Preview: Chapter 4 (Miyung)

Chapter 4: The Linguistic Environment

Nick provided an overview of the chapter 4. I will illustrate some topics and issues that I would like to share for class discussions.

1) The Role of the Linguistic Environment

Would having positive attitudes toward the L2 and ideal environmental conditions itself lead to mastery of L2?

The story of Wes (Schmidt, 1983) offers a clear example of the selective impact that the linguistic environment brings to L2 learning. Interestingly, despite his positive attitudes towards the L2 and abundant (& meaningful) opportunities to interact with native speakers, Wes made minimal progress in L2 grammar (e.g., verb tense, plurals) over the 3 years of his stay in Hawaii, whereas his sociolinguistic and strategic competence dramatically improved. Wes was able to describe and joke in rather sophisticated ways with interlocutors. However, he seemed to neither incorporate more precise expressions offered by interlocutors into his utterances nor ask his interlocutors metalinguistic questions about idiomatic appropriateness. Based on his study on Wes, Schmidt (1983) concluded that grammar cannot be successfully acquired unless the learner pays careful attention to the language code (see noticing & attention hypothesis).

Given this finding, do you believe that focus on form is necessary for L2 grammar acquisition? If so, how can attentional focus on form be achieved? Is explicit instruction the only solution? How can learners, like Wes, self enhance their capacity to attend to the formal details in the linguistic input they receive from the L2 environment?

2) Relationship between the Context, L1 speakers, and L2 learners

Should learners be immersed in a L2-speaking country in order to learn their L2 more effectively?

In my knowledge, an increasing number of Korean parents send their children to an English-speaking country to help their children learn English more effectively. They seem to believe that living and being immersed in the L2 speaking community will naturally and certainly provide meaningful input as well as plentiful opportunities to use the language with native speakers. A neglected consideration here is that just physically being closer to the L2 target society and its members doesn't necessarily mean that the learners are given with the full potential linguistic benefits. As Lindemann (2002) points out, some native speakers, (probably people with no experience living in another culture and language), may hold negative attitudes towards interacting with nonnative speakers, and these reluctant attitudes may influence the processes and outcomes of interactions. In addition, L2 learners with introvert personality may not be comfortable with taking risks and approaching L2 speakers out there to initiate conversations with them.

I believe interaction is a personal experience, and each person may undergo whole different experiences, although they may be in the same L2 learning context with the same conversation partners. What language learning come out of such interaction can vary from person to person, from context to context, and from moment to moment. Successful interpersonal communication involves a lot more than just using the same language; it takes interlocutors' sense of self and others as well as willingness to build a mutual understanding of one another.

I'm wondering how L2 learning environment was like when you just moved to a foreign country. Were you able to be part of the L2 society and build relationships with its members? What was your imagined L2 community before going there and how was it different from your initial impression? Did you feel secure to experiment with your L2 with the members of L2 community?

3) Learner Autonomy and Environment

Cognitive-interactionists' work on the linguistic environment offers important implications for language teachers.

First of all, I believe that there is a major role for the teacher to play, in terms of helping learners to take full advantages of the rich linguistic environment that surrounds them. Especially, in ESL context where learners have more exposure to the target language and speakers, why wouldn't the teacher teach learners HOW they can work on their English outside the classroom ON THEIR OWN (instead of emphasizing the forms and idioms isolated from the context)?

Of course, teachers are responsible for preparing for their lessons and go over their teaching materials, however, the teacher and textbooks are just one of the sources of the language learning. Classroom instruction should not be the end of language learning for students. Students should be encouraged to take what they have learned in class to outside the classroom and make the content more useful and meaningful to their goals and personal lives.

If the environmental components truly contribute to L2 learning (acculturated attitudes, comprehensible input, negotiated interaction, etc), shouldn't we also think about how to help learners to connect to the community and maximize their opportunities to speak the language and listen to others? One task I can think of right now might be having learners to conduct research about their own L2 community and its culture independently and develop their own opinions. They can do this by interviewing with community members, reading/analyzing community newspapers, and visiting different places and stores, along with taking field notes. Each person or a group of pair can work on this task, organize their findings, and report back to the class.

To me, an important part of language teaching is to equip students with the tools and strategies necessary to learn on their own, so that later on, students do not have to rely much on the instruction or the teacher. What are your thoughts on this?