In his previous post, teacher trainer Marcin Lewandowski explored some ideas for improving students’ learning by making them more aware of the language they’re using. Here, he looks at self reflection.
Another strategy a teacher might use to encourage students to think about their language is self reflection. Reflection on one’s performance with a specific focus on language (e.g. grammar, pronunciation) encourages students to notice their strengths and weaknesses. Noticing has been defined by Neomy Storch as attention plus awareness: that is, noticing involves registration or detection of a form accompanied by some conscious processing of this form in short-term memory. (Storch quotes Schmidt on this.)
Subsequent peer discussion about their performance may lead to understanding. Understanding involves a higher level of awareness than noticing because it involves more complex processing in long-term memory and is related to system learning.
How do we get students to reflect effectively on their language?
Storch argues that noticing is at the level of awareness or consciousness. She posits that another, deeper level of attention occurs when learners talk about the language they have produced:
This metatalk may deepen the learners’ knowledge about language use, about the relationship between meaning, form and function. This kind of attention is thus thought to be at the level of understanding. Swain (1998) argues that by encouraging metatalk among learners, we may be stimulating their language learning processes. (2008:96)
Talking about/discussing language therefore seems to play a key role in language learning. Storch reports on a study carried out by Qi and Lapkin, published in 2001, in which the authors distinguish two levels of noticing: perfunctory, where the learners simply note the difference between their language and the target language, and substantive noticing, where the learners notice the difference and correct it at the same time verbalising reasons for doing so. The researchers concluded that the quality of noticing may have an impact on second language (L2) learning. That is, noticing without demonstrating an understanding of the nature of the gap in the L2 may not lead to language development. They also pointed at the fact that L2 proficiency may affect learners’ ability to engage in substantive noticing.
Swain concludes that verbalisation helped learners to become aware of their problems, predict their linguistic needs, set goals for themselves, monitor their own language use, and evaluate overall success. It helped them focus not only on saying but on what they said. This as well as the collaborative efforts it encouraged, in turn, supported their internalisation of correct grammar.
One strategy that I use to encourage my students to reflect on their language is by using digital voice recorders. In a typical activity, students might be asked to work in pairs and record their conversation (e.g. a dialogue or a discussion). They could then listen to the recording and discuss their performance, focussing specifically on their use of grammar, choice of vocabulary, etc.
This allows them to reflect on their own language but, importantly, it also allows them to give constructive feedback to their partner. For example, in her study, Assia Slimani found that neither learner participation nor negotiating meaning lead to uptake, i.e. what learners claim to have learned at the end of the lesson. What seems to have an effect is listening to other students. Items topicalised by other students rather than by the teacher are most likely to figure as uptake.
This makes sense. We tend to be influenced most by people like us, our friends, colleagues, neighbours, etc. These are the people we want to impress and are impressed by most. It’s one of the reasons why teenagers invent their own vernaculars which are often incomprehensible to their parents and why adults converge linguistically with (i.e. use similar register as) people they identify with and diverge when they don’t want to be identified with a certain social group.
When I tested the use of digital voice recorders with my students, I found that learners at relatively low levels (e.g. elementary) were capable of successfully reflecting on their own performance and at giving constructive feedback using relevant metalaguage. This contributed to improved performance on subsequent tasks.
So why not try using digital voice recorders – or mobile phones – with your students…?
References
Lewandowski, M. (2010) The role of digital voice recorders in promoting learner autonomy, National Teacher Research Panel (NTRP).
Slimani, A. (1989). The role of topicalization in classroom language learning, System, Vol.17, No.2, pp 223 – 234
Storch, N. (2008). ‘Metatalk in a Pair Work Activity: Level of Engagement and Implications for Language Development’, Language Awareness,17:2, 95 — 114
Swain, M. (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 97-114: p.96, p.109). Oxford: Oxford University Press.