The context
The research group was formed in 2003 thanks largely to the positive effect on research student applications brought about by the newly established MSc in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition, now in its fifth year.
The research group, situated as it is in a department of education, focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on issues in formal language education that can be informed through applied language study. Permanent members of the group are: Ernesto Macaro, Victoria Murphy, Robert Vanderplank, Kathy Sylva, Lynn Erler, and Robert Woore. Additionally some 18 doctoral students are involved in a variety of applied linguistics research projects.
Themes
The group has a strong interest in researching the development of young-beginner learners of a second language (L2) and particularly the strategic behaviour adopted by these learners. Both beginners and, to some extent, young learners, are a worryingly under-researched population in the second language acquisition literature. Yet, it seems apparent that disaffection with L2 learning is a phenomenon easily traced back to this early stage in learning trajectories when learners encounter difficulties in making progress. Consequently, recent and current research projects include: (i) investigating the decoding problems that 11-year-olds experience when reading French; and (ii) broad interventions into beginner-learners’ strategic behaviour when reading and writing and, more specifically, attempts at improving L2 decoding ability (bottom-up processing) and improving inferencing ability (top-down processing). Members of the group are also exploring the relationship between decoding ability and motivation.
Some of our findings suggest that instructing beginner readers to use clusters of strategies for inferring the meaning of unknown or unfamiliar words may lead to learners being prepared to engage more confidently with extensive and challenging written texts and, indeed, to understand more. We are not yet at the stage of being able to propose that instruction in the grapheme–phoneme correspondences of a language, and subsequent instruction in decoding strategies, lead to better reading. Yet this is an important avenue we are pursuing given that findings, based on descriptive data, suggest that beginner-learners of French, whose first language (L1) is English, are failing to process the written word to the extent that they may be demonstrating symptoms akin to dyslexia in L1. Of concern is the finding that these symptoms do not disappear after three years of instruction and we have some evidence that this inability to decode the L2 may contribute in some degree to de-motivation and an unwillingness to continue to study the L2.
Another area of research focus, clearly connected to the one above, is the relationship between L1 and the L2, and the part that this relationship plays in both emerging and more established/balanced bilinguals. Hence activity within the research group includes: (i) (in L1) the placement of different morphemes ([-er] or [-ing]) within complex word forms; (ii) children's comprehension of morphologically complex word forms; (iii) enhancing literacy skills in L2 learners though sharing reading; (iv) exploring early-years curriculum and pedagogy in English Language Teaching; (v) bilingual children's literacy development in specific cultural contexts; (vi) the role of prosody in the input to early child L2 learners; and (vii) oral development and literacy in English as an additional language in primary school.
A number of these projects take a multi-competence perspective on language acquisition and one particular area of developing interest is in the impact that learning an L2 (at the moment Italian is being investigated because of its transparent orthography) can have on L1 (English) literacy. Early results show a positive effect on L1 spelling and word reading but these tentative findings need to be confirmed with a larger and more highly controlled study. Underlying this research theme is a recognition that a theoretical basis for early (primary education) language learning has not been firmly established and that, without such a firm base, a number of possible curricular and pedagogical practices could be adopted which may in fact lead to undesirable results. Moreover, members in the group recognize the importance of developing some form of standardized assessment of children who are learning English as a second language. While there are a number of standardized assessments to determine English proficiency in adults, there are very few which assess English language proficiency in children. Yet this is an increasingly important issue as more children across the world are required to learn English as a foreign language at the primary level.
Our focus on young-beginner learners has made us realize that, as well as a dearth of standardized assessment tools, there is a real need for research instruments to be developed which are specifically targeted at this age group's level of sophistication and metacognition, as well as their proficiency level. Too often we have found that existing instruments, such as questionnaires and guidelines to think-aloud procedures, are unsuitable for use with young-beginner learners and we have had to create, or are in the process of creating, our own.
Unsurprisingly, given the interest in the relationship between L1 and L2, another strong area of research endeavour is in the part that teacher codeswitching plays in learning an L2. Here we have a clear research agenda and one that is not focusing only on young-beginner learners. Previous research has exhaustively investigated teacher (and to some extent learner) beliefs about the value of permitting codeswitching practices in classroom input and interaction. It is therefore pertinent to go beyond beliefs about codeswitching behaviour and examine the impact that teacher codeswitching has on learners and on their progress with L2 learning. We believe that there are at least three theoretical frameworks that could provide the basis for the study of codeswitching in instructed settings. The first is naturalistic codeswitching – providing research questions related to how similar or different a language classroom is to a bilingual community. The second framework is sociocultural – providing research questions related to the effect that codeswitching (or exclusion of the learners’ L1) in L2 classrooms has on the learner's sense of identity and his/her inner voice. The third is interaction and acquisition – providing research questions related to the impact that the presence of codeswitching patterns in the input has on the acquisition of vocabulary and/or morpho-syntax. Cognisant of the fact that to study the impact of codeswitching practices is a huge undertaking, given not only the possible theoretical frameworks but also the number of potential confounding variables, members of the group working on this theme have narrowed the focus down to: (i) the impact of codeswitching on acquisition of vocabulary during whole-class reading comprehension activities and whole-class listening comprehension activities; (ii) investigating learners’ strategic (cognitive and metacognitive) reactions to teacher codeswitching; (iii) exploring the nature of low-frequency lexical items in the lexicon of Chinese/English bilinguals and investigating the impact that providing different types of L1 lexical equivalents plays in the acquisition of L2 vocabulary; and (iv) codeswitched input and conceptual representations of L2 lexis among learners of different proficiencies. Findings suggest narrowing down the focus of this field of research in this way can produce valuable insights that have a direct relevance to teaching and learning.
The applied linguistics research group at Oxford, whilst relatively small, is engaged, we believe, in a vibrant, coherent, and pedagogically relevant research agenda and one of our aims is to consolidate our work by hosting an international conference in March 2009. The conference will be aimed at research students, language teachers, and established researchers. We therefore gratefully take this opportunity of issuing an initial ‘call for papers’ on any of the topics and themes outlined above and where there is a clear exploration of the relationship between a first and second language(s).
Conference title:
Conference title:
First and Second Languages: Exploring the Relationship in Pedagogy-related Contexts
Venue: University of Oxford, Department of Education, http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/
Dates: Friday, 13 March – Saturday, 14 March 2009
Deadline for proposals (papers): 1 July 2008
Deadline for proposals (posters): 1 October 2008
Please send proposals providing a title and an abstract of no more than 200 words to
