Second language acquisition courses and student teachers' values. (Language Teaching & Learning).

Abstract

Many student teachers doubt the relevance of second language acquisition to the language classroom. This paper investigates the ways in which SLA courses can be justified in terms of whether they influence the views of students teachers. We found the SLA course influenced some, but not all, views of the student teacher. We suggest that the variation in the changes of the SLA may reflect the way students teachers perceive the knowledge of SLA that they bring to the course and that this is best understood within a framework which sees SLA courses as a means of facilitating interaction between the views and knowledge of students teachers and of the views of knowledge of researchers in SLA.

Introduction

The contribution of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research to English language teaching and to teacher education is not straightforward (Ellis, 1997; Lightbown, 1985). While the intention of SLA research is to improve language pedagogy (Ellis, 1997 p. 69), and most SLA researchers have at some time been language teachers (Tarone et al, 1976 p. 19), SLA courses on teacher education programmes are often said to be either excessively theoretical (Brown, 1983 p. 53; Brumfit, 1983 p. 59; Lightbown, 1985 p. 183) or not `relevant' to what goes on in the classroom (Eykin in Markee, 1997 p.80; Lynch, 1997 p.317). This partly reflects the nature of educational research. For example, in a review of fifty examples of SLA research, it emerged that only fifteen were actually carried out in authentic language classrooms (Nunan, 1991 p. 5). Thus, Krashen(1983 p. 255) has concluded that theory is "rejected by most language teachers"

This division between theory and practice has been echoed by many of the undergraduates and postgraduates studying with the authors on programmes in TESOL. Our student teachers pride themselves on their pragmatism, just wanting to `get on with the job' of learning how to teach in the classroom. In keeping with a majority of similar programmes (Ellis, 1997 p. 70), our programme contains an SLA course. We find that our student teachers' pragmatism mitigates against the theory and research aspects of SLA. Here are examples of the sort of feedback we have been receiving over the years both orally and, here, from the students' written evaluation forms on our courses in SLA:

() This course was much more theoretical than I am used to.

() This course gave me information overload -- I was not sure how it fitted into the classroom.

() There is an imbalance between theory and practice.

() Too many theories.

These views are not limited to our own students. So Markee says

   ... from the perspective of practising foreign language teachers, Second
   Language Acquisition research is rarely worth reading because the ideas
   researchers discuss are too distant from teachers' everyday classroom
   concerns (1997 p. 80)

Similarly Lynch (1997 p. 317) states

   Many, perhaps most, language teachers regard research into language
   acquisition and language learning as remote and irrelevant.

However, there is a paradox here. While many student teachers appear to reject theory; at the same time many of them appear to expect from a course "instant panaceas, rigid rules of thumb, clear statements of practice, and absolute generalisations (Brumfit, 1983 p. 60)" or "definitions, rules, absolutes"(Brown, 1983 p. 54). Where else can this come but from theory? Krashen states: "Given a brief workshop or inservice, the most practical, most valuable information we can provide [teachers] is a coherent view of how language is acquired, a theory of second language acquisition" (1983 p. 281 in Markee, 1997 p. 87). Perhaps it is not that we are giving our student teachers too much theory; but rather we are not giving them the right theory, or addressing the right issues (Wright, 1992 p. 189).

There is also a more abstract debate about the relationship between theories and classroom practice. Several views are evident when SLA and education are viewed together In one view, reflected in the comments and quotations above,

   Second Language Acquisition is, by and large, the preserve of university
   based researchers, whose primary allegiance is to the conduct of
   well-designed studies and theory development in their field .. in contrast,
   language pedagogy is concerned with practical knowledge (Ellis, 1997 p. 7)

The teacher is primarily a consumer of research (Ellis, 1997:11) and fits into a hierarchy in which those who create or develop theories are privileged (Holliday, 1994). This hierarchy makes it difficult to bring about change in the classroom partly because privileging those in universities creates resistance in those who are not so privileged and partly because the decontextualised theories it encourages are of doubtful appropriacy in the classroom (Holliday, 1994, Murphy, 1999).

An alternative view recognises that teacher education participants bring a range of experience, beliefs, assumptions and knowledge and argues that SLA courses enable them to interact with the experience, beliefs, assumptions and knowledge of other teachers and researchers (for example Brindley cited in Ellis, 1997 p. 31-32). In this view SLA courses should primarily enable participants to reflect on their own beliefs about language learning and teaching. This reflection is likely to lead to changes in the participants' beliefs. While we agree that `drawing a cause-effect relationship between attitude and behaviour is not sufficient' (Kennedy and Kennedy, 1996:351) and recognise the often overwhelming influence of institutional cultures, changes in teachers' beliefs must be a prerequisite for sustainable changes in classroom behaviours.

Considerable research has been carried out in mapping the cognitive and interpretative frameworks which teachers bring to their professional activities (Freeman & Richards, 1993, 1994; Freeman & Richards, 1996; Johnson 1996; Richards & Nunan, 1990; Woods, 1996). Conventionally, these descriptions differentiate areas of teachers' cognitive and interpretative frames. Within the knowledge system of language education, Johnson (1996) distinguishes between conceptual knowledge [episteme -- or `abstract wisdom'] and perceptual knowledge [phronesis --or `practical wisdom']. She argues for the focus in teacher education to be on perceptual knowledge because the vicissitudes of the classroom often mitigate against application of a general rule. This distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge is more conventionally framed in the distinction between declarative and procedural knowledge (Woods, 1996 p. 190-195). Declarative knowledge is knowledge about teaching -- knowledge of subject areas and the `theory' of education; procedural knowledge is knowledge how to teach -- knowledge of instructional routines to be used in the classroom. Lightbown picks this up when she distinguishes (1985) between `teacher education' (i.e. conceptual/declarative knowledge) and `teacher training' (i.e. perceptual/procedural knowledge). Taking a slightly different tack, Richards (1996) relates what is essentially perceptual/procedural knowledge (knowledge relating to curriculum, subject matter and lesson presentation) back to the realm of beliefs (knowledge "which relates to the teacher's personal and subjective philosophy of teaching and the teacher's view of what constitutes good teaching" [1996 p. 284]). He describes a number of `maxims' which constitute not so much the `rules' of specific teaching techniques, but rather the `beliefs, principles and values' (1996 p 294) underlying more generalised classroom practice.

From the research above, it is Lightbown who is specifically concerned with the contribution of SLA to teacher training. Unsurprisingly, she places SLA research in the realm of conceptual/declarative knowledge, but suggests -- rather "humbly" (Ellis, 1994a p. 175) -- that it relates to perceptual/procedural knowledge, in as much as it enables teachers to "have much more realistic expectations about what can be accomplished" (Lightbown 1985 p. 183-4). In this way, it is suggested that there are connections between these different areas of teacher cognition. Here, she is suggesting a relationship between conceptual/declarative knowledge and perceptual/procedural knowledge; and Richards is suggesting a relationship between perceptual/procedural knowledge and teacher beliefs, values and attitudes. What has not yet been explored is the notion that a relationship might exist between conceptual/declarative knowledge, in which SLA is conventionally seen as playing a role, and the beliefs, principles and values of teachers and student teacher.

This paper describes our attempts to investigate what effect, if any, our SLA course had on the values of those participants who take the course and to give ourselves, as teacher educators, a space to reflect on our own practice.

Procedure

The research was carried out by administering an anonymous questionnaire on language learning to 28 non-native speakers of English subjects at the beginning and end of the semester in which they took the SLA course. The subjects were in the second year of a bachelor degree in teaching English as a Foreign Language designed for those without teaching experience. At this stage of their course the experimental group had neither observed other teachers' classes nor taught their own.

We also gave the questionnaire at the beginning and end of the semester to a control group consisting of twenty five students who were not taking SLA courses. The SLA students took courses in language learning and teaching, human relationship in the classroom and an introduction to phonology. The non-SLA students took courses in phonology, sociolinguistics and human relationships in the classroom.

The Second Language Acquisition Courses

The SLA course is taught over twelve weeks and there are three contact hours per week. An outline of the course content is given below.

() Learning a first language

() Behaviourism and contrastive analysis

() Mentalism and Krashen

() Learner characteristics

() Cognitive and Interactionist theories

() Interlanguage: learner language and errors

() Learning and communication strategies

() Organisation of lessons (PPP; CLT, TBL, strategies)

() Kinds of syllabus

The three contact hours were made up of a one hour lecture and a two hour seminar. The lecture consisted of a predominantly oral presentation, supplemented by overhead projector slides and video. Participants take notes but can interrupt the lecture for clarification. A handout outlined the structure of the lecture with suggestions for related reading for each lecture. The two hour seminar was conducted in groups of between 12 and 16 and was focussed on group discussion of the suggested readings and responses to particular tasks.

The questionnaire

The questionnaire (based on Lightbown and Spada, 1995 p. xv) contained twelve statements on SLA. The questions do not attempt to cover all areas of SLA, or of the course, but include some central issues and all issues covered were discussed in our course. The subjects had to indicate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with these on a scale from 1 to 6, where I meant strongly agree and 6 meant strongly disagree. The statements are included in table one.

The questions can be grouped under four headings categorised as dealing with four topics: errors in learner language; learning; learner variables and language sequencing. The statements grouped in this way appear in table one. The questions on the questionnaire were presented in the order in which they appear in Lightbown and Spada (1995), and in the appendix to this article, rather than in the sequence in which they appear in table one.

See issue's website <http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/fallp.htm>.

Findings and discussion

Our initial findings related to the comparability of the groups at the beginning of the semester. Our assumption was that the experimental and control groups had roughly similar views about language learning at the start of the semester. To check this assumption we compared those taking SLA with those who were not going to take such courses. Table one shows the figures from this comparison, analysed using a two-tailed Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Significance test for non-parametric figures.

On only one statement was there a significant difference between the results of the questionnaires for the two groups (p = 0.014)

   Most of the mistakes which second language learners make are due to
   interference from their first language.

Here, the non-SLA students were less likely to agree than the SLA students. In broad terms, there is no evidence for saying that there are important differences between the experimental and control groups at the start of the semester. We also compared native and non-native speakers of English. The two groups differed significantly on only one statement (p = 0.017)

   The earlier a second language is introduced in school programmes, the
   greater the likelihood of success in learning.

The native speakers agreed with this statement more than the non-native speakers. Finally, we compared participants on teacher education courses with other undergraduates. The groups differed significantly (p = 0.002) on the same statement as did the native/non-native speakers

   The earlier a second language is introduced in school programmes, the great
   the likelihood of success in learning.

where the student teachers were more convinced of its truth than those studying other subjects. Our conclusion is that all our subjects started with roughly equivalent sets of beliefs, assumptions and knowledge.

We now examine the changes in responses at the beginning and end of the semester, beginning with the changes in the responses of the undergraduate group taking an Second Language Acquisition course and compared them with the two control groups. See issue's website <http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/fallp.htm>

Table two covers changes in the responses of the undergraduate subjects who took an SLA course. In broad terms the subjects were less convinced about the truth of the statements at the end of the course than they were at the beginning. There were statistically significant (p < 0.05) changes in seven statements, two relating to errors in language learning, two related to learning and three related to language sequencing. What is striking here is the change on language sequencing statements and the relative lack of change on learner variable statements. These differences can be related to the subjects' experience. Language sequencing is typically an activity carried out by teachers and is not central to the experience of language learners and so they may be more willing to modify their views in this area. In contrast, language learners, in particular the accomplished and successful learners who wish to work as teachers of the language, have long experience of the classroom and have a good knowledge of what learner variables are associated with success in language learning. This experience means that they feel their views in this area are well founded and are less likely to change.

However, we also have to consider that the research on the importance of factors such as age, motivation and intelligence has produced ambivalent findings (See Lightbown and Spada, 1993 p. 36-50, Ellis, 1994b p. 471 et seq.) and the lack of significant change here may be linked to the ambivalence in our current knowledge of learner variables.

Two changes were statistically very significant (p< 0.01), one relating to interference from the mother tongue (statement 2) and the other to the importance of imitation in learning (statement 4). Both these statements indicate a movement away from a behaviourist view of language learning. We are not clear why these changes happened but we can see two possible and complementary explanations. The first reflects the rejection of simple behaviourism by most, if not all, writers about Second Language Acquisition. Secondly, behaviourist views of language learning are popular with the public at large and, perhaps rather optimistically, we would suggest that the course has given the subjects a chance to reflect on behaviourism in the light of theft experience and they have rejected it.

We also feel the lack of significant change on five statements is interesting, though it is open to various interpretations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we would resist taking this as a failure of the course. Firstly, if the course is meant to offer the participants opportunities for reflection rather than changing their minds it would seem that change in itself is not a measure of success. Secondly, we believe it reflects the relationship between the student teachers and SLA. We develop this point in the conlcusion.

For the control group there were no statistically significant changes (p< 0.05). It would seem fair to characterise this as not revealing any clearly defined change in responses.

Conclusion

This piece of research is based on a relatively small sample in a particular context and so it is difficult to know to what extent we can make statements about teacher education in general. We would suggest that there are two broad conclusions that can be drawn.

Firstly, teacher education has been relatively little studied (Freeman and Johnson, 1998 p. 398) and we know of only one other study of the impact of an SLA course (Brindley quoted in Ellis, 1997 p. 31-32). We would not wish to argue for dramatic change on the basis of one small-scale study, and indeed would say such arguments risk reinforcing the hierarchy which makes meaningful change more difficult, but we would see this study as raising some important questions about the role of SLA courses in teacher education and we would argue that this is an area which cries out for more research.

Secondly, we would argue that where student teachers' views changed this is clear evidence that something useful is coming out of our SLA course, which is not to say they cannot be improved. We would argue that these changes happened at least partly because the SLA course raised questions which the student teachers' had not considered before.

Where student teachers' view did not change we would say this is because the course failed to take into account the fact that student teachers have considerable experience of the language classroom, generally as learners. This means that they have grounded knowledge of many aspects of SLA (such as the learner variables discussed above). The needs for student teacher in these areas is less for knowledge of the importance of, say, intelligence but ways of thinking about intelligence and learning and , more importantly, some understanding of the processes by which the relationship of this kind of factor and language learning might be investigated. How Krashen developed the Monitor Model is more important that what the Monitor Model is. A teacher education programme needs to provide student teachers with opportunities and tools for reflecting on the process of acquiring a second language rather than the product of other people's researches.

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Richard Badger, University of Stirling, United Kingdom
Malcolm MacDonald, University of Stirling, United Kingdom
Goodith White, University of Stirling, United Kingdom

Richard Badger, a lecturer, (LLB, PGCE, MA, PhD) has research interest in teacher education, ESP, legal discourse and testing. Malcolm MacDonald, a lecturer, (BA, Cert TEFL, MEd, PhD) has research interest in TESOL methodology and discourse analysis. Goodith White, a lecturer, (BA, Dip TEFL, M. Liit) recently published a book on listening for OUP.