How does TBLT Affect the Emergence of Complexity? :Usage-based Analysis of Written Production of an EFL Learner

1. How does TBLT Affect the Emergence of Complexity?:Usage-based Analysis of Written Production of an EFL Learner Tomoko Tode (Niigata University of Health and Welfare) tode@nuhw.ac.jp Hideki Sakai (Shinshu University)

2. This Study… • the purpose = to explore how a task-based language teaching (TBLT) affects interlanguage development • a case study of one learner receiving TBLT • Time-series analysis was conducted in the framework of a usage-based theory of second language acquisition

3. A Usage-based Model of Language (Langacker, 2000)

4. Children’s early language is item-based • Verb-Island Hypothesis (Tomasello, 1992) • __ kick __. Brush ___. • “… the best predictor of this child’s use of a given verb on a given day was not her use of other verbs on the same day, but rather her use of that same verb on immediately preceding days.” (Tomasello, 2003, pp. 117-118)

5. Children produce novel utterances by usage-based syntactic operations

6. Abstraction occurs gradually through frequent experience

7. L2 acquisition is basically usage-based. • L2 knowledge of beginning or false-beginning EFL learners is item-based. (Tode, 2003; Tode, submitted for publication) • item-based constructions → schematization (e.g., Mellow, 2006; Zyzik, 2006)

8. However… • various factors specific to L2 acquisition (e.g., cognitive development; L1 transfer; explicit instruction) • Complexity Theory: need for in-depth longitudinal case studies (De Bot et al. 2007; Larsen-Freeman, 2006; Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008)

9. Underlying Principles

10. The Language Use Cycle of EFL Learners Receiving TBLT

11. Research Questions • How does the participant produce novel language during the period of the TBLT? • How does the TBLT affect the interlanguage development of the participant?

12. the Participant Taro • a freshman majoring in speech, language and hearing sciences • taking a required EFL class for freshmen of a university • English proficiency: false-beginning level • He volunteered to participate in the data collection of this study.

13. the EFL class Taro took • 90-minute class; once a week (14 meetings) • Instruction period: October 1, 2008 – January 7, 2009 • the teacher = the first researcher of the study • The teacher designed tasks based on the coursebook, which is not task-based by itself. • Coursebook used: a collection of reading material on the topic of health & social welfare issues

14. Syllabus

15. the Cycle of Pretask-Task-FFI: the case of the unit of disability sports

16. Data Collection • Main data: English essays • Written in the first researcher’s office on an individual basis • 5 times during the study period (twice per month) • Under the same title “My Role as a QOL Supporter” • Without consulting anything • Subordinate data: Stimulated recall responses, collected immediately after writing the essay • Instructional data: instructional log, teaching material, written production the participant made in the classroom etc.

17. RQ1:How does Taro produce novel language? Analyses and Results

18. Method of Analysis • Sources of novel language in each essay except the first essay were identified. • similar expressions or subschema in previous essays (←previous essays, SR) • pedagogical intervention that seems to have affected the novel language (←instructional data, SR) • explicit knowledge learned in middle or high school (←SR)

19. Results

20. Previous essays

21. TBLT example of enable and encourage • Input from the text: They’re about enabling and encouraging disabled people to take part in sport…. + FFI: encourage(a person)to do • ⇒ 2nd essay: I’m enable and encouraging him/her to speech and hear.

22. TBLT example of communicate • Production by Taro & his partner : Therefore, he can’t communication …. • ⇒Teacher’s written feedback: “communication is a noun. The verb is communicate.” • ⇒Reproduction: Therefore, he couldn’t communicate…. • ⇒5th essay: I can’t speak and communicate with patient well.

23. Previous essay + TBLTexample of that Clause • 2nd essay: I’m interesting aphasia… that disabled people can’t do communication well. • ⇒Input from text: The abuse should be reported…so that proper measures can be taken to help and protect the victim. • ⇒Input from text: The local health department requests …so that the burden on his wife may be reduced. • ⇒4th essay: I’m challenge that I don’t repeat mistake. (meaning I’ll challenge so that I will not repeat making mistakes.)

24. Explicit knowledge • 5th essay: I like speaking with my friends. (SR: First I wrote I like speak…. Then I modified it into I like speaking, because I knew that two verbs cannot be used together.)

25. Summary of the Results • Taro created utterances based mainly on expressions produced in previous essays. • He also actively made use of exemplars or slot-and-frame patterns experienced in the TBLT (e.g., encourage [a person] to do). • Explicit knowledge learned in middle and high schools was also drawn on, but not so often.

26. RQ2: How does the TBLT affect Taro’s interlanguage development? Analyses and Results

27. Methods of Analyses • To examine how accuracy and complexity changed • To examine how the same meaning is expressed before and after relevant TBLT intervention • To examine how the same meaning is expressed in more than 1 essay without any relevant TBLT intervention

28. Definitions of Accuracy and Complexity • Accuracy score • Proportion of accurate clauses to the total number of clauses plus independent sub-clausal unit • accurate in terms of word order, verb argument structures, the usage of conjunctions, etc. • Complexity score • average number of clauses per AS-unit

29. Change in accuracy Change in complexity a) Results

30. Analysis b)

31. Example) to be a speech therapist • 1st essay: My dream is ST. ⇒2nd essay: I want to ST in the future. • Output (in class, not in the elicitation writing task) : I want to be child welfare facility. ⇒FFI: I want to work for child welfare facility. + My dream is to be child welfare specialist in the future.⇒Reproduce: I want to work for child welfare facility. • ⇒3rd essay: My dream is to be ST in the future. ⇒4th essay: I want to be ST in the future. ⇒5th essay: I will be ST in the future.

32. Analysis c)

33. Example) I study… • 1st essay: I study hard every day. • 2nd essay: I’m studying every day in Niigata University of Healthy. • 3rd essay: I study hard every day in Niigata University of Health. • 4th essay: I studying hard in Niigata University of Health. • 5th essay: I’m studying hard every day.

34. Summary of the Results • A trade-off between accuracy and complexity development was observed. • At first, very complex, but not accurate • Later, more and more accurate • In some cases, experience in the TBLT contributed to Taro’s improvement in accuracy, but, in other cases, did not. • There was no evidence that accuracy improved without pedagogical intervention.

35. Answer to RQ1 • Taro produces new language, based on exemplars or subscema, which drive from his previous experience consisting essay-writing and TBLT. = use of usage-based syntactic operations • He also draws on explicit knowledge.

36. Answer to RQ 2 • TBLT has impact on Taro’s interlanguage development. TBLT • complex but inaccurate → more accurate • TBLT consisting of input, output and FFI may have contributed to his accuracy improvement. • The way TBLT affects the development seems to be a complex process. • Sometimes it has an effect, but at other times, no change at all. Performance waxes and wanes.

37. Limitations • It is not clear what aspects (reading activities [input], production activities [output], FFI) of the TBLT have contributed to his development in what ways. • Repetition of essay writing as a data collection method may have motivated Taro to pay more focused attention to classroom input than usual.

38. References • De Bot, K., Lowie, W., & Verspoor, M. (2007). A dynamic system theory approach to second language acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 10. 7-21. • Langacker, R. W. (2000). A dynamic usage-based model. In M. Barlow & S. Kemmer (Eds.), Usage-based models of language (pp. 1-63). Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. • Larsen-Freeman, D. (2006). The emergence of complexity, fluency, and accuracy in the oral and written production of five Chinese learners of English. Applied Linguistics, 27, 590-619. • Larsen-Freeman, D. & Cameron, L. (2008). Complex systems and applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

39. Lieven, E., Behrens, H., Speares, J., & Tomasello, M. (2003). Early syntactic creativity: a usage-based approach. Journal of Child Language, 30. 333-370. • Mellow, J. D. (2006). The emergence of second language syntax: A case study of the acquisition of relative clauses. Applied Linguistics, 27. 645-670. • Tode, T. (2003). From unanalyzed chunks to rules: The learning of the English copula be by beginning Japanese learners of English. IRAL, 41, 23-53. • Tode, T. (submitted for publication). Schematization and sentence processing by classroom foreign language learners: A reading-time experiment and a stimulated-recall analysis.

40. Tomasello, M. (1992). First verbs: A case study of early grammatical development. New York: Cambridge University Press. • Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. MA: Harvard University Press. • Willis, D. & Willis, J. (2007). Doing task-based teaching. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. • Zyzik, E. (2006). Transitivity alternations and sequence learning: Insights from L2 Spanish production data. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28, 449-485.