No abstract

Bearingin mind the challenges involved in speech production (LEVELT, 1989), especially in the L2 (KORMOS, 2014), this study examines strategic planning (ELLIS, 2005) and its impact on the performance of learners of English as an L2 in an oral task carried out after they had planned it individually or collaboratively. Drawing from the output hypothesis (SWAIN, 1985), this piece of research analysed quantitative and qualitative data from the narratives produced by 17 high school students. The quantitative analysis showed a statistically significant advantage for the outcome variable when the participants planned collaboratively. At the same time, while the results for fluency and accuracy were not statistically significant, they also favoured the same planning condition. The qualitative data indicated wide acceptance of oral tasks with the use of WhatsApp. It is suggested that the adoption of tasks that include strategic planning as a means to lessen the attentional burden involved in L2 speech production (FORTKAMP, 2000) may be an attractive pedagogical resource to help English students to learn the language in a contextualized way.

Com o objetivo de refletir sobre os processos de mudança pelos quais um projeto de pesquisa e um pesquisador iniciante passam ao conduzir estudo piloto, espera-se que o presente trabalho possa somar-se ao corpo de pesquisa em Linguística Aplicada, no caso, o ensino de Inglês como segunda língua no Brasil. Dessa forma, o enfoque dessa análise volta-se para o método, com seus instrumentos e procedimentos, e os dados advindos de um estudo piloto de uma pesquisa de mestrado desenvolvida em um contexto escolar. Por fim, a reflexão sobre esse movimento aponta para benefícios no que toca o refinamento de instrumentos e procedimentos, bem como o amadurecimento do pesquisador que coloca o plano de pesquisa em prática nesse momento. Assim, todos esses processos, do planejamento à análise dos dados do piloto, somam-se a fim de contribuir para que a coleta de dados definitiva ocorra de maneira adequada.

This article reports on the design and adaptation of a task cycle (SKEHAN, 1996;1998) originally designed by student-teachers attending a workshop on teaching Portuguese to speakers of other languages. The original task was adapted by the researchers having in mind a group of pre-intermediate immigrants attending Portuguese classes. The data consisted of field notes made by the authors while the student-teachers were conceiving the task cycle, the original and the adapted tasks. We observed that, even though the Task-Based Approach seems to be a good proposal to expand and improve the Communicative Approach to language teaching, the design of tasks can be challenging, in particular the idea of the outcome for a language task and the maintenance of a coherent focus among the different subtasks that compose a task cycle. Nevertheless, the task cycle analyzed in this paper, with adaptations to the teaching context, was successfully used in the classroom.

Abstract:Recently, Bigelow, Delmas, Hansen, and Tarone (2006) argued that the differences in the oral performance of their L2 speakers (favoring the more literate ones) were probably due to their low level of metalinguistic awareness (which would be a consequence of their limited literacy). So as to contribute with evidence for this hypothesis, we collected data from 11 Brazilians, who performed tests of L1 literacy, L2 proficiency and L1 and L2 metalinguistic awareness (phonological, morphological, and syntactic) and a relationship between their L1 literacy and their L2 proficiency levels was, indeed, found. However, the role metalinguistic awareness (either in the L1 or the L2) plays in this relationship is not clear. While phonological awareness (in the L1 and in the 190 Donesca Cristina Puntel Xhafaj & Mailce Borges Mota L2) was related to L1 literacy and L2 proficiency, morphological awareness (in the L1, only) and syntactic awareness (in the L2, only) were only related to L2 proficiency. Though these inconclusive results might be the artifact of limitations in some of the instruments used to collect data, this seems to be a fruitful line of research.