically marked L1 features will not.
Linguistic notions of markedness are usually defined in trerms of complexity, relative

infrequency of use or departure from something that is more basic, typical or
canonical in a language. Thus, one argument for treating masculine members of pairs
like man/woman and waiter/waitress as the umarked (read "simpler" base) forms is
the fact that English adds forms to produce the morphologically more complex
feminine form. The feminine form is therefore marked. Similarly, morphemes are
added to distinguish past from present, plural; from singular, and so on, suggesting
that present and singular are unmarked, past and plural are marked.
C- The effect of the L1 on SLA: when (perceived transferability)

Two further dimensions that may also need to be added to model are perceived
transferability and learner proficiency. Kellerman (1977, 1978) has shown that
whether or not learners actually transfer a form can depend in part on how likely
they think it to be acceptable in another language, or their perception of the L1 – L2
"distance", i.e. how marked its use in their own L1 appears to them. Demonstrating
such principles, he argues, often requires elicitation and experimentation, rather
than simple observation and description.
Kellerman (1977) presented adult Dutch speakers with grammatical English

sentences which contained twenty Dutch idiomatic expressions in translation, and
asked them which usages they thought were acceptable in English. He found that
they improved in their ability to identify acceptable and unacceptable idioms with
increasing proficiency but especially at lower proficiency levels, were conservative in
their judgments. They were more likely to accept idioms which seemed semantically
transparent to them and likely to be language – neutral. (e.g. I don’t think h should
have insulted her behind her back), and to reject those which to them seemed
semantically opaque, language – specific (typical of Dutch), unusual, and so marked
(e.g. to have a victory in the bag).
36
He also made another experiment and apparently he reached the same results. So
he concluded from his studies that transfer is a strategy available to compensate for
lack of L2 knowledge. However, its use with idioms, lexis and syntax, at least, and
probably with all aspects of language except phonology, will be constrained by the
learner's perception of L1-L2 distance, with marked forms being potentially less
transferable than unmarked ones.
In conclusion, the role of the L1 is considerably more complex but fortunately not as
negative, as was first thought by proponents of the CAH. It can lead to errors,
overproduction and constraints on hypotheses; however, L1-L2 differences do not
necessarily mean difficulty in SLA. On the contrary, it is similarities between native
and target language which tend to cause many problems. However, structural
identity between two languages does not necessarily result in positive transfer
either. When L1 transfer occurs, it generally does so in harmony with developmental
process, modifying learners' encounter with IL sequences rather that altering them
in fundamental ways:
2- The L1 can delay initiation of passage through sequence.
3- It can add sub-stages to a sequence in the form of approximations to an IL

structure where abrupt movement to the L2 system would require too great
a one – time change.
4- It can speed up passage through a sequence, as when strong dis-similarity

between a developmental structure and the L1 provides little incentive for
learner to stick with the IL form
5- It can prolong the period of error commission in areas of typological contrast

between L1 and L2, e.g. where one language has grammaticized a domain,
such as definiteness, but the other has not.
6- It can prolong use of a developmental form similar to an L1 structure

(potentially resulting in fossilization).
7- It can extend the scope of a developmental structure.
Clearly, much has been learned abut transfer in the last decade or so; equally clear is
the fact that there remains much to be learned before we can predict with any
confidence when and how L1 transfer will occur. As a result, we can not judge
whether the transfer is affecting the learning process in a specific way.
37
5- What role does interaction with native speakers or other learners have in
language acquisition? What kinds of information about the target language can
we obtain through such interaction? What kinds of information can we obtain
about our own developing language proficiency when we interact with others?
Abstract
Interaction is the topic of much current research in second language acquisition. The
topic was an extension of the so called comprehensible input hypothesis proposed
by Krashen ,it comes to emphasis the role of interaction in making the input
comprehensible .There is much discussion about the definition of interaction as it is
often confused with interactivity. Interactivity is a feature of the medium, which
allows the user to experience a series of exchanges with the technology. Interaction
is a learning outcome. Wagner (1994) defines interaction as: "reciprocal events that
require at least two objects and two actions. Interactions occur when these objects
and events mutually influence one another. An instructional interaction is an event
that takes place between a learner and the learner's environment. Its purpose is to
respond to the learner in a way intended to change his or her behavior toward and
educational goal. Instructional interactions have two purposes: to change learners
and to move them toward achieving their goals". (p. 8)
In this paper I will try to focus on the role of interaction, the information obtained
through interaction and how we benefit from interaction to develop our language
proficiency. However, Long Interaction hypothesis will be of a great importance in
order to cover the three parts required by the above question.
Key words: interaction, repetition, confirmation checks, comprehension checks,
(negative)feedback, intake, noticing, conscious-raising.
Part one:
The role of interaction in second language acquisition
As we have seen, Krashen's proposals encouraged other researchers to examine
more closely the characteristics of the language input being make available to
second language learners. A range of studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s
demonstrated that talk addressed to learners was rarely of the Me Tarzan, you Jane
type. Instead, it was typically grammatically regular, but often somewhat simplified
linguistically by comparison with talk between native speakers (e.g. using shorter
utterances and a narrower range of vocabulary lr less complex grammar). However,
as Long also showed, the degree of simplification reported in many descriptive
studies was puzzlingly variable. Also these studies typically stopped short at the
description of distinctive features of Foreigner Talk Discourse, as it came to be
known. They did not generally do on to demonstrate either that these special
qualities make Foreigner Talk Discourse more comprehensible, or that it actually
promoted second language acquisition.
Long proposed a more systematic approach to linking features of "environmental"

language, and learners' second language development. He argued that this could be
done in the following way:
38
Step 1: Show that (a) linguistic/conversational adjustments promote (b)

comprehension of input.
Step 2: Show that (b) comprehensible input promotes (c) acquisition.
Step 3: Show that (a) linguistic/conversational adjustments promote (c) acquisition.

(Long, 1985, p. 378)
In two studies reported in the same 1985 paper, he showed that "lecturettes" pre-
scripted and delivered in a modified, Foreigner Talk Discourse style were more
comprehensible to adult second language learners than were versions of the same
talks delivered in an unmodified style, thus supporting the argument that linguistic
modification could promote comprehension of input. However, these lecturettes
involved passive listening by the learners. In other work, Long shifted the attention
of the second language acquisition field towards more interactive aspects of
Foreigner Talk Discourse.
Long's Interaction hypothesis'

Long went on to propose his Interaction hypothesis as an extension of Krahsen's
original input hypothesis. For his own doctoral research (Long, 1980, 1981, 1983),
Long conducted a study of 16 native speaker-native speaker and 16 native speaker-
non-native speaker pairs, carrying out the same set of face-to-face oral tasks(
informal conversation, giving instructions for games, playing the games, etc.). he
showed that there was little linguistic difference between the talk produced by
native speaker-native speaker and native speaker – non-native speaker pairs, as
shown on measures of grammatical complexity. However, there were important
differences between the two sets of conversations when these were analyzed from
the point of view of conversational management and language functions performed.
Specifically, in order to solve ongoing communication difficulties, the native speaker-
non-native speaker pairs were much more likely to make use of conversational
tactics such as repetitions, confirmation checks, comprehension checks or
clarification requests.
Following on Long's original studies, many others drew on the Interaction hypothesis
and used a similar taxonomy of conversational moves to track meaning negotiations
and conversational repair. These are usefully reviewed by Larsoen-Freeman and
Long (1991, pp. 120-8) and by Pica (1994). On the whole, these studies followed
designs similar to that of Long (1980), tracking pairs of native and non-native
speakers in various combinations, undertaking a variety of semi-controlled
conversational tasks. They have taught us a good deal about the types of task that
are likely to promote extensive negotiation of meaning, inside and outside the
classroom. (For example, convergent, problem-solving tasks in which both partners
control necessary information are more likely to promote negotiations that are more
open-ended discussions.). They have also demonstrated that negotiation of meaning
occurs between non-native speaker peers, as well as between more fluent speakers,
given the right task conditions.
39
However, as Long (1996) points out, these studies have mostly been undertaken in
Western educational institutions, as we still know little about the kinds of
negotiation and repair that may typify second language interactions in other
contexts. Also, many early interaction studies did not go beyond the first descriptive
steps of establishing the existence and general patterning of conversational repair.
a- Interaction leads to comprehension: a study conducted by Pica and colleagues (Pica
et al., 1987), in which groups of second language learners listened to different
versions of a script instructing them to place colored cut-outs on a landscape
picture, and tried to complete the task. One group hear a linguistically modified
version of the script, but the individuals were not allowed to ask any questions as
they carried out the instructions. The second group heard a version of the script
originally recorded with native speakers, but individuals were encouraged to ask for
clarifications, etc., from the person reading the script. The main result of these
requests was a great increase in repetitions of contents words, rather than, for
example, any particular simplification of grammar. Indeed, the authors note that
"interaction resulted in input that was more complex than input that was modified
according to conventional criteria of linguistic simplification". (Pica et al., 1987). The
main result was that they found that learners allowed to negotiate the meaning of
an unmodified script were more successful n the task than those who simply heard
the simplified script, and argued that this show increased comprehension because of
interactional modifications of the input.
b- Interaction and acquisition: three studies have been conducted by Lschky (1994),
Gass and Varonis (1994), and Mackey (1999), and all of them agree that taking part
in interaction can facilitate second language development. However, the somewhat
contradictory findings of these three studies show a need for stronger theoretical
models clarifying the claimed link between interaction and acquisition.
In fact, these research teams appeal to ideas of noticing, consciousness-raising,

attention, etc., as elements to be added to the equation. Other researchers, such as
Braidi(1995), also criticized the earlier integrationist research as being too one-
sidedly preoccupied with functional aspects of second language interaction and of
neglecting linguistic theory. Braidi went on to argue for a research agenda tracking
the development of individual grammatical structures in second language
interaction in much fuller details.(1995, pp. 164-5)
Part two
Interaction is the key to second language learning. Ellis (1985) defines interaction as
the discourse jointly constructed by the learner and his interlocutors and input is the
result of interaction. The interactionist view of language learning is that language
acquisition is the result of an interaction between the learner’s mental abilities and
the linguistic environment. Long (1990) as cited in Ellis (1994) proposed that
interaction is necessary for the second language acquisition.
According to him, three aspects of verbal interaction can be distinguished: input,

production and feedback. Input is the language offered to the learner by native
speakers or other learners, production (output) is the language spoken by the
language learners themselves and feedback is the response given by the
conversational partners to the production of the learner.
40
The studies of foreigner talk and teacher talk have been conducted in line with the
role of input and interaction in both the natural and classroom settings. Native
speakers modify their speech when communicating with learners. These
modifications are evident in both input and interaction. Long’s (1990) as cited in Ellis
(1994) interaction hypothesis emphasizes the importance of comprehensible input
and claims that it is most effective when it is modified through the negotiation of
meaning. Gass and Varonis (1994) have found that
native speaker modifications are more frequent in two-way communication because

conversation provides the native speaker with feedback from the learner and thus
enables him to estimate the amount of adjustment required.
Heath (1983) suggests that foreigner talk has the same basic functions as motherese
whereby it promotes communication, establishes an affective bond between native
speaker and learner and serves as an implicit mode of teaching. In the natural
setting, for the learner to communicate, he must learn the language and in order to
learn it he must communicate. For example the foreigner workers in Malaysia do not
have formal instruction in Bahasa Malaysia but are able to function well in their
workplace and the community. Their second language is acquired through sporadic
and unsystematic social interaction with the broader society. The learner has access
to the target language in the course of everyday communication or interaction with
the environment. The sounds of the language are embedded in a relevant situational
context and the learner’s job is to extract from this material the rules for the use of
the language. This interaction allows him to start learning and learning in turn allows
him to make progress in communication.
The analysis of classroom discourse has focused on the exchanges in which the
teacher initiates, the learner responds, and the teacher supplies feedback (also
known as IRF). McTear (1975, as cited in Ellis, 1985) has shown that IRF structure is
often modified when required. It could take the form of IRF(R) when the learner
believes that the teacher is modeling an utterance that requires further responses.
The learner should be guided by explanations, demonstrations, rephrasing and work

with other learners and provided with opportunity for cooperative learning.
In addition, they should be encouraged to organize their thinking and to talk about
what they are trying to accomplish. All these involve interactions with the teacher
and peers in the classroom. An implication of Vygotsky’s ZPD is that learners should
be put in situations where they have to reach to understand but where support from
other learners or from the teacher is also available .Through interaction there will be
progress in learning the second language.
Long proposed a more systematic approach to linking features of
Environmental language , and learners' second language development .
He argued that this could be done in the following way:
41
Step 1: Show that (a) linguistic/conversational adjustments promote (b)

comprehension of input. Step 2: Show that (b) comprehensible input promotes (c)
acquisition.
As in child-directed native speakers apparently resort to these tactics in order to

solve communication problems when talking with less fluent non-native speakers
,and not with any conscious motive to teach grammar(Long,1983b)
Interaction allows the learners to gain comprehensible input in real life experience
because in real life interaction the learners not only practice what they have learned,
but also learn to use conversational tactics. When learners practice the language
learned in a real life interaction is called output. However, the output depends on
stimuli, the more the stimuli, the more frequent the learners practice the second
language. Stimuli can be from the interaction between speakers in the environment,
the best one being the target language community, where the learners are forced to
practice the target language all the time.
Part three
Rethinking the interaction hypothesis
Over time, second language input or interaction researchers have shown themselves
quite responsive to the ongoing development of both linguistic and information
processing theory within second language acquisition studies. This is evident in
Long's eventual reformulation of the interaction hypothesis (1996), which places
much more emphasis on linking features of input and the linguistic environment
with "learner-internal factors", and explaining how such linkages may facilitate
subsequent language development.
- Long's 1996 version of interaction hypothesis reads as follows:
It is proposed that environmental contributions to acquisition are mediated by

selective attention and the learner's developing L2 processing capacity, and that
these resources are brought together most usefully, although not exclusively, during
negotiation for meaning. Negative feedback obtained during negotiation work or
elsewhere may be facilitative of L2 development, at least for vocabulary,
morphology and language-specific syntax, and essential for learning certain specific
L1-L2 contrasts. (Long, 1996, p. 414)
This new version of the hypothesis highlights the possible contribution to second
language learning of negative evidence as to the structure of the target language,
derivable from environmental language (i.e. from Foreigner Talk Discourse). It also
highlights the attempt to clarify the processes by which input becomes intake,
through introducing the notion of selective attention. These concepts are also
repeatedly referred to, in current discussions of output and its contribution to
language development.
Attention, consciousness-raising and "focus on form":
42
We saw earlier how recent versions of interaction hypothesis have given more
importance to the internal processing capacities of the language learner. In
particular, researchers have developed the idea that the amount of attention which
the learner is paying to matters of form may influence the extent to which second
language input and interaction actually produce second language intake, that is,
new language which has been processed sufficiently for it to become incorporated
into the learner's developing second language system. This argument is attractive, in
view of the mixed results of studies of output, negatve feedback, etc., and their
effect on second language development.
One of the researchers who has been most influential in promoting this view is
Richard Schmidt (1990, 1994, 2001). Schmidt is careful to distinguish among
different types of attention that learners might pay to language form. He uses the
term noticing to refer to the process of bringing some stimulus into focal attention,
that is, registering its simple occurrence, whether voluntarily (for example when one
notices the odd spelling of a new vocabulary word, Schmidt, 1994, p. 17). He
reserves the terms understanding and awareness for explicit knowledge: "awareness
of a rule or generalization", (Schmidt, 1994, p. 18).
Schmidt is generally optimistic about the contribution of both kinds of attention to

language learning. His main evidence in support of the significance of noticing comes
from his own personal diary, kept while learning Portuguese (with accompanying
tapes of his own conversational development; Schmidt and Frota, 1986).
Some interactionist researchers have recently undertaken empirical investigations to

clarify how selective attention, or "noticing", may be influencing the processing of
utterances during second language interaction. In a laboratory study, Philip (2003)
gave English second language learners a story completion and a picture learning
task, similar to those used in previous studies of question formation by Mackey and
colleagues. The learners had to ask questions to complete the tasks, and their errors
received active recasts from their native speaker interlocutors. However, at intervals
the learners were prompted by signal to repeat what the interlocutor had just said,
and their ability to do this was taken as evidence that they had been "noticing" the
recasts, at least enough to be holding them in working memory.
43
9- Do students have to practice new forms and structures in "controlled"

activities before being asked to communicate their own meaning using those
features? Or should students be encouraged to engage in conversation
activities where communication is the main focus from the beginning of
language instruction? When learners are engaged in meaningful and creative
communication, do they tend to make more errors than when they are doing
controlled or form- focused activities?
Abstract:
In an attempt to answer this question ,one has to mention the two different views of
Hymes along with his advocates, who believe that communication is the main way of the
language learning without any explicit rules explanation ,and the cognitivists ,most
notably Anderson and McLaughlin, who are interested in the way in which the brain's
processing mechanisms deal with the second language. The former has focused on
communication only. He guarantees that it is, alone, enough for better learning .for him,
learners should be encouraged to communicate in the target language from the very
beginning. While, in the other hand, the latter has focused on process that undergoes
such learning .below, i will attempt to answer the question though explaining the
Processing approach of both McLaughlin and Anderson models.
Introduction
I found it really important to explain in a separate part how the advocates of the cognitive
approach look at this point. Since the cognivists concentrate on the process that goes on
inside our minds, it will be interesting to find how they explained the process of the
acquisition or learning and the strategies applied by adults in attempting to learn a second
language. Here, we can find two approaches that try to explain the process in two different
views:
A- Processing approach: within it we have two approaches as we will find later. All the
appraoaches within this have in common the fact that they are interested in the way
in which the brain's processing mechanisms deal with the second language. The first
approach, information processing. Investigates how different memory stores (short-
term memory (STM); long-term memory (LTM)- declarative and procedural) deal
with new second langaue information, and how this information is automatized and
restructured through repeated activation. The second approach, processability
theory, looks more specifically at the processing demands made by various formal
aspects of the second language, and the implication for learnability and teachability
of second language structure.
a- Information processing models:
* McLaughlin's information-processing model: in short, he states"in general, the
fundamental notion of the information-processing approach to psychological inquiry is that
complex behavior builds on simple processes". (McLaughlin and Heredia, 1996, p. 213)
Automatization, in this model, is a notion based on the work of psychologists such as Shffrin
and Scheider (1977), who claim that the way in which we process information may be either
controlled or automatic, and that learning involves a shift from controlled towards
automatic processing. Applied to SLL, such a model works as follows.
44
Learners first resort to controlled processing in the second languae. This controlled
processing requires a lot of the attention from the learner and constrained by the limitation
of the short-term memory. Through repeated activation, sequence first produced by
controlled processing become automatic. And automatized sequences are stored as units in
the long-term memory, which means that they will be available very quickly when needed.
So learning in this view is a movement from controlled to automatic processing via practice
(repeated activation). When this shift occurs, controlled processes are freed to deal with
higher levels of processing (i.e. the integration of more complex skill clusters), thus
explaining the incremental (step by step) nature of learning. It is necessary for simple sub-
skill and routines to become automatic before more complex ones can be tackled. Once our
learner has automatized what he learned, he or she is free to deal with the learning of more
complex language, as the short-term memory is not taken up by the productin of this
particular string.
* Anderson's ACT model: this model is not dissimilar from Maclaughlin's. it si more wide-
ranging, and the terminology is different from Maclaughlin's. One of the major differences is
that Anderson posits three kinds of memory "a working memory" similar to the short term
memory, and two kinds of long term memory – a declarative long term memory and a
procedural memory. Now let us illustrate with a simple example what is meant by
declarative and procedural knowledge. If you are learning to drive, for example, you will be
told that if the engine is revving too much, you need to change to a higher gear; you will also
be told how to change gear. In the early stages of learning to drive, however, knowing that
(declarative knowledge) you have to do this does not necessarily mean that you know how
(procedural knowledge) to do it quickly and successfully. In other words, you go through a
declarative stage before acquiring the procedural knowledge linked with this situation. With
practice, however, the mere noise of the engine getting louder will trigger your gear
changing without you even having to think about it. This is how learning takes place in this
view: by declarative knowledge becoming procedural and automatized.
Johnson (1996) h as pursued the application of Anderson's model to explicit classroom

instruction, and many teaching traditions operate on principles compatible with the model.
However, most contermorary theorists of SLL, from whatever perspective, would not now
agree with the implied position taken by Anderson (1980), that all or most of second
language grammar is initially learnt through the conscious study and application of explicit
rules. Even for classroom leaners, there is a consensus that much grammar larning takes
place without consius awareness, whether by the operation of a specific language module,
or by general cognitive processes. Some information – processing theorists have responded
to this problem by suggesting that the declarative knowledge component can be subdivided
into consiuos and unconsoius parts (Bialystoke, 1991).
One of the application of the ACT model can be found in relation to fluency development in
second language acquisition. As we illustrated in the part of hypothesis formation, we can
find that the internally derived hypotheses about second language structure (shaped by
Universal Grammar and the first language) are stored in difffernt ways in the mind at
different stages of learning process. The hypotheses will move through the three kinds of
memories. When put to use then, this kind of internally derived knowledge will give rise to a
production stored in the procedural long-term memory, initially in "associative" form (i.e.
under attentional control from the learner). The hypothesis may then be revised and cause
some reorganization of the declarative knowledge, which will then give rise to other revised
productions. Eventually, after successive reorganizations, these productions will become
autonomous (i.e. Automatized and free from attentionall control) and are stored as such in
45
the "autonomous" part of the procedural memory. This model allows Twel and Hawkins
)1994, pp. 250-1) to make a number of specific claims concerning different kinds of learning:
Internally derived hypotheses about second language structure, if confirmed by external

data, wil give rise to a production which will be stroed in procedural memory, first in
associative form and eventually in autonomous form.
Formulae, that is, form-function pairs which have been learnt as routines (e.g. what is you
name? produced in the absence of a generative rule for the formation of interroagaives) can
be stored in the procedural memory at the associative level, before going back to declarative
memory for reanalysis under controlled processes, and can finally be strored as an
autonomous procedure when all stages of analysis and re-analysis have been completed.
Explicit rules (e.g. verb conjugation) can be learnt and stored as proceduralized knowledge.
As such, they wil only be recalled as a list of verb endings. But, if they can feed back to the
declarative memory in order to undergo a controlled process of analysis by interacting with
internally derived hypotheses, they might eventually also give rise to autonomous
productions available for language use.
b- Processability theory:
Processability theory aims to clarify how learners acquire the computational mechanisms
that operate on the linguistic knowledge they construct. Pienemann belives that language
acquisition itself is the graduall acquisition of of these computational, that is, the procedural
skills necessary for the processing of language. It si limitations in the processing skills at the
disposal of learners in the early stages of learning which prevent them from attending to
some aspects of second language.
The processing chalnge facing learners within this framework is that they msut learn to
exchange grammatical information across elements of a sentence. This process of sharing
grammatical information is called "feature unification " within the Lexicon Functional
Grammar model.
Thus the language users have to ensure that a verb and its subject have the same number
features, or that a noun and its article have the same gender, number and case features, in
langagues where this is appropriate. For example, the sentence *peter walk a dogs is
ungrammatical because walk and Peter do not have the same person ….. The basic logic
behind processability theory is that learner cannot access hyotheses about second language
that they cannot process, and Peinemann stated a heirarchy of processing sources which can
be found in (Pienemann, 1998, p. 87).
What he states is that learners will be able to share information across elements in a
sentence in gradualy less locall domains. Initially, they will not be able to produce any
structures that require the matching of second language grammaticall information using
syntactic procedures; for example, to mark both nouns and articles within a noun-phrase as
+feminine (unitl level 3: phrasal procedure) or to amtch person in subject and verb (level 4:
inter – phrasal information exchange).
B- Connectionism
Connectionism or parrelled distributed processing likens the brain to a computer that would
consist of neutral network: complex clusters of links between information nodes. When
applied to the learning of language, connectionism claims that learners are sensitive to
regularities in the language input (i.e. the regular co-occurrence of particular language
46
forms) and extract probabilistic patterns on the basis of these regularities. Learning occurs
as these patterns become strengthened by repeated activation.
Connectionism attempts to develop computationally explicit parallel distributed processing

(PDP) models of implicit learning in well-understood, constrained, and controllable
experimental leaerning environments. The models allow the assessment of just how much of
language acquisition can be done by extraction of probabilistic patterns of grammatical and
morphological regularities. Because the only relation in conctionism model is strength of
association betweenm nodes, they are excellent modeling media in which to investigate the
formation of associations as a result of exposure to language. (N.C Eliis and Schmidt, 1997,p.
153)
Learning in this view is thought to take place as the strength of given inteconnections
between nodes increases as the associative patterns are repeated over time. What is
important to remember from this type of account is that the learner does not extract rules
and then apply them, but merely registers associative patterns that become strengthened
with use.
C- The role of interaction in second language acquisition

As we have seen, Krashen's proposals encouraged other researchers to examine more
closely the characteristics of the language input being make available to second language
learners. A range of studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s demonstrated that talk
addressed to learners was rarely of the Me Tarzan, you Jane type. Instead, it was typically
grammatically regular, but often somewhat simplified linguistically by comparison with talk
between native speakers (e.g. using shorter utterances and a narrower range of vocabulary
lr less complex grammar). However, as Long also showed, the degree of simplification
reported in many descriptive studies was puzzlingly variable. Also these studies typically
stopped short at the description of distinctive features of Foreigner Talk Discourse, as it
came to be known. They did not generally do on to demonstrate either that these special
qualities make Foreigner Talk Discourse more comprehensible, or that it actually promoted
second language acquisition.
Long proposed a more systematic approach to linking features of "environmental" language,

and learners' second language development. He argued that this could be done in the
following way:
Step 1: Show that (a) linguistic/conversational adjustments promote (b) comprehension of

input.
Step 2: Show that (b) comprehensible input promotes (c) acquisition.
(Long, 1985, p. 378)
In two studies reported in the same 1985 paper, he showed that "lecturettes" pre-scripted
and delivered in a modified, Foreigner Talk Discourse style were more comprehensible to
adult second language learners than were versions of the same talks delivered in an
unmodified style, thus supporting the argument that linguistic modification could promote
comprehension of input. However, these lecturettes involved passive listening by the
learners. In other work, Long shifted the attention of the second language acquisition field
towards more interactive aspects of Foreigner Talk Discourse.
47
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Second Language Learning Theories M A program

Ministery of Higher Education

In this paper, my main purpose is to provide some crucial information regarding

Key words: Corrective feedback, recasts, clarification request, reinforcement, positive

The role of feedback in SLL

The learner’s IL is self-referencing, because it is not produced by the known rules of

Different types of feedback

Positive feedback vs. Negative feedback

An Expanded Definition of Positive Feedback

1) A paralinguistic component, such as “Normal conversational responses that one gives in

2) A linguistic component, including the “personal response” (Imai, 1989, p. 17) —a

3) A metalinguistic component, taking the form of evaluative feedback, including praise

Competence vs. Performance

concerned. Competence, on the one hand, is related to psychological and mental

It is also important to highlight the changes and perspectives the notion of

".. .The teacher's response to a student error"

Recasts: Are recasts really effective?

By uptake we understand the learner's response to the teacher correction and, at

While not explicitly addressing feedback, Nystrand, Gamoran, Kachur, and

El-Tatawy (2002) provides a comprehensive survey of negative feedback in SLA. First,

El-Tatawy (2002) continues the summary of research related to the impact of

As a potential component of positive feedback, laughter has been rarely studied

Burrell (2000) conducts a modified replication of a survey conducted of Japanese

Child language researchers claim that recasts promote grammatical development.

Negative feedback and recasts in native speaker-non-native speaker and non-native

A number of studies have recently pursued these questions by analyzing spoken

Teacher: right. Why did the aliens attack earth?

NNS students(child): Mm, cut the tree

NNS student(child): big trees (oliver, 2000, p. 140)

In order to explore the extent to which negative feedback is actually available to

For these reasons, a number of researchers have moved beyond descriptive

English as second language questions (story completion, picture sequencing, picture

Morphosyntactic feedback without recall of content

NS: it has mixed colors

NNS: mixed colors aha

(Mackey et al., 2000, p. 486)

Chomsky's Innateness Arguments

Piatelli-Palmarini (1980) proposes that cybernetic feedback loops and information

In An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research, Larsen-Freeman and

What type of teacher feedback do students prefer? Would students rather be

Language teaching research reflects a growing awareness of the complex dynamics

Vigil and Oller (1976) posit IL fossilization as a consequence of excess positive

Long (1990) emphasizes the importance of mechanisms in SLA. Long defines

Recasts, redefined by second language researchers as "responses to non-target non-

As well as documenting extensive negative feedback produced by her native speaker

Another study found that the inclusion of recasting seemed to promote

8- What is the role of practice in adult language learning? Is language

Behaviorists, for example, whose main focus is stimulus-response relation have

The cognitive approach:

For Universalists, the Language is fundamentally different from other form of

Effectively especially given the limited …………they receive .

What supports Chomsky view is the findings of l1 acquisition characteristics which

1- Children go through stages .

7- Do language learners acquire grammatical features in a predictable order

Natural Order hypothesis

According to the Natural Order hypothesis, the acquisition of grammatical

'Here bed', or ''Not dada'.

When they do acquire them, they appear to do so in a specific order. Krashen,

certain grammatical morphemes being acquired before others, so there is for

Average Order of Acquisition of Grammatical Morphemes

English as a Second Language (Children and Adults)

COPULA (to be)

ARTICLE (a, the)