Results (
Thai) 2:
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fluency, accuracy, and CS implementation. For calculations used in this study, proper nouns such as peoples’ names and names of
places have been omitted, so have salutations and Japanese words. Further, contractions have
been counted as one word. If the same word has more than one function, for example
“reading” as a noun as opposed to “reading” as a verb, or “to” as a preposition as opposed to
“to” fronting an infinitive, these have been counted as separate words.
In the research literature, two different definitions have been given for lexical density:
· lexical density (definition A) – the number of lexical (content) words multiplied by
100 divided by the total number of words, including nonlexical words such as
pronouns, articles, verbs, etc. (Ure, 1971)
· lexical density (definition B) – the ratio of different words to the total number of words in a given text (Richards, Talbot Platt & Weber, 1985)
For simplicity, the researcher has adapted the latter. Further, the researcher will use the two
following definitions for lexical complexity and accuracy:
· lexical complexity – the number of clauses divided by the number of cunits, simple
clause, or an independent subclausal unit, together with the subordinate clauses
associated with them (adapted from Foster & Tonkyn, 1997)
· accuracy – the number of error free clauses as a percentage of the total number of
clauses (Skehan & Foster, 1999, p. 106)
It should be noted, though, that this study is focusing more on qualitative observations of
two particular students, as the researcher hopes to gain insights into depth of performance on
tasks, as opposed to merely statistical information that would only reveal over all trends.
From now, attention will be turned to the two students under investigation.
A. Student Whose Speaking Appears to be Unscripted
The following student appeared not to be planning his speaking tasks ahead of time, and his
progress over the five weeks seemed much more natural. Below are his five speaking scripts201
and an analysis:
Week 1: Hello, Mr. Meyerhoff. Let me introduce myself. My name is K. I’m from Nagoya. Recently, my best hobby is the guitar. I don’t have a TV, but I’m not boring because I have a guitar.
Also, I’m interested in cooking. I have started live by myself since April. I want to do all of
what I can do.
The first week K used very few CSs, and made a few grammatical errors, most notably,
“boring” instead of “bored”, and the omission of “to” after “started”, as well as the
inappropriate use of “best”. As a result, the accuracy of this passage is 62.5%.
There may be an example of transferring in the last sentence as “all of what I can do” is
grammatically correct, but not naturally spoken, and seems to be a direct translation of the
Japanese “nan demo dekiru koto”. Clearly, he has not been able to retrieve an appropriate
equivalent in English, so instead he successfully applies a compensatory strategy to convey
his meaning. However, K is grammatically correct with his sentence:
Subject + verb + infinitive + object
The lexical density of the aforementioned passage is 1.5. The passage has one subordinate
clause:
because I have a guitar
Yet, the clause is embedded into the sentence correctly.
Week 2: Hello. Mr. Meyerhoff. I’m K….dame kana…Today will speak my scary story. When I was a
younger boy, my birthday party was held in my house. My brother and I were took a picture
in front birthday cake. Two weeks later the photograph was developed. I realized an
inscrutable photograph. My body and neck weren’t connected. I was very scared. See you.
In the first sentence, K used codeswitching, as well as near abandonment, at the same time202
when he said “dame kana”, meaning “it’s impossible”. Also, there are a few clear grammar mistakes here, as well. The accuracy of this passage is 71.4%. Minor grammatical errors aside, what is most striking is his use of the word “inscrutable”
which is far too formal for the context, indicating that it is a literal translation of some
Japanese word. Only one subordinate clause has been implemented in this passage, but with no difficulty. However, there is one major difference in regards to lexical complexity. K has attempted to
use the passive voice four times, whereas in the first passage he used only active structures.
Obviously, one of the passive sentences caused some difficulty for K:
My brother and I were took a picture in front of birthday cake
This example agrees with what has been stated in previous research (Crookes 1989)
that complexity and accuracy appear to compete against one another, and the more complex
the learner becomes with language the more prone the learner is to make mistakes.
K, at this point, is clearly demonstrating behavior indicative of an associative stage,
between declarative and procedural stages, and he is, likewise, taking risks and making mistakes, which is an important part of his language development. However, at this juncture,
a teachable moment had arisen, and the instructor could have helped by intervening with
corrective feedback.
As far as lexical density is concerned, there is a slight decrease from the previous week to
1.34.
Week 3: Hello. Mr. Meyerhoff. My favorite sport is soccer. This game you play on large rectangle. The length about hyaku meter, the width about goju…fifty…sorry…the length about hundred meter…the width about 50 meter…the rectangle had two goals at the middle of both side. We
use one ball. One team has eleven player. You have…I have played soccer since high school
student. See you again.
Week 3, despite its awkwardness, is full of CSs. “Rectangle” is a clear case of
approximation for the word “field”. What is more striking, though, is the use of the pronoun
“you”. The student has clearly entered an associative stage of language use by personalizing
and exemplifying his description. The student then falls back on codeswitching with the
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