Insights from Penny Ur’s IATEFL 2023 talk in lieu of a proper conference report
Few people in the industry can make research sound sexy the way Penny Ur and Scott Thornbury can. But it’s probably only the now retired Penny Ur who can get away with a conference session entitled Interesting recent research and the blurb that goes:
“One of the advantages of being retired but still involved in ELT is that one has more time to browse through recent books and journals in search of interesting research studies. In this session, I’ll share some of the ones I’ve found on a variety of topics…”
Penny Ur started her session with some caveats: not all the research is applicable or practicable for the classroom while not everything that goes on in the classroom is supported by research – a sentiment she has often expressed elsewhere.
After defining what is meant by recent (the last 5-10 years) and what is considered interesting (what she personally finds interesting), in what followed Penny Ur bombarded the audience with highlights of no less than 30 research studies – all in under 25 minutes! I doubt that any blogger reporting from the conference could keep up with the barrage, except for, perhaps, Sandy Millin1. And, as you can see, I have also been fired with enthusiasm to report on this session – my only write-up from IATEFL 2023.
- Age and language learning
- L1 in the language classroom
- Oral corrective feedback
- Inferencing meaning from context
- The flipped classroom
- The use of pictures
Age and language learning
The results of the Barcelona Age Effect (BAF) project, a longitudinal study reported in Muñoz (2006), show that in a typical foreign language setting such as a primary/secondary school, where time is limited, age does not afford the same advantages as it does in a naturalistic language learning setting. Contrariwise, older learners (teenagers) may fare better.
In a review of research on the age factor, Muñoz and Singleton (2010) lament the fact that other factors contributing to learner success have been largely ignored. Among these are the learners' motivation, attitudes, affiliation with the L2 and, perhaps most importantly, the amount of exposure and quality of input. The kind of learning child learners are better at - implicit learning - requires vast amounts of exposure. Unfortunately, in a school setting with a couple of classes a week, exposure is woefully insufficient making it difficult for children to leverage implicit learning mechanisms.
In their recent paper, Lightbrown and Spada (2020) – "I would read anything by them", said Penny, "because they are very sensible” – argue against two common foreign language learning misconceptions: "start as early as possible" and "use only L2". They conclude that "studies in schools settings around the world have failed to find long-term advantages [ultimate attainment] for an early start or exclusive use of the L2 in the classroom". But before we move on to the latter topic, here are some personal reflections.
Further thoughts and practical implications
Check out also this popular article by Florence Myles, a researcher
from the University of Essex (like Penny Ur would read anything by Lightbrown and
Spada, I’d read anything by Florence Myles), which I often use on my teacher-training courses as an introduction to the 'younger is better' debate.
The use of L1
two groups of adult beginners learning Spanish. Although both groups made progress
in their Spanish proficiency – measured through speaking and writing tests – the class where the use of L1 was not discouraged
outperformed the one that stuck to the target language only. The authors argue for a principled use of L1, not only as a last resort (when all else fails), but for, among others, the following functions:
- procedural communication
- establishing or
maintaining control of the group - reducing anxiety
- explicit
focus on grammatical and vocabulary
Promoting the use of L1 may seem easier in EFL contexts but is perfectly feasible in ESL contexts as well, as described in Menken
and Sanchez’s (2019) study conducted in New York. Several public schools offering courses in ENL (English as a New Language – an updated term for ESL) implemented
translanguaging pedagogy – bringing students’ home language into class discussions,
developing multilingual literacy strategies etc. The study found that translanguaging
can not only serve as a scaffolding tool for learning English, but result in transformative
changes for the school as a whole by empowering minority students and offering them better opportunities for academic advancement.
I found less convincing Lee’s (2018) study, in which low-proficiency students in Korea were encouraged to write essays in L1 first, before translating them into English. But I was pleasantly surprised by Scheffler and Butzkamm's (2019) defence of bilingual drills, in which a teacher gives prompts in L1 (German and Polish in the present study) and students respond in English, drawing on usage-based approaches to L2 acquisition. "Surprised" because in the past Scheffler was quite critical of usage-based theories (see, for example, his debate with Christian Jones in ELT Journal) and "pleasantly" because one of the suggested drills in the article uses Katie Melua’s song If you were a sailboat. Drills don’t have to be be boring and mechanical – Schefller and Butzamp show that bilingual drills can be used not only for the manipulation of structures, but also for the manipulation of ideas and induce positive emotions in learners.
Further thoughts and practical implications
Oral corrective feedback
Further thoughts and practical implications
References
1 Sandy Millin, a teacher trainer and author, is a very prolific blogger↩
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