Investigating the Role of Learner Uptake in Language Acquisition through Task-Based Interaction

1. Investigating the Empirical Links betweenLearner Uptake and Language Acquisition through Task-Based Interaction Wenchi Haung

2. Outline • Introduction • Literature Review • Methods • Results & Discussion

3. Introduction • All areas of education are undergoing changes and revolutions in the way teaching and learning are perceived. • (teacher-centered student-centered) • Hatch (1978) argues that interaction should come first, and that out of this interaction grammatical knowledge would develop. • Pica (1999) mentioned that student’s pushed output during interaction can facilitate learning.

4. Statement of the Problem • Whether the conversation or interaction is successful or not depends on the shared ideas between the interlocutors. • The role of the teacher’s feedback would be extremely significant for students during the lessons. • The way they repair and correct students may affect their language acquisition.

5. Purpose of the Study • Both positive (i.e. elicitation) and negative (recast) feedback may turn learners’ attention to the mismatches between input and output. • Such feedback can draw students’ attention to forms to modify their incorrect use of language. • The purpose is to investigate what interactional features are beneficial and in what way it can be helpful.

6. Significance of the Study • The role that learner uptake plays in students’ language acquisition. • The application of task-based interaction. (It would be more suitable in EFL context.)

7. Research Questions • To what extend does learner uptake promote language acquisition through task-based interaction? • How do the four characteristics of type, source, complexity, and response through task-based interaction influence learner uptake? • How do the four characteristics of type, source, complexity, and response through task-based interaction influence the success of learner uptake?

8. Literature Review~ Interaction • The development of second language emphasizes on the role of negotiated interaction between native and non-native speakers and between two NNSs (Gass, 2003). • Interaction facilitates comprehension better than learning conditions without the interaction component (Gass & Varonis, 1994; Loschky, 1994).

9. Literature Review~ Uptake • It is a student move during interaction. • The move is optional. • The uptake move occurs in conversations where learners have demonstrated a gap in their knowledge. • The uptake move occurs as a reaction to some preceding move in which another interlocutor either explicitly or implicitly provides information about a linguistic feature (Ellis et al., 2001).

10. Example • S: How’s your weekend? • T: Just fine. How about you? • S: Great! I go to the cinema. • T: Oh, you went to the cinema. So what did you see? • S: Oh yes (noticing)…I went to see Transformers.

11. Literature Review~ Uptake • Only 23% of uptake may occur in relation to teachers’ feedback (Lyster & Ranta, 1997). • In Ellis’ (2001) study, however, about 75% of uptake may occur in response to teachers’ feedback.

12. Literature Review~ TBLT • TBLT views the leaning process as a set of communicative and interactive tasks. • Pica et al. (1993) proposed that the most effective tasks in terms of generating negotiation of meaning are information-gap and jigsaw tasks, while the least effective is the opinion-expressing task.

13. Method • The Teaching Context • A public elementary school in Taiwan. • One English teacher is in charge of one whole grade of classes. • The purpose of my research will be introduced to them briefly, but not the focus and procedure. • Students have English classes twice a week, and each class has forty minutes.

14. Method • Participants • five intact classes which include 170 students, and all of them are sixth-graders. • All of the students have learned English since they were at the first grade (school policy). • One full-time English teacher with formal license for English teaching. • Her teaching experience is about five years.

15. Method • Procedure • The researcher was present during all instruction and observation as a non-participant observer. • The video-recording can capture the verbal, non-verbal, T-S, and S-S interaction. • The observer would take some notes about the students. (As there is only one recorder.)

16. Method • Procedure • Afterward, the structured observation sheet was used to critically identify the characteristics of participants’ interaction.

17. Method • Instrument & Tool • Video-recorder: to record the verbal and non-verbal interaction during the task. • Audio-recorder (supplementary): to overcome the problem of students’ noise in the classroom. (In the future study)

18. Observation scheme • The scheme that the researcher had observed employs a sign or category system. • The observation scheme requires the documentation of high inference behavior which necessitates the observer to interpret the behaviors they record. • The observation scheme allows a particular event to be assigned to more than one categories or event.

19. Identification of the communicative dialogues • Communicative dialogues: • Discourse from the point where the attention to linguistic form starts to the point where it ends, due to a change in topic back to message or sometimes another focus on form (Loewen, 2004).

20. Coding of communicative dialogues • An observation sheet modified by Ellis et al. (2001) and Loewen (2004) will be applied. • Another graduate students will be invited to interpret the communicative dialogues to avoid the situation of being subjective. • Kappa Coefficient

21. Data analysis • Quantitative approach • The raw frequency data were subjected to Pearson’s Chi-square tests with the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS 15.0). • The emphases will be put on the characteristics of type, source, complexity and response.

22. Response • Provide • Inform: direct correction • Recast: reformulation of a student’s utterance • Elicit • Clarification Request: Sorry? Huh? • Repeat: Repetition of student’s answer • Elicit Solution: More explanation & elaboration

23. Frequency of uptake

24. Discussion • Based on the recording evidence, learner uptake through task-based interaction did occur at the rate of 75% (ranging from 58% to 88%). • Compared with the study by Lyster and Ranta (1997) with the rate of 23%, learner uptake appeared to play positive role on language acquisition through task-based interaction.

25. Discussion • Uptake was notably higher and more successful in Reactive interaction than in Teacher-Initiated & Student-initiated interaction. • Reactive interaction reached a higher level of successful uptake(74.8%) than Teacher-Initiated (55%) & Student-Initiated interaction (71.4%). • The complex communicative dialogues also led to more uptake than the simple communicative dialogues.

26. Discussion • The four focused characteristics that proved important for the overall quantity of uptake also influenced the degree to which the uptake was successful. • The response provided by the teacher may play the most dominant role in contributing learner uptake, even successful uptake in this study. • Elicit resulted in a relatively high level of successful uptake (78.8% of total uptake).

27. Potential Problems encountered and Proposed Solutions • The familiarity with the students • The order of the whole class • Regular approach vs. Task-based interaction • Quantitative statistics

28. Thank you for attention