Focus on form through collaborative dialogue: Exploring task effects

By M. Swain, Sharon Lapkin. 2001

517 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In our recent research we have been using tasks as a stimulus for generating talk among students (Swain and Lapkin, 1998). We have been interested in discovering whether, through output (the activities of talking and/or writing), learners notice gaps in their linguistic knowledge, triggering an analysis of input or of existing internal resources to fill those gaps (Swain and Lapkin, 1995); whether learners' output serves as a hypothesis of how to convey their intended meaning (Swain, 1995); and whether learners use language to reflect on their own (or their interlocutors') language use that is, whether learners externalise their hypotheses about form and meaning, exposing those hypotheses to scrutiny and discussion (Swain, 1998; 2000). Our research has involved a search for tasks that will generate this sort of student talk with the goal of demonstrating its relationship to second language learning. The tasks we have used to generate such talk engage students in linguistic problem solving, are done collaboratively, and involve the production of a spoken and written text. Studies such as those of Donate (1994), LaPierre (1994; see also Swain, 1998), Swain and Lapkin (1998) and Tse (1996) suggest that the talk which surfaces when students collaborate in solving linguistic problems encountered m communicative task performance represents second language learning in progress. In these studies, later language use has been traced back to dialogue occurring as the students worked collaboratively to express their intended meaning and carry out the task at hand. In these dialogic exchanges related to their ongoing language use, noticing, hypothesis formulation, and hypothesis testing have been observed to have taken place. These studies have relied on pedagogical tasks to serve as the stimulus to collaborative dialogue (Swain, 1997a). One of the main rationales offered in the literature for using communicative tasks in language teaching is that second language acquisition is enhanced through the negotiation of meaning: '. . . language learning is assisted through the social interaction of learners and their interlocutors, particularly when they Negotiate toward mutual comprehension of each other's message meaning'

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Language and Linguistics, Literature and Literary Theory

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cb6ba93dc80891114d74ca79e7e12c13fade6c9f

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

1. N. Storch
2. Andrea Révész
3. Youjin Kim
4. R. Lyster
5. Kim McDonough
6. Masatoshi Sato
7. Hossein Nassaji
8. A. Dobao

In Language and Linguistics

1. N. Storch
2. Masatoshi Sato
3. Hossein Nassaji
4. A. Dobao
5. Youjin Kim
6. Kim McDonough
7. R. Lyster
8. Andrea Révész

In Literature and Literary Theory

1. N. Storch
2. Masatoshi Sato
3. Hossein Nassaji
4. Youjin Kim
5. A. Dobao
6. Kim McDonough
7. R. Lyster
8. Andrea Révész

Citations in the corpus

• The effect of interaction in acquiring the grammar of a second language (2002, background): “This may trigger cognitive processes that may both generate new linguistic knowledge and consolidate existing knowledge (Swain & Lapkin, 2000, 2001).”
• Japanese Learners' Self Revisions and Peer Revisions of Their Written Compositions in English. (2008, background): “Swain and Lapkin (2001) suggest that collaborative writing tasks based on either visual or auditory stimulus could facilitate students’ attention to language forms on which L2 students tended not to focus, compared with meaning in other communicative tasks.”
• INFORMATION GAP TASKS: Their Multiple Roles and Contributions to Interaction Research Methodology (2006, background): “…for different tasks and classroom groupings ~e+g+, Doughty & Pica, 1986; Duff, 1986; Kowal & Swain, 1994; Newton & Kennedy, 1996; Swain, 1998; Swain & Lapkin, 2001!+ However, they have more commonly served as instruments for data collection in studies on classroom turntaking, teacher versus…”
• Issues in Teachers´ Reinterpretation of a Task- Based Innovation in Primary Schools. (2004, background): “To go beyond ad hoc decision making in the young learner classroom, however, these issues merit further exploration: What kinds of MT dialogue generated by young learners might facilitate second language development (Swain & Lapkin, 2000, 2001)?”
• The effect of interlocutor proficiency on the collaborative dialogue between Korean as a second language learners (2008, background): “…dialogue studies have examined the relationship between LREs and learning outcomes (Adams, 2007; McDonough & Sunitham, 2007; Swain, 1998; Swain & Lapkin, 1998, 2001; Watanabe & Swain, 2007), additional research is needed to identify the long-term impact of collaborative dialogue on L2…”
• Exploring Engagement in Tasks in the Language Classroom (2016, background): “For example, in recent second language acquisition (SLA) research on engagement, it is language-related episodes (Swain & Lapkin, 2001) that are the predominant means of operationalizing engagement because of the importance placed on learners’ focus on language form, meaning, and use.”
• Task-based Instruction (2012, background): “Another approach concerns the potential of different tasks to enable language understanding to be scaffolded by participants, mutually, through interaction (Swain and Lapkin, 2001).”
• Pairing learners in pair work activity (2013, methodology): “Drawing on the work of Swain and Lapkin (1998, 2001), LREs were instances where learners self and other repaired language use or deliberated about the meaning of”
• EFFECTS OF FORM-FOCUSED PRACTICE AND FEEDBACK ON CHINESE EFL LEARNERS’ ACQUISITION OF REGULAR AND IRREGULAR PAST TENSE FORMS (2010, methodology): “Two dictogloss tasks (Wajnryb, 1990 ; see Swain & Lapkin, 2001 ) were used for the purpose of raising learners’ awareness of past tense forms and to elicit their use in oral production.”
• Classroom Learning, Teaching, and Research: A Task‐Based Perspective (2005, background): “Some studies have examined and compared different types of tasks and their impact on learning processes (e.g., Doughty & Pica, 1986; Duff, 1986; Kowal & Swain, 1994; Newton & Kennedy, 1996; Swain, 1998; Swain & Lapkin, 2001).”