Friday, April 8, 2011
Research in Natural Setting
If I were to do research in order to understand SLA processes, I would prefer to look at a natural language learning context. This learning context will allow me to observe the influence that natural interaction between people can have on learning a language. For this research, I would want to investigate the following question: What influence does interaction between people in a natural setting have on language acquisition? Right now, this question is a little broad, in that I am only considering whether the interaction will be beneficial or not. It would be good to focus more specifically in a certain area, such as recasting, self-repair, or the appearance of teacher talk. In order to collect the necessary data for my research, it would be important to be in a natural setting where language learning may occur. Collecting the data would be achieved by recording the daily conversations that occur between people. The data would then be analyzed after transcribing the conversations, which will allow me to observe the recasting, self-repair, or the appearance of teacher talk in the conversations (whether the interaction between people in a natural setting was influencial in language learning).
8 comments:
I think that you're right. For any study on interaction I prefer to look at naturalistic settings, rather than lab settings. That's why I did my teacher's gesture study in a class, and I wan to follow up on that and see if learners actually learn better with gesture than without. Looking at the same question in a lab seems to me a bit artificial since it does not represent reality.
I am not sure I understand exactly what you are saying. Isn't a natural environment that without the classroom? Such as in a study abroad context? But how then can you analyze teacher talk in connection with the natural environment? Maybe I am misunderstanding this ;)
I would have thought non-classroom-based also. And while those data are very hard to get they are very interesting. I would love to be able to put a mic and a recording device on study abroad students 24/7, so that I can record all the data. Sort of like that MIT guy who had his whole house video-taped to capture the child's language acquisition.
Are you interested in a Ph.D? Interactionist perspective is what we do here, so you would fit right in.
Yeah, context! It is so important to understanding what is happening.
This is also what I am interested in. How does noticing happen in authentic environments? A lot of data to codify. (many kung-fu movies!!)
How would you collect this data? Hidden mics? (Not allowed in the US, but in Europe no one cares!)
Sounds good, but it sounds like a lot of potential studies rolled into one. Maybe you could narrow the focus down a little more :-)
Daniel says we should collaborate. You get the natural language and I'll work on CALL ways to recreate it (I guess then it's not so "Natural" but, whatever)
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