Session Information
ERG SES D 04, Foreign Language Education
Paper Session
Contribution
As the title suggests, in our work we deal with psycholinguistic characteristics of oral production, we investigate the mental processes and fundamentals which create the bacground responsible for the creation of overt speech. There are many different parameters to be observed in someone´s oral production, but the one which is most notably recognized even by laymen is oral fluency. The concept of oral fluency is directly connected to the mental processes running in our brain, since it is the way these underlying processes cooperate together - how fast they do so, how well the system is organized or restructured in order to perfom more effectively. Our investigation and research activiy is based on the Skill Acquisition theory suggesting two important inputs into our problem. Firstly, the theory offers characteristics to be fulfilled if we want to consider certain activity a skill, e.g. goal-directed behaviour, hierarchical organization, involves selection and evaluation, non-stereotyped outputs. According to Johnson (1996), natural language used by humans fulfills all these criteria - it is legitimate to consider the act of using a language as performing a skill, in particular, cognitive skill. Secondly, the theory also suggests the principles of knowledge building and knowledge representation, which are crucial factors for increasing the ability to communicte fluently. In Anderson´s revisited ACT theory (Anderson, 2003), differentiating between declarative and procedural knowledge, together with making the underlying mental processes of a certain skill (in our case oral production) automatic, helps the foreign language methodology to become more focused on the learners´ processes of language learning by postulating important quesions and giving the anwers at the same time.
Recently, it was found (Lojová, 2001; Hlava, 2012) that the methodology applied in secondary grammar schools in Slovakia is oriented on factual knowledge - declarative knowledge about ´how the language works´. Thus, students are mostly captivated in the circulation of ´the rule of the day´ presentation, its verbalising and exercising it in highly controlled manner. However, this kind of knowledge building is based predominantly on the declarative systems which are under our conscious controll, which means that in order to produce the language, we need to pay our attention predominantly to structure building processes. Hence, the area of lexis (which is naturally of declarative character (Levelt, 1989, 1999)) and other important parameters of the process of communication (sociolinguistic, pragmatic aspects) get no space to be judged, created or implemented to the process. This is so due to high cognitive requirements of creating the language production ´on-line´ through the conscious attention. The main difference between the first and second language lies in the first language being processed automatically. As such, we need to implement the psycholinguistic and methodological concepts supporting the procedural knowledge (´knowing how´) building (Lojová 2011a) into the teaching process.
The objective of the study is to find out whether the application of the psycholocical and methodological concepts suggested by Lojová (2011a) will increase the efficiency of gaining the fluency in English language oral production of secondary grammar schools students in Slovakia.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
BADDELEY, A.D., GATHERCOLE, S.E. 2009. Working memory and language. New York : Psychology Press, 266 s. ISBN 978-0-86377-289-4 DeKEYSER, R. 2006. Implicit and explicit learning. In: DOUGHTY, C.J., LONG, M.H. 2006. The handbook of SLA. s. 313-348. Oxford : Blackwell, 888 s. ISBN 978-1-4051-3281-7 DeKEYSER, R. 2011. Cognitive-psychological processes in second language learning. In: DOUGHTY, C.J., LONG, M.H. 2011. The handbook of language teaching. s. 119-138. Oxford : Blackwell, 803 s. ISBN 978-1-4051-5489-5 GARMAN, M. 2000. Psycholinguistics. Cambridge : CUP, 512 s. ISBN 0-521-27641-1 HLAVA, T. Increasing the efficiency of teaching English grammar in secondary education: Masters thesis. Bratislava: UK, 2012. 75s JOHNSON, K. 1996. Language Teaching and Skill Learning. Oxford : Blackwell, 198 s. ISBN 0-631-16877-X KORMOS, J. 2009. Speech production and second language acquisition. Routledge. 221 p. ISBN 0-8058-5658-7 LEVELT, W. J. J. 1999. Language production: A blueprint of the speaker. In C. Brown and P. Hagoort (Eds.), Neurocognition of language (pp. 83-122). Oxford, England: OUP LOJOVÁ, G. Psychologické aspekty učenia sa a osvojovania gramatiky angličtiny ako cudzieho jazyka: Doctoraô dissertation thesis. Bratislava: UK BA, 2001.187p. LOJOVÁ, G. 2008. Psycholingvistická báza kvalitatívnych cieľov ako východisková pozícia pri zavádzaní výučby cudzieho jazyka do primárneho vzdelávania In: Inovácie a trendy vo vyučovaní cudzích jazykov u žiakov mladšieho školského veku. Nitra: UKF, 2008. s. 26-37. ISBN 978-80-8094-417-9 LOJOVÁ, G. 2011a. Teória a prax vyučovania gramatiky cudzích jazykov. Bratislava : Monitor Promotion, 113 s. ISBN 978-80-89328-53-6 LOJOVÁ, G. 2011. Individuálne osobitosti pri učení sa cudzích jazykov I. 2. vyd. Bratislava : Univerzita Komenského, 197 s. ISBN 978-80-223-2983-5 SEGALOWITZ, N. 2010. Cognitive bases of second language fluency. NY: Routledge. 220 p. ISBN 978-0-8058-5662-0 TAYLOR, J.R. 2007. Cognitive grammar. Oxford : OUP, 621 s. ISBN 978-0-19-870033-3 TOWEL , R., HAWKINS, R. , BAZERGUI, N. 1996. The development of fluency in advanced learners of French. Applied linguistics, 17, 84-119.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.