How our linguistic mind guides language learning

[Music]

monolingualism is the

illiteracy of the 21st century

the statement was made in a recent

report by the british academy

the report calls for action to address

the shortage of language skills in the

uk

more recently in a report with sister

academies in australia and canada

the british academy highlights the

crucial role multilingualism plays

in international collaboration to fight

covet 19

through being able to exchange

information

accurately so why

learn a language learning a new language

opens a window to another culture it

broadens our mental horizons it enhances

our creativity

languages are important for economic

prosperity

the economic cost due to uk’s linguistic

underperformance in terms of lost trade

and investment

has been estimated to 48 billion

pounds per year or 3.5 percent of gdp

multilingualism has also become

important for the individual

as non-english online content

content increases continually

and yet many people find learning a

second language a daunting task

why is that after all we seem to have

learned our mother tongue or native

language almost without effort

when we are babies or parents siblings

carers speak to us we slowly start

replying to them

and before we know it most of our native

language is in place

before we even get to go to school

while learning a second language later

in life seems so

difficult do we lose our knack for

languages i would like to explain

how our linguistic mind guides the

process of second language learning

and how adjusting our teaching to the

native languages of different learners

can have an impact on their learning

there are many aspects in learning a

second language that are different from

how we learned our mother tongue

one key difference is how much language

data we get to work with

unlike our loving family providing us

with language data

24 hours per day seven days a week when

we are babies

when we get to learn a second language

we might only have access to a few

hours of foreign language classes per

week in a school

but even when we do get to work with

plenty of data

learning progresses differently i

am a living example of this i have been

living in uk

for 27 years studying and then working

using english every single day over

these years

in real life situations and yet

there are small aspects of english that

i still

struggle to get right

do you arrive at paris or in paris

um see you at the weekend or see you

in the weekend of course these mistakes

are not crucial for my

everyday communication in fact a lot of

learners are too high mastering their

second language

without ever sounding native

but it is a curious fact how after

so many years of using the language

every day and living in uk i still

struggle

with some aspects of english

so what is different in our mind

one key difference is that we come to

learn a second

language already knowing one

imagine you visit a country where you

speak

no word of the local language what do

you do where would you start

you would probably reach out for it

dictionary looking for translations of

words

so you start with words why would words

do

words link small pieces of language with

concepts like table tiger big

small fear freedom concepts we use

every day to organize the knowledge of

our world

mapping your concepts to new words in

your new language

seems like an obvious first step to take

to get going

and it can be fast

but of course we don’t just speak in

lists of words

we group and organize words into

sentences

when we hear a sentence we assign

abstract structure to it to see this

consider the example i saw the girl with

the binoculars

who has the binoculars is it the girl

or is it me it could be either

so we get two possible meanings out of

one string of words one sentence

how do we get two possible meanings out

of one sentence

when we hear a sentence the first step

is to break the continuous stream of

sound into words the next step

is to group these words into sentences

this job is done by our syntax person

it is our parser that in the earlier

example

groups together binoculars with a

speaker or binoculars with a girl

we apply unconsciously and constantly

our parser when we speak

one interesting property of our syntax

parser is that it can take

small simple sentences and put them

together to make longer sentences

for example it can take the sentence

you ate the chocolates and put it

together with a sentence

mom gave me chocolate for my lunchbox to

create the longer sentence

you ate the chocolate mom gave me for my

lunchbox

it sounds like a very ordinary sentence

yet we call such sentences complex ones

because they take up much more memory

space and require

more brain power to process and yet

we use them all the time without

effort now the core mechanics of our

parser

are universal across all human languages

what this means is that we can use our

syntax parser

from our native language to process

sentences in our second language

this then allows us to understand

and produce basic and complex sentences

in our second language at a remarkably

fast rate

we linguists are very interested in

complex sentences

because they’re a good measure of

learners advancing proficiency

one good way to study complex sentences

is by investigating learner writings

online learning platforms accessed daily

by

thousands of learners can provide us

with

unprecedented amounts of learner

writings

i have worked with the online school of

education

first and international school of

english as a foreign language

together we have built a unique corpus

of writing submitting to ef’s online

school

the corpus is open access making

available to the research community

1.2 million scripts from learners

from all around the world across

different proficiency levels

analyzing this corpus material we find

very quickly that learners use complex

sentences right from the beginning of

their learning

let’s take a look at this graph the

horizontal

axis maps proficiency to the common

european framework of reference

or cfr for short

a1 is beginner levels and c1 is advanced

proficiency

to give you some context for these bonds

the home office would require b1

proficiency to grant you citizenship

while

for entry to a uk university you would

normally

need a c1 qualification the vertical

axis

shows the percentage of complex

sentences in learner writings

to calculate this measure of linguistic

complexity we use natural language

processing technology

which provides us with a machine parser

that can extract the complex sentences

out of the learner writings

automatically

you can see learners use complex

sentences

right from beginner levels increasing as

their learning progresses

what makes this interesting is that many

teachers and textbooks

consider complex sentences difficult

and so they won’t start teaching them

before intermediate

levels b1 b2 so this is an example

showing how important it is for our

teaching to reflect

what we know about the learner internal

processes

in this case it would mean introducing

the learners to aspects of complex

sentences while they’re still at

beginner levels

you may wonder if we can bring so much

ace to our second language learning

through our syntax parser from our

native language and our knowledge of the

world

how is it possible that so many people

feel that learning a second language is

such a difficult task

this is because languages can be very

similar at their

core but they can also be very diverse

and worlds apart

in some very important ways

learning gets difficult when you

encounter in your second language

small bits of words small bits of

structure

that are different from your native

language or even non-existent

these small bits of structure or forms

are often

perceived as insignificant but in fact

getting them wrong

might even distort the message you are

trying to convey

let’s look at some examples imagine a

learner hearing the following phrases

i’m loving it i love it i loved it

i am living tomorrow so in the first

three one

three phrases there is a common part

love

which the learner might easily grasp the

meaning of after all love

is a universal concept but what about

the other small baits

you might easily grasp that love loving

is about

now and i loved is about the past

but what about the difference between i

love it and i’m loving it

is the contrast about the intensity of

love it’s duration

how permanent it is your native language

cannot be any help here

things get even trickier because it

seems that these small elements can

change meaning depending on context

for example i’m loving it is about now

but i’m living tomorrow

is about tomorrow is going to happen

tomorrow

so this small bits of structure and

world beats

are very difficult for learners for many

reasons

they are small and difficult to hear and

we know that at

early stages of acquisition learners

have difficulty noticing them and

processing them

so even though they are abundant in the

language data learners get to hear

learners don’t process them and if they

don’t process them they cannot learn

them

a key factor to how well learners are

going to do with these

small bits of language depends on the

similarity between their mother tongue

and the second language

what we call the linguistic distance

between the mother tongue and the second

language

in fact a recent study looking at

learning dutch as a foreign language has

demonstrated

that the learn the linguistic distance

between the learner’s

mother tongue and their second language

can even predict their scores in

speaking proficiency tests

let’s take a look at an example in

english

when we say i walked to the park

the small d at the end of walk tells us

that the working happened in the past

not now not in the future so english

changes the form of words to sh to show

when things happen

every language has a way of indicating

when different events happen but not all

languages do this by

changing the form of their words let’s

look at the chinese example

here we have the sentence go to dinner

with mother

happening at three different times

yesterday today and tomorrow

as we can see in the english translation

we have two versions of the word go

depending on when the going takes place

the corresponding word in chinese

ki remains unchanged this means that

chinese learners

are very likely to say yesterday i

walked to the park so not

mark the 10th of on the verb work by

adding the small element d

small words like uh and they are equally

problematic for learners

for example if you’re a brazilian

learner you’re much more likely to

overuse the definite article there

let’s take a look at the example

of a writing of an intermediate

brazilian learner

as you can see this learner is quite

articulate with her language but

yet keeps getting the definite article

wrong throughout this piece

how can we help learners overcome such

confusions

well we need in our teaching to consider

the way their native language

influences their learning one good way

to do this is to focus on the way our

brain

processes language data and help

learners process those difficult

bits of structure and figure out their

meaning

in our research we adopt the input

processing instruction method

a method developed by the american

linguist bill van patten

we combine input processing instruction

with learner profiles based on the

native languages of the learners to

develop learning activities

the key idea is to get learners to

process

those difficult bits of structure that

they tend to ignore because they can

rely on other information

for example we take away helpful words

like yesterday tomorrow every day once

in a while

and ask learners to tell us if a

sentence like i walked across the beach

is about something that happened in the

past or will happen in the future

whether it’s an event that might have

been repeated was a habit or ongoing

the key idea here is that this small d

element in walked is only compatible

with some of those meanings

and research shows that once learners

start processing these small elements

and figure out their meaning

the accuracy of their language improves

greatly

now these grammar processing activities

can

happen very easily online and support

blended

learning they can be very helpful

for enhancing the language skills of

immigrant kids

to ensure a quality and make

classrooms inclusive and cohesive

grammar processing activities addressing

the individual

needs of learners can be offered in

addition to classroom tasks for instance

online

classroom time then can focus on tasks

that engage

all learners with meaningful language

use providing varied and rich input that

is essential for language learning

this is just one practical example of

how this new approach to second language

learning can make a difference of course

this applies for every individual

learner

untaggling the networks of our

linguistic mind

is our learner’s guide to acquiring and

mastering new languages

understanding these learner internal

processes

and tuning our learning to them is

essential

everyone’s native language is their own

personal key

to unlocking bilingualism and beyond

thank you very much

you