Category: High Leverage Teaching Practices

This week, I responded to a question about the PACE model in one of the Facebook groups to which I belong.

The question was simply to elaborate on the PACE model. So I did. I thought the reply was worth sharing with a wider audience, so I am posting it here as well.

Thanks for your patience. I’m running a day late in getting this posted.

Just as a reminder, the full title of this chapter is “Any Focus on Form Should be Input-Oriented and Meaning-Based”.

Last time (Focus on Form Part 3), we saw that there are two very different perceptions of what Focus on Form means. Glisan and Donato present one that requires purpose and planning, whereas VanPatten presents Focus on Form as being spontaneous, not pre-planned, and not purposeful. For Glisan and Donato, Focus on Form includes a class discussion of the form in a way that seems very reminiscent of a traditional grammar class. For VanPatten, Focus on Form “does not derail the teacher from a primary focus on meaning.” (2017, p. 104) The PACE model is Glisan and Donato’s chosen vehicle for incorporating Focus on Form, whereas VanPatten strongly rejects the PACE model for language acquisition.

Finally, Glisan and Donato include Focus on Form in its pre-planned, purposeful manifestation in their list of HLTPs (High-Leverage Teaching Practices). VanPatten notes that “it is not clear to what extent such events actually ‘speed up’ or ‘help’ acquisition.” (2017, p. 104)

This brings VanPatten and us to a type of “Focus on Form”, the research on which “is very promising”.

That is Structured Input.

Unlike VanPatten’s understanding of “Focus on Form”, Structured Input “requires much more preparation on the part of the teacher, thus is much harder to include in any curriculum.” (2017, p. 105)

We will return to this aspect of Structured Input later. For now, let’s see what it is, the research behind it, its purpose, and how it works in the instructional setting.

Structured Input is part of processing instruction, a pedagogical intervention that VanPatten pioneered in the 1990s. That is, it incorporates strategies for processing language input as an initial stage of acquisition that learners unconsciously use. In simpler terms, processing instruction helps teachers design lessons that use those strategies as support for learners. I think the term is unfortunate because it doesn’t seem to mean that the instructor teaches strategies for processing language, rather the instructor designs a lesson that incorporates the strategies that the learner already uses. An example will make this clearer.

But first, what is “processing”? It is simply linking form and meaning during comprehension. This, of course, takes us into the heart of the acquisition debate. If, as Krashen and VanPatten maintain, acquisition is an unconscious process, then as long as the input is comprehensible (and preferably compelling), the learner will process it by unconsciously linking what is seen or heard to meaning. If, on the other hand, “noticing” is important in acquisition, then drawing learners’ attention to certain aspects of the language can be helpful.

This is where I have difficulties with the entire discussion. Since I accept the research and conclusions presented by Krashen (Comprehensible Input Hypothesis) and VanPatten (language is implicit and abstract and so cannot be learned consciously), I question adopting a practice that “requires much more preparation on the part of the teacher, thus is much harder to include in any curriculum.” (2017, p. 105)

But let’s return to Structured Input.

One of the strategies that learners use to process input (understand the language) is the Lexical Preference Principle. For novice learners, essentially everything is vocabulary. Learners zero in on content words because they carry the greatest meaning and ignore the parts that are “less meaningful” (i.e. provide nuances of meaning for which the learner is not yet prepared to cope), such as time indicators (e.g. tense markers on verbs). Because of lexical preference, lexical time indicators (yesterday, tomorrow, next week, last week, always, later, etc.) can actually interfere with learner acquisition of tense endings. (2017, pp. 105-106)

To overcome lexical preference and help students process tense markers, VanPatten suggests sets of “activities”. He uses lower case to mean simply something that you do during instruction. At the same time, these seem to be Activities (capitalized) in the sense of being only partially communicative and having no communicative purpose beyond “teaching language”. (cf. Van Patten’s discussion in 2017, pp. 83-85) Thus, they seem at odds with VanPatten’s own position on second language acquisition and instruction.

The first activities (Activities) that VanPatten suggests are referential structured input activities. They are input because the learner is trying to understand and does not have to give any output. They are structured “because the input is manipulated to push learners to process something they might miss otherwise.” (2017, p. 106) [This seems rather like the “Noticing Hypothesis” to me, although for VanPatten this “noticing” is not necessarily conscious.] They are referential “because they have an immediate right or wrong answer.” (2017, p. 106)

In the example that VanPatten gives, the activity looks something like this:

The teacher displays three designators of time for each sentence. The designators indicate present, past, and future.

The teacher then reads a sentence with no context and no indication of time. Students choose the time designator they think is appropriate for the sentence.

[This is why I believe this is an Activity. Students must process language in order to do the activity, so it is partially communicative. However, the purpose is to “teach language” rather than communicate.]

The teacher displays two possible reactions to a statement, e.g. follow-up questions.

The teacher reads a statement, and students choose the “correct” response.

For this example, not only do we have the problem with it being an Activity, but VanPatten has chosen an example that is ambiguous. Here it is.

Teacher statement: “My buddy hates tea.”

Student choices:
a. So why does he have it in his kitchen?
b. So why did he order it with lunch?

Do you see the problem? Both responses are equally reasonable in normal conversation. Let me illustrate by providing hypothetical contexts.

The “right answer” is, as we expect, the present-tense response. BVP and I are talking about tea. We have both visited SK and noted that he has a variety of teas in his kitchen. Naturally, he has Earl Grey for BVP, but he also has Assam, English Breakfast, and others. While we’re talking, BVP mentions, “You know that SK hates tea.” My response is, “So why does he have it in his kitchen?” [And the conversation continues.]

BVP, SK, and I go to lunch. At lunch, SK – a notorious coffee drinker – orders tea (probably ice tea). Later, BVP and I are discussing what kinds of tea we like. I might say “Assam, Darjeeling, or Oolong.” BVP, of course, states that he drinks Earl Grey and then adds, “You know that SK hates tea.” My response is, “So why did he order it with lunch?!” [And the conversation continues.]

Both responses are equally “correct”, plausible, and logical from a strictly communicative standpoint. However, since this is a referential structured input activity and has “an immediate right or wrong answer”, the reason for the right answer must be something else – and that reason is grammar. The “correct answer” is “correct” because its tense matches the tense of the prompt.  That’s grammar, and this looks like grammar instruction with the benefit of occurring in the target language. So, it is partially communicative but has the purpose of teaching language.

VanPatten’s other example is equally problematic because the responses are also equally “correct” when using criteria other than matching the tense of the verb. To me, this is a grammar Activity.

Perhaps I am missing something here and someone else sees it. If so, I would welcome comments and corrections.

VanPatten has a great deal more to say on the subject, but we will stop here for now. Thanks for reading.

Today we take a look at Tasks themselves.

Tasks are the theme of this chapter in Bill VanPatten’s book While We’re On the Topic. The full title of the chapter is “Tasks Should Form the Backbone of the Communicative Curriculum”.

Obviously, VanPatten considers tasks not simply important but integral and central to Contemporary Language Teaching / Communicative Language Teaching. Of course, VanPatten does not mean the “Communicative Method” as it is often (mis)understood and practiced, i.e. Present – Practice – Perform.

To understand how Tasks can form the backbone of a curriculum, as well as why they should, we have to know what Tasks are. VanPatten provides a definition of Tasks, gives examples of Tasks, and contrasts Tasks with Activities and Exercises to help us understand what he means. He begins with the following statements about tasks:

Tasks are the quintessential communicative event in contemporary language teaching.

Tasks involve the expression and interpretation of meaning.

Tasks have a purpose that is not language practice.

The rest of the chapter is an elaboration, examination, and justification of those statements. At that, VanPatten does not address all possible Tasks or even all possible kinds of Tasks. He limits the discussion to those he considers best in contemporary language classes, admitting that he has a bias as a university professor.

The first Task that VanPatten presents is one he calls “At What Age?” It consists of three steps:
1. Write down at what age a person typically does certain activities. (A list of activities follows.)
2. Interview someone in class; ask the person the questions and write down the response.
3. Class discussion follows. The instructor polls the class about the answers students gave, has students aggregate the answers, and then introduces additional information from the most recent US census.

The second Task is called “For Your Instructor” and is for more advanced students. It, too, consists of three steps:
1. Students receive a sheet of paper with sentence frames to provide information to the professor about fellow students.
2. Students create questions to elicit the information requested. If they need help, they may ask the instructor. Whereas the “At What Age?” Task is intended for beginning learners and is highly scaffolded in the language area, this one requires students to create their own questions.
3. Students interview one another and write down the answers to provide information to the instructor.

What makes these Tasks? They contain the expression and interpretation of meaning, and there is a communicative purpose other than “to practice language”. In both cases, the purpose is cognitive-informational.

Although someone might focus on certain surface similarities – in both instances, students are asking (and answering) questions – the purpose and communicative element are entirely different for the Tasks as compared to the Exercises originally given. (See last week’s post.)

The Exercises do not focus on the interpretation and expression of meaning. In fact, as I noted last week, in the “Est-ce que …?” Exercise, meaning is utterly irrelevant and may, in fact, be a hindrance to the successful accomplishment of the exercise.

The purpose of the Exercises is to practice language.

This, then, is the difference between a Task and an Exercise:

A Task requires the expression and interpretation of meaning and has a communicative purpose other than language practice, (2017, p. 80)

whereas

An Exercise lacks any intent to express or interpret meaning and has the explicit purpose of practicing language. (2017, p. 84)

Here, VanPatten distinguishes between an Exercise and an Activity. In his original examples, the second one (“Interview your partner and find out what he or she did last night”) is an Activity. What’s the difference? An Activity is partially communicative. That is, expression and interpretation of meaning are necessary to the Activity, but it lacks a communicative purpose other than to practice language.

To review, here are the distinctions that VanPatten makes:

A Task focuses on expression and interpretation of meaning and has a communicative purpose other than to practice language.

An Activity at least seems to have a focus on expression and interpretation of meaning, but its purpose is to practice language.

An Exercise does not involve the expression and interpretation of meaning, and its purpose is to practice language.

VanPatten utterly rejects Exercises as a strategy for language acquisition. He also provides an explanation for why a thoughtful teacher might use them. Leaving aside the possibility that a teacher uses Exercises because they are in the textbook or because the teacher did Exercises in language class, VanPatten notes the following theoretical basis for including Exercises:

Since Exercises have the purpose of practicing language, the instructor who uses them must believe that practicing vocabulary or grammar is “how you learn it”. If this is a deliberate practice and not simply thoughtless implementation of the familiar, then the instructor must believe that language acquisition happens in a particular way, i.e. through conscious learning about the language. As VanPatten has shown, however, this is not how language is acquired. “We know that language acquisition happens as a complex, constrained process that involves input … and internal mechanisms …” (2017, p. 85)

I’ll close this week’s discussion with the following quote from VanPatten:

Exercises fail as events that promote or cause acquisition, because they do not account for the most basic sketch of acquisition we have constructed after almost four decades of research. In short, Exercises lack input and do not provide the kind of data the learning mechanisms need for creating language in the learner’s mind/brain. At best, they waste time that could be used doing other things in the communicative classroom. (2017, p. 85)

Note: I have followed VanPatten’s convention of capitalizing Tasks, Exercises, and Activities. This is, in part, to distinguish Activities from activities. The former (Activities) are specifically defined as having a partial communicative focus but a purpose of practicing language, i.e. a technical definition of the word; the latter (activities) are simply the different things we do in class, i.e. the general meaning of the word.

I believe this gives us plenty to think about, so next time I’ll take a look at the kinds of Tasks that VanPatten presents, how to work with Tasks, and the implications for language teaching.

After several weeks of looking at CLT Principle 3 (Language Acquisition is Constrained by Internal and External Factors) in Bill VanPatten’s book While We’re on the Topic (ACTFL: 2017), we are moving on the CLT Principle 4.

It seems to me that this is a principle with which everyone agrees. That does not make it settled and not controversial, however. The differences of opinion arise over what constitutes “input”, what interaction should look like, what an “appropriate level” is, and the nature of the materials that should provide that input.

If we accept the position elucidated by VanPatten in Chapters 1 and 2 that the language itself is the only data that the brain is able to use in constructing a mental representation of the language, i.e. acquiring the language, then VanPatten’s fourth principle is already constrained in terms of materials.

However, just to be clear, VanPatten defines the term input in the context of language acquisition. (It has other meanings in other contexts.)

Input means one and only one thing in language acquisition: language embedded in a communicative event that the learner attends to for its meaning.

This means that anything in a language other than the target language is not input and not useful or usable by the brain for acquisition. It also means that target language that is not understandable is not input. And, it means that understandable target language that is not being used for communication is not input.

Three scenarios illustrate VanPatten’s position. I will paraphrase.

The teacher asks a student, D’ou êtes vous? The student responds, De la Californie. This is an exchange in which the student has attended to the language for meaning, so the French is input. The teacher might follow up with Ah. Mais vous vous trouvez loin de chez vous. The students answer, Oui, mais je vais retourner. The entire encounter was communicative; both teacher and student attended to meaning.

In a different class, the teacher asks the student to repeat the sentence, Je me trouve loin de chez moi. The student dutifully does so. This time, the French is not input because the student was not attending to meaning but simply repeating sounds. Thus, acquisition is not facilitated.

For the third scenario, VanPatten imagines a class in which the teacher simply tells students that trouver normally means “to find”, but se trouver means “to find yourself in the sense of being located somewhere or being in some situation.” Since the explanation was in English, no target language input was provided, so acquisition was not facilitated in any way.

I am adding a fourth scenario that VanPatten does not include:

The teacher begins the very first class with Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs. Je m’appelle Madame Bovary et je suis la professeur de français. Je suis de la Côte d’Ivoire. Vous allez apprendre la langue de la poésie, de la philosophie et de l’amour dans cette classe. Students look at the teacher but do not respond because they have understood nothing of what she said.

 Was input provided in this last scenario? It depends. If students were attempting to understand, then input was provided; it simply was incomprehensible and therefore not useful or usable. If students have, for whatever reason, either ceased or not begun to attend to meaning, then no input was provided.

Some might argue that as long as the language is being spoken, some good is being done: students’ ears are being attuned to the sounds of the language, students are getting a feel for the rhythm and melody of the language, just being exposed to the language is somehow beneficial. The question remains: Beneficial for what? Certainly not for acquisition.  I’ll have more to say about this later.

The second and third scenarios are very common in public school settings – at least in the United States.

To an extent, they represent different views of what constitutes input. That is why a definition is so important. If you do not accept VanPatten’s position on the first two principles, you will have a different definition of input. However, we are not arguing that point right now. For discussions of the utility of grammar and rote repetition, see VanPatten’s book or my posts on his earlier chapters.

Allow me to finish this post with a personal anecdote.

On Wednesday of the past week, my department had a retirement lunch for me and another faculty member who is retiring. To my surprise and delight, a former student came. This particular student’s love of languages awoke in my German class during the 1998-1999 school year.

Since graduation, he went on to study linguistics and eventually became a creator of “artificial languages”. That is, when a film or TV series needs an alien language, he is one of the people who can create one. (Not every writer is like JRR Tolkien; many of them put in words or short phrases but have no full language, so when their work is translated to the screen, a coherent structure must be provided, and there are people who do that for a living. My former student is one of them.)

While David, my former student, has several languages that he has created, his most famous one is Dothraki for Game of Thrones. When I asked him about the actors and “learning” the language, he said that they take a couple of different approaches. Some of the actors simply want to say their lines. David sends them a recording of their lines, and they imitate the sounds and inflection. End of story. They aren’t even interested in knowing the meaning of the words they are saying except as it impacts the delivery of the lines. This is similar to the situation in which teachers ask students to repeat sentences. Usually it is for the sake of “improving or perfecting the student’s accent”.

Other actors want to know what they are saying and will ask for a translation of the lines. Then they can speak the lines in a way that reflects meaning. This is still not really communication, but it is much more like it than the first situation because the actors are attending to meaning and also listen to other actors for meaning. Given enough time, these actors might actually begin to acquire Dothraki.

So, it is certainly possible to recite in a foreign language without any acquisition taking place. Singers and actors do this all the time. Exposure to a language is not sufficient for acquisition. The input must have a certain quality, what VanPatten calls appropriate level.

We’ll take a look at that in subsequent posts.

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers and surrogate fathers out there. Teachers are often not simply legally in loco parentis but become surrogate parents and father (or mother) figures. May God bless you for all you do.

In today’s post we come to the first principle in Bill VanPatten’s book While We’re On The Topic: Teaching Communicatively Implies a Definition of Communication.

I am tempted to way, “Well, duh!” But far too many people use terms as buzzwords without defining them for others or even knowing themselves what they intend the term to mean.

One constant irritant in this regard is the use of the term “rigor”. It is constantly bandied about in education circles, but few people give any sort of definition for it. “Courses need to be more rigorous!” is a great slogan or catchphrase, but what does that mean?

How many teachers have a coherent philosophy or approach to teaching or language teaching. How many can articulate even a broad outline of a philosophy? How many language teachers can define key terms – or is this, like language, intuitive (i.e. we know what it is, but we can’t define it readily)?

VanPatten opens the chapter with four statements and asks the reader to rate his or her ability as Yes, Sort Of, or Nope. Here are the statements:

1. I can offer a working definition of communication
2. I can describe the two major purposes of communication
3. I understand how the classroom is a “limited context” environment for communication
4. I can describe/explain how knowledge about communication informs choices and behaviors in terms of language teaching

How did you rate yourself?

Before I read the book, I rated myself very poorly, even though I have studied second language acquisition for years.

Fortunately, VanPatten provides us with an excellent working definition of communication:

Communication is the expression, interpretation, and sometimes negotiation of meaning in a given context. What is more, communication is also purposeful.

Meaning refers to the information contained in a message. This information may be the literal meaning conveyed by the words, but it may also be a “hidden message” beyond the literal. Meaning can be layered.

Expression refers to the production of a message, whether that expression is oral, non-verbal, or some combination.

Interpretation indicates that communication is not one-way. There is always a recipient.

Negotiation acknowledges that communication, i.e. the expression and interpretation of meaning, is not always successful on the first (or tenth) attempt. Participants on both sides of the interchange must work to establish and clarify meaning. We do this all the time.

Context refers to the participants and the setting.

Purpose indicates that there is a goal or objective to communication. As VanPatten puts it: “Just because someone’s lips are moving or their hands are gesturing down’ mean they’re communicating.”

Having defined his terms, VanPatten next addresses the idea of context.

Context places constraints upon our communication. That is, the people and setting (not just physical place) exert significant influence on what we say and how we say it. Important for the teacher is to recognize that the classroom is a context and places constraints on the communication that will take place there.

This concept fits well with the High-Leverage Teaching Practice of creating a classroom discourse community. If communication and language acquisition are to take place in the classroom, we must create a community within the context of schools and students.

The book then moves on to purpose.

The purpose of communication is, according to VanPatten, basically twofold: psychosocial and cognitive-informational. That is, we communicate to establish, maintain, affect, effect, and sever relationships and roles among two or more persons. Or we communicate in order to “express or obtain information, or to learn or do something”. (2017, p. 9)

These two purposes are not mutually exclusive, and they may both be in play at the same time, i.e. a communicative act may be both cognitive-information and psychosocial simultaneously.

VanPatten mentions one other purpose of communication: to entertain.

I believe he fails to give this purpose adequate consideration. Like the other two, it is not exclusive.

The author sums up this section of the chapter with the statement, “Language use without purpose is not communication.”

This leads to an important conclusion:

Language and communication are not the same thing.

On the one hand, we can use language without communicating. For example, if I an actor is memorizing lines for a play, language is being used, but no communication is taking place. On the other hand, we often communicate with a look, a sound, or a gesture that is not language.

The final major section of the chapter is a discussion of implications of a definition of communication for the classroom.

If we maintain that we practice Communicative Language Teaching (which VanPatten maintains is also Contemporary Language Teaching), then communication needs to be taking place in the classroom.

VanPatten asks to key questions:

1. How much time do instructors and students spend on the expression and interpretation (and negotiation) of  meaning?
2. Is there a purpose to this expression and interpretation of meaning?

ACTFL proposes that, ideally, the teacher and students spend at least 90% of their time in (and outside) the classroom expressing, interpreting, and negotiating meaning IN THE TARGET LANGUAGE.

That last portion of the statement is, unfortunately, necessary. A majority of teachers self reported in a survey that they spend less than half of their class time using the target language. Since we know that the brain is able to acquire a language only from receiving messages in the target language that are comprehended, then we should be spending significantly more time using the target language.

If the answer to the second question is “no”, then no communication is taking place – and neither is acquisition.

In accord with Glisan and Donato’s position that teachers need to abandon the IRE model of interaction and adopt the IRF model*, VanPatten advocates abandoning “display questions” intended to practice language (e.g. vocabulary, grammar points) because they are not communicative and asking “context-embedded” questions.

When I was a student teacher, my master teacher used to say, “Never ask a question that you already know the answer to.”

While this may seem extreme, the underlying principle is sound. If I already know the answer, then I am probably asking students to “practice language”. But if I ask students questions to which I do not know the answer, then we begin to have the expression and interpretation of meaning.

Of course, there are certain circumstances in which asking a question to which I know the answer is appropriate, but those are exceptions, and they have a communicative purpose beyond “practicing language”. For example, I may ask a rhetorical question to get students to think about a topic.

*IRE stands for teacher INITIATES an exchange, student RESPONDS, teacher EVALUATES the response;
IRF stands for teacher INITIATES an exchange, student RESPONDS, teacher gives FEEDBACK and moves the conversation forward.
See Enacting the Work of Language Instruction, “HLTP 2: Building a Classroom Discourse Community” (2017, pp. 42-45)

VanPatten reminds us that “… just because mouths are moving doesn’t mean something is communicative. For an event to be communicative, it must have a purpose that is not language-related but related to one of language use’s two major purposes: psychosocial or cognitive-information. ” (2017, p. 15)

I disagree with the statement only insofar as VanPatten omits the third purpose of language: entertainment.

At the close of his discussion of the first implication of a definition for communication, VanPatten asks the following:

It isn’t easy to imagine gossip in the classroom. But what about entertainment? Are there communicative events in class involving entertainment? (Simply playing music in class does not count.)

My response is that 1) this must be a difference between teaching high school and college, because I have no problem imagining gossip in the classroom; my students do it all the  time, and 2) I have spent significant portions of many class periods telling jokes and funny stories to my students in German. I will come to another entertainment piece in a moment.

The second implication of a definition for communication deals with the classroom context.

VanPatten maintains that the context is “fixed” because the participants (teacher and students) and setting (classrooms) do not change. That does not mean, however, that it is unchanging. Students come and go throughout the year, and not all students – or even the teacher – are present every day.

Within this context, VanPatten decries the use of role-playing, an activity that is very popular among teachers.

I disagree to an extent with VanPatten here, but only because I believe he fails to take a special form of role-playing into account.

It is obvious to me that VanPatten is talking about the kind of role-playing in which the teacher assigns  something like this: Pretend you are in a restaurant. One of you is the waiter and the other is a customer. You want a steak, but they are out of steak. Have a conversation.

As VanPatten rightly maintains, this sort of role-playing shipwrecks on two points: 1) it is not communicative because the purpose is to practice language, and 2) it is trying to turn the classroom into something it is not (e.g. a restaurant).

However, I believe VanPatten overlooks a special kind of role-playing: what we usually call simply RPG, or table-top Role Playing Games.

I have played RPG scenarios with my students and had a great time doing it. The purpose was entertainment – see why I think VanPatten does not give sufficient attention to this third purpose for communication? Students talk about how much they enjoyed the game even a year or more later.

So, the first objection is dealt with: the purpose is not to “practice language” but to enjoy playing an imaginative game. The second objection is also dealt with: the teacher structures the game in a way that takes into account the classroom context. The teacher remains the teacher while fulfilling the role of GameMaster or DungeonMaster, and students remain students while also being players / player characters in an entertaining game.

I have recently connected with other language teachers who are exploring this aspect of using the target language in the classroom. We may be making “adventures” available to others.

Two other games that can be used in the classroom are “Mafia/Werewolves” and “Breakout”. They, too, have the communicative purpose of entertainment and take place within the classroom context.

If you have not yet looked into using these sorts of games in your instruction, I encourage you to do so.

VanPatten closes the chapter with a reminder:

The definition of communication [expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning within a context for a purpose] informs what it means for a classroom to be communicative.

I hope it informs your practices.

Today we come to the end of our extended examination of Enacting the Work of Language Instruction by Eileen W Glisan and Richard Donato (2017).

The specific topic is the cycle of enactment.

Remember that this is merely one model of implementation or enactment. You may have a different model of implementation; the important thing is to implement your own program of professional development in collaboration with another or other teachers.

The cycle (or spiral, as I prefer to see it) consists of the following steps
1. Deconstruction of the HLTP
2. Observation and analysis of the HLTP
3. Planning to enact the practice
4. Rehearsal and coaching
5. Enactment of practice in the (PK-16) classroom*
6. Assessments of enactment by one or more fo the collaborative partners, including self-assessment and reflection

I put (PK-16) in parentheses because this cycle of enactment is valuable in any instructional setting, not just the school setting from Pre-Kindergarten through senior in college. That designation was limiting, but the cycle is applicable more broadly.

Glisan and Donato illustrate the model with a set of concentric circles. (2017, p. 166)

In the center is “Community of Practice”

In a circle outside of that are the steps of the cycle:
Deconstruction –> Observation and Analysis –> Planning –> Rehearsal and Coaching –> Enactment –> Assessment ⌊New Cycle⌋

The outmost circle consists of Reflection and Collaboration // Feedback and Discussion.

Although the authors do not explicitly elucidate their diagram, it seems that it is intended to convey the idea that “within a context of Reflection, Collaboration, Feedback, and Discussion, teachers create by using iterative cycles of implementation of the HLTPs a Community of Practice.”

In a truly collaborative context, this model has the potential for helping teachers improve their instruction. It is, once again, not the only model. The potential misuse is in making it an instrument of coercion in a misguided attempt to force all teachers to teach alike.

Glisan and Donato also note that, contrary to the way it is portrayed in the diagram, the phases of the “Cyclical Model for Enacting HLTPs” “do not occur in a static linear manner but reflect back-and-forth movement as learning is mediated and leads to successful enactment of the HLTP.” (2017, p. 167)

The next question, of course, is “What happens in each phase of the cycle?”

Phase 1: Deconstructing the Practice

Teachers deconstruct – or take apart – the practice after learning about it, either through oral presentation or reading. They identify the “instructional moves” that comprise the practice.

This could be a quite ambitious undertaking. The person just starting out will probably want to limit the scope and number of the instructional moves, recognizing that HLTPs like “creating a discourse community” and “facilitating target language comprehensibility” are quite complex and can be approached in a number of different ways.

Remember, this is intended to be an ongoing journey (to use another metaphor).

Phase 2: Observing and Analyzing the Practice

Teachers then watch a more experienced teacher – either live or on video – enact the practice. The “students” focus on observing, analyzing, and recalling the specific instructional moves illustrated in the model lesson.

Glisan and Donato include some very good advice here.

If the object is to analyze a practice – or series of “instructional moves” – then participants should not be both learners and observers.

At conferences and workshops, especially those that emphasize strategies that maximize comprehension, participants are often asked to experience the strategies as students. Then the presenter will have a discussion and de-brief. This is a good idea for introducing people to a strategy and showing its power.

However, that is not what Glisan and Donato intend to happen in the Cyclical Model. They want teachers to be able to analyze the practice and its “instructional moves”. To do this, the observer cannot be both a student and an observer.

The authors offer several possibilities for working around this situation:
1. Have participants observe a teacher and real students. (This is, btw, something that iFLT introduced into its conferences several years ago.)
2. Have a small group of participants be the students while other participants observe.
3. Make a video of the teacher teaching the entire group of participants. Then watch the video for the purpose of observation and analysis.
4. Watch a video of a teacher with a class of real students

I have been in situations in which each of these possibilities was used. The best experience was watching a live teacher with real students. Having a small group of participants be students while others watch and watching a video of a teacher with a class of real students were roughly equally effective and in the middle. The strategy that worked least well was videotaping the participants and then watching that video.

Phases 3 and 4: Planning and Rehearsing the Practice

In this section, Glisan and Donato advocate for something that is not frequently done in teacher training programs and even less frequently once teachers are in the classroom. Nonetheless, planning and rehearsing can be highly beneficial.

First, the teacher plans a lesson / instructional activity that incorporates the target HLTP. This can be done in collaboration with one’s peers.

Then, the teacher practices with peers as students while the leader (or professor) coaches. This form of coaching involves stopping the lesson and asking the teacher to repeat, change, vary, revise a segment of the lesson.

A few years ago, I had the great good fortune to present a series of workshops with Jason Fritze, an internationally known teacher, presenter, and teaching coach. As part of the workshops, I demonstrated several practices in a series of lessons that Jason and I had prepared. In what was in many ways a “Master Class”, I presented to the workshop participants who played the role of students. Jason would have me stop and do something slightly differently or repeat what I had done, and then he would explain what the participants had experienced and invite discussion and questions.

I am certain that the participants benefitted from the workshops, and we certainly got positive feedback. However, I am convinced that I received the most from this experience. It had a profoundly positive impact on my own teaching, even though I was presenting as an experienced teacher.

From personal experience, then, I can attest to the value of these steps.

Phases 5 and 6: Enacting and Assessing the Practice

The last two phases are coupled together because of their close relationship to one another.

After deconstructing, observing, analyzing, preparing, and rehearsing the practice, the teacher enacts it in the classroom while a colleague or master teacher observes and assesses the enactment. The teacher also self-reflects on the enactment of the practice. This should lead to a collaborative dialogue between the observer and the teacher that results in increased understanding and facility with the High-Leverage Teaching Practice.

Challenges of Implementing the Enactment Cycle

Glisan and Donato identify two challenges to implementing the cycle, and these are mentioned primarily in relation to New Teachers (i.e. those in a teacher-training program or their first two years of in-service teaching). I believe there are other challenges.

One challenge is simply expectations and emotions. Most teachers do not expect to be stopped and interrupted while presenting and can have emotional reactions, even anger, when this happens.

My own experience with the workshop series I mentioned earlier makes me aware that the groundwork needs to be done well. Jason and I had already worked together for some time, but we sat down and discussed what would happen during the workshop. I had to be ready for Jason to stop me and ask me to do something over, do revise something to a lesser or greater extent, or even do something completely different.

I can tell you that it takes trust, humility, flexibility, and the proper mindset for this to work.

The second challenger that Glisan and Donato mention is the need to situate the practice in a relevant instructional activity (lesson). This is indeed a greater challenge for New Teachers than for in-service teachers, who know what is happening in the classroom.

One piece of advice in this section is highly relevant:

Increasing comprehensible target language use and interaction during instruction cannot be carried out if the learners are uninterested in what is being said or in what they are being asked to express.

Other challenges that I see but are not mentioned by Glisan and Donato include those I noted above, and these challenges can be insurmountable.

The first challenge is trust. If I do not have a relationship of trust with my peers, then I will not participate in the cycle of enactment. I have to trust them to have my best interests at heart, not simply try to make themselves look better than others, to know the HLTP well enough to be able to analyze and assess its enactment, and to have sufficient discretion not to discuss needs for improvement with others. Unfortunately, trust is often a rare commodity; people do not learn to trust one another simply because they work in the same school or building or department. We need to be deliberate in building trust.

A true Professional Learning Community does not come into existence merely because an administrator decrees that teachers must meet, collaborate, and work together.

The second challenge is humility. Many teachers have large egos and view their classrooms as their own little empires. They are unwilling to submit themselves to scrutiny and constructive criticism – and often because they consider themselves to be exemplars of their craft. Pride on the part of either the observer or the practitioner can shipwreck the process and make it impossible to proceed.

The third challenge is flexibility. Flexibility is related to the other challenges of humility and trust. The less trust I have in someone, the less flexible I will be when around them. The same goes for humility and the lack thereof. There can, of course, be other reasons for lack of flexibility, but for the cycle of enactment to work, teachers must be flexible enough to try something new, both in the practice and in the process of enactment.

The fourth challenge is mindset. I have, unfortunately, worked with teachers who saw no reason to do anything that would improve their teaching. They had completed their teacher training and were in the classroom. Unless they were being paid for “professional development” they saw no reason for it. Yes, they would go to district in-service workshops (at which they often spent most of the time on their computer or mobile phone), but they would never go to a conference or out-of-district workshop. They had a fixed mindset and may have felt threatened by presentations of new practices and challenges to allow others to observe and assess them. They failed to realize that no matter how good you are, you can always improve.

Any one of these challenges can block implementation of a potentially valuable tool for improving instruction. That would be unfortunate

Final Thoughts

Glisan and Donato end this chapter and the book with a brief review of what they have presented and the hope that it will serve as a catalyst  for discussion of HLTPs and teacher education in general.

I also hope that what I have written in response to this book contributes to the discussion.

Both as individuals and as a profession, we need to remember that what has brought us to where we are will not take us beyond that. If we are to get past the generations of students who have taken two t0 four years of a language but are unable to understand or speak it, we must change what we do.

I don’t have all the answers, but I want to be part of the conversation.

Let me know what you think.

We have come to the last chapter of Eileen W Glisan and Richard Donato’s book Enacting the Work of Language Instruction (2017, ACTFL).

In this chapter, Glisan and Donato provide suggestions, as the chapter title states, for “Putting HLTPs into Practice: A Cycle of Enactment”. Enacting the High-Leverage Teaching Practices is not a one-time act but an ongoing process in which the novice or in-service teacher returns time and again to the practice, reviews and deconstructs it, analyzes application, then carries it while being observed by a sympathetic colleague with whom the teacher then discusses the implementation.

I believe that Glisan and Donato provide us with a useful model for collaboration. I also believe that it is, unfortunately, a bit idealistic and unlikely to be adopted in most school settings for a variety of reasons. Some of those reasons include lack of time because teachers are usually overwhelmed by their duties and responsibilities; lack of perceived need for this kind of collaboration; lack of training on how to implement this sort of collaboration; lack of clarity on instructional objectives and the place of HLTPs in instruction; significant differences in perception of objectives, scope, and sequence in instruction; and rivalries within departments. (The last one is particularly sad, but true.)

Nonetheless, where teachers are willing to trust one another and work with one another to improve their teaching ability, the collaborative study and deconstruction of an HLTP, mutual observation of its implementation, and subsequent discussion can prove highly beneficial to those who participate – and to their students.

Glisan and Donato call this a “Cycle of Enactment” and discuss iterative rounds of investigation and practice. If done properly, this is actually a spiral rather than a cycle, since the practice should improve with each iteration. But that is a quibble.

One important aspect of implementation for this model is the idea of specific Instructional Activities. Rather than trying to do everything, practitioners focus on “specific instructional activities (IAs) that limit the context of the practice so that novices [and in-service teachers] can draw upon specific knowledge and moves as they make judgments about how to interact with their students within the construct of the high-leverage teaching practice …” (2017, p. 164) [Emphasis in original]

Where I disagree with the authors is what the specific Instructional Activities ought to be.

This disagreement reflects earlier disagreements when discussing various HLTPs, especially the focus on grammar, the seeming limitation to authentic texts only, the focus on form through PACE, and certain aspects of Oral Corrective Feedback.

Glisan and Donato provide the following suggestions. I note that they are merely suggestive and not exhaustive – but their suggestions could have been better. For example, rather than simply stating “Telling a story”, they could have suggested ways to make a story comprehensible and engaging, such as MovieTalk, Watch and Discuss, Read and Discuss, Story Listening, and many more that are known throughout the TCI community.

Facilitating Target Language Comprehensibility:
– Telling a story by making it comprehensible and actively involving learners
– Introducing new vocabulary or grammatical structures within an engaging context

N.B.: I disagree with this second one, not because we don’t teach new vocabulary or structures, but because this places the emphasis on the teaching of new vocabulary and grammatical structures. The vocabulary and structures should arise out of the engaging context rather then being pre-determined and then having a context created to fit them. There are, of course, many ways to make a story comprehensible, and it would have been nice for Glisan and Donato to provide an example or two.

Building a Classroom Discourse Community
– Facilitating a whole-class discussion based on a shared context such as an … event, popular media, or an important social issue

N.B.: The classroom itself is a shared context, and many teachers already do activities such as discussing plans for the weekend or what students did over the weekend, important social and world issues, birthdays and other celebrations, school sports, and much more. They should be encouraged to see these discussions not just as an activity but as a High-Leverage Teaching Practice that helps build a classroom discourse community. Again, strategies for leading a whole-class discussion would be helpful.

Guiding Learners to Interpret and Discuss Authentic Texts
As noted previously, my first disagreement is in the limitation of interpretation and discussion to “authentic texts” only, as well as the inconsistent understanding of the word authentic in most discussions. Here I agree with Bill VanPatten’s idea of authentic as being whatever is consistent with and part of the classroom context.
– Guiding learners through a(n authentic) reading via tasks that elicit literal comprehension followed by interpretation
– Leading class discussion based on a(n authentic) text

N.B.: Aside from my disagreements about “authentic”, I find these two Instructional Activities beneficial for language acquisition because they focus on comprehensible input, both in the form of the text itself and in the discussion that follows. Teachers will need various strategies for supporting a discussion based on the language level of the students.

Focusing on Form in a Dialogic Context Through PACE
– Presenting an authentic story … that features a grammatical structure occurring naturally within a meaningful context
– Guiding learners in dialoguing about and co-constructing  grammatical from …

N.B.: Creating a lesson around grammar takes us backward in our application of knowledge about second language acquisition. However, helping students deal with grammatical forms on a spontaneous, need-to-know or inquiry basis, can be very helpful. That’s why I am willing to give the second IA a “meh” rating.

Focusing on Cultural Products, Practices, and Perspectives
– Making use of engaging images of a cultural product or practice as a launching point for [discussion of] cultural perspectives
– Making use of … data of various kinds for reflecting on the cultural meanings of products and/or practices

N.B.: The quality of this IA is, of course, dependent on the choice and use of the materials. That does not negate the fact that this is one of the better examples that the authors give.

Providing Oral Corrective Feedback to Improve Learner Performance
– Facilitating a whole-class discussion in which oral teacher feedback plays a role to support student speaking …
– Conducting an oral extension activity in which learners use a grammatical structure … and are guided by teacher feedback.

N.B.: The second of these IAs once again takes us back to an emphasis on grammar rather than communication, even if Glisan and Donato put “to make meaning” into the description. It is still “practicing” the language. The first of these two IAs gets a “meh” because it depends so much on whether or not the teacher is forcing student speaking or simply supporting student speaking that is natural and unforced. The authors leave this distinction entirely too vague.

The great weakness of this chapter lies in the paucity of suggestions for accomplishing the “Instructional Activities”. While the book cannot be all things to all people, it would have been helpful for the authors to include some examples and suggestions of strategies to accomplish their suggested IAs.

Next week we should finish this chapter and the book by taking a look at the “Cyclical Model for Enacting HLTPs” itself, challenges of implementation, and some final thoughts.

I hope this extended look at a potentially significant publication from ACTFL has been helpful.

Leave a comment.

With this post, we come to the end of the sixth High-Leverage Teaching Practice but not to the end of the book Enacting the Work of Language Instruction; High-Leverage Teaching Practices by Eileen W. Glisan and Richard Donato, available from ACTFL.

As they do with all of the teaching practices they present, the authors close off the chapter by deconstructing the practice, providing tasks to rehearse the practice, assessing the practice, and putting the practice into a larger context, as well as providing suggestions for further reading.

Last week I included a “flow chart” (in quotes because it wasn’t really a chart). This week I have it in chart form. Let me know if you have difficulty reading it. The font I can work with; Continue reading “Providing Oral Corrective Feedback … – Part 4”

Today will be a shorter post than last week.

I want to take a look solely at the section of this chapter entitled “Considerations About Providing Corrective Feedback”. Glisan and Donato give five considerations in the form of questions.

Should I discuss the role of feedback with my learners?

“Yes!” reply Glisan and Donato. They note that learning a language is so different from the learning that takes place in students’ other classes that they benefit from an explanation of how the teacher’s responses can benefit them. They also recommend a discussion at the beginning of the course or semester with the intent of reaching two goals:
a. Find out how students feel about receiving Corrective Feedback. The purpose is to help the teacher determine when, how, and what kinds of Corrective Feedback to provide.
b. Help students understand how Corrective Feedback can help them learn the language and improve performance.

I agree that it is beneficial for the teacher to discuss with students how the course works, theoretical underpinnings, etc. At the same time, I doubt that my discussion will look quite like Glisan and Donato imagine.

Since Glisan and Donato’s discussion is based on the theory that noticing is essential to language acquisition, we part company on the issue of when, how, how much, and what kind of Corrective Feedback to give. There are, of course, appropriate occasions in the language classroom to invoke the Monitor and discuss items that contribute to its effectiveness. These occasions, however, are few and far between – especially at the lowest levels. Far more important is Comprehensible Input, the sole sufficient cause of language acquisition.

This evening at church, I happened to speak with another congregant and found out that she teaches in the teacher training program at CSU Long Beach, our local CSU campus. Specifically, she teaches Second Language Acquisition (English Language Learners) and Special Education research, principles, and theory to teacher candidates.

When I explained my plans for retirement and mentioned coaching and advising teachers, she asked me what method(s) or approach(es) I used. Not knowing at the time how much she knew about SLA, I started an explanation, and she finished my explanation with the words “Comprehensible Input!” That started a great conversation, and I was so pleased to know that there are others, not just foreign language teachers, who understand that CI is the sine qua non of language instruction.

She also agreed with me, contra Glisan and Donato, that any grammar explanation, corrective feedback, or attempt to get students to notice is effective only insofar as it aids negotiation of meaning and supports understanding.

In his paper on Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition, Dr Stephen Krashen notes that he has changed is opinion on one matter. In the original work, he advocated hiding the acquisition process from students. Now, however, he strongly favors discussing the process of Second Language Acquisition with students so that they can continue to learn on their own.

I doubt that Krashen’s discussion would look much like Glisan’s or Donato’s, either.

How do I determine when I should provide corrective feedback?

Despite my disagreement with Glisan and Donato on the nature and value of Corrective Feedback, I believe their answer to this question is helpful.

The authors note that making this determination is a complex process and dependent on a number of factors. They divide these factors into two categories: Learner Factors and Contextual Factors.

Contextual Factors involve answering the following question:

• Does the error interfere with the learner’s intended meaning? (If no, don’t correct.)
• Is the error the linguistic target of the lesson, e.g. made during the focus on form lesson? (Since I disagree with focus on form for acquisition, I find this question not germane.
• Is the error one that is being made frequently by many learners in the class? (If no, don’t correct.)

In this section, Glisan and Donato state, “Of critical importance is that, within a sociocultural perspective, corrective feedback should be approached in such a way as to serve meaning-making and interaction.”

This statement again makes me wonder if the authors fully understand their position. It seems to contradict their earlier distinction that “… many of these types of CF can be used to provide conversational feedback instead of to call attention to linguistic errors.”

The second set of factors are Learner Factors that give rise to the following questions:

• Would the learner benefit from receiving Corrective Feedback, i.e. is the learner developmentally ready for this feedback?
• Is the individual learner open to receiving Corrective Feedback?
• Does the learner appear to be confused and in need of Corrective Feedback to make meaning and/or clear up misunderstanding?
• Does the learner appear to want Corrective Feedback assistance from he teacher?

Glisan and Donato suggest that a “yes” answer to any one of these questions justifies providing Corrective Feedback. I disagree in that the second questions appears to me to be the gatekeeper. If the individual learner is not open to receiving Corrective Feedback, a yes answer to any of the other questions will not make it beneficial.

How do I know whether to use implicit or explicit CF strategies?

Here I find Glisan and Donato’s advice excellent.

They recommend a graduated approach within a dialogic structure.

That is, start with the least intrusive, most implicit strategy and move in the direction of increasingly explicit as needed. If a raised eyebrow or “Huh?” is sufficient to elicit negotiation of meaning, why use something more intrusive?

On what basis should I decide to use prompts vs. reformulations in providing CF?

Once again, I find myself in agreement with Glisan and Donato on this consideration.

They state, “The decision to use prompts or reformulations depends on whether the teacher desires further output from learners following the CF. To this end, prompts elicit output and reformulations offer input without signaling a need to respond further.” (2017, p. 148)

Glisan and Donato noted earlier that reformulations (aka recasts) is the type of Corrective Feedback used most by teachers. (2017, p. 144). At the time, they cast some doubts on their effectiveness, maintaining that “… they have been found to be less likely to lead to uptake by learners in comparison to other strategies such as elicitation and clarification requests.” Nonetheless, they were forced to admit that the long-term benefits of implicit correction exceed those of explicit correction.

Questions that arise from this discrepancy between the two passages lead to a number of questions. Among them is the question of how it was determined that recasts are less likely to lead to uptake if recasts are not intended to elicit a response. I would like to know the studies and their procedures. Once again, I believe Glisan and Donato allow their theory to affect their assessment of the evidence.

Since my primary goal is to provide Comprehensible Input, I will use primarily reformulations.

What if my learners experience anxiety when I provide CF?

You’re doing something wrong.

Glisan and Donato are more diplomatic in their answer than I, but it comes to the same thing.

If learners experience anxiety when the teacher provides Corrective Feedback, then the teacher is doing something wrong.

It may be that the teacher has failed to establish a classroom discourse community.

It may be that the teacher is working outside the students’ zone of proximal development, so the feedback simply adds stress rather than relief.

It may be that the teacher has failed to gain the trust and respect of the students.

It may be something else, but whatever it is, the teacher is doing something wrong if corrective feedback increases students’ anxiety.

Glisan and Donato close this section with a nice flow chart. I will try to recreate some semblance of it.

Consider Contextual Factors

All answers “yes”, proceed to Learner Factors.
“No”: ignore the error.

Consider Learner Factors

All answers “yes”, decide on Corrective Feedback
“No”: ignore the error.

Decision to Provide Corrective Feedback

Decide on Reformulation or Prompt
If moving interaction forward: Reformulations
If working in learner’s Zone of Proximal Development: Prompts

Reformulations

Conversational Recast
Repetition
Provide language needed to express meaning
Foreshadow new language

Prompts

Move from implicit to explicit
Clarification Request –> Elicitation –> Metalinguistic clues –> Explicit Correction

I encourage you to look at Figure 6.2 (p. 149) in Enacting the Work of Language Instruction to see the flowchart as Glisan and Donato lay it out.

My conclusion on the use of Corrective Oral Feedback is “It depends”. It depends on what you want to accomplish. It depends on your relationship with your students. It depends on which strategies you choose.

Okay, that turned out longer than I intended.

In the remaining portion of the chapter, Glisan and Donato deconstruct the practice and provide suggestions for rehearsing the practice. We’ll take a look at those next time.

Continuing with our discussion of High-Leverage Teaching Practice #6 (Providing Corrective Oral Feedback to Improve Learner Performance) in Enacting the Work of Language Instruction (2017) …

Today we will take a look at Glisan and Donato’s Research and Theory Supporting the Practice.

The authors state, “A body of research has confirmed the effectiveness of corrective feedback in supporting language learning and development …” (2017, p. 142)

I do not question that a body of research has confirmed the effectiveness of corrective feedback in supporting what was tested. My questions revolve around what was tested. At the moment I have no answers, nor do Glisan and Donato provide any.

Does corrective feedback support acquisition, i.e. the ability to use the language in spontaneous use for communication (the expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning)? Or does it support Monitor use, i.e. the ability to edit utterances by thinking of and applying the “rules of grammar”? What was tested? Discrete grammar items? How was it tested? Was spontaneous communication tested, or was the test conducted under conditions conducive to Monitor use?

Krashen rejects error correction as useful for acquisition and provides case study evidence of acquisition without error correction or many of the other things traditionally practiced by language teachers.. Krashen does grant error correction a small place for Monitor use. I wonder, though, if he defines error correction the same way that Glisan and Donato define it. All too often, writers use terms without clearly defining them.

VanPatten opines that corrective feedback may lead to acquisition if it is part of negotiating meaning. (We will see in a moment that he probably still disagrees with Glisan and Donato about the place of error correction.)

This raises the question of research on the different kinds of oral corrective feedback. Has it been done? What are the results? Are all types of corrective feedback equally effective? Based on what standards?

Glisan and Donato note that “… different types of feedback can be more or less useful in leading to what is called uptake, how learners use the oral feedback offered by the teacher to repair their error or not …” (2017, p. 142; emphasis in original) Does this mean that different types of feedback are inherently more or less useful? Does the usefulness of any specific type of feedback vary depending on the context and other factors?

The authors predicate the usefulness / effectiveness of the feedback on students’ noticing its corrective nature. This takes us to the Noticing Hypothesis, which both Krashen and VanPatten question or reject. John Truscott, in his article “Noticing in Second Language Acquisition: A Critical Review“, notes the extremely limiting constraints of noticing and the weakness of any support for its effectiveness.

Based on my own case studies, I note that a couple of types of corrective feedback enumerated by Glisan and Donato seem to be helpful in negotiating meaning, i.e. in actual communication, and thus potentially helpful for acquisition.

However, Glisan and Donato distinguish between certain strategies employed as oral corrective feedback and those same strategies used as conversational feedback. They write, “It bears mentioning that many of these types of CF [Corrective Feedback] can be used to provide conversational feedback instead of to call attention to linguistic errors.” (2017, p. 143)

I have at least two questions from this:

1. Is this a distinction without a difference? If I give feedback that shows I have not understood the utterance, my interlocutor still has to adapt the utterance so that it becomes understandable. This may well involve changing certain elements of the utterance to conform to standard language use.
2. Are Glisan and Donato themselves clear on their own distinction? In the paragraph that contains the statement above, the authors give examples of how certain strategies for providing oral corrective feedback may be used as conversational feedback. However, in the same paragraph they state, “Further, instead of using a linguistic utterance, the teach could also use a paralinguistic signal [emphasis in original] to non-verbally elicit a self-correction from the learner – e.g., a quizzical look or nodding of the head …” If the signal is given to “elicit a self-correction”, isn’t that Corrective Feedback? Yet, Glisan and Donato place it in the paragraph devoted to examples of using the strategies for a purpose other than Corrective Feedback.

I am not convinced that the authors themselves are clear on the distinction – or that their distinction truly makes a difference for some of the types of feedback.

So, what are the common types of oral corrective feedback?

1. Explicit Correction: The teacher gives the correct form or states that the learner’s statement was incorrect.
2. Recasts: The teacher responds and reformulates the learner’s statement without calling attention to the fact that it was incorrect.
3. Clarification Requests: The teacher indicates that the learner’s statement was not comprehensible and asks for a reformulation.
4. Metalingistic Feedback: The teacher asks questions about the statement (specifically about the grammatical error) or provides grammatical metalanguage that points out the nature of the error (i.e. uses technical language to discuss in English the learner’s error).
5. Elicitation: The teacher prompts the learner to provide the correct form by repeating the leaner’s statement verbatim up to the point where the error occurred.
6. Repetition: The teacher repeats the learner’s utterance but with an inflection that indicates and highlights an error.

Glisan and Donato also place these Corrective Feedback Strategies on a grid with two axes.

The first axis is the distinction between reformulations (which provide the corrected restatement) and prompts (which elicit self-repair from the student).

The second axis is implicit vs explicit correction. In the latter, the teacher states clearly that correction is taking place or otherwise draws direct attention to it. In the former, it is left to the learner to notice the correction.

The authors then place each of the strategies within a quadrant. Since I haven’t yet figured out how to produce a drawing or table, I will simply describe them.

Quadrant A is Implicit Prompts. These are 1) Clarification Requests and 2) Repetition.

Quadrant B is Explicit Prompts. These are 1) Elicitations and 2) Metalinguiastic clues.

Quadrant C is Implicit Reformulations. The sole strategy placed here is Recasts.

Quadrant D is Explicit Reformulations. Here they place Explicit Correction.

My suspicion is that Explicit Correction is the kind of Corrective Feedback that most people mean when they use the term.

In their conclusion to this section of the chapter, Glisan and Donato make some statements that bear further consideration. They write:

… although recasts tend to be the CF type used most by teachers, they have generally been found to be less likely to lead to uptake by learners in comparison to other strategies such as elicitation and clarification requests. The benefit of recasts appears to be i scaling learners’ attention to form without disrupting communication and meaning-making … However the issue is even more complex,. Research has suggested that even though learners might attend to explicit CF more easily, “the effects of implicit CF might be more robust (i.e. longer lasting) than those of explicit CF, which might be more effective in the short term …” (Lyster, Saito, & Sato (2013). “Oral corrective feedback in second language classrooms” in Language Teaching, 46, p. 5; quoted by Glisan and Donato (2017, p. 144).)

Let’s take note of what the authors say (and perhaps don’t say) and the implications. Glisan and Donato report:

When the teacher recasts a learner’s utterance, this is implicit reformulation, and students do not give as great evidence of uptake (i.e. the students do not repair their error at the time of “correction”) as with certain other strategies.

At first glance, we might conclude that the most-used strategy is the least effective.

However, this does not take certain factors into account. First of all, a recast is not necessarily intended to elicit a repair of the utterance on the part of the learner. The recast provides the leaner with a corrected version of the statement but does not prompt the student to repeat it, at least not if we wish to maintain the primary advantage of this strategy – which is that it functions without disrupting communication and meaning-making. (2017, p. 144)

Since we cannot see what is going on within the mind/brain, it is difficult (impossible?) to evaluate the efficacy of a strategy that does not call for production.

This, btw, is one of the difficulties many people  have in evaluating the efficacy of comprehension-based strategies and practices. Since acquisition is internal and unconscious even for the student, the traditional markers and indicators used by assessments do not provide sufficient data of the right kind for learning-based tests to make an evaluation.

In this section, I believe that the authors reveal their bias. I may be reading more into the text than is there, but I don’t believe so. Here’s the evidence.

When presenting the basis for the practice, Glisan and Donato are categorical in their assertion that “A body of research has confirmed the effectiveness of corrective feedback …” They are also quite definitive in their assertion that students need to notice grammatical features. Earlier I noted what looks like a (not so) veiled jab at Van Patten’s position on language acquisition.

However, in this instance, where evidence contrasts with their position, the authors present it much more speculatively and attach a qualifier from their position. “Research has suggested … learners might attend … the effects of implicit CF might be more robust … This finding could be the result … and perhaps produce a response.” From their speculation (“This finding could be the result of implicit CF prompting learners to access L2 knowledge and problem-solving as they work to notice the error, correct it, and perhaps produce a response.”), Glisan and Donato produce the following definitive statement: “Therefore [i.e. because of what we speculate], the long-term effects of implicit feedback only apply in cases where learners’ [sic] are motivated to attend to the teacher’s reformulated part of the utterance and process for themselves what they heard and noticed.” (2017, p. 144)

The definitiveness of the conclusion is, to me, unwarranted from the speculation.

Besides, I can postulate another explanation that, I believe, better “preserves the appearances” (cf. Occam’s razor):

Implicit error correction in the form of recasts and reformulations simply provides the learner with additional comprehensible input at a moment when the student is interested in the input. Thus, the long-term effects of implicit “error correction” are attributable to the unconscious process of acquisition rather than the complex and tenuous mechanism of “noticing“.

I will not attempt to ascribe motive or describe a history of the text. Such attempts are overwhelmingly, (nearly) unanimously, erroneous.

Let it suffice to say that I believe Glisan and Donato seriously miss the mark in their evaluation of the effectiveness of both noticing and explicit Corrective Feedback in language acquisition.

Next time we’ll take a look at Glisan and Donato’s Considerations about Providing Corrective Feedback.