What is a Functional Notional Syllabus in SLA? What are the Limitations of a Functional Notional Syllabus?

Functional Notional Syllabus is a syllabus in which the language content is arranged according to the meanings that a learner needs to express through language and the functions the learner will use the target language for. It is a product-oriented, content based syllabus where “meaning” is permanent. It views language as a living, dynamic, complex phenomenon and relies on the learner’s capacity for analyzing language for himself. “Functions” may be described as a communicative purpose for which we use language. However, “notions” are the conceptual meanings (objects, entities, states of affairs, logical relationships and so on). A notional syllabus is contrasted with a grammatical syllabus on structural syllabus or a situational syllabus.

The famous linguists Finacchiaro and Brunfit suggest that functional-notionalism has “tremendous merit” of placing the students and their communicative purpose at the centre of the curriculum. They list the following benefits of adopting a functional-notional orientation.

(a)  It sets realistic learning tasks.

(b)  It provides for the teaching of day to day or real-world language.

(c)  It leads us to emphasize receptive activities before rushing learners into premature performance.

(d)  It recognizes that the speaker must have a real purpose of speaking and something to talk about.

(e)  Communication will be intrinsically/ naturally motivating because it expresses basic communicative functions.

(f)   It enables teachers to exploit sound psycho-linguistic, socio-linguistic, linguistic and educational principles.

(g)  It can develop naturally from existing teaching methodology

(h)  It enables a spiral curriculum to be used that reintroduces grammatical, topical and cultural materials.

(i)    It allows the development of flexible, modular courses.

(j)    It provides for the widespread promotion of foreign language courses.

Criticism

Syllabus planner find that when turning from structurally-based syllabus design to the design of syllabuses based on functional-notional criteria, the selection and grading of items become much more complex. Decisions about which items to include in the syllabus can no longer be made on linguistic grounds alone, and designers need to include items which they imagine will help learners to carry out the communicative purposes.

The selection and grading of items for a functional-notional syllabus relies on such considerations as the need of the learners, both in terms of classroom functions and in the “real world”, usefulness, coverage, interest or relevance and complexity of form.

In developing functional-notional syllabuses, designers also need to look beyond linguistic notions of simplicity and difficulty when it comes to grading items. Observing grammatical criteria, it is possible to say that simple subject+ verb+ object (SVO) structures should be taught before more complex clausal structures involving such things as relativization (relative clause).

However, the grading of functional items becomes much more complex because, there are few apparent objective means for deciding that one functional form, for instance, “apologizing” is either simpler or more difficult than another item such as “requesting.”

Many of the criticisms which were made of grammatical syllabuses have also been made of functional-notional syllabuses. Widdowson pointed out that inventories of functions and notions do not necessarily reflect the way languages are learned more than do inventories of grammatical points and lexical items. He also claims that dividing language into discrete units of whatever type misrepresents the nature of language as communication.

Another criticism of functional-notional syllabuses is that it deals with the components of discourse but may not deal with the discourse itself.

Total communication is not I it, because communication is qualitative and infinite, a syllabus is qualitative and infinite.

Define Chomsky’s UG. How can it be exploited in SLA research?

Universal grammar can be simply defined as a set of universal innate principles of grammar shared by all languages.That a child will not be able to learn its mother tongue without a set of innate principles ,because the linguistic data it is exposed to are too poor is the central point of the UG.The theory given by the American linguist Chomsky, attempts to explain language acquisition in general, not describe specific languages.The key features of the UG are given below. 

UG consists of different kinds of universals.Chomsky identifies two types:substantive and formal.Substantive universals consist of fixed features such as the distinctive phonetic features of which sounds are made or syntactic categories such as noun,verb,and object.Formal universals are more abstract.They are statements about what grammatical rules are possible in languages.

Formal and substantive universals are constrains and therefore delimit the options by setting parameters which must then be fixed according to the particular input data that the child obtains. 

So,the principles and parameters which can be defined as a framework in human brain make UG possible. UG holds  a set of principles and parameters arranged into modules such as Binding Theory and it is a computation system that ranges from the component of  Phonological Form to the component of Logical Form ,that is ,from ’sound’ to ’meaning’.

The rules the child learns can be unmarked or marked.The universals that the child learns form the core grammar and the distinctive features are termed as peripheral.

To sum up, there are some innate universal principles without which a child cannot master his mother tongue.But the input data are also a must as the input triggers the LAD.

Effects of UG parameters on L2A

There are certain principles of UG that vary from language to language. The variation is built into UG in the form of parameters with different settings. Parameter settings between the L1 and the L2 may be both identical and different. If identical, L2 learners need not result it: but if different they have to reset it. Again when a particular parameter is not available in the L1, the learners have to activate it newly in their L2. Thus on these issues the UG hypothesis makes a number of important observations that best explain L2A. For instance, as White(1989) points out, though UG is available in L2A, it cannot necessarily interact immediately with the L2 input. The initial hypothesis that works in the mind of the learners is that L1 parameter value applies to it. As a result L2 learners initially use L1 parameter value to organize the L2 data that causes transfer effects in the interlanguae. However, finally L2 learners become able to reset the parameter setting appropriate to the L2. Towell and Hawkins(1994) also express the same view. According to them this transfer of L1 parameter setting can have two effects. If the setting in the L2 happens to be the same as the setting in the L1, then the learner should get grammatical properties of the L2 which are dependent on that parameter setting right from the very beginning of acquisition. Where the settings differ between the L1 and the L2 the learner would initially be expected to get wrong grammatical properties in the L2 dependent on that parameter setting.

Some of the empirical studies done on the use of parameter setting also show positive evidence for the UG hypothesis. White refers to three pro-drop parameter studies, one carried out by herself and the other two by Phinncy(1987) and Hilles(1986) each of which clearly suggests that Spanish learners of English become finally able to avoid omission of subject-nouns and free subject-verb inversion in English, though at the initial stage L1 interference occurs. Towell and Hawkins (1994) mention the study by Hulk (1991) that investigated the acquisition of French word order by a group of Dutch speaking subjects. Hulk’s finding also reveal that in spite of the presence of L1 value at early stages, Dutch learners gradually become able to reset the parameter setting and acquire French word order. Another grammatically judgment task by White 1988cited in White1989, p.113) on Subjacency violation suggests that native speakers of French are able to recognize “S” as a bounding node for Subjacency in English, though in French “S” is not a bounding node.

Markedness

The concept of markedness is one more important issue to be discussed here. Researchers have used this as a source of explanation and prediction in L2A. According to Ellis markedness theory can help to explain why some differences between the native and the target language lead to learning difficulty, while other differences do not.” Markedness refers to those aspects of a language that are unnatural and complex. If a parameter has more than one value, one of them is said to be more natural than the other. So, the natural one is unmarked and the other is marked. According to UG, “unmarked aspects of grammar are those that are directly related to Universal Grammar and form the “core”: marked aspects are less directly related to Universal Grammar and form the “peripheral grammar”. Therefore, from markedness study one prediction can logically be deducted that L2 learners will find unmarked aspects of the L2 much easier to learn than marked ones, because unmarked aspects are directly related to UG. Moreover, since unmarked aspects are easier to learn, if can also be assumed that unmarked settings will occur in interlanguage before marked settings. Furthermore, the masrkedess concept offers a good explanation of L1 interference in the L2 grammars. The concept suggests that L2 learners will always tend to transfer unmarked values of the L1 to their interlanguage. The study by Mazurkewich 1984 shows that French learners of English find unmarked “pied-piping” sentences like

3.a To whom did John give the book     

 easier than marked “preposition-stranding” sentences like

3.a Who did John give the book to

Thus markedness study demonstrates further evidence that UG is effective and plays a vital role in explaining L2A.

3. Counter Arguments

So far an attempt has been made to consider the evidence that has led some of the researchers to assume that UG plays a crucial role in L2A. But there are many researchers who hold contrary views. According to them UG is not accessible to L2 learners, and hence cannot play any role in L2A. They also differ with some of the basic assumptions made by the UG based researchers. Besides, a number of empirical studies also strengthen their position against the UG hypothesis some of which are mentioned below.

Larsen-Freeman and Long claim that the input is not degenerate because “both caretaker speech and language addressed to non-native speakers have been found to be well-formed.” As cited in Melaughlin, Schachter has pointed out that “phenomena such as confirmation checks, clarification requests, and failures to understand quality as negative input.” Thus the poverty of the stimulus argument has been under attack. The argument of Structure-dependence is also refuted by Parker 1989(mentioned in Larsn-Freeman and Long 1991). Parker argues that the rule of structure-dependence can be gathered from the input, it does not require any innate knowledge. She also raises questions about Subjaccency effects. She illustrates that Subjaccency effects “can be accounted for without recourse to innate linguistic knowledge: through the assumption in a theory of learning of a preference for continuity.” In another grammatically judgment task by Schatcher as White reports Korean and Indonesian learners failed to reject Subjaccency violations. The theory of markedness also causes much debate. Various definitions have been used. As a result, same aspects are classified as unmarked by one researcher and marked by another. It is not true either that L2 learners always acquire or transfer unmarked form. In a related study, White 1983 finds that sometimes learners carry over marked constructions from the L1 to the L2.

Conclusion

As mentioned, it is clear that no uniform view can be established about the role of UG in L2A. There are both arguments and counter-arguments on the issue. Empirical studies have done so far also reveal mixed findings. But the research in the domain is still in its initial stage and has been restricted to a very limited area. Until the research is carried out in other untrodden area of L2A no final judgment on the issue is possible. However, on the basis of findings revealed so far against and for the hypothesis, it becomes evident that researchers tend to use UG as a source of hypothesis about L2A. In this case at least, it is to be admitted that UG can be used very effectively. It helps in a great deal to explain many of the problems of L2A that could otherwise have been left unresolved. It helps to make some important predictions particularly about interlanguage and transfer effects of the L.1.Therefore, it can be affirmed that Universal Grammar plays a crucial role in second language acquisition and more research on the issue might explore new dimensions.

Do you concur with the view that natural languages are unlearnable from input alone?

Learning a language is certainly different from learning other arts such as walking,playing,swimming etc.It is different in the sense that humans cannot learn their languages only on the basis of the sensory data or input as is possible in other cases.Then how do humans learn their language?Chomsky ,who represents an anthropological approach to linguistics, put forward an interesting theory called UG by which he shows that human brains are preprogrammed or equipped with some tools called LAD to work collaboratively with the input and  in this way help produce languages.

Language acquisition is undeniably biologically programmed as children all over the world, from varying cultures and linguistic environments produce the same levels of language at the same stages. Chomsky proposes that this is a direct result of Universal Grammar, which is an inherent part of every human mind.

The argument that prevailed before Chomsky is that language is learnable from the input data only.That is to say the children learn their mother tongue by simple imitation, listening to and repeating what adults say .But Chomsky shows that this cannot be supported for a number of reasons.

He mainly bases his theory on the ’poverty of the stimulus’ argument.Chomsky and his followers interpret this poverty of the stimulus from various points of view. The common arguments in support of the poverty of the stimulus are discussed below.

The provery of the stimulus implies that the sensory data available from input are insufficient to enable the child to discover certain rules in the  language it is learning. . Even before the age of 5, children can, without having had any formal instruction, consistently produce and interpret sentences that they have never encountered before. It is this extraordinary ability to use language despite having had only very partial exposure to the allowable syntactic variants that led Chomsky to formulate his “poverty of the stimulus” argument.So, a child cannot learn a language from input only.

To Chomsky the input is deficient or poor in two ways. At first,it is claimed to be degenerate in the sense that it is marred by performance features ,such as false starts ,slips,fragments,and ungrammatically resulting from those and other pressures inherent in real-time oral communication ,and is therefore an inadequate data base for language learning. For Chomsky, acquiring language cannot be reduced to simply developing an inventory of responses to stimuli, because every sentence that anyone produces can be a totally new combination of words. When we speak, we combine a finite number of elements—the words of our language—to create an infinite number of larger structures—sentences.

Secondly and more serious,however,the input is degenerate in the sense that it does not usually contain ’negative evidence’ ,information from which the learner could work out what is not possible in a given language. Speakers proficient in a language know what expressions are acceptable in their language and what expressions are unacceptable. The key puzzle is how speakers should come to know the restrictions of their language, since expressions which violate those restrictions are not present in the input. This absence of negative evidence—that is, absence of evidence that an expression is part of a class of the ungrammatical sentences in one's language proves that a language is not learnable from input only.There are two kinds of negative evidences such as overt and covert.

Overt negative evidence is unavailable to a child because caretakers react to the truth value,not from,of children’s utterances and rarely correct the ungrammatical speech.Covert negative evidence is also unavailable ,since all that learners hear is grammatical utterances. 

In order to understand the negative evidence we can study the following two examples:
For example, in English one cannot relate a question word like 'what' to a predicate within a relative clause (1):
 (1) *What did John meet a man who sold?
Such expressions are not available to the language learners, because they are, by hypothesis, ungrammatical for speakers of the local language. Speakers of the local language do not utter such expressions and note that they are unacceptable to language learners. 

We can also study the following two sentences to learn about the negative evidence.
1,We gave the book to the girl.
2,We explained the answer to the girl.
Apparently these two sentences have the same surface structures,but whereas (1) contains an indirect object and can be rewritten as (3),
3,We gave the girl the book.
(2) contains a prepositional phrase and cannot be rewritten as (4):
4,We explained the girl the answer.

How does the child find out that ’give’ takes an indirect object and ’explain’ a prepositional phrase?How does the child discover  that (4) is ungrammatical?One possible answer is that the adults correct the children ,but the research does show the different thing.It seems logical to assume ,therefore , that there must be some innate principle which prevents the child producing sentences like (4).

Universal grammar offers the solution to the poverty of the stimulus problem by saying that there are certain principles and parameters ,which are inherent in a child.And a child learns his language with the help of these principles.In Chomsky’s view, the reason that children so easily master the complex operations of language is that they have innate knowledge of certain principles that guide them in developing the grammar of their language. In other words, Chomsky’s theory is that language learning is facilitated by a predisposition that our brains have for certain structures of language.

For Chomsky’s theory to hold true, all of the languages in the world must share certain structural properties. And indeed, Chomsky and other generative linguists like him have shown that the 5000 to 6000 languages in the world, despite their very different grammars, do share a set of syntactic rules and principles. These linguists believe that this “universal grammar” is innate and is embedded somewhere in the neuronal circuitry of the human brain. And that would be why children can select, from all the sentences that come to their minds, only those that conform to a “deep structure” encoded in the brain’s circuits.

Universal grammar, then, consists of a set of unconscious constraints that let us decide whether a sentence is correctly formed. This mental grammar is not necessarily the same for all languages. But according to Chomskyian theorists, the process by which, in any given language, certain sentences are perceived as correct while others are not, is universal and independent of meaning.

Thus, we immediately perceive that the sentence “Robert book reads the” is not correct English, even though we have a pretty good idea of what it means. Conversely, we recognize that a sentence such as “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” is grammatically correct English, even though it is nonsense.

Similarly, a newborn baby has the potential to speak any of a number of languages, depending on what country it is born in, but it will not just speak them any way it likes: it will adopt certain preferred, innate structures. One way to describe these structures would be that they are not things that babies and children learn, but rather things that happen to them. Just as babies naturally develop arms and not wings while they are still in the womb, once they are born they naturally learn to speak, and not to chirp or neigh.

Subsequent research in the cognitive sciences, which combined the tools of psychology, linguistics, computer science, and philosophy, soon lent further support to the theory of universal grammar. For example, researchers found that babies only a few days old could distinguish the phonemes of any language and seemed to have an innate mechanism for processing the sounds of the human voice.

Thus, from birth, children would appear to have certain linguistic abilities that predispose them not only to acquire a complex language, but even to create one from whole cloth if the situation requires. One example of such a situation dates back to the time of plantations and slavery. On many plantations, the slaves came from many different places and so had different mother tongues. They therefore developed what are known as pidgin languages to communicate with one another. Pidgin languages are not languages in the true sense, because they employ words so chaotically—there is tremendous variation in word order, and very little grammar. But these slaves’ children, though exposed to these pidgins at the age when children normally acquire their first language, were not content to merely imitate them. Instead, the children spontaneously introduced grammatical complexity into their speech, thus in the space of one generation creating new languages, known as creoles. 

Thus,Chomsky set out an innate language schema which provides the basis for the child’s acquisition of a language. The acquisition process takes place despite the limited nature of the primary linguistic data and the degenerate nature of that data. From the way the language-learning proceeds so fast in response to such a relatively slender body of ‘data’ we can hold that the infant must be credited with an innate propensity to follow the grammar of everybody else. To conclude an infant can be treated as a theorist or ‘little linguist’.

Some ELT Terms Defined-Part 2

Interlanguage

Interlanguage is the type of language produced by second- and foreign- language learners who are in the process of learning a language. In language learning, learner’s errors are caused by several different processes. These include:
a. borrowing patterns from the mother tongue (language transfer or interference)
b. extending patterns from the target language. (overgeneralization)
c. Expressing meanings using the words and grammar which are already known(communication strategy)

Since the language which the learner produces using these processes differs from the mother tongue and the target language ,it is sometimes called an interlanguage or is said to result from the learner’s interlanguage system or approximate system.
An interlanguage is idiosyncratically based on the learners' experiences with the L2. It can fossilize in any of its developmental stages.
Larry Selinker proposed the theory of interlanguage in 1972, noting that in a given situation the utterances produced by the learner are different from those native speakers would produce had they attempted to convey the same meaning. This comparison reveals a separate linguistic system. This system can be observed when studying the utterances of the learners who attempt to produce a target language norm.

Critical period hypothesis

The Critical Period Hypothesis refers to a long-standing debate in linguistics and language acquisition over the extent to which the ability to acquire language is biologically linked to age. The hypothesis claims that there is an ideal 'window' of time to acquire language in a linguistically rich environment, after which this is no longer possible.
The Critical Period Hypothesis states that the first few years of life is the crucial time in which an individual can acquire a first language if presented with adequate stimuli. If language input doesn't occur until after this time, the individual will never achieve a full command of language — especially grammatical systems.

The evidence for such a period is limited, and support stems largely from theoretical arguments and analogies to other critical periods in biology such as visual development, but nonetheless is widely accepted. The nature of this phenomenon, however, has been one of the most fiercely debated issues in psycholinguistics and cognitive science in general for decades. Some writers have suggested a "sensitive" or "optimal" period rather than a critical one; others dispute the causes (physical maturation, cognitive factors). The duration of the period also varies greatly in different accounts. Steven Pinker, in his book The Language Instinct, states that “acquisition of a normal language is guaranteed for children up to the age of six, is steadily compromised from then until shortly after puberty, and is rare thereafter” .
Fossilisation

In the process of L2 acquisition, IL continually evolves into an ever-closer approximation of the TL, and ideally, a learner’s IL should continue to advance gradually until it becomes equivalent, or nearly equivalent, to the TL. However, it has been observed that somewhere in the L2 learning process, such an IL may reach one or more temporary restricting phases during which the development of the IL appears to be detained (Nemser, 1971; Selinker, 1972; Schumann, 1975). A permanent cessation of progress toward the TL has been referred to as fossilization.
Fossilization includes such items as pronunciation, vocabulary usages, and grammatical rules. It has also been noticed that adult L2 learners’ IL systems, in particular, have a tendency, or propensity, to become stagnated or solidified i.e., the language learners make no further progress in IL development toward the TL, and become permanently fossilized, in spite of the amount of exposure to the L2.

The concept of fossilization in SLA research is so intrinsically related to IL that Selinker (1972) considers it to be a fundamental phenomenon of all SLA.

The grammar translation method

In applied linguistics, the grammar translation method is a foreign language teaching method derived from the classical (sometimes called traditional) method of teaching Greek and Latin. The method requires students to translate whole texts word for word and memorize numerous grammatical rules and exceptions as well as enormous vocabulary lists. The goal of this method is to be able to read and translate literary masterpieces and classics.

At the height of the Communicative Approach to language learning in the 1980s and early 1990s it became fashionable in some quarters to deride so-called "old-fashioned" methods and, in particular, something broadly labelled "Grammar Translation". There were numerous reasons for this but principally it was felt that translation itself was an academic exercise rather than one which would actually help learners to use language, and an overt focus on grammar was to learn about the target language rather than to learn it.

The grammar-translation method of foreign language teaching is one of the most traditional methods, dating back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was originally used to teach 'dead' languages (and literatures) such as Latin and Greek, and this may account for its heavy bias towards written work to the virtual exclusion of oral production. As Omaggio comments, this approach reflected "the view of faculty psychologists that mental discipline was essential for strengthening the powers of the mind." (Omaggio 89) Indeed, the emphasis on achieving 'correct' grammar with little regard for the free application and production of speech is at once the greatest asset and greatest drawback to this approach.

The major characteristic of the grammar-translation method is, precisely as its name suggests, a focus on learning the rules of grammar and their application in translation passages from one language into the other. Vocabulary in the target language is learned through direct translation from the native language, e.g. with vocabulary tests such as:

the house = das Haus
the mouse = die Maus

Very little teaching is done in the target language. Instead, readings in the target language are translated directly and then discussed in the native language, often precipitating in-depth comparisons of the two languages themselves. Grammar is taught with extensive explanations in the native language, and only later applied in the production of sentences through translation from one language to the other, e.g.

Do you have my book? = Hast du mein Buch?
Ich weiß nicht, wo dein Buch ist. = I don't know where your book is.

As Omaggio describes is, testing of the students is done almost exclusively through translation: "students had learned the language well if they could translate the passages well."
Obviously, there are many drawbacks to the grammar-translation approach. Virtually no class time is allocated to allow students to produce their own sentences, and even less time is spent on oral practice (whether productive or reproductive). Students may have difficulties "relating" to the language, because the classroom experience keeps them from personalizing it or developing their own style. In addition, there is often little contextualization of the grammar -- although this of course depends upon the passages chosen and the teacher's own skills. Culture, when discussed, is communicated through means of reading passages, but there is little direct confrontation with foreign elements. Perhaps most seriously, as Omaggio points out, the type of error correction that this method requires can actually be harmful to the students' learning processes: "students are clearly in a defensive learning environment where right answers are expected." (Omaggio 91)

Despite all of these drawbacks, there are certain positive traits to be found in such a rigid environment. Although far from trying to defend or reinstate this method, I must still say: my highschool German class was almost entirely grammar-translation based, with the exception of a few dialogues from the textbook, and I don't really feel it "harmed" or even hampered my acquisition of the language -- and it certainly gave me a strong grounding in German grammar! For left-brained students who respond well to rules, structure and correction, the grammar-translation method can provide a challenging and even intriguing classroom environment. For those students who don't respond well to such structures, however, it is obvious that the grammar-translation method must be tempered with other approaches to create a more flexible and conducive methodology.