Second Language Acquisition and Second ... - Stephen Krashen

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English they spoke each day (on a scale of 1 to 4). Subjects with the same number of years spent in the country where English was spoken and the same report of speaking were considered to have the same exposure score. Student samples differed somewhat. In Krashen and Seliger, subjects were registered in an intensive, 20 hour per week institute designed to prepare foreign students for study in American colleges. In Krashen et al., subjects were enrolled in a part-time extension program; these students were, on the average, older, and many were permanent residents or citizens of the United States. The measure of proficiency used in the first study was teacher ranking (which correlated significantly with local placement tests), and in the second study the Michigan Examination in Structure was used. In the first study, six out of fourteen pairs of students matched for years of formal study of English were consistent with the hypotheses that more exposure meant more proficiency; that is, in only six cases did the student with more exposure show a higher ranking than his partner with less. Similarly, in the second study, more exposure was associated with a higher score in only ten out of twenty-one cases, which is consistent with the hypothesis that exposure has no consistent effect on second language proficiency, When students were matched for exposure scores, however, it appeared to be the case that more instruction did indeed mean more proficiency. In the first study, this was true of seven out of nine cases, and in the second it was true of eight of eleven cases, which in both studies was statistically significant. Krashen, Jones, Zelinski, and Usprich (1978) arrived at similar results. Placement test scores for 115 students of English as a second language in an extension program were correlated with students' reports of years of formal study and years spent in a English-speaking country. The results (Table 1) confirm the conclusions of the studies described above: years of formal instruction reported is a better predictor of English proficiency than is time spent in an English-speaking environment. While exposure, here simply the report of years spent in an informal environment with no estimation of how much the S used the target language, was shown to have a significant effect, it accounted for relatively little of the variation in test scores. 44
Table 1. English proficiency and years in an English-speaking country and years of formal English study* __________________________________________________________________________ Correlation with years in an Test English-speaking country __________________________________________________________________________ r p Michigan (Exam. in structure) 0.18 p < 0.05 Composition 0.22 p < 0.025 Cloze 0.24 p < 0.01 Correlation with reported years Test of formal ESL study r p Michigan (Exam. in structure) 0.50 p < 0.001 Composition 0.34 p < 0.005 Cloze 0.47 p < 0.001 __________________________________________________________________________ * From Krashen, Jones, Zelinski, and Usprich (1978). Discussion of Literature Survey The last three studies described above (Krashen and Seliger, 1976; Krashen, Seliger, and Hartnett, 1974; Krashen, Jones, Zelinski, and Usprich, 1978) provide explicit support of hypothesis II. These three studies, however, share a feature that prevents them from being convincing counterexamples to hypothesis I. "Years spent in an English-speaking country" need not be equivalent to time spent in meaningful informal linguistic environment. There is an important difference between the measures used in the Upshur, Mason, and Carroll studies and the measure used in the Krashen et al. series. In the former group of studies, we can be fairly certain that the second language student was involved in real and sustained second language use situations. Upshur and Mason's subjects were university students who were taking courses taught in English. In addition, they were also probably taking part in the social life of their respective schools. Carroll's "year abroad" students were also highly likely to have been engaged in real communicative use of the language, as their primary purpose for going abroad, in most cases, was to have additional opportunities to converse with native speakers of the language they were studying. In the Krashen et al. series, we have much less knowledge of just how much or what percentage of time was spent in 45
Page 1 and 2: Second Language Acquisition and Sec
Page 3 and 4: Acknowledgments I would like to tha
Page 5 and 6: Introduction This book is concerned
Page 7 and 8: performance..." (p.35). Corder (196
Page 9 and 10: when it does not get in the way of
Page 11 and 12: language (some similarities to firs
Page 13 and 14: In the second part of this chapter,
Page 15 and 16: far more valuable then the exercise
Page 17 and 18: Monitoring generally improves accur
Page 19 and 20: overconcern with correctness, howev
Page 21 and 22: language is spoken or may be expose
Page 23 and 24: 2. Attitude and Aptitude in Second
Page 25 and 26: 1973, p. 8). Carroll also suggests
Page 27 and 28: outines and patterns, and at a more
Page 29 and 30: Sentences, Paired Associates, and S
Page 31 and 32: stay-ins appeared to be integrative
Page 33 and 34: motivation played no role because o
Page 35 and 36: (1977), after interviewing teachers
Page 37 and 38: did not produce the same results. T
Page 39 and 40: a stage many people, but not all, r
Page 41 and 42: The Good Language Learner Revisited
Page 43 and 44: predict differences in student achi
Page 45 and 46: settle the issue of whether adults
Page 47: language had higher scores than stu
Page 51 and 52: The "self-study" reinterpretation o
Page 53 and 54: series the evidence for learning is
Page 55 and 56: 4. The Domain of the Conscious Gram
Page 57 and 58: Ann Fathman, confirmed our earlier
Page 59 and 60: significant differences for any of
Page 61 and 62: Table 1. Studies analyzing grammati
Page 63 and 64: Table 3. Counterexamples to orderin
Page 65 and 66: Table 4 (cont.) ___________________
Page 67 and 68: ut *der Katze Ohr (The cat's ear).
Page 69 and 70: Research Findings 1. First language
Page 71 and 72: First-language-influenced errors he
Page 73 and 74: and (4) Ich weiss nicht, I know not
Page 75 and 76: ain", the right hemisphere, appears
Page 77 and 78: second language acquisition in adul
Page 79 and 80: hemisphere is removed, and the pati
Page 81 and 82: Monitor, to exist, and the degree t
Page 83 and 84: advantage in the first language. En
Page 85 and 86: while English "orients its users to
Page 87 and 88: 7. On Routines and Patterns in Lang
Page 89 and 90: adulthood. A. Smith (1966) describe
Page 91 and 92: "That's a _______") which were char
Page 93 and 94: variation. Nelson, for example, dis
Page 95 and 96: which he had learned by imitation.
Page 97 and 98: and often incorporated them into hi
Page 99 and 100:
what utterances mean by observing h
Page 101 and 102:
Furthermore, she associated strings
Page 103 and 104:
and patterns other than as discours
Page 105 and 106:
similar difficulty orders for gramm
Page 107 and 108:
understanding language that is "a l
Page 109 and 110:
up to the intermediate level. As Wa
Page 111 and 112:
practical only in a foreign languag
Page 113 and 114:
is making some effort at making him
Page 115 and 116:
It may be useful to distinguish thr
Page 117 and 118:
the luxury of building up acquired
Page 119 and 120:
marker /-s/, and the regular and ir
Page 121 and 122:
to speak the language they were lea
Page 123 and 124:
9. The Theoretical and Practical Re
Page 125 and 126:
contact with. "Teacher-talk" is the
Page 127 and 128:
language in Los Angeles. S. K. also
Page 129 and 130:
Caretaker Speech and Language Acqui
Page 131 and 132:
speech is so well rooted in the "he
Page 133 and 134:
speech is: they are simpler than na
Page 135 and 136:
Freed (1980) reports that foreigner
Page 137 and 138:
e boredom. When they overshoot, the
Page 139 and 140:
class was conducted entirely in Fre
Page 141 and 142:
more expansions as well as repetiti
Page 143 and 144:
Broen, P. (1972) The Verbal Environ
Page 145 and 146:
Dulay, H. and M. Burt (1977) "Remar
Page 147 and 148:
Hakuta, K. and H. Cancino (1977) "T
Page 149 and 150:
Learning Aptitude. Rowley, Ma.: New
Page 151 and 152:
Academy of Aphasia. Victoria, Briti
Page 153 and 154:
Smith, A. (1966) "Speech and other
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