issue 24 1/2019 - crossroads · daniel karczewski2 university of białystok orcid id:...

ISSUE 241/2019

An electronic journal published by The University of Bialystok

ISSUE 24

1/2019

An electronic journal published by The University of Bialystok

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Publisher:The University of BialystokThe Faculty of PhilologyDepartment of Englishul. Liniarskiego 315-420 Białystok, Polandtel. 0048 85 7457516

[email protected] www.crossroads.uwb.edu.pl

e-ISSN 2300-6250The electronic version of Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies is its primary (referential) version.

Editor-in-chief:Agata Rozumko

Literary editor:Grzegorz Moroz

Editorial Board:Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun, Jerzy Kamionowski, Daniel Karczewski, Weronika Łaszkiewicz, Jacek Partyka, Daniela Francesca Virdis, Beata Piecychna, Tomasz Sawczuk

Editorial Assistant:Ewelina Feldman-Kołodziejuk

Language editors:Kirk Palmer, Peter Foulds

Advisory Board:Pirjo Ahokas (University of Turku), Lucyna Aleksandrowicz-Pędich (SWPS: University of Social Sciences and Humanities), Ali Almanna (Sohar University), Isabella Buniyatova (Borys Ginchenko Kyiev University), Xinren Chen (Nanjing University), Marianna Chodorowska-Pilch (University of Southern California), Zinaida Charytończyk (Minsk State Linguistic University), Gasparyan Gayane (Yerevan State Linguistic University “Bryusov”), Marek Gołębiowski (University of Warsaw), Anne-Line Graedler (Hedmark University College), Cristiano Furiassi (Università degli Studi di Torino), Jarosław Krajka (Maria Curie-Skłodowska University / University of Social Sciences and Humanities), Marcin Krygier (Adam Mickiewicz University), A. Robert Lee (Nihon University), Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld (Jagiellonian University), Zbigniew Maszewski (University of Łódź), Michael W. Thomas (The Open University, UK), Sanae Tokizane (Chiba University), Peter Unseth (Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dallas), Daniela Francesca Virdis (University of Cagliari), Valentyna Yakuba (Borys Ginchenko Kyiev University)

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SPECIAL ISSUE

LINGUISTICS FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

GUEST EDITORS:Elżbieta Awramiuk Daniel Karczewski

GUEST LANGUAGE EDITOR: Carolyn Trotman-Grabek

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................................................................................................................................................................CROSSROADS. A Journal of English Studies

Contents

5 ELŻBIETA AWRAMIUK, DANIEL KARCZEWSKIBetween Linguistics, Language Education and Acquisition Research. Introduction to the Special Issue Linguistics for Language Teaching and Learning

12 ĽUDMILA LIPTÁKOVÁWhat Developmental Linguistics Can Offer L1 Education. An Example of the Relation between Implicit and Explicit Word-formation Knowledge in Slovak Speaking Children

26 XAVIER FONTICHShould we teach first language grammar in compulsory schooling at all? Some reflections from the Spanish perspective

45 ANA LUÍSA COSTAA contribution to the implicit/explicit debate on grammar learning: the case of contrast connectors

65 CRISTINA VIEIRA DA SILVA, ÍRIS SUSANA PIRES PEREIRA, ISABEL SEBASTIÃO

Portuguese teachers’ perceptions of grammar teaching

82 MARTA KOPCIKOVAMetacognition as a superordinate concept of metalinguistics: The role in developing reading skills in a foreign language

98 MARTI PALLAPreschool children’s sensitivity to the generic and non-generic distinctions

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ELŻBIETA AWRAMIUK1University of BiałystokORCID ID: 0000-0003-1769-7265

DANIEL KARCZEWSKI2University of BiałystokORCID ID: 0000-0001-8255-6018

Between Linguistics, Language Education and Acquisition Research. Introduction to the Special Issue Linguistics for Language Teaching and Learning

The relationship between linguistics and education is strong and has a long tradition. This con-nection is not merely about a transmission of linguistic knowledge to the context of school educa-tion – what really matters is a deep insight into the goals and methods of language teaching and learning. While in foreign language teaching practical issues are beyond disagreement, they have been debated for many years as regards first language teaching and learning. A telling example of this controversy is an international debate over the role of grammar in L1 teaching (Hudson 2004; Locke 2010; Spolsky & Hult 2010; Macken-Horarik et al. 2011; Ribas, Fontich & Guasch 2015).

The knowledge about language in different countries is L1-specific by nature – it depends on the features of a particular native language. Punctuation, by way of example, would be taught differ-ently in languages in which it is related to prosody in comparison to languages where such rela-tions do not exist. However, there are certain problems of language teaching and learning that are universal and apply to the majority of languages taught. In particular, this question arises when

1 Address for correspondence: Institute of Polish Philology, University of Białystok, Pl. NZS 1, 15-420 Białystok, Po-land. E-mail: [email protected]

2 Address for correspondence: Institute of Modern Languages, University of Białystok, ul. Liniarskiego 3, 15-420 Białystok, Poland. E-mail: [email protected]

DOI: 10.15290/CR.2019.24.1.01

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choosing a model for the study of a given language, the choice of which is initially guided by the adoption of a particular idea of language and research perspective.

Despite the fact that teaching is a natural area of research principally for educators and educa-tionists, linguistics plays its part here. There are many linguistic publications that shed light on how children learn a language, and therefore provide arguments in the debate over the effective language teaching and learning. The problems pertaining to linguistics and education that are of interest to scholars representing the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary linguistics embrace such questions as the role of grammar instruction in the development of writing skills, ways of raising metalinguistic awareness, the importance of students’ language preconception in L1 teach-ing or teachers’ beliefs. Below we present several examples of linguistic investigations of this kind.

The role of grammar in the development of L1 language skills is still unclear. While there are several studies demonstrating that morphological awareness can foster the development of spell-ing skills (Apel & Werfel 2014; Bowers, Kirby & Deacon 2010; Goodwin & Ahn 2013; Graham & Santangelo 2014), the relation of grammatical knowledge to general writing skills is more contro-versial. Some researchers claim that there is no significant evidence for the positive effect of gram-mar instruction on language use (Andrews et al. 2006; Graham et al. 2012). Others, on the other hand, argue with that view as supported by a weak empirical basis and postulate that teaching grammar can beneficially affect writing competence (Myhill et al. 2012; Myhill 2018). However, there is a growing consensus that research into the efficiency of grammar instruction should pro-vide for the effects of a different approach to grammar teaching and the role of a teaching method.

Studies on language acquisition have shown that the traditional teaching of grammar focused on the knowledge of language structures is far less valuable than metalinguistic awareness and conceptualization of the grammar system achieved by students through natural language activi-ties such as writing, speaking, and reading (Fontich 2016; Milian 2005; Ribas, Fontich & Guasch 2014; Unsworth 2002; Uppstad 2006). The above conclusions advocate a claim that the ability to think deeply about the language and how it is used is far more significant than a mere reproduc-tion of grammar content presented by a teacher, and also than the teaching of a series of gram-mar rules. Metalinguistic activities should always be based on spontaneous linguistic knowledge and students’ language experiences, as well as on a multidimensional perspective on language.

L1 speakers know a lot about their native languages, usually without knowing that they know it. Students’ implicit knowledge about language and language preconception are a fundamental part of L1 teaching. Research into these topics can guide the teaching of grammar so that it is functional, communication-oriented and cognitively challenging (Štěpáník 2019). Preconceptions of language phenomena are developed at a really early stage. This can be illustrated with an ex-ample of invented spelling used by children in pre-school age – a graphic system which is closer to surface phonetics and their linguistic intuition than a conventional system. Children’s depar-tures from standard orthography are determined by problems with phonological segmentation and categorization of the sounds heard. In addition, they explain children’s conceptualizations of written language as well as its relation to spoken language. There have been a wealth of studies on

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the development of early writing abilities that differentiate the factors determining this process (cf. Bourassa & Treiman 2001; Levin et al. 2013; Morin 2007; Sénéchal et al. 2012; Viise et al. 2011; Werfel & Schuele 2012). The analysis of children’s writing provides an insight into phonological representations of words. It also reflects preschoolers’ strategies of phonological segmentation and the acquisition process of graphotactic, orthographical and morphological rules of a given lan-guage. Ignoring students’ understanding of and thinking about language may potentially lead to various lasting problems of L1 teaching, also at subsequent educational levels.

The essential prerequisite for functional and effective education is a teacher and their explicit support in language learning. Since teachers’ beliefs and language awareness play a major role in the shaping of classroom practices (Watson 2015), we should not underestimate the usefulness of research on this area (e.g. Camps & Fontich 2019; Nupponen et al. 2019; van Rijt et al. 2019). What teachers believe about language and language teaching is crucial for language education.

Language development is a key factor in the acquisition of any knowledge. It is for this reason that linguists investigate how people acquire their knowledge about language and how this knowl-edge interacts with other cognitive processes. Their carefully-designed classroom-based experi-ments with children and teachers can help to understand how students learn a language; they may also contribute to the improvement of teacher education and the effectiveness of language educa-tion – and thus, indirectly, to general education.

The above-mentioned problems are of interest also to the EduLing SIG (Special Interest Group) of ARLE (International Association for Research in L1 Education), an international group of re-searchers interested in broadly understood educational linguistics. The present special issue is the outcome of a seminar convened by the University of Białystok and devoted to the question of how linguistic research can assist L1 education, especially in language teaching and learning. On top of that, the volume builds on previous collaborative projects navigated by the researchers working for ARLE (Kerge 2014; Boivin et al. 2018; Rättyä et al. 2019).

The texts collected in this special issue come from four different linguistic circles: Spain, Poland, Portugal and Slovakia. Despite diverse topics and different research perspectives, the idea behind all these studies is one – the improvement of linguistic education with an emphasis on L1.

The volume opens with a paper by LUDMILA LIPTÁKOVÁ, who attempts to answer the question of what developmental linguistics can offer to L1 education. The author presents empirical data from language research in Slovak speaking children to illustrate the possibilities of transferring the findings in developmental linguistics into the curriculum of language learning and teaching.

XAVIER FONTICH discusses a general question about whether we should teach first language grammar in compulsory schooling at all. The author pinpoints how important it is that teaching and learning languages at school be based on the learners’ metalinguistic activity, and presents a model of intervention (Instructional Sequence) based on examples from the Spanish language while drawing upon international research.

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ANA COSTA intends to contribute to the implicit/explicit debate on grammar learning and through an example of acquisition of contrast connectives in Portuguese she discusses the nature of the knowledge involved in grammar teaching and learning at school. The author supports the claim that studies on language acquisition and development are seen as most relevant to gram-mar teaching and learning, and as such grammar instruction must take into account spontaneous linguistic knowledge, which depends on language learning experiences accumulated throughout a learner’s school years.

CRISTINA VIEIRA DA SILVA, ÍRIS SUSANA PIRES PEREIRA & ISABEL SEBASTIAO, using a questionnaire survey, give an account of Portuguese teachers’ perceptions on grammar teaching. Teachers’ perceptions are shaped by such factors as content knowledge, pedagogical con-tent knowledge, knowledge of the curricula and general educational knowledge. Based on their findings, the authors advocate the need to rethink how teachers are trained and how they build their awareness about the role of grammar teaching in effective student learning.

MARTA KOPCIKOVA provides a theoretical analysis of the relationship between metacogni-tion and its subordinate concept metalinguistics, highlighting the holistic nature of learning. The paper focuses on explaining the role of metacognition and metalinguistics in particular in devel-oping reading skills and provides an instruction of a reading comprehension strategy, applicable for both L1 and FL reading development.

MARTI PALLA investigates Polish preschool children’s sensitivity to the generic (e.g., “birds have wings”) and non-generic (e.g. “two birds are sitting in that tree”) distinction. The aim of her study is to determine the extent to which preschool children are sensitive to one morphological cue in particular.

The reader will therefore find in this special issue the findings from an array of research conducted in various countries and using various methodologies. However diverse they may seem, all the papers theorize, analyze and discuss – at different levels of detail – how linguistics can serve language education. Since grammar learning and teaching are understood here primarily as a process of building awareness of the language used, the discussion revolves around the problems of language acquisition and development (including such concepts as language awareness, or metalinguistic knowledge) as well as of implicit vs. explicit linguistic knowledge. In most of the texts the reader will find more or less overtly formulated questions about effective ways of language teaching and learning; some papers even articulate practical methodological tips. Every single article as well as the entire volume make a contribution to our understanding of language learning and teaching.

Out of all those who deserve acknowledgement we would like to single out all the Authors for their contribution to this volume, and the Reviewers for their comments and constructive sug-gestions. We deeply believe that the essays collected in this issue may inspire researchers to seek further creative goals, and encourage them to engage in further collaborative projects.

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2006. The effect of grammar teaching on writing development. British Educational Research Journal 32(1): 39–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920500401997

Apel, K. & Werfel, K. 2014. Using morphological awareness instruction to improve written lan-guage skills. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 45: 251–260. https://doi.org/10.1044/2014_LSHSS-14-0039

Boivin M.C., Fontich X., Funke R., García-Folgado M.J. & Myhill D. 2018. Working on grammar at school in L1 education: Empirical research across linguistic regions. Introduction to the spe-cial issue. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature 18: 1–6.

Bourassa, D. C. & Treiman, R. 2001. Spelling development and disability: the importance of lin-guistics factors. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools 32(3): 172–181.

Bowers, P. N., Kirby, J. R. & Deacon, S. H. 2010. The effects of morphological instruction on lite-racy skills: A systematic review of the literature. Review of Educational Research 80(2): 144–179. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654309359353

Camps, A. & Fontich, X. 2019. Teachers’ concepts on the teaching of grammar in relation to the teaching of writing in Spain: A case study. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature. 19: 1-36. https://doi.org/10.17239/L1ESLL-2019.19.02.02

Fontich, X. 2016. L1 grammar instruction and writing: Metalinguistic activity as a teaching and research focus. Language and Linguistics Compass 10(5): 238–54. https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12184

Goodwin, A. P. & Ahn, S. 2013. A meta-analysis of morphological interventions in English: Effects on literacy outcomes for school-age children. Scientific Studies of Reading 17(4): 257–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2012.689791

Graham, S., McKeown, D., Kiuhara, S. & Harris, K.R. 2012. A meta-analysis of writing instruc-tion for students in the elementary grades. Journal of Educational Psychology 104(4): 879–896. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029185

Graham, S. & Santangelo, T. 2014. Does spelling instruction make students better spellers, re-aders, and writers? A meta-analytic review. Reading and Writing 27: 1703–1743. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-014-9517-0

Hudson, R. 2004. Why education needs linguistics (and vice versa). Journal of Linguistics 40: 105–130.

Kerge, K. (ed.). 2014. Studies in Language Acquisition, Learning, and Corpora. Proceedings of the Tallinn University Institute of Estonian Language and Culture 16. Tallinn: Tallinn University.

Levin, I., Aram, D., Tolchinsky, L. & McBride, C. 2013. Maternal mediation of writing and chil-dren’s early spelling and reading: the Semitic abjad versus the European alphabet. Writing Systems Research 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/17586801.2013.797335

https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029185

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Locke, T. (ed.). 2010. Beyond the grammar wars. A resource for teachers and students on developing language knowledge in the English/literacy classroom. New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203854358

Macken-Horarik, M., Love, K. & Unsworth, L. 2011. A grammatics ‘good enough’ for school English in the 21st century: Four challenges in realising the potential. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 34(1): 9-23.

Milian, M. 2005. Reformulation: a means of constructing knowledge in shared writing. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature 5(3): 335–351. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10674-005-8560-9

Morin, M. F. 2007. Linguistic factors and invented spelling in children: the case of French begin-ners in children. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature 7 (3): 173–189.

Myhill, D. 2018. Grammar as a meaning making resource for language development. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature 18: 1–21. https://doi.org/10.17239/L1ESLL-2018.18.04.04.

Myhill, D.A., Jones, S.M., Lines, H. & Watson, A. 2012. Re-thinking grammar: the impact of em-bedded grammar teaching on students’ writing and students’ metalinguistic understanding. Research Papers in Education 27(2): 139–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2011.637640.

Nupponen, A.-M.; Jeskanen, S. & Rättyä, K. 2019. Finnish student language teachers reflecting on linguistic concepts related to sentence structures: Students recognising linguistic concepts in L1 and L2 textbooks. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature 19: 1-25. https://doi.org/10.17239/L1ESLL-2019.19.02.04

Rättyä, K., Awramiuk, E. & Fontich, X. 2019. What is Grammar Education Today? Introduction to EduLing special issue on grammar education. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature 19: 1–9. https://doi.org/10.17239/L1ESLL-2019.19.02.01

Ribas T., Fontich X. & Guasch O. (eds.). 2015. Grammar at School. Research on Metalinguistic Activity in Language Education. Brussels: Peter Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-0352-6490-6.

Sénéchal, M., Ouellette, G., Pagan, S. & Lever, R. 2012. The role of invented spelling on learning to read in low-phoneme-awareness kindergartners: a randomized-control-trial study. Reading and Writing 25: 917–934. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-011-9310-2

Spolsky B. & Hult, F. (eds.). 2010. The Handbook of Educational Linguistics. Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.

Štěpáník, S. 2019. Pupil preconception as a source of solutions to lingering problems of gram-mar teaching? L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature. 19: 1-24. https://doi.org/10.17239/L1ESLL-2019.19.02.05

Unsworth, L. 2002. Reading grammatically: Exploring the ‘constructiveness’ of literary texts. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature 2(2): 121–140. https://doi.org/10.1023/ A:1020847215689

Uppstad, P.H. 2006. The dynamics of written language acquisition. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature 6(3): 63–83. https://doi.org/10.17239/L1ESLL-2006.06.01.04

http://l1.publication-archive.com/public?fn=enter&repository=1&article=273http://l1.publication-archive.com/public?fn=enter&repository=1&article=273http://l1.publication-archive.com/publication/1/1493http://l1.publication-archive.com/publication/1/1493https://doi.org/10.17239/L1ESLL-2006.06.01.04

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van Rijt, J. van, Wijnands, A. & Coppen, P.-A. 2019 (forthcoming). Dutch teacher beliefs on lin-guistic concepts and Reflective Judgement in grammar teaching. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature.

Viise, N. M., Richards, H. C. & Pandis, M. 2011. Orthographic depth and spelling acquisition in Estonian and English: a comparison of two diverse alphabetic languages. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 55(4): 425–453.

Watson, A. 2015. The Problem of Grammar Teaching: a case study of the relationship between a teacher’s beliefs and pedagogical practice. Language and Education 29(4): 332-346. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2015.1016955

Werfel, K. L. & Schuele, C. M. 2012. Segmentation and representation of consonant blends in kin-dergarten children’s spellings. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 43: 292–307.

***Elżbieta Awramiuk is a professor of linguistics at the University of Białystok, Poland. Her re-search currently concentrates on knowledge about language in education, as well as on phonology and spelling in contemporary Polish. Since 2005, she has been collaborating with L1 – Educa-tional Studies in Language and Literature, a Scopus indexed online peer-reviewed, multilingual journal. She is the founding member of ARLE (International Association for Research in L1 Educa-tion, formerly: IAIMTE) and she is engaged in the Special Interest Group Research Educational Linguistics (SIG EduLing). She has participated in several research projects focused on the early literacy development and assessment and linguistic aspects of learning to read and write.

Daniel Karczewski is an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Modern Languages at the Univer-sity of Białystok, Poland. He holds a PhD in cognitive linguistics. His current research interest in-clude the generic overgeneralization effect and the phenomenon of normativity. He was the prize winner of the Polish Cognitive Linguistics Association competition for the best Ph.D. disserta-tion in cognitive linguistics in 2014. He has recently published a book Generyczność w języku i w myśleniu. Studium kognitywne (Genericity in Language and Thought. A Cognitive Study).

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ĽUDMILA LIPTÁKOVÁ1University of Prešov, Slovakia ORCID ID: 0000-0001-5639-6209

What Developmental Linguistics Can Offer L1 Education. An Example of the Relation between Implicit and Explicit Word-formation Knowledge in Slovak Speaking Children

Abstract. The paper focuses on defining the relationship between developmental linguistics and L1 education. We con-sider both theories and empirical research in developmental linguistics an important theoretical basis for L1 education, especially in pre-school and junior school aged children. The examples of research on child language in Slovak speaking children are used to clarify the possibilities of transforming the findings in developmental linguistics into the curricu-lum of language learning/teaching. The dynamic interactions of implicit and explicit linguistic knowledge in L1 educa-tion is the way how developmental linguistics’ knowledge base can positively influence the results of language learning. The paper is based both on the analysis of theoretical sources and the empirical findings of qualitative linguistic research.

Keywords: developmental linguistics, L1 education, Slovak speaking children, implicit and explicit linguistic knowl-edge, word-formation.

1. Introduction The aim of the paper is to analyse the relation between developmental linguistics and L1 education from a theoretical point of view and by means of empirical data collected from language research in Slovak speaking children in order to illustrate how the findings in developmental linguistics could be transformed into the curriculum of language learning/teaching.

We consider both theories and empirical research in developmental linguistics an important theoretical basis for L1 education, especially in pre-school and junior school aged children. In our

1 Address for correspondence: University of Prešov, Faculty of Education, Ul. 17. novembra 15, 080 01 Prešov Slovakia. E-mail: [email protected]

DOI: 10.15290/CR.2019.24.1.02

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opinion, the successful development of children’s language abilities in formal education is not pos-sible without knowing what the course of language development looks like and how the language of adults is acquired by children. According to Hoff (2001: 22-25) there are two approaches to the study of language development: the developmental approach with the basic question “What is the course of language development and how can we explain it?” and the learnability approach with the goal “to explain how it is that language is learnable by children”. This means that educational theorists and educators in the field of mother tongue education should be acquainted with the most important empirical findings within these two research approaches. In the context of language de-velopment research findings we consider it to be of paramount importance to find out how a child’s implicit linguistic knowledge could be linked with explicit language learning in school education.

In the paper we focus on: outlining developmental linguistics as a part of the cognitive model in L1 didactic communication; analysing the interactions between implicit and explicit linguistic knowledge in L1 education; presenting the empirical data on Slovak speaking children’s language development research; and proposing the transformation of developmental findings into L1 cur-riculum. Our intention is also to arouse a discussion about the importance of developmental stud-ies within the L1 curriculum.

2. Developmental linguistics as a part of the cognitive model of L1 education The subject of developmental linguistics, i.e., the issue of language acquisition, comes under the broad research scope of applied linguistics (see Šebesta et al. 2016: 11-13). Traditionally, research on a child’s language is considered to be a subject of psycholinguistic interest, therefore this relatively independent scientific field is also referred to as developmental psycholinguistics (see Slančová et al. 2008: 10). The research on child language has been carried out since the second half of the 19th century. Since then, it has undergone significant methodological changes and has responded to many questions related to language acquisition. As it is known, different theories of language development have been gradually formed since the 1950s, with the most significant ones being behavioral theory, the psycholinguistic-syntactic model (nativist theory), the psycholinguistic-semantic/cognitive model, socio-pragmatic theory, and the emergentist model (see Owens 2008: 31-59). As Owens describes:

(1) Within the past several decades, five major theories of language acquisition have

been proposed: behavioral, psycholinguistic-syntactic, psycholinguistic-semantic/

cognitive, sociolinguistic, and emergentist. [...] Most linguists do not adhere strictly to

one theoretical construct but prefer to position themselves somewhere between. This

apparent fence straddling reflects the complexity of language and language acquisition

(Owens 2008: 58).

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It should be remembered that psychologists Jean Piaget and Lev Semjonovich Vygotsky belong to the most influential researchers of language development in children. Both of these psycholo-gists studied child language development in relation to the development of a child’s thinking, but each of them did so from a different methodological perspective. While Piaget’s theory of cogni-tive constructivism (1997) focuses primarily on the internal mechanisms of language and thought development, and on the mental structure and mental representations, Vygotsky’s theory of so-cial constructivism (1970) emphasizes the social and cultural-historical determinants of language and thought, and stresses the importance of learning processes and environmental factors (see a discussion on Piagetian and Vygotskian work in Průcha 2011: 11-12). Despite the differences in acknowledging the degree of universality or socio-cultural determinants of a child’s development, these two most influential theories of a child’s psychological development agree on the relation-ship of individual developmental stages with the child’s ability to form concepts.

Currently, the interdisciplinary research of language acquisition, besides the above mentioned developmental and learnability approaches, differs from a methodological viewpoint in applying rationalist, empirical and interactive approach (see Průcha 2011: 24-34). The rationalist (nativist) approach explains language acquisition based on the innate (hereditary) dispositions. The em-pirical approach stresses the impact of language input and the effect of a child’s communicative functions on language acquisition. The complementarity of these two approaches is present in the interactive approach, which is characterized by E. Clark as follows:

(2) My own emphasis is on the social setting of acquisition combined with the cognitive

foundations children can build on. So I view both social and cognitive development as

critical to acquisition since it remains unclear how much of language is innate or whether

any specialized learning mechanisms subserve it [...]. The emphasis here is on how (and

how much) children can learn from adult usage, including child-directed speech. [...] I

place considerable emphasis on the developmental processes required in learning

a language from the first words on and none on arguing that children know (nearly)

everything from the start (Clark 2009: 16).

Based on our own research on the language of children we prefer the interactive approach to language acquisition. Because of its complexity, we also find this approach the most appropriate theoretical basis for explicit development of a child’s language skills. The interactive approach is also applied in the longitudinal research of child language, which has been systematically imple-mented in Slovakia since the 1990s (see Slančová et al. 2008, 2018).

The reason for studying child language development is “its potential value to basic research into the nature of the human mind“ and also “its potential value to applied questions […] about de-signing education for young children” (Hoff 2001: 3). Thus, knowledge of the stages and regu-larities of language development, and the acquaintance with the most important methodological

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approaches and empirical research in the field of language acquisition should become the compul-sory part of professional expertise of theorists and educators in L1 education.

We consider developmental (psycho)linguistics a constituent of the cognitive model in didactic communication in L1 education, together with a complex of other linguistic and pedagogical-psy-chological disciplines. The cognitive model (or conceptual curriculum) is the starting point of di-dactic communication and it represents the scientific basis of a school subject, which is organized according to teaching and learning needs (see Adamčíková & Tarábek 2008: 139). The cognitive model is further transformed into the form of a project and then implemented in the subject cur-riculum (see Adamčíková & Tarábek 2008: 140-141). This means that the knowledge of a child’s language development should be applied in projecting the input and output in L1 curriculum and eventually implemented in L1 classroom practice (see Liptáková et al. 2015: 31-36). In this context, the fundamental question arises, i.e., how to link the implicit linguistic knowledge of a child with explicit language learning.

3. The relation of implicit and explicit linguistic knowledge in L1 educationResearch findings on the spontaneous course of child language development (based on the devel-opmental approach) and on how a child acquires the language of adults (based on the learnabil-ity approach) also provide information on a child’s implicit linguistic knowledge. Mother tongue acquisition represents an implicit process that is supported more by experience from using the language than by explicit rules, in opposition to foreign language acquisition.

Implicit knowledge is defined as internal unconscious knowledge, whereas explicit knowledge is understood as external conscious knowledge. Implicit knowledge is related to implicit language learning, explicit knowledge is the result of intentional and conscious explicit language learning. Research in various fields of cognitive neuroscience implies that implicit and explicit learning are two different processes, that there are separate implicit and explicit memory systems in the human brain, and that there are different types of language knowledge and knowledge about language, which are located in different parts of brain (see Ellis 2008: 1). The human implicit memory system processes language input automatically and it enables us to concentrate more on the meaning than on the form of communication. Implicit processing of language input is connected to predictable situations. However, if the automatic processing gets interrupted, a conscious support of explicit memory system is necessary (see Ellis 2005: 308).

Despite defining implicit and explicit language knowledge as different and dissociated process-es, and despite their differentiation based on the various types of language representations and various neural systems that are supporting them, there is a dynamic interaction between them

– interface (see Ellis 2005: 307):

(3) The interface question, at the very foundations of SLA, applied linguistics, and child

language acquisition, has motivated a wide range of empirical research over the last 30

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years, and the weight of the subsequent findings demonstrates that language acquisition

can be speeded by explicit instruction (Ellis 2005: 307).

(4) The central issue of the interface question is just how much influence there is in the

reverse direction, how much do explicit learning and explicit instruction influence

implicit learning, and how can their symbiosis be optimized? (Ellis 2008: 4).

The stated theses defining the relationship between implicit and explicit language knowledge and their dynamic interaction are relevant for answering the key questions in L1 education, which is also obvious from the following statement:

(5) [a]lthough in native language acquisition implicit learning is primary, the development of

self-awareness allows reflective examination, analysis and re-organization of the products

of implicit learning, resulting in redescription at a higher level and the formation of new

independent and explicit representations (Ellis 2008: 4).

Based on the above stated definition of the relationship between implicit and explicit language knowledge, it is vital to consider the implementation of a balanced learning curriculum in L1 edu-cation (see Ellis 2008: 7), which would be based on the dynamic interaction of implicit language acquisition and explicit language learning. The following part of the study introduces a proposal for linking implicit and explicit knowledge within L1 education. The proposal will be illustrated on the findings from the research on spontaneous child word-formation during the development of explicit word-formation knowledge in preschool and junior school aged children.

4. How could the findings in developmental linguistics be transformed into L1 education? Our linguistic and developmental research on child word-formation in Slovak (see Liptáková 2000; Liptáková & Vužňáková 2009) proved that children have implicit word-formation knowledge at their disposal, based on which they spontaneously make derived or compound nonce-words. This research was conducted as a part of a wider research of nonce-words in spoken Slovak, i.e., be-sides children’s nonce-words, adults’ nonce-words in common spoken language were investigated (see Liptáková 2000). The process of collecting spoken nonce-words was long-lasting, since these words were not part of a conventional dictionary; they usually emerge ad hoc in an individual’s vocabulary within a unique language context and are mostly used once21. For this reason we used a long-term observation method of data collection, where we observed different types of commu-nication situations and recorded the ensuing nonce-words, i.e., we applied the above mentioned developmental approach to the study of language development. With the help of our university students, in the period from 1992 to 2000 we collected about 500 spoken nonce-words created by 3

2 We drew from the definition of nonce-words’ features by A. G. Lykov (1976) and K. Buzássyová (1990).

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to 15 year old children in their spontaneous language use. The collected nonce-words3 were anal-ysed from pragmatic, semantic and structural aspects; we looked for answers to the questions why and how children produce word-formation innovations, what words they produce, and why they do not use the conventional words.

In the period from 2000 till the present time we have continued with research by completing the database of observed children’s nonce-words and above all by analysing the data from the view-point of educational linguistics, e.g., examining how the developmental findings can be linked with language education.

a) The findings regarding implicit word-formation knowledge As to the developmental aspect in our research, the analysis of the data showed that creating nonce-words reflects a natural course of language acquisition for children. In the preschool age nonce-words mainly fulfil the naming function because of the insufficient conventional vocabulary of children (there are lexical gaps in children’s vocabulary, see Clark 2009: 254-278). In the group of junior aged children, the creation of nonce-words decreases and children use word-formation in-novations more pragmatically, e.g., as a means of more pertinent and economical expression or as a means of expressing the attitude towards the named phenomenon. Comparing the findings to our research of adults’ nonce-words in spoken Slovak (see Liptáková 2000), the creation of novel words in pre-school children is more specific due to developmental reasons, but in junior school aged children the gap between the acquired conventional words and children’s naming needs is on the decrease (see the developmental principle of conventionality, Clark 2009: 133). This means that the production of nonce-words in junior school age has similar features to adults’ production.

On the other hand, what similarities are there in creating innovative word-formation units within both age groups? Children at pre-school and junior school age naturally apply word-for-mative structures and rules existing in the Slovak language, i.e., they use conventional word-formation models, roots, prefixes, suffixes etc., but they combine word-formation elements in an individual and non-conventional way. For example, when deriving place nouns in Slovak, the word-formation model “noun + suffix -áreň” (e.g., mliek-áreň – ‘the place where milk (mlieko) is produced’) is very productive. According to this model a child spontaneously creates the noun zub-áreň (‘the place where a dentist works’, zub = tooth), or bábätk-áreň (‘the place where babies are born’, bábätko = baby), although these words do not exist in the Slovak conventional lexicon. The ability to individually combine the elements of a word-formation system enables the child by providing an immediate and subjective interpretation of reality. Reflecting on basic naming needs as such and also on a child’s concrete and dynamic thinking processes (see Piaget & Inhel-der 1997), both age groups of children produce mostly person nouns, thing nouns, place nouns and verbs within word-formation innovations. Children’s spontaneous usage of word-formative models and elements present in Slovak language while producing derived or compound nonce-

3 The list of collected nonce-word is available on the web page: http://www.indi.pf.unipo.sk/das/3.pdf

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words represents the regular principle of word-formation, i.e., creating predictable derivatives or compound words while respecting word-formation rules (see Fleischer 1988: 11; Motsch 1988: 31), although nonce-words created by children are not a part of the conventional Slovak lexicon. Simi-larly, E. Clark stresses tracking productive word-formation patterns along with adult preferences in the interpretation of word-formation innovations in English speaking children:

(6) When children construct the words they need, they consistently rely on word-formation

options from the language being acquired. They don’t try out just any random

combination of roots and affixes. They use well-established patterns that are productive

in adult speech (Clark 2009: 277).

Yet, based on our empirical data in children’s word-formation innovations, another word-for-mation principle is also applied – the analogical and holistic principle, i.e., a nonpredictable word-formation based on associations with word-formation patterns (see Fleischer 1988: 11; Motsch 1988: 31). For example, according to the pattern of the conventional person noun sil-ák (‘a person who is strong’) a child creates the non-conventional person noun slabák (‘a person who is weak’); or according to the pattern of the conventional thing noun vianočka (‘a cake baked for Christ-mas’) a child creates the non-conventional thing noun veľkonočka (‘a cake baked for Easter’). This manner of word-formation is also present in literary texts of Slovak authors, who create nonce-words particularly in children’s literature (see e.g. Valeková 1993).

According to other experts in the field of word-formation, the analogy is an inner principle un-derlying each manner of word-formation (see Chanpira 1966). Even the basis for the regular word-formation is actually an analogy, i.e., one pair of words is created according to another one: x 1 : x 1 +suffix / x 2 : x 2 +suffix (see the concept of correlational word-formation, Kubrjakova 1981), e.g., see our previous example: mlieko → mliek+áreň / zub → zub+áreň. Regarding this issue, we consider it an important finding that all principles existing in conventional word-formation are applied in the child’s ad hoc word-formation procedure. Accordingly, we suppose that children have implicit word-formation knowledge reflecting word-formation properties of the language being acquired.

The research outcomes also proved that the nonce-words formation procedure can be linked to the stages of a child’s cognitive development, especially with the egocentric and dynamic charac-ter of a child’s way of thinking (see Piaget & Inhelder 1997). Child cognitive egocentrism and cen-tration are reflected for example in the spontaneous selection of a starting-point for derivation in a particular word, depending on the child’s individual experiences with persons and things in his/her surroundings. For example, instead of the conventional noun mixér (mixer), a child creates the nonce-word húkačka (from the motivating verb húkať = to buzz); instead of the conventional noun murári (builder), a child creates the nonce-word domári (from the motivating noun dom = house); or instead of the conventional noun cigareta (cigarette), a child creates the nonce-word fajč (from the motivating verb fajčiť = to smoke).

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The dynamics of the child’s being and thinking is reflected in the fluency of innovative denomi-nal verbs and also deverbal nouns. Derivation of a non-conventional verb from an individually chosen motivating noun (e.g. gitara → gitarovať = ‘to play the guitar’, hokej → hokejovať = ‘to play hockey’) is a typical word-formation process in language ontogenesis of pre-school as well as ju-nior aged Slovak speaking children. This process reoccurs in every generation of Slovak speaking children and seems to be a universal process in the course of language development (compare a similar tendency in the word-formation innovations in Russian or English children; see Clark 2009: 268-270; Čukovskij 1963).

By comparing two age groups of pre-school and junior aged children we found that different cognitive structures in a child’s semantic thinking influence derived denominal verbs. In the group of pre-schoolers, the half of collected non-conventional denominal verbs has the meaning of dynamic processes, such as: “to play” (pištoľ (a gun) → pištoľ-ovať = ‘to play with a gun’), ‘to move’ (hojdačka (a children’s swing) → hojdačk-ovať = ‘to swing’), ‘to work’ (plastelína (a play-doh) → plastelín-ovať = ‘to shape something from a play-doh’). Such semantic verb groups serve for ex-pressing a child’s perception of the world as a time-space continuum (see Piaget – Inhelder 1997). In the group comprising older children, the ongoing cognitive development is reflected in a bigger production of causative verbs as a means of expressing an intentional activity centred on an object, i.e., children mentally divide time-space into sequences (see Piaget – Inhelder 1997). For example, hračka (a toy) → zahračk-ovať (‘to overfill the room with toys’); test (a test) → test-ovať (‘to solve a test’); tréma (stage-fright) → od-trém-ovať (‘to get rid of stage-fright’), etc.

The dynamic character of a child’s manner of thinking is reflected also in the spontaneous se-lection of a starting-point for noun derivation in verb expression, although the same meaning is expressed by denominal derivative in conventional vocabulary. For instance, the conventional noun vreck-ovka (a tissue) is derived from the noun vrecko (a pocket), but a child creates the dever-bal noun fuk-ovka ← fúkať (to blow) (‘a thing we use for blowing one’s nose’).

b) How to link the implicit word-formation knowledge with language education When we look at the developmental findings from the educational point of view, this key question emerges: How can the word-formation fluency of pre-school and junior aged children be utilized in their language and cognitive development within formal language education? As we found out, a word-formation intuition enables children to naturally reproduce and produce word-formative structures. Based on our empirical findings presented above, we consider educational activities aimed at word-formation one of the means to develop a child’s language and cognitive abilities.

When developing the word-formative competence of a pre-school aged child, it is necessary to follow mainly their intuitive knowledge of word-formation and spontaneous word-formative pro-duction. Methodology of language teaching/learning should respect concrete thinking of a child and their natural learning via games and exercises (see Liptáková & Vužňáková 2009: 155-161). How can thus the word-formative activities implemented in kindergarten follow up the spontane-

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ous word-formative knowledge of children? Based on the detected production of innovative de-nominal verbs with the meaning of dynamic processes, we propose to focus on the conventional representatives of verb groups such as “to play, to move, to work”. The meaning of verbs in the Slovak language is easily modifiable using prefixes; for this reason we suggest focusing the educa-tional activities on prefix verb derivatives in order to develop a child’s ability to express an action. A picture mind map seems to be a suitable method for the activity where children name pictures of various actions using the appropriate prefix verbs. Teachers can also meet the children’s natu-ral need for movement and use a so-called action mind map where the meaning of prefix verbs is expressed by performing the action (see Figure 1)4, e.g., the starting point verb is liezť (to crawl) and the verbs derived with the prefix are: pod-liezť (crawl under), od-liezť (crawl away), v-liezť (crawl into), pre-liezť (crawl across), etc. These activities can also develop the cognitive processes of comparison because children compare the meaning of prefix verbs and categorisation, when they think about similar verbs belonging to the one word-formation cluster.

Figure 1 The illustration of the “action” word-formation mind-mapping

The ability of pre-school aged children to spontaneously use the conventional word-

formation models and elements (roots, suffixes etc.) while creating nonce-words can be

followed up in educational activities with building children’s explicit knowledge about the

binary word-formation structure (root + suffix). For example, by observing the structure of

diminutives or augmentatives as productive word-formation models in the Slovak language,

children build their very first knowledge of the relation between form and meaning of a given

suffix and the meaning of a particular word-formation model. In these activities children’s

inference making also plays an important role: if dom+ček is “a small house”, any other

x+ček is “a small item”; or if dom+isko is “a big house”, any other x+isko is “a big item”.

As we have mentioned above, children’s implicit word-formation knowledge is based

not only on the regular but also on the analogical and holistic word-formation principle. This

precondition can be used when observing and producing analogical compound words, e.g.,

Figure 1. The illustration of the “action” word-formation mind-mapping

The ability of pre-school aged children to spontaneously use the conventional word-formation models and elements (roots, suffixes etc.) while creating nonce-words can be followed up in edu-cational activities with building children’s explicit knowledge about the binary word-formation structure (root + suffix). For example, by observing the structure of diminutives or augmenta-tives as productive word-formation models in the Slovak language, children build their very first knowledge of the relation between form and meaning of a given suffix and the meaning of a par-ticular word-formation model. In these activities children’s inference making also plays an im-

4 The author of Figure 1 is Tatiana Bachurova, PhD., from the University of Prešov, Faculty of Education.

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portant role: if dom+ček is ‘a small house’, any other x+ček is ‘a small item’; or if dom+isko is ‘a big house’, any other x+isko is ‘a big item’.

As we have mentioned above, children’s implicit word-formation knowledge is based not only on the regular but also on the analogical and holistic word-formation principle. This precondition can be used when observing and producing analogical compound words, e.g., according to unusual ani-mal compound nouns observed in a fairy-tale children’s play, which would allow children to imagine their own animal compound nouns. In this way we can also support children’s fantasy and creativity.

When developing the word-formative competence of a junior school aged child, we should con-sider the higher level of cognitive and language development, literacy acquisition, and the possibil-ity of its systematic stimulation through teaching of the mother tongue. However, concrete-factual thinking of a child this age also requires that the word-formation subject matter contributes to the gradual development of analytical-synthetic thinking and other cognitive processes in order to pre-serve a natural succession from the meaning to the form of a word motivated by the word-forma-tion, and supported by child’s word-formation intuition (see Liptáková & Vužňáková 2009: 162-184).

Following the implicit word-formation knowledge of junior school aged children manifested by ways of their nonce-words production, we suggest building children’s explicit word-formation knowledge on both the regular and analogical word-formation principles. Regarding the regular word-formation, it is possible to follow the spontaneous derivation of denominal causative verbs and focus on the specific meaning of conventional causatives with prefixes. In comparison to the similar procedure in pre-school aged children, a higher level of explicit knowledge of binary word-formation structure and word-formation cluster could be used to build a word formation model in the junior age group. Furthermore, when children mentally manipulate prefix modifications of the same verb, the cognitive processes of comparison, analytic-synthetic thinking and categorisa-tion are involved. The database of acquired conventional prefix causative verbs could be also used to improve children’s text production, e.g., in dynamic description of some work procedure such a cleaning: čistiť (to clean) – vy-čistiť (to clean up), pre-čistiť (to clean out), do-čistiť (to finish the cleaning), očistiť (to clear of), etc.

Following the spontaneous production of innovative deverbal nouns we can build the children’s explicit knowledge about the structure and meaning of word-formative models for deriving the conventional deverbal person nouns. In addition, the analysis of the “root + suffix” word-forma-tive structure when observing deverbal person noun derivation in Slovak could be integrated into the explicit learning of a foreign language, i.e., children compare similar derivation procedures in Slovak with for instance English: učiť → uči-teľ : teach → teach-er; piecť → pek-ár : bake → bak-er; šoférovať → šof-ér : drive → driv-er; maľovať → mal-iar : paint → paint-er, etc. As it is evident from these examples, comparison of word-formative structures can also enrich pupils’ linguistic knowl-edge about some typological language features (compare phonological changes and reductions in Slovak roots and regular English roots).

Regarding the analogical word-formation in junior school, we consider it necessary to observe analogical word-formative procedures within derivational and compounding formation in order

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to extend and improve the academic and discipline-specific vocabulary of children. For example, in building the academic vocabulary in Physics it could be helpful to follow this word-formation pattern: for measuring temperature (teplo) – teplomer is used; for measuring power (sila) – si-lomer is used; for measuring water (voda) – vodomer is used; for measuring pressure (tlak) – tla-komer is used; for measuring gas (plyn) – plynomer is used; for measuring electricity (elektrina)

– elektromer is used, etc. The purpose of teaching word-formation at primary school is not to make pupils able to define

the terms of word-formation, but to build their capacity to use their knowledge for better and more adequate text comprehension and production as well as for the development of abstract thinking. As we have illustrated above, word-formation subject matter at primary school also has an interdis-ciplinary function. Comprehension of elementary principles and rules of word-formation can like-wise make the process of learning easier in other subjects. The explicit word formation knowledge helps children improve the quality of vocabulary as well as the level of text comprehension, where word-formation presents an important means for text cohesion and coherence (Oakhill, Cain, El-bro 2015: 54-67). For instance, the findings of research in instructional text comprehension of 4 th and 5 th graders (see Gogová 2017: 27-37), conducted under our supervision, indicate that global comprehension of an instructional text is influenced by explicit recognition of the word-forma-tive structure of terms present in the text. When pupils recognize that terms have the same root morpheme and belong to the same word-formation cluster (e.g., dýchať: dýchacia (sústava), nádych, výdych, dýchanie, vdýchnuť, vydýchnuť, vdych, vdýchnutý = breathe: breathing system, breath, breathing, breathing in, breathing out, take a breath, etc.), they have mastered the word-formation inferences and can construct lexical meaning of the terms more easily. Subsequently, they better understand how to systematize the terms and how to comprehend the particular topic at hand.

In sum, we believe that the framework for linking children’s implicit and explicit word-forma-tion knowledge could be pictured in the following way:

easier in other subjects. The explicit word formation knowledge helps children improve the

quality of vocabulary as well as the level of text comprehension, where word-formation

presents an important means for text cohesion and coherence (Oakhill, Cain, Elbro, 2015: 54-

67). For instance, the findings of research in instructional text comprehension of 4th and 5th

graders (see Gogová 2017: 27-37), conducted under our supervision, indicate that global

comprehension of an instructional text is influenced by explicit recognition of the word-

formative structure of terms present in the text. When pupils recognize that terms have the

same root morpheme and belong to the same word-formation cluster (e.g., dýchať: dýchacia

(sústava), nádych, výdych, dýchanie, vdýchnuť, vydýchnuť, vdych, vdýchnutý = breathe:

breathing system, breath, breathing, breathing in, breathing out, take a breath etc.), they have

mastered the word-formation inferences and can construct lexical meaning of the terms more

easily. Subsequently, they better understand how to systematize the terms and how to

comprehend the particular topic at hand.

In sum, we believe that the framework for linking children’s implicit and explicit word-

formation knowledge could be pictured in a following way:

Figure 2 Linking implicit and explicit word-formation knowledge in L1 education

Spontaneous regular word-formation

Spontaneous analogical word-formation

Explicit learning of word-formation rules: word-formation structure, meaning, elements (root,prefix, suffix), model, cluster, procedure

Applying the explicit knowledge in building acommon and a discipline-specific vocabulary, inL2 learning, in a different pragmatic types of textproduction and text comprehension

Recognising of word-formation patterns

Using the word-formation patterns in building a discipline-specific vocabulary and in a different pragmatic types of text production and text comprehension, especially in aesthetic texts

Figure 2. Linking implicit and explicit word-formation knowledge in L1 education

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5. ConclusionBased on the theoretical outline and the example from the research in a partial language domain, we tried to justify the need for applying the knowledge from developmental psycholinguistics when developing language and cognitive skills of a pupil within L1 education. We understand the necessity of thorough empirical research to study the effects of the interaction of implicit and explicit language knowledge.

Based on the studies of N. Ellis (2005, 2008), the dynamic interaction of implicit and explicit word-formation knowledge and, pars pro toto, other language knowledge can be schematically depicted as follows:

IMPL → EXPL → IMPL2 → EXPL2 → IMPL3 → EXPL3 → ...

1. IMPL: Implicit language usage (known thanks to developmental studies).

2. EXPL: Related explicit learning instructions → practising, automatizing explicit linguistic

knowledge.

3. IMPL2: Re-organisation of the products of implicit learning, resulting in redescription

at ahigher level.

4. EXPL2: Related explicit learning instructions at a higher level → practising, automatizing

→ 5. a higher level of IMPL3

→ 6. a higher level of EXPL3...

When we reflect on Ellis’ questions (2008: 4) “how much do explicit learning and explicit in-struction influence implicit learning, and how can their symbiosis be optimized”, big research challenges are still open in this field. At the same time, our goal is to encourage the discussion about the relevance of the relationship between implicit and explicit language knowledge and its reflection in national curricula of the mother tongue. Thus we find it necessary to conduct more comparative studies within the international discourse of educational linguistics aimed at com-paring the research findings on individual aspects of child language development, as well as at finding ways to transform the findings on a child’s implicit language knowledge into the explicit language learning/teaching in schools.

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FundingThis study is being carried out under the auspices of the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, research project VEGA 1/0353/18 Implicit linguistic knowledge of a junior school-aged child. The project is being conducted be-tween 2018 and 2020. Institutional Executor: University of Prešov, Faculty of Education. Head of Project: Professor Ľudmila Liptáková, PhD.

***Ľudmila Liptáková, PhD, is a professor at the University of Prešov, Faculty of Education, Slovakia. She works in the field of linguistics and methodology of L1 teaching/learning. Her research covers the following areas: word-formation of the contemporary Slovak language; lexical and word-for-mation development in Slovak speaking children; implicit linguistic knowledge of a child; meth-odology of L1 teaching/learning; stimulation of executive and cognitive functions in junior school aged children. She is a member of The International Association for Research in L1 Education (ARLE) and participated in ARLE conferences.

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XAVIER FONTICH1Universitat Autònoma de BarcelonaORCID ID: 0000-0003-1095-1363

Should we teach first language grammar in compulsory schooling at all? Some reflections from the Spanish perspectiveAbstract. This text explores the controversial issue of grammar teaching in Language Arts. It considers the impor-tance of grammar in schooling based on the learners’ reflection on language (i.e., their “metalinguistic activity”), and some of the features of such a reflection. A model of intervention is presented as well as its particularities, especially the goal of establishing new dimensions with regard the methodology of teaching, the conception of grammar, and the final objectives of grammar instruction. The text ends by referring to some of the challenges for the future.

Keywords: school, language use, grammar, reflection, metalinguistic activity, instructional sequence.

1. Teaching language is teaching how to use languageFor some years, the role of grammar teaching has been the subject of intense debate in the interna-tional context. While on occasions it has triggered enraged controversies that go beyond the acad-emy (e.g., the case of England, see Cameron 1995), such teaching is considered necessary by stud-ies conducted in a number of countries in which the debate ranges from a general consensus to an increasing need to re-think its role and recover its value in Language Arts (Myhill 2009; Locke 2010; Hudson 2016; Giovanelli & Clayton 2016; Pieniążek & Štěpáník 2016; Boivin, Fontich, Funke, García-Folgado & Myhill 2018; Rattyä, Awramiuk & Fontich 2019). While such studies have been conducted in accordance to country-specific idiosyncrasies, three general ideas are shared: gram-mar knowledge plays an important role in improving language use (especially in writing), such a role is still underexplored, and there is a need to further unpack the “grammar knowledge / language use” connection. Grammar knowledge is seen as a tool that might help students move

1 Address for correspondence: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Departament de Didàctica de la Llengua i la Literatura, i de les Ciències Socials, Facultat de Ciències de l'Educació, Edifici G5, Campus UAB, 08193 – Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain). E-mail: [email protected]

DOI: 10.15290/CR.2019.24.1.03

mailto:[email protected]

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beyond reproducing their own colloquial oral registers in the written or formal oral forms. The assumption is that grammar knowledge allows us to become aware of the distance between writ-ten and oral modes, the rhetorical possibilities language affords, and the ways of writing texts that respond to diverse demands, such as the degree of lexical repertoire or the cohesive syntactic style. Such command is of utmost importance in some compulsory school assignments and in academic writing in general, as well as in several jobs and professions that involve the capacity to handle dic-tionaries, translators, or style books. Also, some grammar knowledge should be considered part of citizens’ general culture at the same level as history, and the sciences.2 Yet, while grammar knowl-edge is considered paramount, researchers wonder whether it should be approached incidentally within language use or temporarily detached from communication. This materializes in two con-flicting questions. First: Should we zoom in on grammar contents (either implicitly or explicitly) always within the context of language use and do so only whenever grammar problems arise? Or (second question) should we explicitly address the teaching of the grammar system assuming that this allows students to become more competent in using language?

With regards to the first question, some suggest that to broaden the repertoire of students’ lin-guistic resources, direct instruction of grammar concepts might not be completely desirable, as it is decontextualized and therefore very removed from language use (and generally very tedious, too, some maintain; see Locke 2010; Camps & Fontich 2019). This perspective suggests that to ex-plicitly explore how the texts work might be possible by only promoting reflection on specific as-pects (e.g., adjectives), with no need for metalanguage some consider (see Gil & Bigas 2014), or by engaging students in activities of manipulation of linguistic data (e.g., sentence combining), which would raise language awareness and trigger implicit grammar learning. Thus, the students would assimilate implicitly the resources that should be put into play when writing (see Graham & Perin 2008; Andrews 2010). This reflects a pragmatic attitude pointing to a fact recognized by reliable studies: the difficulty students have in retrieving their grammar knowledge in situations of lan-guage use, namely a gap between declarative and procedural knowledge (Camps et al. forthcom-ing). For some (such as those responsible for the official curriculum in the region of Barcelona), we should optimize time, resources, and efforts and teach them only that which is useful to write well,

“shunning a grammaticalist approach to language teaching” (Departament d’Ensenyament, p. 39).Contrariwise, the second question suggests that grammar knowledge located within a well-ar-

ticulated grammar system is essential, assuming Vygotsky’s (1987) claim that a concept becomes recoverable for conscious and deliberate control only when it is part of a system. This resonates with a basic question such as “What does ‘knowing a language’ mean?” (Milian 2014): Does it mean knowing how to use it? Or does it entail being able to set up an articulated and explicit re-flection upon it as well, which would only be possible with adequate tools within a conceptual sys-tem (in order to be able to see the window and not just the landscape, in the well-known metaphor

2 Regarding second language acquisition and the importance of grammar knowledge, see convincing arguments in Larsen-Freeman (2003), van Lier (2004) or Ellis (2010).

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by Garton & Pratt 1989)? A number of authors consider the latter a much more fine-tuned posi-tion, which maintains that knowledge about the system that emerges from knowledge of language in use is not articulated and does not allow the apprentice to retrieve it in a variety of situations (Camps 2014; Hudson 2016). And yet, as pointed out, research also shows that grammar knowl-edge might rapidly become no more than a reified and inoperative set of concepts detached from language use by an unbridgeable gap (Fisher 2004). To deal with this, Camps (2014) and Milian (2014) maintain that it is crucial to raise learners’ awareness on a twofold basis: we can study the grammar of a language as a system that can be approached on its own (temporarily detached from communication); and we can study language as communicative activity. While advocates of the

“grammar-in-use-only” warn against the risk of a “decontextualized” (and therefore meaningless) grammar instruction, a number of authors (e.g., Zayas, forthcoming), drawing on functionalist perspectives, conceive grammar as an organic interplay between meaning, intentions, and form, and therefore wonder whether such an expression as “decontextualized grammar” is in fact an oxymoron, since any single linguistic instance (even if detached from actual communicative con-texts) would be loaded with potential meanings in connection with potential intentions.

The idea of decontextualized grammar has its roots in formal linguistic models that draw on the autonomy of syntax as a formal system detached from meaning, culture, and speakers’ intentions. Yet, according to Halliday and Mathiessen (2004: 31), “Language is as it is because of the functions in which it has evolved in the human species”. In this same vein, Coseriu (1991) sees language as a human-specific activity, recognizable in the form of an always addressee-oriented discourse, which makes dialogue the essence of language. As a meaning-making device, language would have epistemic potential underpinning any process not only of thought but also of knowledge. This suggests that linguistic activity shapes the very mediational process of learning language it-self, which resonates with Taylor’s (1997) position regarding reflexive discourse and its dialogic-in-teractional nature. This author maintains that we manage our experience of language by referring to it in specific, culturally-enforced, and interactionally-mediated ways: “Metadiscourse-mediated analyses are as much a part of the thing (language) itself as they are about the thing itself” (Taylor 1997: 16, italics in the original).

Also, Martin & Rose (2007) suggest that to construe a text, when writing or speaking, both the language system and culture of composition of a text based on genre knowledge (i.e., genres ac-quired from former practice) are activated. This resonates with Voloshinov’s (1977) methodologi-cal programme of language study that entails a top-down process of analysis: analysis of social interaction and the conditions that make it possible (i.e., human activities in which language pro-duction is enacted); analysis of global structure and properties of language products (or genres); and analysis of internal structure of genres (i.e., parts of the texts, semantic-syntactic structures, and words). This seems to align with Lantolf & Thorne’s (2006) “Linguistics of Communicative Activity” (LCA), Agar’s (1994) “Languaculture”, and van Lier’s (2004) understanding of language as a social semiosis.

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Marta Milian expresses the grammar/use relationship with a metaphor (personal communi-cation, 1 June 2016): a chair is for sitting (i.e., using it), but if we sell chairs we will have to pay attention to aspects such as the materials of which they can be composed according to different uses, the tools we will need to manufacture them, the design and the ergonomics or fashionable colours of the moment, etc. (i.e., what we could call “its system”). Likewise, knowledge on the grammar system would be essential in highly formal situations (e.g., a scientist who must submit an academic paper, a radio journalist on air), which require conscious attention to several issues (e.g., lexical repertoire, prosody, etc.) and a high command on grammar conceptual tools. This will coexist with informal situations in which the conscious focus on the system will not be nec-essary (e.g., the scientist and the journalist meet for a casual chat).3 In Spain, Gil & Bigas (2014) and Gil & Bigas (forthcoming) have explored the role of grammar in Language Arts in primary education (ages 6 to 12). They show the surprising capacity of some early primary graders (aged 7-8 years of age) in generating rich, original and interesting reflections. One of the tasks analysed is “peer-dictation” with “scripta continua” style, i.e. with no spaces or other marks between the words or sentences in the text. The students must discuss where the words end. When comparing the reflection triggered by late graders’ (students aged 11 and 12 years old) in a similar activity, the researchers conclude that the latter develop poorer and less exploratory dialogues.

The authors wonder about the causes of this phenomenon, which has also been observed at sec-ondary (ages 12 to 16) and Baccalaureate (ages 16 to 18) levels by Rodríguez-Gonzalo (2015) and Za-yas (forthcoming). Why does it happen? A first answer might be in the correlation between children’s interest in grammar and their interest in the world in general. This world becomes progressively more complex and requires concepts and procedures that guide our gaze and facilitate the transition to a gradually more sophisticated and structured observation. The increased complexity may serve to integrate new knowledge, which in turn may increase our capacities for analytical observation.

School does not seem to find ways to articulate students’ curiosity about such an incredible phe-nomenon as language and to provide adequate scaffolding that stimulates such reflection. Several authors point to the need to review two basic issues: grammar content (what we teach), and the processes of teaching and learning (how we teach and how we learn) (see Hudson 2016; van Rijt, de Swart & Coppen 2018).

2. The grammar content: Linguistics and the teaching of grammar Some highlight the need to unravel the conception we have of grammar, emphasizing that ad-dressing grammar as a formal rule system detached from speakers and culture can be an obstacle when it comes to interrelating grammar and school use. They consider that grammar should be conceived as a set of resources inherent to communication and meaning, a structured linguistic

3 In the field of L2, Bialystok’s notions of “analysis” and “control” have

issue 24 1/2019 - crossroads · daniel karczewski2 university of białystok orcid id:...

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