Morris
Content
Morris & Tarone (2003) 1. Recasts can be defined as the act of re-casting others in an intention to correct their usage of language. It is also defined as a more subtle way to give a form of corrective feedback. It is normally practiced in a sense of the re-caster is better than the other person in a sense of correcting them. It is normally seen as a ‘negative’ feedback because it is human nature to feel that they themselves as always correct. Nobody likes to be corrected especially by their own peers as they perceive their peers are at the same level as they are. Another disadvantage is that the person who got recast might not understand the purpose or the proper way to make use of the language.
2. Attention is important in SLA process simply because it guarantees the learner’s focus to be in form. The attention can or cannot make the focus on the learner to shift from inaccurate to the accurate form. Attention is essential as it enables the learner to be able to compare the form he/she used with the form provided to him or her during recasts.
3. Receiving corrective feedback has its own advantage as it functions as a guidance or reference for the learners to be able to use accurate form of the language. However, there are a few elements which influence the perception of an accurate corrective feedback and one of them is social context where the relationship between learners is established. Experiments were conducted to identify whether social context really exist in tampering the process of getting accurate corrective feedback. In the case of my teaching, during group work activities, I normally let my students to choose their own group members as they are comfortable to be with their social group. On certain occasion, I would break the group and do a mixture of group members myself according to the students’ previous grades. In each particular group, there will be a balance of high performing students and low performing students. As my students have been practicing, I urged the group members to recast on each other every time I conducted a speaking lesson. It turned out that the learners are more comfortable to be in their social group compared to the group in which I selected.
4. Speech communities reflect the community at large even though there are in a classroom compound. Not all students have the same ability in every subject thus creating a mixture of skills in any
lesson. The speech communities replicate the life-like circumstances to be put into practice in a classroom. Language classrooms are considered similar to speech communities as the level of social context complexity really do exist in a classroom teaching languages. The learners in a classroom will always have mixed ability in speaking especially L2 language. Teachers will have to set the students in their respective levels and start to work on that. Some high proficiency students might have demotivating attitude when paired with the low performers whereas low proficiency students might be more comfortable when paired or grouped with other learners of the same level as theirs.
5. In RQ 1, the result showed significant evident to conclude about the existence of negative social interaction between the learners. Research Question 2 also provided evidence of relationship of the interference between negative social dynamics with the SLA practice. It is not surprising as I had experienced the same situation in my class and that the result is highly predictable. In my opinion, the outcome of this research should be reviewed psychologically as it involves intrapersonal conflict much more than interpersonal conflict itself.
Nicholas, Lightbrown & Spada (2001) 1. Recasts in L1 research Saxton (1997) carried out a research called Direct Contrast Hypothesis where he suggested an immediate error feedback on a child’s utterances error is beneficial to the child’s perception thus enabling the child to replace the incorrect utterances with the accurate one. Brown and Hanlon (1970) said that explicit positive reinforcement and explicit negative comment are not responsible for the success of L1 acquisition. Cazden (1965) concluded that expansion of linguistic development indirectly contributes most to developmental progress in a child’s utterances. Nelson (1973) suggested that children would increase the use of recast language only if extensive exposure of recast were carried out for an extended period of time. Nelson, Denniger, Bonvillian, Kaplan and Baker (1983) found out that syntactic improvement will occur among the learners if it involves minimal changes or simple recasts. Nelson (1983) agreed that simple recast will become more beneficial and fosters continuation than complex recast or topic shifts in L1 progress.
2. Recasts in L2 research Schmidt (1990) suggested that recasts is an important input for the learners whom wish to acquire new language as it enables the learners to compare the new form with the form that they utter because recasts can supply immediate feedback of learners’ mistake. Doughty, Varela (1998); Long & Robinson (1998); Oliver (1995) assumed that recasts supplied negative evidence but researchers question the maximum level in which recast can benefit learners of non-grammatical item to assist in L2 acquisition. Long and Robinson also placed recast to feature an implicit negative evidence but did not interfere with the flow of the language because it focus more on meaningful feedback rather than just making learners to repeat the whole mistakes being made.
3. Landmark findings on observational studies Doughty (1994) in his observational study that planned interactional activities only results in students repeating what the teacher says when the teacher was actually doing a recast. However, for the adult class, the learners have the ability to distinguish between recast and repetition whereas in a young learners’ class it would be difficult to determine whether it was a recast or a repetitive utterances. Lyster and Ranta (1997) observed a CBI class and found out that those learners with basic foundation of L2 language will experience lesser recast compared to those lacking of L2 fundamentals. Lochtman (2000) experienced a grammar lesson for PSLL resulted little uptake. Slimani (1992), however found out that recasts that went unnoticed were the ones that have no metalanguage and requires no continuous involvement of the students. Havranek (1999) conducted a test beyond uptake and she found out that recasts were not linked to accurate performance but explicitly focused feedback does influence that learners performance. Seedhouse (1997) observation concluded that teachers are reluctant to tell their students about the errors that the students had made thus making it difficult for the students to know whether their utterances were accurate or not. 4. Landmark experimental studies Carroll and Swain (1993) found out that a group of learners with immediate feedback performed better than a control group of recalling session. Long, Inagaki and Ortega (1998) concluded that recast is more
effective for short term corrective session compared to the model group but the same approach does not seem to be working for L1 acquisition. Mackey and Philp (1998) found out that intensive recast only benefited those at the moderate level which proves that recast only works when the learners have reach certain developmental readiness stage. Leeman (2000) argued that the success of a recast was because of enhanced salience rather than implicit negative evidence. Doughty and Varela (1998) investigate the corrective recasting and found out that systematic corrective recasting really benefited learners more compared to less systematic recast in terms of developmental progress, accuracy, and frequency of use.
2. Attention is important in SLA process simply because it guarantees the learner’s focus to be in form. The attention can or cannot make the focus on the learner to shift from inaccurate to the accurate form. Attention is essential as it enables the learner to be able to compare the form he/she used with the form provided to him or her during recasts.
3. Receiving corrective feedback has its own advantage as it functions as a guidance or reference for the learners to be able to use accurate form of the language. However, there are a few elements which influence the perception of an accurate corrective feedback and one of them is social context where the relationship between learners is established. Experiments were conducted to identify whether social context really exist in tampering the process of getting accurate corrective feedback. In the case of my teaching, during group work activities, I normally let my students to choose their own group members as they are comfortable to be with their social group. On certain occasion, I would break the group and do a mixture of group members myself according to the students’ previous grades. In each particular group, there will be a balance of high performing students and low performing students. As my students have been practicing, I urged the group members to recast on each other every time I conducted a speaking lesson. It turned out that the learners are more comfortable to be in their social group compared to the group in which I selected.
4. Speech communities reflect the community at large even though there are in a classroom compound. Not all students have the same ability in every subject thus creating a mixture of skills in any
lesson. The speech communities replicate the life-like circumstances to be put into practice in a classroom. Language classrooms are considered similar to speech communities as the level of social context complexity really do exist in a classroom teaching languages. The learners in a classroom will always have mixed ability in speaking especially L2 language. Teachers will have to set the students in their respective levels and start to work on that. Some high proficiency students might have demotivating attitude when paired with the low performers whereas low proficiency students might be more comfortable when paired or grouped with other learners of the same level as theirs.
5. In RQ 1, the result showed significant evident to conclude about the existence of negative social interaction between the learners. Research Question 2 also provided evidence of relationship of the interference between negative social dynamics with the SLA practice. It is not surprising as I had experienced the same situation in my class and that the result is highly predictable. In my opinion, the outcome of this research should be reviewed psychologically as it involves intrapersonal conflict much more than interpersonal conflict itself.
Nicholas, Lightbrown & Spada (2001) 1. Recasts in L1 research Saxton (1997) carried out a research called Direct Contrast Hypothesis where he suggested an immediate error feedback on a child’s utterances error is beneficial to the child’s perception thus enabling the child to replace the incorrect utterances with the accurate one. Brown and Hanlon (1970) said that explicit positive reinforcement and explicit negative comment are not responsible for the success of L1 acquisition. Cazden (1965) concluded that expansion of linguistic development indirectly contributes most to developmental progress in a child’s utterances. Nelson (1973) suggested that children would increase the use of recast language only if extensive exposure of recast were carried out for an extended period of time. Nelson, Denniger, Bonvillian, Kaplan and Baker (1983) found out that syntactic improvement will occur among the learners if it involves minimal changes or simple recasts. Nelson (1983) agreed that simple recast will become more beneficial and fosters continuation than complex recast or topic shifts in L1 progress.
2. Recasts in L2 research Schmidt (1990) suggested that recasts is an important input for the learners whom wish to acquire new language as it enables the learners to compare the new form with the form that they utter because recasts can supply immediate feedback of learners’ mistake. Doughty, Varela (1998); Long & Robinson (1998); Oliver (1995) assumed that recasts supplied negative evidence but researchers question the maximum level in which recast can benefit learners of non-grammatical item to assist in L2 acquisition. Long and Robinson also placed recast to feature an implicit negative evidence but did not interfere with the flow of the language because it focus more on meaningful feedback rather than just making learners to repeat the whole mistakes being made.
3. Landmark findings on observational studies Doughty (1994) in his observational study that planned interactional activities only results in students repeating what the teacher says when the teacher was actually doing a recast. However, for the adult class, the learners have the ability to distinguish between recast and repetition whereas in a young learners’ class it would be difficult to determine whether it was a recast or a repetitive utterances. Lyster and Ranta (1997) observed a CBI class and found out that those learners with basic foundation of L2 language will experience lesser recast compared to those lacking of L2 fundamentals. Lochtman (2000) experienced a grammar lesson for PSLL resulted little uptake. Slimani (1992), however found out that recasts that went unnoticed were the ones that have no metalanguage and requires no continuous involvement of the students. Havranek (1999) conducted a test beyond uptake and she found out that recasts were not linked to accurate performance but explicitly focused feedback does influence that learners performance. Seedhouse (1997) observation concluded that teachers are reluctant to tell their students about the errors that the students had made thus making it difficult for the students to know whether their utterances were accurate or not. 4. Landmark experimental studies Carroll and Swain (1993) found out that a group of learners with immediate feedback performed better than a control group of recalling session. Long, Inagaki and Ortega (1998) concluded that recast is more
effective for short term corrective session compared to the model group but the same approach does not seem to be working for L1 acquisition. Mackey and Philp (1998) found out that intensive recast only benefited those at the moderate level which proves that recast only works when the learners have reach certain developmental readiness stage. Leeman (2000) argued that the success of a recast was because of enhanced salience rather than implicit negative evidence. Doughty and Varela (1998) investigate the corrective recasting and found out that systematic corrective recasting really benefited learners more compared to less systematic recast in terms of developmental progress, accuracy, and frequency of use.
