Linguistics Club Colloquium Series: A talk by Douglas Wulf (GMU)

Diagnostics and Mnemonics in ESL Grammar Instruction

Thursday, November 1, 2012 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM EDT
#3300

Skill Acquisition Theory, described by DeKeyser (1998), maintains that language acquisition starts with gaining declarative knowledge of the skill (explicit knowledge), which is then transferred into the procedural knowledge of performing the skill (implicit knowledge). However, gaining a firm declarative grasp of certain points of grammar can be a nearly insurmountable challenge. One example is the article system in English (a/an, the, or no article). As Barry (1998) indicates, “Native speakers of English have no difficulty deciding how to choose between a definite and an indefinite article, but it is not easy to explain how we make that decision.” Extensive lists of rules and exceptions are sometimes provided to students, but it is a practical impossibility to reflect usefully on such numerous and detailed guidelines while conversing. My current research explores the idea that such complicated declarative knowledge might perhaps usefully be boiled down to a manageable degree through the use of carefully crafted diagnostics and mnemonics.

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