Learner Use of Strategies in Interaction: Typology and Teachability*

This paper reports on a two-phase study of L2 learner use of listener feedback, particularly their use of clarification questions, in NS-NNS discourse. The initial research questions of interest concerned the degree to which patterns in listener clarification questions could differentiate learners of varying proficiency, the degree to which use of clarification strategies (move types) could be explicitly taught (rather than developed alongside long-term gains in proficiency), and the extent to which strategy use influenced actual understanding of listening passages. The first phase of the study was designed to formulate a typology of clarification questions associated with learners along a continuum of L2 proficiency. In this phase of the study, four types of clarification questions were identified through discriminant analysis as being related to language proficiency. These move types are defined as global reprise, local reprise, forward inferencing, and continuation signals. The second phase of the study was an elicitation experiment in which learners listened to a narrative and asked clarification questions. The study examined learner use of clarification questions in two distinct presentation settings (distant, video presentation and live, one-on-one presentation) and with three types of prior training in questioning strategies (global, local, and inferential). The experiment was designed to assess the effects of these presentation settings and of the prior training on learners’ ability to ask clarification questions of the native speakers and to summarize the story that they had heard. The results of this second phase of the study indicate that prior training of learners in specific questioning strategies can exert an effect on their subsequent behavior in interactions and can influence their immediate comprehension of a text as well.

[1]  Rocco P. Russo,et al.  LEARNING STRATEGIES USED BY BEGINNING AND INTERMEDIATE ESL STUDENTS , 1985 .

[2]  Vivian Zamel,et al.  Classroom Second Language Development , 1984 .

[3]  Tahereh Paribakht,et al.  Strategic Competence and Language Proficiency , 1985 .

[4]  Perry W. Thorndyke,et al.  A critique of schema-based theories of human story memory , 1980 .

[5]  R. Allwright.  The Importance of Interaction in Classroom Language Learning , 1984 .

[6]  Evangeline Marlos Varonis,et al.  Non-native/Non-native Conversations: A Model for Negotiation of Meaning , 1985 .

[7]  Dermot F. Murphy,et al.  Language learning tasks , 1987 .

[8]  Guy Aston,et al.  TROUBLE-SHOOTING IN INTERACTION WITH LEARNERS: THE MORE THE MERRIER? , 1986 .

[9]  John R. Anderson.  The Architecture of Cognition , 1983 .

[10]  Ellen Bialystok,et al.  The Role of Conscious Strategies in Second Language Proficiency , 1981 .

[11]  Evangeline Marlos Varonis,et al.  Variation in Native Speaker Speech Modification to Non-Native Speakers , 1985, Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

[12]  J. Carroll.  Conscious and Automatic Processes in Language Learning , 1981 .

[13]  E. Bialystok,et al.  Variables of Classroom Achievement in Second Language Learning. , 1978 .

[14]  Richard Young,et al.  The Impact of Interaction on Comprehension , 1987 .

[15]  J. Reid.  The Learning Style Preferences of ESL Students. , 1987 .

[16]  Richard Kern,et al.  Second Language Reading Strategy Instruction: Its Effects on Comprehension and Word Inference Ability , 1989 .

[17]  W. Chafe.  Cognitive constraints on information flow , 1984 .

[18]  A. Labarca,et al.  On Communication Strategies: Focus on Interaction , 1986, Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

[19]  Dan Douglas,et al.  Wrestling with ‘Context’ in Interlanguage Theory* , 1985 .

[20]  W. Krzanowski,et al.  Statistical aspects of reliability in language testing , 1984 .

[21]  Ray A. Chesterfield,et al.  Natural Order in Children's Use of Second Language Learning Strategies1 , 1985 .

[22]  M. Swain.  Communicative competence : Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development , 1985 .

[23]  Ann L. Brown,et al.  Macrorules for summarizing texts: the development of expertise , 1983 .