Reconsidering the role of practice in foreign language teaching and learning
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Mirosław Pawlak
Abstract
Although the need for practice in taken for granted by many learners who view it as an integral part of foreign and second language learning, theorists and researchers are sharply divided on this issue. The proponents of the so-called zero grammar option, such as Krashen (1985), believe that language classrooms should replicate as much as possible the conditions of naturalistic discourse and there is hardly any place for practice. The proponents of focus on form, such as Long (1996), do recognize a contribution of pedagogical intervention, but it should be embedded in communicative activities and mainly take the form of corrective feedback, with the effect that the practice of specific language features is limited. Finally, the proponents of skill-learning theory, such as DeKeyser (1998), view practice as crucial since it is indispensable for the conversion of declarative knowledge into procedural knowledge. Given such conflicting opinions, the aim of the paper is to disambiguate some of the controversies and problems surrounding the place of practice in language learning, describe the forms it can take and single out such arrangements which are the most beneficial in the foreign language classroom with a special view to the language teaching context in Poland.
© School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland, 2012
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Articles in the same Issue
- The expressions of spatial relations during interaction in American Sign Language, Croatian Sign Language, and Turkish Sign Language
- Linguistic-phonetic characteristics of cluttering across different speaking styles: a pilot study from Hungarian
- Revisiting the thetic/categorical distinction in Japanese
- Structural and lexical aspects of the grammar of desinences
- Russian intervocalic deletion in Derivational Optimality Theory
- Natural Syntax of English: transitivity
- Reconsidering the role of practice in foreign language teaching and learning
- Review of Siever, Torsten: Texte i. d. Enge. Sprachökonomische Reduktion in stark raumbegrenzten Textsorten
- Review of Chruszczewski, Piotr: Językoznawstwo antropologiczne: Zadania i metody
- Review of Arabski, Janusz and Adam Wojtaszek (eds.): The acquisition of L2 phonology
