Thursday, December 15, 2016

Some common areas of misunderstanding of the GPA (or under-understanding); thank you Kelsey Arabic Program

Someone called my attention to an article on the web page of a language school—The Kelsey Arabic Program:

http://kelseyarabicprogram.org/program-details/curriculum/why-our-arabic-program-is-not-a-gpa-program/

The article is called

"Why Our Arabic Program Is Not a GPA Program". 

It made me feel like writing a FAQ article, but I'll start with the questions they raise.

1) Do language schools need to justify not following the GPA?
No. It is good to have a variety of language schools. That should lead to steady, healthy innovation. When schools have desired a monopoly in a country or region it has caused frustration or grief both to the administration and to the clients.

At the end of the article we read, "We appreciate that GPA advocates have introduced new ideas to the language learning discussion, and we wish success for those who take advantage of the services of GPA programs..." I appreciate this gracious spirit, and likewise appreciate all that the Kelsey School has contributed for generations and with success for those who take advantage of the Kelsey services.

2) How is the relationship between first and second language learning viewed within the GPA? 
A growing participator following the GPA is not "learning language like a child". The child is developing mental comprehension and production processes that will be deeply entrenched in the same person as a "second language learner". The Kelsey article mentions the differences in the social context of children and adults, which we would also emphasize. This is not to say that we should ignore child language learning. If nothing else, it contributes to our overall understanding of language. Child language learning helps to create the cognitive and social context of adult language learning. Someone once said that the L1 is the initial state of the L2.

(The 1989 "Fundamental Difference Hypothesis" mentioned in the Kelsey article is not relevant in the approach to linguistics--usage-based, frequency-driven associative learning, etc.--taken in the GPA. In fact, in a 2009 SSLA article, Bley-Vroman--the originator of the "Fundamental Difference Hypothesis" --rejects his earlier "Universal Grammar"-based notion, and turns to conceptions  similar to the ones we embrace in the GPA.)

3) Is the GPA a "naturalistic language learning method"? 
No. By "naturalistic second language learning" is meant simply participating as best one can in the life of a host group and not attending language classes or using any structured program or plan. In the GPA we call naturalistic language learning "lifestyle growing participation". We contrast that with "special-growth participation". We have a program for 1,500 hours (or more) of these latter activities. This is definitely not a case of "naturalistic language learning".

4) Does the GPA have anything to do with Krashen?
Little. There is a tradition in SLA research starting with Krashen and sometimes called "Input-Interaction-Output" approaches.  After Krashen's Monitor Model, which originated in the late 1970s, the line of research was extended by many, including his student Michael Long, and Merrill Swain, Susan Gass, Alison Mackey, and many others. I think Bill VanPatten's theory would be counted as being in this tradition. These approaches are more broadly in the "Interlanguage Tradition" coming from Larry Selinker (early 1970s), and before him, Pit Corder (late 1960s). These are cognitivist traditions, in which what goes on in the head is taken to be the subject matter of second language acquisition research. The social context is acknowledged as being there, and may be a source of some independent variables for research, but is not a locus of the process of interest! The GPA, on the other hand, though it has a serious cognitive dimension, that dimension is different from what is found in "rule-based" (or parameters-based) understandings of language. The GPA actually takes its sociocultural dimension (starting with Vygotsky as interpreted by Wertsch) as the conceptual starting point. And the GPA's cognitive dimension is not concerned with rules but with processes of comprehension and production. As to the issue of grammatical form, we follow "usage-based" accounts, such as those of Joan Bybee (one of my teachers) and Adele Goldberg.

5) Does the GPA "derives much of its theory and techniques" from the Krashen-Terrell Natural Approach?
No, not really. Phase 1 special-growth-participation activities involve a lot of TPR, but I learned the use of TPR directly from James Asher's writings. The Natural Approach held that as long as the input is comprehensible for everyone in a class, it would provide enough i+1 input for everyone's needs. Asher by contrast built specific grammatical patterns (input floods, in fact) into the TPR. One thing that does sound Krashenesque in our First 100 Hours program is our use of the phrase "silent phase" for the special-growth activities of the first thirty to forty hours of Phase 1. I now regret having used their phrase.

I will admit that when I personally discovered SLA in the early 1980s (through a visit to the UCLA bookstore) Krashen was a ubiquitous name and very influential. However, I soon read challenges to him, such as a book by Rod Ellis, and in any case, I never accepted his Input Hypothesis. I felt that comprehensible input was central to the development of comprehension ability, but I observed the phenomenon of "receptive bilingualism" (say, with children of immigrants) and saw that it falsified Krashen's hypothesis that listening alone could produce speaking ability. In any case, even if Phase 1 special-growth activities do remind some people of the Natural Approach, that criticism would only apply to the first 100 hours out of 1500 hours. That would be 7% of the total plan. That hardly counts as "much of its theories and techniques" of the GPA.

6) What about "other language skills" apart from "vocabulary acquisition" "in the early stages of GPA"?
We have a strong emphasis on vocabulary all the way through, aiming for a comprehension vocabulary of over ten thousand words by the time of Phase 6. In Phases 1 through 5, the vocabulary is mainly experienced in the context of larger patterns--questions, instructions, descriptions, stories, abstract explanations, etc. (depending on the phase) in interactive contexts in particular.

7) What about "Formation of complete, formally accurate sentences"?
Regardless of the approach, when foreigners are interacting in the host language in everyday situations, they have a high incidence of non-native-like utterances. "Formation of complete, formally accurate sentences" is more possible in controlled settings, but not so much in normal life. The "G" in "GP" is key to us. In all phases we depend on "assisted performance" (or we like to say, "assisted participation") including recasting and interactive alignment, along with "focus on form" (in Michael Long's sense that contrasts with "focus on formS"), input and output flooding, and structured-input activities in which a particular formal feature that seems to be getting blocked (in Nick Ellis' sense) is made task-essential and the GPs start hearing and understanding it. We follow certain principles in these activities that work well for us. We also encourage regular use of "record yourself for feedback".

8) What about "explicit instruction on the structure of" the language.
If this refers to the popular "three PPP's" pattern (present, practice, produce) it doesn't fit into the GPA narrative. The activities mentioned in response to question 7 above can make formal features highly salient, and the task-essentialness of the formal features can be seen as a fostering "guided induction". In Lightbown and Spada's terms, we do not try to "get it right from the beginning," and we recognize that most won't even "get it right in the end." Thus we emphasize comprehensibility and intelligibility rather than nativelikeness, and aim to grow into Phase 6, where we continue growing, rather than plateauing after an earlier Phase.

9) Are the programs using GPA comprehensive in their approach?
We feel the GPA is comprehensive, including the special-growth-participation activities. We have a saying, "We don't do language, we do people—and people talk a lot". Human reality is discursive, and each languacultural world lives by it's own symbolic meditational means. That demands a comprehensive approach. Not only do we include 500 hours of deep-life-conversation activities (nee: deep-life interviewing) in Phase 4, but add another 500 hours of "widening understanding" conversations in Phase 5, centred around a growing corpus of native-to-native recordings.

10) What about literacy?
Certainly graphic representations of speech ("writing") have played an enormous role  development of human life. We say it is the most important of all inventions. Growing participation, in the GPA sense, is not "learning the language" but rather, being nurtured and apprenticed more and more deeply and broadly into the practices of a people group (with verbal interaction as much of the warp and woof of their practices, of course). Suppose that in a particular group, literacy practices are nearly universal. Then GPs who are being thoroughly nurtured and apprenticed into that world will be nurtured into its literacy practices (and oracy practices), which also implies using reading and writing for the functions that reading and writing have for host people. If literacy is more of a specialist ability in a group, then some GPs will grow into literacy if they are participating in particular, literate specialist groups. In any case, the major factors in determining reading ability for adults becoming literate in a host world are 1) their overall "proficiency" and 2) their level of reading ability in their home language. Reading ability is developed through extensive reading (and in a diglossic situation, conversations about what is read). Writing ability will be founded on reading ability, and also developed through extensive practice, interaction and feedback. Different host peoples' different literacy-related practices mean that people following the GPA will not have one approach to literacy for all languacultural worlds. Each strategy needs to be well-thought-out and left open to rethinking.

11) What about professional, trained teachers?
Host people who have chosen language teaching as their profession and have persisted in it, are likely to enjoy working with foreigners. Professional, trained teachers may or may not be nurturers. Many non-teachers who were trained to be nurturers end up reverting to being teachers (as they understand the teacher role) and not nurturers.  One problem with trained teachers, though, is that with the GPA we are asking them to learn new skills and attitudes of nurturing, and experienced teachers may have strong beliefs about their role that clash with the GPA philosophy. That doesn't have to be the case, though.

Note, though, that we don't encourage a lot of highly technical discussions of grammar, etc. Rather, we make grammatical features "explicit" in ways that don't divert attention from personal interaction. This means that people without such technical knowledge can be nurturers, even if they don't qualify as teachers.

12) What about a hybrid approach?
A popular phrase is "principled eclecticism". We feel the GPA is eclectic (and informed by a wide range of disciplines). In Phase 1, there is a rich variety of experience--visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, social interactional--and we believe this avoids catering to the preferences of some people over others. In line with the "G" of "GPA", the nature of the special-growth-participation activities changes radically over time. Apart from the special-growth times, the nature of the "lifestyle growing participation" also evolves systematically over time. By Phase 6, all growing participation is lifestyle growing participation.

13) If you "believe [you] have something more effective" than the GPA, should you be "using [the GPA approach]".
No. Do what you believe is more effective. Go for it! Do it well. And "wish success for those of us who take advantage of the services of [other] programs." And that is just what you have done! It's great to be on the same team with people like you!






Monday, July 11, 2016

Three views of what "grammar" is and what it is to "learn grammar"

What I have to say here is related mainly to the Cognitive Dimension of growing participation. Much of what we have taught about the Cognitive Dimension was inspired by the Psychology of Language as a branch of cognitive psychology dealing especially with comprehension and production processes. What I'm emphasizing in this post--viewpoint 3 below, was always there in the background, as I was strongly influenced by Joan Bybee (_Language, Usage and Cognition_, Academic Press, 2010) in my general thinking about grammar. (I was her research assistant for two years.) Viewpoint 1 is closest to the "cultural assumptions" of Euro-Americans, both specialists and ordinary educated people. Viewpoint 2 is inspired by "formal linguistics" which I loved as a young person. I can't say it has had much influence on the GPA, however.

THREE VIEWPOINTS ON “GRAMMAR"
Viewpoint 1) What you learn is objective facts about the language (pedagogical grammar), and then you apply that knowledge in practice until your use of that knowledge in speaking becomes fluentLanguage learning is similar to other kinds of learning.

Viewpoint 2) What you learn is a mental grammar, similar to the mental grammar in the heads  of natives. You keep modifying that grammar as you encounter evidence that your current version (current interlanguage) is wrong. These modifications to your mental grammar are triggered by relatively small amounts of experience, and so they can happen in a short time frame. Language learning is different from other kinds of learning.

Viewpoint 3What you learn is simply an accumulation of unconscious memories that all stay there in your head where they first landed-- a huge number of instances of hearing and understanding something (words, groups of words, more abstract patterns of words) or instances of successfully expressing something in speech using words and patterns. Language learning is similar to other kinds of learning (but neither is like the everyday concept of “learning”).


A BIT MORE ON THE VIEWPOINTS

Viewpoint 1) is strongly “speech-led”. It is about using knowledge of facts to assemble sentences that follow the rules in order to speak those sentences. I think it represents “traditional” concepts (such as the popular PPP, which stands for present, practice, produce). It is not clear where the “correct grammar” with its collection of facts, is to be found in the universe. But this viewpoint also has its more sophisticated advocates, such as Robert Dekeyser. However he himself makes the point that this type of learning has its limits and needs to be accompanied by others. (If you are interested, see Robert Dekeyser, 2015, “Skill Acquisition Theory” in Bill VanPatten and Jessica Williams, eds., Theories in Second Language Acquisition, 2nd ed., Rutledge). Learning, if it happens, shouldn’t take that long, for any given fact of grammar, nor should practice applying that knowledge take very long.

Viewpoint 2) has been the linguists’ favourite. In this view, “evidence” (bits of language you are exposed to) acts as a trigger, and rapid changes take place in the internal grammar. Like viewpoint 1) what is learned is a recipe for assembling sentences. One problem is that theories of grammar have changed a lot, and this viewpoint still works with some theories, but perhaps not with the most influential theories. Still, a very recent article argues for this idea of rapid triggering in “grammar learning” (if anyone is interested--VanPatten, Bill and Smith Megan, 2015. “Aptitude and grammatical sensitivity and the initial stages of learning Japanese as an L2." SSLA, 37, 135–165; but also Bley-Vroman, Robert, 2009,”The evolving context of the fundamental difference hypothesis,” SSLA, 31, 175–198.) You can tell by the word “trigger” that what is learned is assumed to be learned with relatively small amounts of experience (brief amounts of time).

Viewpoint 3) is called “usage based” or “instance based” or (with a difference in emphasis) “construction based” (and other things). The idea is basically that every time you experience a word or a “construction” (which I prefer to call a pattern) and succeed in experiencing it meaningfully, it is stored in your brain. So a construction isn’t something that is learned once through a presentation of it and then reinforced by deliberate repetition until it becomes “known” in long term memory. Rather, the first time a word or pattern is  experienced, it  is “registered” and then every additional time it occurs, the new instance is stored in your head along with all the others.  (If interested, see Ellis,Nick, 2006 "Language Acquisition as Rational Contingency Learning” Applied Linguistics,  27, 1–24.). Viewpoint 3 has important implications for learning “irregularities” (such as how we learn to say “sang” and not “singed”, etc. Maybe we can bring that up again in the future.)

THE GPA VIEWPOINT
Which viewpoint is most in harmony with the GPA? It is viewpoint 3. It says that “fluency” in speech and in host life in general, requires that we experience speech and other aspects of life a vast amount over several years. Besides all the evidence that this is true—that becoming even moderately host-like is a multi-year prospect-- I think this is the safest bet. The first two viewpoints count on a relatively small amount of learning doing the job.  If you really follow the GPA, you won’t risk trying to learn the language based on a small amount of experience! You may recall the GPA emphasis on frequency (in listening, talking, and also in literacy, and life in general) and on familiarity (not to mention the Iceberg Principle). These all relate to viewpoint 3.

If the “facts” of grammar are important to emphasize (viewpoint 1), then the ways we deal with  grammar consciousness raising are no worse than other ways, and arguably better in some ways (thinking of actual research on this topic). For us this mainly involves our activities of structured input, input flooding, output flooding and recored yourself for feedback. In fact Nick Ellis says that the reason some aspects of grammar are never learned by adult language learners (for example, many foreigners never get over saying things like, “My brother live in London” instead of “lives in London”) is that it is impossible for our brains to experience those features (for particular reasons), and thus if one is to start storing large numbers of examples of such constructions in one’s brain one must become consciously aware of them. And that’s what we try to do with such challenging grammatical features: strongly bring them to consciousness. Who knows, but what maybe Nick is right. But the point is, with viewpoints 1 and 2 you stake a lot on the idea that the amount of experience involved in “grammar learning” is relatively small. With viewpoint 3 you assume it is very big. If you were wrong, well, then praise the Lord for your “unnecessary" thousands of hours of connecting with people in relationships since that is what it was supposed to be about anyway! But if you put your trust in viewpoints 1 or 2, doing the implied small amounts of learning, and then it turns out that what is really needed is a massive amount of experience, well, too bad.

There is much more could be said here, but that will be it for now. The GPA favours viewpoint three: Fluency is “usage-based,” based on a “summing” of enormous numbers of similar experiences in memory. It may be necessary to do something special to raise consciousness of features of grammar that just don’t seem to register regardless of the amount of experience. The verdict is still out on that, and so we do those special activities that I mentioned. We also realize that we’ll always sound foreign, and embrace that as part of “the gift of the stranger”. We aim for a high level of understanding and of intelligibility and comprehensibility, rather than native-like-ness

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Check out these video clips

Recently some friends (Thanks!!) produced some video clips to help with the understanding of various types of Phase 1 games found in the guide to the First 100 Hours. There are also clips providing some of the concepts involved in the GPA and in the Phase 1 games. You can find these video clips at the website growingparticipator.com At the current time you'll need the password to get in, and it is mygpajourney. Many people have wanted to use the GPA but never really got going in Phase 1, because the instructions seemed complicated. We trust that such people will now be able to get a strong start, and go on to later Phases as well.