Franchesca Jones

TSL612 Spring 2016

Dr.Burnett
Article Summary # 1
Margo DelliCarpinis article Success with ELLs: We Are All Writers! Building Second
Language Writing Skills in the ELA Classroom, addresses four challenges that ELL instructors
face when teaching writing. She was inspired to research and write about this topic, after reading
her students reflections on their experiences teaching writing. The purpose of the course
DelliCaripini is teaching is to help the students diverge from traditional grammar instruction, and
focus on authentic uses of language to promote meaning based communication. Based on the
analyses of her students feedback, survey data, reflective writing, class observations and
interview sessions, DelliCarpini identifies common issues instructors face when attempting to
transition out of traditional grammar teaching in classes with a writing emphasis. The four main
issues recognized are lack of academic discourse, lack of learning sufficient time, lack of English
vocabulary, and a surplus of teacher feedback to students.
The first notable challenge is working with students who have limited academic discourse
abilities. While Dellicaprinis students aimed to use methods outside of those traditionally used
when teaching grammar, they found it impossible to promote written output from students
without giving them formulas to learn. When dealing with low levels, the usage of formulaic
expressions as a base for communication can actually be beneficial. The article warns however,
that when opting to method, one must take caution to not templatize, the components of
language they are teaching. Dellicaprinis students expressed that they found it difficult moving
beyond the old, blue grammar book, where they found comfortable activities that had a safe,
right answer, to authentic writing and reading tasks where language usage had to be identified,
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examined, manipulated, reflected on, and practiced(p.97). Another strategy recommended in

the article is to guide the students through the composition process by doing t think aloud
writing task. Here the instructor will be modeling the correct form for students to observe.
Students can also do writing activities which are themed, i.e. short news blasts, a letter to an
editor, personal letter, a diary entry or an introductory or a concluding paragraph. It is also
important to give variety in genres, i.e. persuasive, informative, standardized, formal, informal,
etc. While doing all the aforementioned activities can be worthwhile to integrate into teaching,
doing so leads to a second identified issue, lack of time.
Ideally, a second language student would be completely immersed in their target
language, to receive substantial exposure to it. However in many scenarios, students are only
exposed to the L2 in class, and the time to focus specifically on writing can be limited.
DelliCaprini offers three suggestions for addressing the time constraints. The first is to create
and offer an extended time for writing. The second is to provide students with opportunities for
extra support and practice with the material at home, during free periods, and even in class.
Lastly, she suggest working collaboratively with teachers to either share time, or coordinate
covering similar points simultaneously. By doing so, students will have repeated exposure to a
point, and therefore notice and retain it.
Similar to the first challenge, the teachers also struggled working with the limited
vocabulary of ELLs. An offered solution is periods of SSR, sustained silent reading. Reading
can improve writing by exposing students to new vocabulary. The fourth and final challenge is
not covering the students papers in correction. Feedback has the potential to be either beneficial
or harmful. Teachers must chose to focus their attention on specific points to not overwhelm the
learner with an overly marked assignment.

Another prominent issue involves the amount and type of feedback that teachers provide
their students on their written work. With low level students especially, it can be challenging to
select what mistakes should be drawn to the attention of the students, and which should be left
unmarked. The teacher must decide which errors are the higher priorities; perhaps topics
previously or recently covered in the course, or errors which interfere with meaning should be
corrected first. The article discusses how the teachers feel like they are discouraging the students
by correcting all of the errors. DelliCaprini offers three suggestions for managing feedback to
students on written work. The first is that less is more, and teachers should make sure not to
overdo the corrections on the students work. There cant be anything more discouraging for a
novice writer than to see red marks all over their work. The second suggestion is to select
specific points to focus on correcting. This also relates to the third suggestion which is to use a
rubric. By providing students with a rubric entailing expectations and key components for the
writing, they can focus on doing those highlighted points correctly.
Overall, in this article, DelliCaprini targets issues that teachers face when teaching
grammar in writing courses. She selects the most common issues she gathered teachers face, and
offers suggestions for handling them. The article addresses difficulties with students who have
limited vocabularies and academic language, students not having sufficient time to acquire
language skills, and teacher providing feedback on written work. These are helpful
recommendations for any instructor teaching grammar in a writing course.

Reflection on Article # 1
Reading this article, now that I have done so much reading about ELL grammar teaching, I
understood all that points that DelliCaprini made. All of the ideas brought up sparked trains of
thought in which I recalled the information we have learned in the course.
One component which particularly stood out to me was the portion about teacher feedback to
students. DelliCaprini mentions that the teacher should utilize a rubric, or even select specific
points to correct for example past tense verbs and capitalization. One thing that wasnt
mentioned however, was some of the information we learned about interactional feedback in
chapter 5 of the Nassaji & Fotos text. DelliCaprini discusses how correcting gives the student
more motivation, and selecting specific points can make it less overwhelming, but there is no
mention of the difference between errors which occur due to lack of knowledge, versus mistakes
which are error in the students performance. As learned from Nassaji & Fotos, errors should be
corrected over mistakes, and particularly, global errors, which cause problems with
communication and clear meaning.
DelliCaprini also focuses all of the feedback section on written feedback to students on their
written work, but Nassaji & Fotos also provide alternatives to only marking a paper and giving
the student written feedback. We know that interactional negotiations can also increase retention
of a correction, as well as reduce the amount of feedback which is written on a students work. A
teacher could sit down with a student and read their written work aloud, so that they themselves
might hear something off they did not hear before. The teacher can also use changes in
intonation, pauses, or changes in volume to indicate to the student that there is an error present,
and where the error is located. However, it would be up to the student to locate the correction,
which would then lead to increased chances of retaining the correction.

While I would have liked for the article to be longer and explore in more depth some of the
issues with correcting grammar in written work, it was beneficial not only to refresh my mind
about this type of correction, but also to elicit supplemental forms for handling these issues.
Resource
DelliCaprini, M. (2012). Success with ELLs: We Are All Writers! Building Second Language
Writing Skills in the ELA Classroom. The English Journal, 101(5), 97-101. Retrieved April 12,
2016, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23269537

Article Summary # 2
In their article, Differential Potential of SLA Output Tasks versus Input-based Teaching
of English Grammar: A Comparative Study, Hamavandy and Golshan explore the preferred
method for learners to enhance their noticing and language attainment. They focus particularly
on two different components, input-based versus output-based, and within the category of
output-based instruction they examine picture cued production tasks and editing reconstruction
tasks.
The article commences with a rich review of the history of studies and hypothesis done
by SLA experts in regards to input-based and output -based learning. The authors cite Ellis,
Long, Schmidt, Krashen, VanPatten, Skehan, and Swain when reinforcing the topic that noticing
leads to intake, and that supplementing input with output can function as a key factor in
acquisition of language (Golshan, Hamavandy, 2015). Hamavandy and Golshan reinforce the
influence of input by the inclusion of Krashens comprehensible input theory which states that
input should be comprehensible and slightly above the current level of the students (i + 1).
Also mentioned is Swains Output Hypothesis, in which she discusses the importance of
opportunities for output production to improve language, as integration of only comprehensible
input is insufficient for students acquiring a second language. Swain provides four functions for
comprehensible output: noticing, hypothesis testing, metalinguistic function, and fluency
function. Also discussed are Elliss and Shehadehs comments about how there is insufficient
research done to demonstrate how output based tasks improve second language acquisition. Ellis
and Shehadeh believe that the results of output based teaching experiments are inconsistent or
mixed, and thus inconclusive. With so many mixed concepts about the efficacy of input and

output based teaching in second language acquisition, Hamavandy and Golshan decided to once
again compare the two methods.
Based on their research, Hamavandy and Golshan decided to put together an experiment
in which they would examine input and output based instruction of a particular grammar feature,
the present perfect tense. Their participants were 45 Iranian elementary FL students ranging
from ages 16 to 28, participating in the experiment over a period of eight weeks. They were
randomly placed into three groups, CG1 which solely received input, EG1 which completed
picture cued production tasks, and EG2 which completed editing reconstruction tasks. Their aim
was to answer two questions: 1) Does output requirement result in significant difference on
learning grammar over merely providing input for learners? 2) Is there a significant difference
between the two output tasks of editing and picture-cued with regard to acquisition of grammar?
In regards to their first question, Hamavandy and Golshan found that contrary to the
majority of the research available, their input-based only group was more successful than their
output-based group. They do provide evidence as a mode of justifying this deviation from the
norm, by mentioning previous researchers who arrived at similar results. They cite researchers
like Izumi, who also did an experiment in which the group without output based teaching was
more successful.
When answering their second question, they also obtained results which do not represent
a lot of the SLA research done in reference to different types of output-based learning.
Researchers like Storch, Nassaji, and Tiam have all found that reconstruction tasks are more
effective. However this experiment did not deem the reconstruction more effective than the
picture-cued tasks, they were roughly equal in efficacy for the students. Another element that
could have affected the results which is mentioned in the article is that different output tasks

may yield different influence on language learning assuming the differences between language
learners and forms (Golshan, Hamavandy, 2015). Elements such as the type of learners, their
levels of motivation, and their learning contexts, can all be influential factors in the results.
In summary, Hamavandy and Golshan determined that like many before them, their
experiment was inconclusive. Their experiment yielded data which figures that input-based
teaching can be more effective, and that picture cued and reconstruction output tasks are equally
in effectiveness. Like all of the researchers before them, they feel that more work needs to be
done in relation to this subject.

Reflection on Article # 2
Had I read this article prior to taking this course, I would have been completely
overwhelmed by the quantity of SLA terminology and background which is referred to in the
article. However, after all that I have read, I was pleased to comprehend the subject matter of the
article. After reading the article, I referred back to my notes about input-based instruction and
output-based instruction, and I concluded that I if were to do a similar type of study, I would do
things a little differently.
First off, the article itself proves the point that both input-based and output based
instruction are essential and beneficial. There are studies which focus on the effectiveness of
each individually, or ones like this one which face the two against each other. Researchers like
Krashen stress the importance of input by proposing that speaking and writing are just signs of
learning whereas input is the cause of the learning(Nassaji, Fotos, 2011). Researchers like
Swain argue that output plays an important role in L2 acquisition because it forces learners to
move from semantic processing due to comprehension to syntactic processing needed for
production (Nassaji, Fotos, 2011). So because they are both necessary and crucial in second
language acquisition, instead of trying to determine which one is better, I would examine the
various types of input-based and output-based tasks types to see which ones are most effective in
teaching particular grammar points.
Secondly, they way in which Hamavandy and Golshan examined these output-based tasks
left me wanting more information. The article attaches an Appendix A and Appendix B with
samples of the tasks they incorporated in their teaching, but I felt that the tasks were short, and
would have liked to see more samples of the tasks they used. Additionally, I wondered what the
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role of the instructor was throughout both output-based tasks, and what type of feedback was
given. Interactional feedback is also an important factor in learning, so as a reader I was curious
if the students were expected to do the work without feedback or with. Then this brings another
element into the equation which could impact the results. Without information on the type of
instructors and the methods which they use, we dont know how the instructor could impact the
effectiveness of the output-based tasks.
Overall I realized that a lot of elements go into a study such as this, and even when
examining something small like a type of output-based task, there are many other factors which
influence its effectiveness, like student motivation, teacher style and methodology, learning
context, and instructional materials, etc.
Resources
Hamavandy, M., & Golshan, M. (October 2015). Differential Potential of SLA Output Tasks
versus Input-based Teaching of English Grammar: A Comparative Study. Theory and Practice in
Language Studies, 5(10), 2083-2090. http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0510.15
Nassaji, H., & Fotos, S. (2011). Teaching grammar in second language classrooms: Integrating
form-focused instruction in communicative context. New York: Routledge.

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