Académique Documents
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Culture Documents
Editor
SANDRA SILBERSTEIN, University of Washington
Associate Editor
SANDRA McKAY, San Francisco State University
Review Editor
HEIDI RIGGENBACH, University of Washington
Brief Reports and Summaries Editor
GAIL WEINSTEIN-SHR, San Francisco State University
Research Issues Editor
GRAHAM CROOKES, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Assistant Editors
DEBORAH GREEN, University of Washington
MARILYN KUPETZ, TESOL Central Office
Editorial Assistant
MAUREEN P. PHILLIPS, University of Washington
Editorial Advisory Board
Roberta G. Abraham Thom Hudson
Iowa State University University of Hawaii at Manoa
]oan G. Carson Claire Kramsch
Georgia State University University of California, Berkeley
Graham Crookes Anne Lazaraton
University of Hawaii at Manoa The Pennsylvania State University
Jim Cummins
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Michael K. Legutke
Catherine Doughty Goethe Institute, Munich
The University of Sydney David Nunan
Miriam Eisenstein Macquarie University, Sydney
New York University
Yehia E1-Ezabi Teresa Pica
United Arab Emirates University/ University of Pennsylvania
The American University in Cairo N. S. Prabhu
Susan Gass National University of Singapore
Michigan State University Thomas Ricento
Jean Handscombe Central Michigan University
North York Board of Education, Toronto
Thomas Huckin Patricia L. Rounds
University of Utah University of Oregon
Sarah Hudelson Andrew F. Siegel
Arizona State University University of Washington
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Joanne Devine, William Grabe, Liz Hamp-Lyons, Donna M. Johnson, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Xiaoli Li,
Patricia A. Porter, Richard Young
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CONTENTS
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nos. in parentheses
ARTICLES
The Test at the Gate: Models of Literacy in Reading Assessment 433 (10-38)
Clifford Hill and Kate Parry
Writing One’s Way into Reading 463 (40-62)
Vivian Zamel
Communicative Interaction and Second Language Acquisition:
An Inuit Example 487 (64-82)
Martha Crago
Learning to Teach: Instructional Actions and Decisions
of Preservice ESL Teachers 507 (84-112)
Karen E. Johnson
Avoiding Obstacles to Student Comprehension
of Test Questions 537 (114-133)
Michal Kirschner, Carol Wexler, and Elana Spector-Cohen
L2 Tense and Time Reference 557 (134-149)
Eli Hinkel
REVIEWS
Process and Experience in the Language Classroom 573
Michael Legutke and Howard Thomas
Reviewed by David Nunan
Developing Communicative Competence in a
Second Language
Robin C. Scarcella, Elaine S. Anderson, and Stephen D. Krashen
Reviewed by Susan Fiksdal
BOOK NOTICES
Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers, Michael McCarthy
(Michael Toolan) 579
Sound Advantage: A Pronunciation Book, Stacy A. Hagen and
Patricia E. Grogan (John Haberstroh)
Language Transfer: Cross-linguistic Influence in Language Learning,
Terence Odlin (Ruizhong Wang)
Understanding Computers: A Text for Developing Critical Reading,
Thinking, and Reasoning Skills, Ellen McGill and Donald DiCristoforo
(Miriam Fletcher)
Volume 26, Number 3 ❑ Autumn 1992
THE FORUM
Comments on Antony John Kunnan’s “DIF in Native Language
and Gender Groups in an ESL Placement Test” 595
The Limits of Biased Item Analysis
Stuart Luppescu
The Author Responds . . .
Antony John Kunnan
Research Issues
Validity and Reliability in Qualitative Research on Second Language Acquisition
and Teaching 602
Two Researchers Comment. . .
Donna M. Johnson and Muriel Saville-Troike
Another Researcher Comments . . .
Kathryn A. Davis
Editor's Note
In this Issue
429
• Clifford Hill and Kate Parry contrast the autonomous model of literacy
underlying traditional British and U.S. reading tests with what they call
a pragmatic model. In the former, reader, text, and reading are taken
to be autonomous entities. In the latter, readers and writers negotiate
social meaning in part on the basis of assumed social identities. Hill and
Parry note the limitations of most current reading tests, arguing for an
alternative that “reflects the social dimensions of literacy activities.”
Like Zamel, in the subsequent article, they argue that reading and
writing are inseparable.
• Vivian Zamel explores the interrelatedness of reading and writing. Like
Hill and Parry, she contrasts models of literacy—in this case a
transmission model that stresses the decoding aspects of reading with
a model that emphasizes the critical transactions between reader and
text. Zamel argues that the generative and recursive nature of writing
can help students discover that reading is not static. Rather, “reading
acts upon and gives meaning to” text; reading is “an act of composing.”
Zamel terms this discovery process “writing one’s way into reading.”
This orientation and the teaching activities it engenders help students
to see their own writing from the perspective of potential readers and
to understand reading and writing as inextricable.
• Martha Crago reports a qualitative study of first language socialization
in Inuit families. Her discussion of discourse features highlights the
incongruity between Inuit family practices and the classroom discourse
of non-Inuit second language teachers. Crago provides suggestions for
classroom activities that respect Inuit patterns of communicative
interaction. She discusses her findings in the contexts of second
language acquisition and the education of indigenous populations
worldwide.
• Karen Johnson explores the cognitive dimension of learning to teach,
by examining the instructional actions and decisions of preservice ESL
teachers. She suggests that some cognitive demands may be similar
across many fields, whereas others may be unique to second language
teaching. Johnson analyzes the ways in which teachers perceived and
reacted to student input. Of primary concern to these teachers were
student comprehension, student motivation, and the instructors’ desires
to maintain control over instructional management. The last of these
was served even at the cost of ignoring potentially fruitful but
unexpected student-initiated discourse. Johnson argues that teacher
preparation programs should provide avenues for apprentice teachers
to become conscious of their perceptions and responses while teaching.
• Michal Kirschner, Carol Wexler, and Elana Spector-Cohen view
reading comprehension tests as communicative interchanges between
test takers and test writers. They present preliminary test-writing
criteria designed to reflect student comprehension problems observed
in their classroom and test-writing experience. The criteria aim to
433
Written English has become even more important by virtue of its
dominant role in formal assessment. The standardization associated
with assessment is not easily achieved with oral language; even
when speech is audiotaped to insure uniformity, the quality of
replay may vary considerably. The concern for standardization has
also led to focus on strictly controlled responses to text rather than
on actual production of writing. Reading comprehension tests are
widely used to measure an individual’s control over written English,
and they have become important gatekeepers, controlling move-
ment from lower to higher levels of education in countries as differ-
ent as Nigeria and Japan. As these tests have been developed
around the world, they generally reflect one of two major ap-
proaches to testing an older approach developed in Britain that
allows for limited use of written responses or a more recent one de-
veloped in the United States that uses a multiple-choice format.
In Britain itself, testing has been considerably modified over the
last 10-15 years, but in countries that used to be British colonies the
older tradition survives, virtually unchallenged, in school certificate
exams taken at the end of secondary school. The material in Figure 1
is taken from an English language exam for the West African
FIGURE 1
Comprehension Passage and Tasks in the British Tradition
From the School Certificate and G. C. E. (English language 1, Question 8), June 1982, Lagos,
Nigeria: West African Examinations Council. Copyright 1982 by the West African Examinations
Council.
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it.
Orchids are flowers that are highly regarded and very expensive in some parts of the
world, whereas they grow wild and are barely noticed in other places. They are found in their
greatest variety and abundance in tropical climates.
There are two main categories of orchid: ground orchids, which are the common type in
temperate regions; and epiphytic orchids, which grow on trees and are usually found in the
tropics. Although these epiphytes grow on trees they do not derive nourishment from them.
The plants often have large solid swellings of the stem in which water and nutritive materials
are stored. They derive this moisture from the air by aerial roots.
More than 3000 species are in cultivation but there are many thousands of hybrids which
have been developed by cross-fertilization by horticulturalists all over the world. The orchid
has developed a prestige of its own, which is not only due to its fragile beauty, but also to its
scarcity value, and to the fact that its cultivation is somewhat specialized.
(a) Explain the word hybrid in one sentence.
(b) Give an alternative word that would fit in the place of derive.
(c) Why are orchids expensive in some parts of the world?
(d) Explain the grammatical function of the clause ‘Although these epiphytes grow on
trees’.
(e) What word in the passage tells you that the roots of epiphytic orchids do not reach
the ground?
Until recently only glasses or contact lenses were available for the correction of myopia, a
vision defect in which objects can be seen distinctly only when very close to the eyes. In 1978,
a surgical technique known as radial keratotomy, also termed radial K, was touted as a
possible “cure” for nearsightedness. Since its introduction, however, radial K has been the
subject of controversy and intense scrutiny.
In this procedure a diamond blade is used to make 8 to 16 cuts that radiate out from the
center of the cornea of the eye like the spokes of a wheel. The resulting flattened curvature
of the cornea decreases myopia. While close to 50% of patients achieve 20/40 vision on
standard eye charts without glasses, the later side effects aren’t fully known. The surgery
itself involves certain risks, such as corneal perforations, which occur in about one in 600 eyes
and which require stitches. Errant incisions can cause blindness and the need for corneal
transplants; even tiny holes invite infection. Radial K patients’ most common disappointment
is that their vision isn’t perfect. Some vision is overcorrected, some is undercorrected and
sometimes the outcome is one eye each way.
The risks of radial K are real and considerable but at the same time many patients are
satisfied with the results. Some experts predict that as more operations are performed
surgeons will improve their technique and complications will be reduced; furthermore, they
say that future radial K will be automated using a computer attached to a robotic arm with
the diamond blade being replaced by a laser. Other experts counter that improving technique
won’t help much because the concept itself of cutting the cornea is a bad one, fraught with
inherent problems. Though it may become more widespread and routine in the future, at
present radial K is not the method of choice for correcting nearsightedness.
26. The term radial keratotomy refers to . . .
a. a new type of contact lens.
b. a type of corrective surgery.
c. a diamond blade used in eye surgery.
d. a technique used in corneal transplants.
27. The passage states that half the radial K patients . . .
a. have partially corrected vision.
b. have perfect vision.
c. lose vision in one eye.
d. require corneal transplants.
28. According to the passage, some experts predict that in the future radial K will . . .
a. not require the cutting of the cornea.
b. produce perfect vision.
c. use computer and laser technology.
d. become obsolete.
29. The chief disappointment of radial K patients is that . . .
a. their vision isn’t the same in both eyes.
b. they must undergo surgery.
c. their vision isn’t overcorrected.
d. they do not achieve perfect vision.
30. The author’s attitude towards the use of radial K in the future is . . .
a. very worried.
b. enthusiastic.
c. suspicious.
d. neutral.
Autonomy of Skill
That institutions and individuals become autonomous through
literacy implies another aspect of the autonomous model, one that
we have characterized elsewhere as “autonomy of skill” (Hill &
Parry, 1989). This idea is that literacy—the ability to read and
write—can be considered separately from other factors as a
necessary, if not sufficient, cause for certain kinds of social and
Text as Communication
To begin, then, we would like to establish our own view of text.
We have shown that those who subscribe to the autonomous model
tend to view text as object, emphasizing certain physical properties
of writing: (a) given its means of production (e. g., making marks on
paper), it can be easily separated from its producer; (b) given ap-
propriate technology (e.g., printing on a durable substance), it can
be relatively permanent; and (c) given its visual form (as opposed to
auditory), it can be easily retrieved. In effect, as language becomes,
in a purely physical sense, more separable, durable, and retrievable,
it acquires a greater independence from the context in which it is
produced. To paraphrase Olson (1977), the meaning comes to
reside in the text itself.
From our vantage point, however, this focus on physical
properties has obscured the essentially social character of text, a
point that becomes apparent when we consider the various
activities involved in its production, storage, and retrieval. First, in
producing text, even the most solitary writer, by the very fact of
using words, draws on communal property, the system of commu-
nication that de Saussure has described as langue. This system, as
de Saussure points out, is inherently social:
It [langue] is the social side of speech, outside the individual who can
never create nor modify it by himself; it exists only by virtue of a sort of
contract signed by the members of a community. (1966, p. 14)
Thus, in selecting words, writers do not simply refer to the world
they are writing about; they associate themselves with particular
communities of language users. Our own selection in writing this
particular text is a case in point. We had to decide, for example,
whether to use ideological or pragmatic in describing an alternative
model of literacy and are well aware that the former links us with
anthropology, the latter with linguistics; and, of course, we are
locating ourselves in relation to current debates about literacy by
using expressions such as autonomous model. The very act of
FIGURE 3
Widdowson’s Model of Oral Communication
FIGURE 4
Widdowson's Model of Written Communication
FIGURE 5
Production and Reception in Written Communication
1 In both production and reception, the arrow runs from the writer to the reader simply to
indicate temporal sequence: A writer must write before a reader can read.
FIGURE 6
Internal Reciprocity in Written Communication
WRITER READER
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to acknowledge the help of many students in the Program in
Applied Linguistics at Teachers College, Columbia University; here we have space
to mention only Eric Larsen, Patrizia Magni, Kathie McClure, and Joye Smith.
REFERENCES
Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination. (M. Holquist, Ed.;
C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.) Austin: University of Texas Press.
Besnier, N. (1986). Spoken and written registers in a restricted-literacy
setting. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Southern
California, Los Angeles.
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MA: Harvard University Press.
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de Saussure, F. (1966). Course in general linguistics (W. Baskin, Trans.).
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Goody, J. (1986). The logic of writing and the organization of society.
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University Press.
463
reading is a receptive, and static process, rather than an active, par-
ticipatory one involving the dynamic contributions of a reader.
Shannon’s (1989) historical analysis and detailed description of
reading instruction point to the ways in which the teaching of read-
ing has been translated into a technology requiring students to fol-
low a set of prescribed and uniform procedures which are discon-
nected from students’ lives and subjectivities, and over which stu-
dents have little control. Rose’s (1989) critique of educational prac-
tices applies particularly well to reading instruction. Teaching, he
argues,
simplifies the dynamic tension between student and text and reduces the
psychological and social dimensions of instruction. The student’s
personal history recedes as the what of the classroom is valorized over
the how. Thus it is that the encounter of student and text is often
portrayed . . . as a transmission. Information, wisdom, virtue will pass
from the book to the student. (p. 235)
Reading is often reduced to the act of finding a particular idea, as
if this idea resides fixed and absolute in a text. As Bartholomae
(1986) has pointed out, “the language of reading instruction . . . is
loaded with images of mastery and control. . . . A reader finds a
controlling idea and follows it” (p. 96). This approach is most
evident in the display or test questions which appear in reading texts
(for both native speakers and ESL students), questions which
immediately follow the assigned passage and which not only call for
a predetermined answer rather than the interpretation of the
student reader but which may, in fact, keep students from
understanding the text: “Since traditional comprehension checks
generally focus on myriad text details, many students learn to
answer not by understanding the text well, but by looking
progressively throughout the text, following the questions as they
go” (Barnett, 1989, p. 134). It is not surprising, therefore, that
students conclude that the very “purpose of reading text is to
answer the questions that follow it” and that answering these
questions correctly sigifies that they have understood what the text
means (Belanoff, 1987, p. 102). Given the ritualized activities that
characterize reading instruction and the specification of correct
answers upon which it is based, students come to believe that
“reading is the attempt to memorize text which someone else selects
so that you can reproduce factual information when questioned’
(Shannon, 1989, p. 96). Meaning thus becomes understood as
something contained in a text or something that exists “out there,”
rather than something that results when a reader finds a way to
make the representation of meaning possible. In the case of ESL
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The writing activities I have pointed to are ways to enter the text
in an organic and powerful way and help students to understand
that the reader acts upon and gives meaning to the text, that reading
is a process of composing. These activities demonstrate how
reading shares much in common with writing, that, for example,
both are affected by purpose and goal (Flower, 1988), that both
THE AUTHOR
Vivian Zamel is Director of the ESL Program at the University of Massachusetts at
Boston, where she teaches writing courses for ESL students and graduate courses
on teaching ESL. She has published widely on writing theory, research, and
pedagogy.
REFERENCES
Atwell, N. (1987). In the middle. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Barnett, M. A. (1989). More than meets the eye: Foreign language reading.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: CAL/Prentice Hall.
Bartholomae, D. (1986). Wanderings: Misreadings, miswritings, misunder-
standings. In T. Newkirk (Ed.), Only connect: United reading and
writing (pp. 89-118). Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook.
Bartholomae, D., & Petrosky, A. (1986a). Facts, artifacts and counteracts:
A basic reading and writing course for the college curriculum. In
D. Bartholomae & A. Petrosky (Eds.), Facts, artifacts and counterfacts
(pp. 3-43). Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook.
Bartholomae, D., & Petrosky, A. (Eds.). (1986b). Facts, artifacts and
counteracts. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook.
Bartholomae, D., & Petrosky, A. (Eds.). (1987). Ways of reading. N e w
York: St. Martin’s Press.
Belanoff, P. (1987). The role of journals in the interpretive community. In
T. Fulwiler (Ed.), The journal book (pp. 101-110). Portsmouth, NH:
Boynton/Cook.
Berthoff, A. E. (1981). The making of meaning. Upper Montclair, NJ:
Boynton/Cook.
Bleich, D. (1986). Cognitive stereoscope and the study of language. In
B. T. Peterson (Ed.), Convergences: Transactions in reading and
writing (pp. 99-114). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of
English.
Calkins, L. (1986). The art of teaching writing. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Carrell, P. L., Devine, J., & Eskey, D. E. (Eds.). (1988). lnteractive
approaches to second language reading. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Carrell, P. L., & Eisterhold, J. C. (1988). Schema theory and ESL reading
pedagogy. In P. L. Carrell, J. Devine, & D. E. Eskey (Eds.), Interactive
approaches to second language reading (pp. 73-92). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
487
communicative interaction of Inuit families and non-Inuit second
language teachers surfaced repeatedly during the course of the
study. Statements were made in the context of the research which
reflected the frustration felt by both parents and teachers and shed
some light on the difficulties that Inuit children have in learning a
second language in the ways that their non-Inuit teachers expect
them to. These emergent findings point to a significant link between
the process of language socialization at home and second language
teaching in school. The central questions that this article addresses
are: How do Inuit families socialize their children to become
cultural members whose communicative interactions differ
markedly from those of their non-Inuit teachers? What can this tell
us about the teachability of a second language for Inuit learners?
The acquisition of a second language implies the acquisition of a
second culture for many learners. For these children, school
becomes a form of secondary socialization where the pragmatics of
the first language interfere with the learning of the second language.
The idea that school is a secondary form of socialization for
nondominant-culture children is not new. Several authors (Au &
Jordan, 1981; Duranti & Ochs, 1988; Heath, 1983, 1989; Ochs &
Schieffelin, 1984; Philips, 1983) have documented how certain
universal notions of childhood, with their corresponding educa-
tional and language acquisition corollaries, are false assumptions.
Yet, such language socialization literature, with its description of the
discontinuities of home and school, has not always been recognized
in second language acquisition literature. This has meant that the
interface of the sociocultural dimensions of language learning and
second language acquisition have not been fully explored. Cultural
variation in second language learning is the main concern of this
article. Looking closely at the Inuit culture’s particular ways of using
and learning language serves as a reminder that there is more than
one way to learn a language, be it an L1 or an L2.
METHOD
Materials and Procedures
The present research consisted of a longitudinal study of 4 Inuit
children and their families. The study of these 4 children is based on
the tradition of the developmental psycholinguistic studies (Bloom,
1970; Brown, 1973; Halliday, 1975) that focused on a few children
over a length of time and in which recordings (in this case,
videotapes) were made from which detailed verbal and nonverbal
information was transcribed. The research, however, departed
from its psycholinguistic roots. The primary focus was not strictly
on the linguistic aspects of the child's acquisition but, instead, on the
communicative interactions that existed between the children and
their caregivers. Furthermore, in this study, these communicative
interactions were contextualized ethnographically.
The ethnographic and communicative interfactional information
of the study was gathered from three sources: 80 hours of
transcribed and translated videotapes of 4 children and their
families, 20 ethnographic interviews of Inuit women conducted in
Inuktitut by a native speaker, and several hundred pages of
observation and informal interview notes (some of these made for
other research and consulting purposes). This body of data was
collected between 1985 and 1987 on six different trips that averaged
3 weeks in length. These data included school information that was
not collected in a systematic fashion but rather was a by-product
of the numerous conversations that I had during the course
Subjects
Videotapes were made every 3 months of 2 Inuit boys, 2 Inuit
girls, and their families. At the outset of the study, all 4 children
were between 1 and 2 years of age. Two of the children had
mothers in their early 20s and 2 had mothers who were considerably
older (see Table 1). Only one child lived in a small nuclear, one-
generational family. Such family structure is a nontraditional and
only recently emerging phenomenon in northern Quebec. The other
3 children lived in larger families. Two of these larger families
spanned three generations. All 4 children came from unicultural,
unilingual homes and none of them showed apparent evidence of
mental, physical, or emotional disability.
In addition, 20 women out of the possible 45 women living in
Quaqtaq were interviewed in Inuktitut by the northern Inuk re-
search coordinator, who is a native speaker of Inuktitut. The
coordinator decidal to interview first all 10 of the women in the
settlement over 45 years of age. In her estimation, these women
were the most knowledgeable about child rearing. Later, after
viewing the videotapes and observing the differences between
young mothers and older ones, the coordinator selected two other
age groups to interview (ages 18–25 and 25-45). The age groupings
reflected her sense of the ages and corresponding stages of modern
Inuit motherhood. Five additional women were then selected in
each of these two groups. The two mothers and one of the
grandmothers of the two children studied in Kangirsuk were also
interviewed. Four Inuit educators happened to be among the
mothers who were interviewed.
Observation notes were also made of the same four families
featured on the videotapes. In addition, a variety of episodes and
encounters with other people in several communities of northern
Quebec formed a part of the observation notes. These included
Inuit’s actions and reactions at home, around the community, in
Inuit campsites, and in school. Informal conversations and
interviews with Inuit and non-Inuit educators were included in
these notes. The non-Inuit educators were both French- and
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by funds from the Toronto Sick Children’s Hospital
Foundation (Grant No. 8614), the McGill University Faculty of Medicine, and the
Kativik School Board of northern Quebec. Special thanks go to Betsy Annahatak
and Lizzie Ningiuruvik for their contributions to the research. My thanks also go to
Elisabeth Handsley for her help in the manuscript preparation, to James Howden
for information on the second language programs of the Kativik School Board, and
to a careful and informative anonymous reviewer. I am especially indebted to the
Inuit families who opened their homes to me and my children so that we could
learn from them.
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507
clear understanding of what effective second language teaching is,
or how second language teachers actually learn to teach.
To date, much of the classroom-based research on second
language teaching has sought to describe effective teaching
behaviors, positive learner outcomes, and teacher-student
interactions that are believed to lead to successful second language
learning (Chaudron, 1988). Only recently have researchers begun to
recognize the importance of exploring the cognitive dimensions of
how second language teachers’ thoughts, judgments, and decisions
influence the nature of second language instruction. Freeman (1990)
suggests that to understand second language teachers’ instructional
behaviors, we must first understand the thoughts and judgments
that shape those behaviors. Moreover, Richards and Nunan (1990)
argue that to build a theory of second language teaching, research is
needed to discover the higher level concepts and thinking processes
that guide teachers during second language instruction.
THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is thus twofold. First, by coming to un-
derstand the ways in which preservice teachers perceive, process,
and act upon information during their initial teaching experiences,
the field of second language teacher education stands to gain a great-
er understanding of the instructional processes that preparatory pro-
grams and preservice teaching experiences need to address. Second,
by recognizing the antecedent conditions that lead preservice
teachers to make instructional decisions, the field also gains a great-
er understanding of the cognitive dimensions of second language
teaching.
This study examines the instructional actions and decisions of pre-
service ESL teachers during their initial teaching experiences. It
attempts to identify student behaviors and/or responses that lead
preservice ESL teachers to implement specific instructional actions.
In so doing, it examines the instructional decisions and information
teachers considered during interactive teaching. While it is
recognized that knowledge about preservice ESL teachers’
instructional actions and decisions can in no way provide a
comprehensive characterization of the complex conceptual
processes of second language teaching, it is, however, an important
starting point for understanding how second language teachers
conceptualize their initial teaching experiences and, in essence,
learn to teach. Therefore, this study explored the following research
questions:
1. What student performance cues do preservice ESL teachers
utilize during second language instruction?
METHOD
Subjects
Over the course of two semesters, 6 preservice ESL teachers—5
female and 1 male—enrolled in a practicum as part of a 2-year
master’s degree program in TESOL voluntarily partiticipated in this
study. Four of the teachers were native speakers of English (3 of
U.S. English and 1 of British English), and 2 possessed nativelike
fluency in English but spoke either Japanese or Spanish as a native
language. Three of the teachers had no previous teaching
experience, while 3 others had limited teaching experience (no
more than 2 years) in elementary or adult-level English as a foreign
language instruction in their native countries. During their
preservice teaching experience they were concurrently enrolled in 6
credit hours of course work in theory and practice in TESOL. They
were teaching in a one-semester practicum in which they were
assigned to a cooperating teacher in either a precollege intensive
English language program or an adult-level ESL community
education program.
Procedures
The sources of data for this study included (a) videotaped
observations of actual classroom instruction, (b) teachers’ stimulus
recall reports of the instructional decisions they recalled making and
the prior knowledge they recalled considering as they viewed their
own videotaped instruction, and (c) retrospectives written by the
teachers on what they perceived to have had the greatest influence
on their decisions during classroom instruction.
Collection of teaching samples. At midsemester, each preservice
ESL teacher was videotaped teaching one regularly scheduled 55-
minute lesson. Four of the lessons were of intermediate-level ESL
reading and writing classes and 2 were of intermediate-level ESL
speaking and listening classes. Prestudy observations had been
conducted, and teachers and students were accustomed to the
equipment and to an observer being in the room.
Collection of stimulus recall reports. Following the procedures
established by Shavelson and Stern (1981), teachers participated in
Data Analysis
The data collected in this study was interpreted using a modified
version of the classification scheme created by Fogarty et al. (1983).
The intent of their classification scheme was to establish “a
methodology for describing competent classroom performance and
analyzing components of competent classroom decision making”
(p. 22) covering four dimensions of interactive teaching. These
included descriptive categories under Student Performance Cues
(behaviors and/or responses exhibited by students during
instruction), Instructional Actions (behaviors and/or responses
exhibited by teachers during instruction) that teachers implemented
in response to Student Performance Cues, Instructional Goals, and
Prior Knowledge that teachers recalled considering during
instruction.
An initial analysis of the data revealed that it was necessary to
make several modifications in order to tailor the original class-
ification scheme to second language instructional contexts. The
RESULTS
The results of these analyses are presented in terms of the type
and frequency of (a) teachers’ response to student performance
cues, (b) teachers’ instructional actions in response to student
performance cues, and (c) teachers’ instructional decisions and
TABLE 1
Frequencies of Student Performance Cues Responded to by Preservice ESL Teachers
TABLE 3
Frequencies of Instructional Actions Implemented by Preservice ESL Teachers
in Response to Specific Categories of Student Performance Cues
TABLE 4
Frequencies of Instructional Decisions and Prior Knowledge
Reported by Preservice ESL Teachers
DISCUSSION
The results of this study illustrate the ways in which these
preservice ESL teachers utilized student performance cues, the
instructional actions they implemented in response to student
performance cues, and the instructional decisions they made and
other information they considered during second language
instruction. Overall, these teachers utilized more student responses
that were teacher elicited than student initiated. They paid more
instructional attention to errors and deficient responses by
implementing a cycle of instructional actions that included checking
knowledge, providing an explanation, and giving feedback. They
paid less instructional attention to elicited and initiated responses by
either encouraging and incorporating student initiations or giving
feedback. When faced with unexpected student responses such as
deficient responses, continued student initiations, or errors, they
relied on a limited number of instructional actions, and often
perceived such responses as obstacles to maintaining control over
the instructional activities. Moreover, their instructional decisions
were overwhelmingly concerned with ensuring student understand-
ing, motivation and involvement, and instructional management. At
the same time, they continually questioned the appropriateness of
their teaching strategies, appeared to judge their own effectiveness
in relation to student responses and, therefore, sought confirmation
throughout the instructional process that students understood and
were actively engaged.
These findings support previously held characterizations in L1
educational literature that unexpected student behavior is the most
prominent antecedent condition of preservice teachers’ instruction-
al behavior. In addition, these findings support the notion that pre-
service teachers tend to rely on a limited number of instructional
routines, and are primarily concerned with maintaining the flow of
instructional activities (Clark & Peterson, 1986). These similarities
imply, at least to some extent, that the cognitive demands of
learning to teach may cut across instructional contexts and that the
cognitive strategies utilized by preservice teachers during their
initial teaching experiences may be quite similar. Such similarities
suggest that the field of second language teacher education can, and
CONCLUSION
Despite these limitations, the results of this study point in
promising directions. Among these are the need for continued
exploration into the cognitive dimensions of second language
teaching. Further research along the lines suggested by the present
study may eventually provide a broader understanding of not only
the processes of second language teaching but how second language
teachers learn to teach. This study represents a necessary first step
toward understanding the initial teaching experiences of preservice
second language teachers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I gratefully acknowledge Patricia A. Dunkel, David Nunan, and Dennis S. Gouran
for their incisive and substantive suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.
THE AUTHOR
Karen E. Johnson is Assistant Professor of Speech Communication at The
Pennsylvania State University, where she teaches courses in the MA TESOL
program. Her research focuses on teacher cognition in second language
instructional contexts and communication in multicultural classrooms.
REFERENCES
Bernhardt, E., & Hammadou, J. (1987). A decade of research in foreign
language teacher education. The Modern Language Journal, 71, 291-299.
Bishop, A. J., & Whitfield, R. C. (1972). Situations in teaching. London:
McGraw-Hill.
Bogdan, R., & Biklen, S. K. (1982). Qualitative research for education: An
introduction to theory and methods. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Calderhead, J. (1981). A psychological approach to research on teachers’
classroom decision making. British Educational Research Journal, 7,
51-57.
537
objectives in the classroom. We therefore attempted to formulate a
unified set of criteria for writing and evaluating tests. We hoped
that the adoption of such criteria by the teaching staff would have
a positive backwash effect on classroom activities (Carroll, 1980;
Hughes, 1989; Krashen, 1982). Preliminary criteria are presented
here.
We found a lack of specific guidelines in the literature for
formulating or assessing items for reading comprehension tests at a
high-proficiency level, where authentic academic texts are used.
Furthermore, the recommendations that we did find (e.g., Hughes,
1989; Nuttall, 1982; Perkins & Jones, 1985; Shohamy, 1985) were
not, on the whole, accompanied by a comprehensive theoretical
framework which could be relayed to teachers, thus eliciting their
cooperation.
We anchored our work by responding to the following questions:
What cognitive and linguistic constraints on communication apply
to the testing situation? What constitutes a good reading
comprehension test for academic texts? What are the possible
explanations as to why a particular item is good or, conversely, what
makes a question problematic? How can better test writing be
facilitated among teachers in order to ultimately improve the
quality of classroom teaching?
The purpose of this paper is to present criteria, along with a the-
oretical rationale, to be considered by the test writer during the test-
writing process. These criteria pertain to the global form of the test
as well as to the form of specific questions. At the practical level, we
hope that such a list of considerations or criteria will facilitate the
test-writing process such that teachers and course coordinators
become more aware of potential difficulties for the student. Such
awareness will ultimately improve the final product, which should
have a positive effect on the quality of classroom teaching.
Reading comprehension tests used in our courses comprise full-
length, unedited academic texts. The accompanying questions
attempt to assess student ability to process a text on macro- and
microlevels. Both the choice of text and the tasks implicit in the test
questions should reflect tasks students are expected to perform in
their academic studies. Thus, students can use dictionaries during
the test. Spolsky (1985) claims that language tests by definition are
not authentic. Although we acknowledge this claim, practical
constraints dictate that we must administer a reading comprehen-
sion test in the form of a text plus questions. We thereby attempt to
approximate the pedagogical goal of authenticity widely discussed
in the literature (Bachman, 1990; Carroll, 1985; Jones, 1985; Oller,
1979, 1980).
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank Dulcie M. Engel for her helpful comments on this paper.
THE AUTHORS
Michal Kirschner, Carol Wexler, and Elana Spector-Cohen are EFL course
coordinators in the Division of Foreign Languages at Tel Aviv University, Israel.
They specialize in curriculum design, course administration, and teaching reading
comprehension of academic texts.
REFERENCES
Ariel, M. (1985). Givenness marking. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
Tel Aviv University, Israel.
Ariel, M. (1990). Accessing noun-phrase antecedents. London: Routledge.
Armbruster, B. B., Anderson, T. H., & Ostertag, J. (1987). Does text
structure/summarization instruction facilitate learning from expository
texts? Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 331-346.
APPENDIX
Global Considerations for Writing Tests
The meaning and forms of tenses are complex and often difficult
for nonnative speakers to acquire. The concepts associated with
time which differ among language communities can present an
additional level of complexitv for learners. In a survey, 130 ESL
students were asked to describe the meanings of English tenses in
terms of time concepts used in ESL grammar texts. The results
suggest that speakers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese,
and Arabic associate different temporal relationships with the
terms right now, present, and past than do native speakers. An
implication of this finding is that grammar teaching that utilizes
descriptions of time accepted in English-speaking communities to
explain usages and meanings of English tenses can produce a low
rate of learner comprehension.
557
in the present tense. However, the present simple runs carries
iterative (or habitual) implicature, whereas -ing in the second
sentence imparts progressive implicature to the verb’s present tense
meaning. Aspects, which Comrie (1976), Lyons (1977), and
Richards (1987) view as additional features of time deixis (or means
of locating events in time), can present the same potential
dichotomy between the time attributable and its reference.
In order to gain insight into how ESL learners acquire morpho-
logical tense, numerous studies have examined the order of
morpheme acquisition (e.g., Andersen, 1977; Bailey, Madden, &
Krashen, 1974; Dulay & Burt, 1974; Larsen-Freeman, 1976; Makino,
1979; Pienemann, 1985). In addition, a great deal of research has
been devoted to ESL learner acquisition of tense and morpheme
meaning (Andersen, 1983; Bailey, 1989a, 1989b; Hatch, 1978).
Whereas some specialists on language and tense acquisition believe
that learners acquire tense meanings before their morphological
forms, others hold the opposite view. This paper will address the
issue of whether nonnative speakers (NNSs) who have received
extensive L2 training and have achieved a relatively high L2
proficiency intuitively perceive English conceptualization of time
and its grammatical references to deictic (or indexical) time, that is,
morphological tense, in ways similar to native speakers (NSs).
Another focus of this study is NNSs’ perceptions of English
aspectual implicature.
ESL teachers and L2 researchers recognize that English tenses are
difficult to acquire (DeCarrico, 1986; Richards, 1981; Riddle, 1986).
Guiora (1983) notes that speakers of Hebrew encounter difficulty
mastering the meanings and usages of several of the English past
tenses which, to them, seem redundant and without an easily
discernible function. He also notes that speakers of Chinese may be
faced with establishing an entirely new hypothesis of how time is
used and referred to. Sharwood Smith (1988) indicates that his
Polish students had difficulty relating to the past progressive and its
form. Richards (1981) discusses the complexity of introducing
English progressive tenses and their explicit and implied meanings.
Dialect variations even within English-speaking societies make for
significant differences in tense usage and meanings (Leech, 1971).
Coppetiers (1987), who conducted a study of highly educated
NNSs with near-native proficiency in French, found that whereas
they had obviously acquired tense forms, their perceptions of tense
meanings were not NS-like. Coppetiers contends that the NNSs’
perceptions of tense meanings were strongly affected by tense
meanings in the L1 so that the speakers of Romance languages
interpreted the meanings of French tenses differently from speakers
of Germanic and tenseless languages (pp. 560-561).
METHOD
Questionnaire Design
In the questionnaire, the students were asked to describe four
sentences for each of the 8 English tenses excluding future, a total of
32 sentences: 4 present (present simple, present progressive, pres-
ent perfect, and present perfect progressive) and 4 past (past sim-
ple, past progressive, past perfect, and past perfect progres-
sive). If responses for 2 sentences with the same tense and aspect
differed, they were averaged independently for tense and aspect. In
order to circumvent the issue of the respondents’ possible confu-
sion when performing the required task, responses to the first 2 sen-
tences per tense were considered invalid and excluded from data
analysis.
In the questionnaire, time attributes and references were listed
with the immediate present first, moving back to the past perfect,
which is the most deictically distant from the present moment. To
assure that the tense descriptors were accessible to the NNSs, the
selection of terms describing the meanings of tenses and aspectual
implicatures were chosen from intermediate/advanced ESL and
grammar texts: right now (Azar, 1989) and at the moment of
speaking (Leech, 1971); in the present and in the past (Leech &
Svartvik, 1975); in the past and before another past event (Azar,
1989; Leech, 1971; Leech & Svartvik, 1975); progressive (Azar, 1989;
Leech, 1971; Leech & Svartvik, 1975); and repetitive/habitual
(Azar, 1989; Leech& Svartvik, 1975).
The semantics of the contexts were made uniform for grammat-
ical gender, animacy, and number. The choice of sentences in the
questionnaire reflected several considerations:
1. The verbs did not carry momentary or durational meanings
(Leech, 1971) (as in, respectively, blink or love) and only three
verbs were used: walk, talk, and visit.
that, for them, it is the most intuitively accessible deictic point. This
finding is consistent with that of Olshtain (1979) whose case study
showed that even a speaker of a language without aspect acquired
the present progressive earlier than other tenses. The past simple
attribute provides the second most easily available point of
reference because present, past, and future are the basic tense
meanings within the conceptualizations of linear temporality
(Comrie, 1985). The unanimity of the Japanese, none of whom
perceived it to mark the past, may be explained by the Japanese
system of naming a certain number of days back from today which
can be included in both the present and the past (Fillmore, 1975).
The Chinese perceived the deictic time of the present progressive
and past simple most nearly approximating NS perceptions. In
terms of distance from the NS values, these two tenses were
followed by the past perfect and the past progressive, then the
present simple, present perfect progressive, past perfect progres-
sive, and present perfect, respectively. Interestingly, the values for
Koreans followed approximately the same pattern. The Vietnamese
values for the present progressive and past simple are also the
highest for this group and are similarly followed by the past pro-
gressive. As has been mentioned, the Japanese are somewhat differ-
ent.
CONCLUSION
Independent of the NNSs’ perceived meanings of time spans,
morphological references to time impose obvious constraints on L2
learner performance. The fact that NNSs with extensive language
training and TOEFL scores above 500 consistently made temporal
reference analyses and choices of time attributes significantly
different from those of NSs in nearly all cases can be accounted for
by four interrelated hypotheses which require further investigation.
1. NNSs’ intuitive conceptualizations of time are not linear and/or
deictic and, therefore, removed from those of NSs. Extensive L2
instruction may diminish this conceptual distance only to a
limited extent.
2. Because English, unlike some other languages, requires morpho-
logical reference to time deixis, NNSs’ intuitions associated with
deictic tense may not be based on linear temporality and mor-
phological tense as fully as those of NSs are.
THE AUTHOR
Eli Hinkel received her PhD in linguistics from The University of Michigan in 1984
and has taught in intensive and ITA-training programs for the past 10 years. Her
research interests include concept-based transfer and L2 teaching methodologies.
She is employed as Coordinator of the ESL Composition Program at The Ohio
State University.
REFERENCES
Andersen, R. (1977). The impoverished. state of cross-sectional morpheme
acquisition/accuracy morphology. In C. Henning (Ed.), Proceedings of
the Los Angeles Second Language Research Forum (pp. 308-320). Los
Angeles: University of California.
Andersen, R. (1983). Transfer to somewhere. In S. Gass & L. Selinker
(Eds.), Language transfer in language learning (pp. 177-202). Rowley,
MA: Newbury House.
Azar, B. (1989). Understanding and using English grammar (2nd ed.).
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Bach, K. (1981). Referential/attributive. Synthese, 49, 219-244.
Bailey, N., Madden, C., & Krashen, S. (1974). Is there a “natural sequence” in
adult second language learning? Language Learning, 27, 235-244.
Bailey, N. (1989a). Theoretical implications of the acquisition of the
English simple past and past progressive. In S. Gass, C. Madden,
D. Preston, & L. Selinker (Eds.), Variation in second language
acquisition: Vol. 2. Psycholinguistic issues (pp. 109-124). Clevedon,
England: Multilingual Matters.
573
utilized for the purposes of learning and teaching. This theme
reinforces their attempt to transcend what they see as the rather
narrowly conceived, psycholinguistically oriented approaches to
pedagogy and research which have dominated task-based
learning to the present time.
2. Learners can make important contributions to the content and
the process of learning. Consistent with this view of the class-
room as a community, the authors demonstrate ways in which
learners themselves can contribute to the ongoing construction of
the curriculum by making choices and contributions not only
about classroom content but also about pedagogical procedures.
3. Language classrooms should provide a dual focus on language
content and learning process. If learners are to make choices
about what to learn and how to learn, then they need to have
opportunities for focusing not only on language content but also
on learning processes. The necessity for this dual focus is dealt
with consistently throughout the book and receives detailed
treatment in the penultimate chapter of the book.
4. Project-based learning provides coherence to task-based lan-
guage programs. The pedagogic “task” has become an important
organizing principle in language curriculum development. At the
present time, the theoretical and empirical view of task pre-
sented in the literature is very much based within a psycholin-
guistic, cognitivist view of language learning and use. Legutke
and Thomas seek to provide a counterpoint to this view by dem-
onstrating the sociocultural dimensions of task-based learning.
One of the dangers of task-based learning is that the curriculum
can become a collection of disconnected classroom activities. In
this book, the authors show how the potential for lack of coher-
ence can be avoided by integrating tasks through projects.
5. Experiential teaching should be mirrored by experiential teacher
education. In the final chapter, the focus shifts from the learners
to the teacher, and the authors make the point that the
philosophy and approach which is advocated for learners should
also find expression in the education of teachers.
The theoretical heart of the book is to be found in chapter 3,
where the authors take a long, hard look at the contribution of
humanism to language education. They are extremely critical of the
“touchy feely” philosophy of the 1970s, which was, in most
instances, highly manipulative while pretending to be emancipa-
tor. While agreeing with the thrust of much of what the authors
have to say in this chapter, I must say that I found the level of
personal debate rather vigorous at times.
REFERENCES
Breen, M., & Candlin, C. (1980). The essentials of a communicative
curriculum in language teaching. Applied Linguistics, 1, 89-112.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. Macmillan New York.
Kohonen, V. (1992). Experiential language learning Towards second language
learning as learner education. In D. Nunan (Ed.), Collaborative language
learning and teaching (pp. 14-39). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Widdows, S., & Voller, P. (1991). PANSI: A survey of ELT needs of
Japanese university students. Cross Currents, 18 (2), 127-141.
DAVID NUNAN
Macquarie University, Australia
REVIEWS 575
Developing Communicative Competence in a Second Language.
Robin C. Scarcella, Elaine S. Anderson, and Stephen D. Krashen
(Eds.). New York: Newbury House, 1990. Pp. xviii+ 356.
REVIEWS 577
will, I believe, achieve a stated purpose: The book should encour-
age active exploration of communicative competence by both
researchers and teachers.
REFERENCES
Canale, M. (1983). From communicative competency to communicative
language pedagogy. In J. C. Richards & R. W. Schmidt (Eds.),
Language and communication (pp. 2-28). New York: Longman.
Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative
approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied
Linguistics, 1, 1-47.
Fiksdal, S. (1989). Framing uncomfortable moments in cross-cultural
gatekeeping interviews. In S. Gass, C. Madden, D. Preston, &
L. Selinker (Eds.), Variation in second language acquisition (190-207).
Philadelphia, PA: Multilingual Matters.
Schegloff, E., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-
correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53,
361-382.
Varonis, E. M., & Gass, S. M. (1985). Task variation and nonnative/
nonnative negotiation of meaning. In S. M. Gass & C. G. Madden
(Eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp. 149-161). Rowley, MA:
Newbury House.
SUSAN FIKSDAL
The Evergreen State College
579
useful suggestions at the end of the book as to how one might complete the
Reader Activities, with appropriate reminders that these are only possible
responses and that there is “no single right answer.” For me, those Reader
Activities are the book’s winning feature: Although the author does not set
out to demonstrate specific ways of using discourse analysis in teaching,
anyone who works through these activities will have acquired a range of
texts and procedures (and the ability to identify related discourse samples)
which can be so used.
One of the virtues of this book is its acknowledgment of a range of
useful language-focused studies contributing to the understanding of that
multifaceted process, discourse. Samples and examples are overwhelm-
ingly from or keyed to British English or Englishes (i.e., many varieties
besides RP and “good” usage), but this finally seems a strength rather than
a weakness, even for non-Britons: the reader is always examining directly
related voices and styles, rather than Hawaiian chalk and Ulster cheese.
For the student approaching the area without a linguistics background,
it is an ideal book with which to begin, before proceeding to more detailed
or technical works; while for those soon heading back to the language
classroom, the book offers just about the right amount of coverage on its
own.
MICHAEL TOOLAN
University of Washington
REFERENCES
Catford, J. C. (1987). Phonetics and the teaching of pronunciation: A systematic
description of English phonology. In J. Morley (Ed.), Current perspectives on
pronunciation (pp. 83-100). Washington, DC: TESOL.
Hagen, S. A. (1988). (Ed.), Sound advice: A basis for listening. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
JOHN HABERSTROH
The Pennsylvania State University
As ESL teachers, we are often aware of the different ways of talking and
thinking of our students from various language backgrounds. One wonders
if these differences result from students’ native languages, and if so, how
serious such influence is in the study of a second language. Further, how
well can we, as teachers, predict and control the influences? Odlin’s
Language Transfer: Cross-linguistic Influence in Language Learning
provides some insightful answers to these questions. Like the other books
in the Cambridge Applied Linguistic Series edited by Michael Long and
Jack Richards, the subject of discussion is closely related to language
teaching and learning and is of direct concern and interest to both
researchers and language teachers.
RUIZHONG WANG
Northern Arizona University
MIRIAM FLETCHER
Purdue University
585
encourage a commitment to providing equal opportunity to all categories
of students in their classes. A 1982 publication of the Association of
American Colleges, “The Classroom Climate: A Chilly One for Women?”
(Hall, 1982) provides convincing evidence that we need to address this
question. The report documents that both obvious and subtle discrimina-
tory actions, as well as unrecognized patterns of behavior, lead to unequal
opportunity for well-qualified women, as compared to nonminority males,
in university math, science, computer science, engineering, and other
technical programs. Most of the discriminatory faculty behaviors
described in this report are, in all likelihood, unconscious. As the authors of
Removing Bias: Guidelines for Student-Faculty Communication (Jenkins,
Gappa, & Pearce, 1983) write, instructor bias “does occur in the classroom,
not deliberately, but because of misinformation or a lack of awareness”
(p. 4). Some discriminatory behaviors are behaviors of commission; for
example, responding more favorably to questions from male students than
to those from female students. Some are behaviors of omission, such as not
asking female students to participate in research projects or not crediting
female students for their ideas as often as crediting male students for theirs
with such “authoring;’ references as, “As John pointed out” (Hall, 1982).
The “chilly climate” found for women exists as well for other groups not
traditionally found in the sciences, such as African Americans and
Hispanics (Jenkins, Gappa, & Pearce, 1983).
Those of us who teach ITAs can help them to learn how to create
classroom climates that are equally beneficial to all categories of students.
We can do this by encouraging attention to bias when doing activities that
focus on classroom interaction patterns, both verbal and nonverbal. By
doing so, we can create an awareness of how interaction patterns reflect
unconscious biases and stereotypes.
Such a solution was attempted in a semester-long course for ITAs which
I have taught at two institutions. The course, although called Advanced
Diction, in fact includes training in cross-cultural issues, oral presentation
techniques, and teaching techniques, as well as English language
instruction. The course gives a good deal of attention to how teachers ask
questions, how they respond to answers (correct or incorrect), and how
they respond to questions from students. In addition, the course includes
observation activities in which ITAs note in detail the behaviors of
university teachers by observing them both in the classroom and on video.
The purpose of the observation activities has always been to make the TAs
more aware of the following: (a) the variety of teacher styles, (b) the effect
of various teacher styles and behaviors on their students, (c) the
importance of nonverbal behavior in communication, (d) the variety of
ways in which teachers and students interact, and (e) the unconscious
nature of much of a teacher’s behavior. Recently, I decided to follow the
observation segment of the course with a segment that would consider
classroom equity.
At the time this new segment was introduced, the class consisted of 13
ITAs, 12 male and 1 female. All were TAs in math, science, or
METHOD
Subjects
Ten ESL students were studied: 6 from the University of Florida’s
English Language Institute and 4 from the University of Panama’s Centro
Regional Universitario de Chiriquí.
The subjects were classified by two of their instructors as among the 5
most active (assertive) or nonactive (nonassertive) members of their class.
The subjects were then organized into sets in which a “nonactive” speaker
was paired alternatively with an “active” and a “nonactive” partner, for
example:
Set 1
Pair 1: Student 1 (Nonactive) + Student 2 (Nonactive)
Pair 2: Student 1 (Nonactive) + Student 3 (Active)
Tasks
Students were given 5 commonly used communicative tasks:
Task 1: Two-way, speakers found differences between their pictures
Task 2: One-way, one speaker described a picture for the other to draw
Task 3: Nondirectional, speakers ordered a list of candidates
Procedure
All sets were audiotaped for two versions of each task, one with each
pair of the set. The order of the pairs alternated after each task so that the
first pair to do Task 1 would be the last to do Task 2, and so forth. After
finishing all 5 tasks in English, students from the University of Panama
repeated the same procedure in Spanish, their native language.
Transcripts of the first 15 minutes of the conversations were prepared
for analysis.
Analysis
The analysis consisted of two parts. In the first, the speech production of
each speaker per task was measured by counting the T units, fragments,
phrases, and words, The second part, by far the most important, consisted
of a qualitative analysis of three aspects of discourse
1. Conversation management: Directing and controlling the conversation
2. Information presentation: Contributing ideas to the conversation
3. Interaction: Working with the other speaker to solve the problem jointly
Conversation management refers to overt moves to control the conver-
sation by regulating the other speaker’s participation or establishing proce-
dures for carrying out the task. Information presentation refers to how
much content each participant contributed. It was broken down into three
categories: paraphrases of immediately preceding ideas; information obvi-
ous from the context; and new information such as judgments, examples,
and opinions. Finally, interaction refers to the degree both speakers par-
ticipated in making decisions towards accomplishing the task.
CONCLUSION
The finding that speakers maintained similar patterns of participation
with different partners, task types, and languages is evidence that
discourse style is another significant factor in students’ performance on
interactive tasks. If true, important implications follow. For research, the
discourse style of the students should be considered in future studies. For
methodology, (a) the task type alone (e.g., two-way tasks) may not ensure
balanced conversations, (b) pairing nonassertive students may not
improve the quantity nor the quality of their participation, and (c) practice
alone may not be enough to improve students’ performance on small-
group interactive tasks.
The purpose of this pilot study was not to present definitive answers but
to explore new questions about students’ interaction in small-group ESL
tasks. Given the nature of the results and the importance of the
implications, I suggest that this line of research be pursued.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This pilot study is based on my doctoral dissertation, defended in December 1990
at the University of Florida. I appreciate the guidance of my committee, especially
the chair, Robert de Beaugrande.
STUART LUPPESCU
University of Chicago
595
and hypothesis tests involve comparing data to known distributions
and deducing the likelihood of those data occurring by chance
alone. In the social sciences, if such results could have occurred by
chance no more than 1 time out of 20, the results are considered
“significant” and may be published in a scholarly journal. However,
even significant results may actually be the result of chance and not
the result of what is being investigated; at the 5% level of
significance, we expect this to happen 1 time out of 20. In the same
way, if we use the 5% significance level to identify items that are
characterized by DIF, we expect 5% of the items, even if there is no
bias, to be selected by this method.
Luppescu (1991) has verified this principle in a simulation study
with data representing the performance of 1000 people on a 75-item
test. In the simulation, 900 of the people were imagined to belong to
the population majority group, and 100 to a minority group. The
data were simulated so that there was no bias favoring either of the
groups. The Rasch analysis difficulty shift method of detecting DIF
was used. In this method, the item difficulties are obtained for each
of the groups separately. (See Wright & Stone, 1990, for details on
this procedure.) Items for which the difference in item difficulties
for the two groups is greater than 2 times the combined standard
error are considered to be candidates for DIF. 1 In this simulation of
1000 people and 75 items with zero bias, 6 items were identified as
containing DIF. That is, despite the fact that there was no DIF at
work in the data, because of the ordinary, expected stochastic
variation, 8% of the items were selected by the procedure used to
identify bias. It is this writer’s position that of the 13 items Kunnan
identified as exhibiting native language group bias, and the 23 items
exhibiting sex bias on the 150-item test, at least 7 or 8 items do not
display DIF but were selected by the procedure because of
ordinary variation. This writer does not claim that there is no DIF
operating at all in Kunnan’s test, but that some items identified by
statistical procedures as biased are actually not, and that it is
impossible to tell by nonstatistical procedures which are and which
are not.
Plake (1980) has looked into the problem of identification of
biased test items by visual inspection. Investigating the Iowa Test of
Basic Skills math concepts subtest, she found that there was very
little agreement between subjective and statistical procedures in
identifying biased items. Moreover, L. Hedges (personal commu-
nication, spring 1991), the chairman of the commission charged
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Linn, R. L., & Drasgow, F. (1987). Implications of the Golden Rule
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Luppescu, S. (1991). Eliminating test bias. Unpublished manuscript.
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to ascertain item validity: One step in the test validation process.
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Weiss, J. (1987). The Golden Rule bias reduction principle: A practical
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Wright, B. D., & Stone, M. (1990). Identification of item bias (Rasch
Measurement Practice Research Primer No. 5). Chicago: MESA
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Angoff, W. H. (1982). Use of difficulty and discrimination indices for
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Research Issues
The TESOL Quarterly publishes brief comments on aspects of qualitative and
quantitative research. For this issue, we asked three researchers to address the fol-
lowing question: How should qualitative researchers in our field understand relia-
bility and validity?
THE AUTHORS
Donna M. Johnson (PhD, Stanford University) teaches in the MA/ESL and SLAT
PhD programs at the University of Arizona. Her current research interests include
interpersonal strategies in written and cross-cultural communication. Her
publications include Approaches to Research in Second Language Learning
(Longman, 1992) and Richness in Writing (edited with D. Roen; Longman, 1989).
KATHRYN A. DAVIS
University of Hawaii at Manoa
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