Reconsidering the role of practice in foreign language teaching and learning

• Authors: Mirosław Pawlak
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

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.

Keywords

EN

language practice; grammar teaching; form-focused instruction; grammar learning strategies

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Journal: Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 48
• Pages: 337-354

Dates

published

2012

received

2011-07-12

revised

2011-11-12

accepted

2011-11-20

Contributors

author

Mirosław Pawlak

• Adam Mickiewicz University, Kalisz, Poland

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/psicl-2012-0015