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- Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
- Subject: (no subject given)
- Path: sparky!uunet!uvaarpa!darwin.sura.net!paladin.american.edu!auvm!ISUMVS.BITNET!S1.DXD
- Message-ID: <SLART-L%93012711032655@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.slart-l
- Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 10:02:40 CST
- Sender: SLA Research and Teaching <SLART-L@PSUVM.BITNET>
- From: Dan <S1.DXD@ISUMVS.BITNET>
- Lines: 26
-
- Re. classroom vs. street language learning, Bob DeKeyser is, of
- course, right: "...to suggest that fundamentally different learning
- processes take place because of the mere difference in environment
- is...completely misguided." There's no longer much doubt that
- context, or more accurately, the learner's interpretation of the
- context, influences profoundly what one learns. This is the essence
- of the discourse domains hypothesis that Selinker and I have been
- developing over the last few years. We know so little yet about how
- second langauges are learned that to suggest unequivocally that one
- environment is "better" than others is indeed misguided.
-
- Andrew Cohen's mention of the Buzz Palmer study reminds me of one by
- Maria Pavesi (SSLA 8:38-55) where she compared English relative
- clause use by Italian high school learners and Italian waiters who
- learned their English at work in Edinburgh. The range of structures
- used was comparable in the two groups; the only advantage the
- classroom learners had was that they used the structures at the
- bottom of the NP accessibility hierarchy (i.e., the "rarer" ones)
- more frequently, I think.
-
- We need many many more studies of this nature. Read the relevant
- pages in Larsen-Freeman and Long's book on SLA research, and then go
- do some...
-
- Dan Douglas
- Iowa State University
-