And Yet
This is a reading response for Week 5 of Cognition and Learning, 6411.
The reading is:
Mekala, S., Ponmani, M. & Shabitha, P. (2016). Transfer of grammatical knowledge into ESL writing. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2(2), 47-64.
The discussion prompt: From your L2 learning experience, which approach helped your language transfer to the maximum extent?
Approaches to teaching a second language should not be an either/or proposition that focuses on only form or meaning, as it relates to functional use of language. My experiences, and that of my parents who learned a new language at a later stage in their lives, is more of an ‘and/yet’ approach to acquiring a second or third language. Acquiring a second language (L2) is dependent on the transfer of rote knowledge (names of objects, grammatical structures of sentences) to deep knowledge, described by Willingham (2009) as “richly interconnected” (p. 95). I see this as a process of applying the rote learning of grammatical forms, such as those done in the study by Mekala, Ponmani and Shabitha (2016), to the meaningful and functional use of language. The deeper learning of L2 happens in the interconnections between the form and function, that dance that happens when what you’ve learned in the L2 classroom is applied to real life situations. My experiences in the language lab, acquiring grammatically correct sentence structures, with the vocabulary accurately placed to ensure understanding, is an important step in learning L2. This work builds experience and relational structures (Getner & Markham, 1997) yet is not enough to acquire deeper understanding of nuances of applying grammatically correct sentences into the lived experience in an L2 situation. For my parents, as it is for many new L2 learners, it is a combination of both form and function that allows for abstraction and transfer to occur more fluidly.
What I’m realizing from this is the similarity of this form vs function paradox as analogous to the teaching of other subjects. It’s the age old argument of experiential learning vs rote learning. Teach the basics – grammatical structures, math facts, scientific procedures – to understand the form required to ensure learning happens. And/yet it’s in the richly interconnected experiences where forms are applied to dynamic situations where knowledge transfer and abstraction occur, just as Willingham (2009) suggests with the tumour & rays experiment. By explicitly building analogous relationships between L2 forms, studied in the classroom, to L2 experiences, in functioning in a grocery store for example, that learners will realize that there are similarities. Getner and Markham (1997) suggest that this is a process of “structural alignment and mapping between mental representations” (p. 45). Taking those grammatical structures from the classroom and mentally mapping them onto an experience, such as buying groceries, ensures there is structural alignment between mental conceptions. This is supported in research by McRae, Nedjadrasul, Pau, Pui-Het Lo, and King (2018) who posit that “knowledge of real world situations is an important component of learning and using many abstract concepts” (p. 518). McRae et al. (2018) suggest that abstract concepts are meaningless when used out of context. Abstraction is reliant on people, objects, actions, and settings, and that situations “shape our ability to comprehend and produce abstract concepts” (p. 529).
In the end, I’ll agree with Dan, and others, who state that L2 learning requires a balance of both form and meaning, not in an either/or relationship, but in an and/yet dance toward understanding.
References
Gentner, D., & Markman, A. B. (1997). Structure mapping in analogy and similarity. American Psychologist, 52(1), 45-56.
McRae, K., Nedjadrasul, D., Pau, R., Lo, B. P., & King, L. (2018). Abstract concepts and pictures of real‐world situations activate one another. Topics in Cognitive Science, 10(3), 518-532.
Mekala, S., Ponmani, M. & Shabitha, P. (2016). Transfer of grammatical knowledge into ESL writing. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2(2), 47-64.
Willingham, D. (2009). Why don’t students like school? San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Image Attribution: Photo by Aditya Saxena on Unsplash
