Reading for Writing as Reciprocal Reinforcement in Vocabulary

Reading for Writing as Reciprocal Reinforcement in Vocabulary Acquisition Global Teachers Forum August 18, 2014 Brian J English Ph. D. School of Global Studies Tama University

What is Reciprocal Reinforcement? From Behaviorism… People like people who make them feel good about themselves. From Organizational Theory…. Investments trigger returns and returns trigger investment.

In Second Language Teaching… Reciprocal Reinforcement is designing lessons so that comprehensible input triggers comprehensible output to build a deeper understanding of the targeted language structures.

Reciprocal Reinforcement of Vocabulary Listening (Phonemic Processing) Speaking (Semantic Processing) Deep Process for Long-term Memory Images Meaningful Analysis Associations Collocations Related Grammar Reading (Structural Processing) Writing (Semantic Processing)

Comprehensible Input vs Output Input Hypothesis i+1 (Krashen, 1977, 1984) Output Hypothesis Learning takes place when learners encounter gaps in linguistic knowledge of L 2. By noticing gaps, learners become aware of them and may be able to modify output with a heightened awareness. (Swain, 1985)

Reading a blueprint for building a house only provides a surface understanding for how a house is built. To deeply understand, you need to build the house.

Vocabulary acquisition is not a one-shot process; but rather, vocabulary acquisition is an incremental process that involves moving from “maintenance rehearsal” to richer levels of encoding with “elaborate rehearsal”.

Pushed Output “Being ‘pushed’ in output…is a concept parallel to that of the i +1 of comprehensible input. Indeed, one might call this the ‘comprehensible output’ hypothesis. ” (Swain, 1985, 248 -9)

3 Functions of Output (Swain and Lapkin, 1995) 1. Noticing function: Learners notice what they do not know or only know partially in target language. 2. Hypothesis-testing function: The learner tests a tacit hypothesis and receives feedback from an interlocutor. 3. Metalinguistic function: Learners reflect on the language they learn, and thereby the output enables them to control and internalize linguistic knowledge. (Deep Processing)

Levels of Processing (from Craik and Lockhart, 1972) Shallow Processing (Short-term memory) 1. Structural processing (appearance) encoding only the physical qualities of something (e. g. , the typeface of a word or how the letters look) 2. Phonemic processing – encoding a word’s sound Deep Processing (Long-term Memory) 3. Semantic processing - encoding the meaning of a word and relate it to similar words with similar meaning

Reciprocal Reinforcement in the form of “Guided Output” can lead to Deep Processing.

Reciprocal Reinforcement Teaching Strategies for Vocabulary Acquisition Reinforcement through Topical Familiarity - Familiar topic of a text helps students focus their attentional resources more efficiently to the input into which the TWs are inserted: Trip to the supermarket (low proficiency) My room (low proficiency) Volunteers take part in beach clean up (intermediate)

Reinforcement through Synonym Comparison bad = naughty, evil, unhealthy, harmful, terrible (low proficiency) Interesting = stimulating, exciting, attractive, appealing, fascinating (intermediate) Reinforcement through Rhetorical Mode Practice Describing a photo (low/intermediate) Comparison and contrast (intermediate) Cause and effect (high)

Conclusion Long-term retention of new vocabulary words requires deep processing. Deep processing is a metalinguistic function. Metalinguistic analysis is a precursor for comprehensible output in L 2. Reciprocal reinforcement in Reading for Writing encourages Guided Output.