Language Awareness and Grammar Teaching in Mother Tongue Education Jo達o Costa (FCSH-UNL) Brussels, February 2012
Goal • To relate goals in the teaching of mother tongue with the contributions from research in language development.
Outline 1. Teaching grammar: some goals 2. Implicit grammatical knwoledge in school age children: Contribution from some studies in L1 acquisition. 3. Implications for teaching and teacher training.
Mother tongue teaching • Portuguese context - (CNEB and) Sim-Sim, Duarte e Ferraz (1997): Explicit knowledge of language is a core skill in mother tongue teaching. • This proposal is further supported by the 2009 syllabus.
Grammar teaching • Advantages of grammar teaching have been documented in several studies (Duarte (1992, 1997, 2000), Sim-Sim (1995), Hudson (2001), among others. • In Portugal, it is known that grammar has not been taught/learnt. A couple of studies indicate causes and consequences for this state of affairs. (Delgado Martins et al. 1987, Duarte 1996, Costa 2007, among others).
Reasons to teach grammar Duarte (2008):
Instrumental goals Attitudinal goals General and specific cognitive goals
Mother tongue teaching • Sim-Sim, Duarte e Ferraz (1997): “[Compete à escola] contribuir para o crescimento linguístico de todos os alunos, estimulando-lhes o desenvolvimento da linguagem e promovendo a aprendizagem das competências que não decorrem do processo natural de aquisição”. (p.35)
Mother tongue teaching • Sim-Sim, Duarte e Ferraz (1997): “[Compete à escola] contribuir para o crescimento linguístico de todos os alunos, estimulando-lhes o desenvolvimento da linguagem e promovendo a aprendizagem das competências que não decorrem do processo natural de aquisição”. (p.35)
What is presupposed • Conscious intervention implies knowing: a) what language growth is; b) Degree of linguistic development of students; c) Difference between those skills that follow from the natural acquisition path and those that have to be explicitly taught; d) Grammar teaching as developmental activities.
Costa, Lobo and Silva (2008) Reis (2008) Friedmann and Costa (2010, 2010a) Ambulate and Costa (2010) Costa and Lobo (2009, 2010) Cerejeira (2009, 2010) (+ several ongoing dissertations)
Relative clauses Subject relatives: Gostava de ser o menino que come gelado. Object relatives: Gostava de ser o menino que o av么 encontra.
Relative clauses Subject relative
Gostava de ser o menino que come gelado. Structure: - Complex. - With movement. - Preserving the canonical order.
Object relative
Gostava de ser o menino que o av么 encontra. Structure: - Complex. - Without movement. - Not preserving canonicity.
Development of relative clauses • Vasconcelos (1991): relative clauses are acquired early, but there are problems in its parsing/comprehension. • Friedmann (2003): there are asymmetries between subject and object in comprehension and production. • Question: what’s children’s knowledge of relativs by the time they enter school?
Relative clause production • Costa, Lobo and Silva (2008/2011): Adaptation of preference task by Friedmann (2003), in accordance with the strategy of project COST-A33 “Crosslinguistically Robust Stages of Language Acquisition”. • Participants: 60 children between 3;9 and 6;2 (average 5;2) from Lisbon.
Group result 100%
78%
80%
60%
31%
40%
20%
0% TOTAL relativas SUJEITO
TOTAL relativas OBJECTO
Individual results 10 9 8 7 6
5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960
Reis (2008): relatives in writing task 100 80 60
Subject relatives Object relatives
40 20
0 3rd grade
5th grade
8th grade
Alternatives to the production of object relatives - Gap filling: “Gostava de ser o menino que o avô encontra o menino” “Gostava de ser o menino que o avô encontra-o”
Alternatives to the production of object relatives - Transformation into subject relative: “Gostava de ser o menino que encontra o avô” - Non answer: “Gostava de ser o menino que… é muito difícil, não consigo dizer” (G., 5 year old)
Relative clause comprehension Picture selection task.
Mostra-me o hipop贸tamo que seca o menino. Mostra-me o hipop贸tamo que o menino seca. 35 children between 4 and 6 (average 5;4)
Results 97%
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
61%
Sujeito
Objecto
Conclusions • School age children do not master relative clauses in a stable manner. • Problems are only to be found with object relatives, not with subject relatives. • Problems are not related to the existence of complex sentences or containing movement, but rather in production of word order changes (see Cerdeira (2007) and Ferreira (2008) for different results with agrammatic patients).
Nature of the problem • Other studies confirm the idea that intervention of the subject between the object and the base position is problematic.
Objeto …… Sujeito ……………. ____
Cerejeira (2009) • Test on wh-questions (production and comprehension). • Participants: 60 children aged between 3;9 and 5;11
Method for production Interrogativa de sujeito com verbo reversível 1. Apresentação do desenho
2. Estímulo: “Alguém está a molhar o menino. Eu quero saber quem! Pergunta ao Pinóquio!”
3. Apresentação do desenho
Pergunta alvo: Quem é que está a molhar o menino?
Interrogativa de objecto com verbo reversível 1. Apresentação do desenho
2. Estímulo: “O pai está a molhar alguém. Eu quero saber quem! Pergunta ao Pinóquio!” Pergunta alvo: Quem é que o pai está a molhar?
3. Apresentação do desenho
Results Interrogativas alvo SR
OR
SI
OI
[3;2 – 3;11]
24/200
12%
5/200
3%
28/200
14%
50/200
28%
[4;1 – 4;11]
151/200
76%
56/200
28%
171/200
86%
144/200
72%
[5;0 – 5;11]
180/200
90%
123/200
62%
187/200
94%
158/200
79%
Comprehension • Cerejeira (2009): - Confirmation of production data; - Asymmetry between object wh-questions (Dlinked and non D-liked.
Movement is not the problem
• Friedmann & Costa (2010): Comprehension task for the following conditions: - Subject relatives - Object relatives - Null subject in coordinate sentence with object in the first conjunct. - Null subject in coordinate sentence without object in the first conjunct.
Method and results • Picture selection
Method and Results • 30 children aged between 4;4 and 5;11
Problem is not the interpretation of “null positions” • Ambulate and Costa (2010), Silva (in prep.) Better interpretation of null subjects than lexical subjects: O Shrek disse ao Noddy que ___ está cansado. O Shrek disse ao Noddy que ele está cansado.
Problem is not in the interpretation of “null positions” • Costa and Lobo (2009, 2010): Target intepretation of null objects (though not in reflexive contexts)
Example of test item
Condition: null object
Vamos ver o que é que o Rui fez ao cão. Olha! Mergulhou na piscina!
Problems last in cases of impairment • José (2011): Object reversible questions are the only difficult ones for SLI children. • Fonseca (2011): Object relative clauses are the ones causing difficulties for SLI children. • Costa and Friedmann (2010a), Mangas (2011): Object relative clauses yield greater difficulties to hearing impaired children. • Barragon (em prep.): interpretation of null subjects as critical criterion for bilingualism and SLI.
Conclusions • At the onset of schooling, children have difficulties in dealing with syntactic dependencies of the type O S __ • Syntactic dependencies may be a marker of problems in language development. • Loureiro (in prep.): ongoing research on language awareness in different moments of “school growth”.
Recall… • Sim-Sim, Duarte and Ferraz (1997): “[Compete à escola] contribuir para o crescimento linguístico de todos os alunos, estimulando-lhes o desenvolvimento da linguagem e promovendo a aprendizagem das competências que não decorrem do processo natural de aquisição”. (p.35)
Language growth • We’ve observed that syntactic dependencies, in particular object relatives, are linguistic domain for which no steady knowledge is attained at the onset of school years. • School has the task of promoting linguistic growth. • School has the task of promoting activities that make it possible to exercize syntactic dependencies.
Stimulation • Being aware of the fact that not all dependencies are alike (there are subject-object asymmetries) makes us understand that reading and writing activities are richer if the involve structures that promote growth. • A pedagogical work guided towards the development of language awareness (Sim-Sim 1997) on unproblematic structures should come before the work on structures that are subject to late acquisition.
Where does explicit grammar come in? • For the sucess of these processes, metalanguage is needed: - So the teacher knows what to work on; - For the establishment of generalizations and rules; - For consulting supporting materials. Labels and categories are, therefore, a tool and not the goal of grammar teaching.
Implications for teacher training • -
Solid background on: Properties of adult grammar; Language development; Grammar teaching as developmental activities; Criteria for tracing developmental problems.
One example: Relevance of grammar teaching for promoting literacy
Starting point • Reading – crucial skill for all knwoledge. Access to information
Aesthetical sense
Citizenship
Reading
Values
Culture
Reading • The good reader: - Enjoys reading - Read a lot - Reads quickly - Reads efficiently (interpreting what he reads)
Reading is needed for all other skills • READING is needed for all knowledge: - Skill used for the development of knowledge in all areas. Exclusive of READING?
Skills in Mother Tongue Reading Writing Oral production Oral comprehension Grammar
Oral (Comprehension and Production) • Condition of success for situations like: - Complaint - Job interview - Expression of feelings/symptoms - Sucess in communicative interaction ‌
Writing • Condition of success for situations like: - Job application - Exposing professional situation - Invitation …
Grammar • Condition of success for situations like: - Reflexion for use - Understanding and accepting variation - Linguistic self-confidence (Duarte 2008)
Reading
Grammar
Oral Comprehension
Writing
Oral Production
• Relations between reading and grammar • Reading involves: DECODING INTERPRETING RELATING (Martins & Niza 1998)
Decoding and graphic representation
Phonology • Strong predictive relations between work on phonological awareness and reading skills (e.g. J. Morais 1994).
Morphology IM-POSSIBIL-IDADE IN-VISIBIL-IDADE IN-CAPAC-IDADE I-MORTAL-IDADE
PENSA-DOR FUMA-DOR LAVA-DOR BRINCA-DOR
Morphological analysis enables sustained reflection about the shape of words and the anticipation of meanings (e.g. Carslile 1995)
Lexicon • Duarte (2008): Factores sócio-económicos
Conhecimento prévio
Domínio do português padrão
Ensino explícito do léxico
Capital lexical
Volume de leituras
Compreensão de leitura
Produção escrita
Syntax • A. Costa (2005) • Examples: - Reading of non-canonical orders; - Reading of complex sentences. - Relevance for oriented READING! - Great interaction with psycholinguistic processes associated to READING.
Semantics • Santos (2002): retrieval of the antecedent of pronouns. • Ana Costa (2010): comprehension of contrast with different connectors. • Costa, Lobo and Silva (2011), Costa, Grillo and Lobo (2012): comprehension of object relative clauses.
Text • PISA: - Good reader reads different GENRES efficiently. • Coutinho (2003, 2006, 2009), among others: - Textual clues make it possible to differentiate GENRES (register markers, subjectivity markers, etc.) • Reading text and hypertext.
Paratext • Anticipation of reading hypotheses conditioned by paratextual aspects: - Text display; - Images (Baptista, Luegi, Faria and Costa 2010); - Support. …
Context • Context, reference may be important (they certainly constrain reading, but not all of them are crucial).
Relevance for teaching • CREATION OF EFFICIENT READERS implies: - Solid work enabling development of language awareness. - READING develops through reading, but also through GRAMMAR.
Relevance for teaching • CREATION OF EFFICIENT READERS implies: - Managing intervention towards performance. - Linguistic criteria in the selection of text (not just thematic or traditional). - Clear dissociation between teaching to read and “animation” of reading.
I enjoy reading
I am able to read
• Cross-sectional dimention of mother tongue skills is more efficient if each skill plays a CORE role in the organization of learning.
General conclusion • Children know grammar, but their grammaticl knowledge is not fully attained by the time they enter school. • School must be aware of the real capacities of childre in order to be able to act efficiently. • Mother tongue teaching benefits from information in grammar teaching, if it is based on the stimulation of linguistic skills and language awareness.
Acknowledgments: Project “Syntactic Dependencies from 3 to 10” (PTDC/CLE-LIN/099802/2008) Schools and children who participated in the experiments.