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Chapter 4. Are speech and writing teachable?

Re-examining developmental constraints on pedagogy
  • Bronwen Patricia Dyson
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Teachability and Learnability across Languages
This chapter is in the book Teachability and Learnability across Languages

Abstract

Does the teachability hypothesis (Pienemann 1984, 1989) apply to spoken and written L2 English questions? Given varied findings on this issue, the present chapter reports on a study of 20 postgraduate students, divided into experimental and comparison groups. The experimental group, which comprised ‘unready’ (stage X), ‘ready’ (stage X+1) and stage X+2 students, was taught X+2 question formation. This group’s post-test results demonstrated overall differences from the comparison group and that, in both skills, the ready learners moved up a stage and one unready learner did not. However, two of the experimental group’s unready students advanced two stages in both skills. The spoken and written results imply that instruction cannot make learners skip stages but may help unready learners progress.

Abstract

Does the teachability hypothesis (Pienemann 1984, 1989) apply to spoken and written L2 English questions? Given varied findings on this issue, the present chapter reports on a study of 20 postgraduate students, divided into experimental and comparison groups. The experimental group, which comprised ‘unready’ (stage X), ‘ready’ (stage X+1) and stage X+2 students, was taught X+2 question formation. This group’s post-test results demonstrated overall differences from the comparison group and that, in both skills, the ready learners moved up a stage and one unready learner did not. However, two of the experimental group’s unready students advanced two stages in both skills. The spoken and written results imply that instruction cannot make learners skip stages but may help unready learners progress.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Teachability and learnability
  5. Chapter 1. Research timeline. The role of instruction 9
  6. Chapter 2. How much English do children know before they are exposed to instruction? 27
  7. Chapter 3. Morpho-syntactic development in the input 51
  8. Chapter 4. Are speech and writing teachable? 71
  9. Part II. Methods and assessment
  10. Chapter 5. The elicitation of oral language production data 97
  11. Chapter 6. Elicited imitation as a diagnostic tool of morpho-syntactic processing 119
  12. Chapter 7. Grammatical accuracy and complexity in a speaking proficiency test 137
  13. Part III. Cross-linguistic aspects of SLA
  14. Chapter 8. Acquisition of nominal morphology in Norwegian L2 163
  15. Chapter 9. Interlingual versus intralingual tendencies in second language acquisition 183
  16. Chapter 10. The acquisition of Turkish (genitive-)possessive structures by adult Norwegian learners 205
  17. Closing chapter
  18. Chapter 11. Heritage language development and the promise of Processability Theory 237
  19. Index 261
https://doi.org/10.1075/palart.6.04dys

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Teachability and learnability
  5. Chapter 1. Research timeline. The role of instruction 9
  6. Chapter 2. How much English do children know before they are exposed to instruction? 27
  7. Chapter 3. Morpho-syntactic development in the input 51
  8. Chapter 4. Are speech and writing teachable? 71
  9. Part II. Methods and assessment
  10. Chapter 5. The elicitation of oral language production data 97
  11. Chapter 6. Elicited imitation as a diagnostic tool of morpho-syntactic processing 119
  12. Chapter 7. Grammatical accuracy and complexity in a speaking proficiency test 137
  13. Part III. Cross-linguistic aspects of SLA
  14. Chapter 8. Acquisition of nominal morphology in Norwegian L2 163
  15. Chapter 9. Interlingual versus intralingual tendencies in second language acquisition 183
  16. Chapter 10. The acquisition of Turkish (genitive-)possessive structures by adult Norwegian learners 205
  17. Closing chapter
  18. Chapter 11. Heritage language development and the promise of Processability Theory 237
  19. Index 261
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