Читать книгу Social research applied to english language teaching in Colombian contexts - Wilder Yesid Escobar Alméciga - Страница 15

In an attempt to provide a more effective learning environment, the second-language educator must consider the recent work within the field of cognitive linguistics which has proposed many new approaches to the teaching of English phrasal verbs. The goal of any language classroom, of course, is to encourage speech that approximates native-like proficiency, thus providing the most benefit to the student. As such, many instructional suggestions have been offered so that an enlightened teacher-student team may work together to overcome the typology paradigm. The current work in cognitive linguistics has demonstrated the need for both the explicit instruction of English phrasal verbs, as well as an approach that favors a conceptualization of meaning as opposed to rote memorization which now seems antiquated in the language classroom (Alejo González, et al., 2010; Camacho, 2010; Casado Antoniazzi, 2010; Ganji, 2011; Pozdnyakova & Gunina, 2011).

One of the most common misconceptions in EFL instruction is that the opacity of English phrasal verbs is somewhat insurmountable and, as such, rote memorization is essential to mastering these lexical elements. This type of instruction, however, often fails to provide the L2 English learner with the profound awareness that leads to native-like speech production. Explicit instruction of both syntax and semantics, conversely, has proven successful in the acquisition of phrasal verbs in a number of studies. Camacho (2010) tested such a hypothesis in a study of phrasal verb methodology in an attempt to discover the effectiveness of explicit instruction. She found that in the EFL classroom setting, students who were directly taught the role of the preposition, as well as general concepts of phrasal verbs, scored higher on their posttests than did students taught in the traditional way. Furthermore, Camacho included translation exercises in her methodology which focused on motion-event constructions to elucidate the typology differences between English and Spanish. The students were given Spanish phrases such as cruzar nadando, huir corriendo, salir andando with the task of translating them to encourage conceptualization in English (Camacho, 2010). Such phrases, due to typological differences, cannot be directly translated to English without some sense of ungrammaticality. The students were required to construct phrases utilizing English manner-of-motion verbs and, as a result, become cognitively aware of the contrasts between English and Spanish.

It has also been demonstrated that the use of negative evidence in the language classroom may prove advantageous to the second language learner. Larrañaga, et al. (2011) establish the value of negative evidence and suggest that students rarely have access to ungrammatical sentences in the second-language classroom. This approach is particularly important as it helps to expose the errors that may result from L1 transfer since, as the authors propose, some language structures exist that cannot be acquired without access to such negative evidence (Larrañaga, et al., 2011). Considering the sentences presented in Camacho (2010), it becomes necessary to demonstrate to the students that to cross swimming, and to flee running are expressions that do not sound particularly grammatical to the native English speaker. Thus, the research suggests that explicitly disclosing the syntactic structures of the English language, paired with the presentation of negative evidence may greatly impact the L2 learner’s capacity in the context of phrasal verbs.

In addition to the explicit instruction of syntax and semantics, several researchers have cited phrasal verb instruction via conceptualization and metaphor as convincing next steps in the language classroom. Discovery of meaning and logical analysis on the part of the student has been shown to encourage contextual reasoning, language competence, and a deeper understanding of semantic meaning (Casado Antoniazzi, 2010; Ganji, 2011; Pozdnyakova & Gunina, 2011). Teaching phrasal verbs according the metaphorical meaning of their satellites, as Ganji (2011) suggests, facilitates language comprehension as such an understanding “plays a much more active role… when students come across untaught idioms with the same particles as taught ones” (p. 1503). Simply memorizing a list of phrasal verbs with similar particles, therefore, is not as effective as encouraging the growth of mental representations of certain satellites. Prompting students to create a metaphorical concept of the preposition off, for example, as something that is no longer connected or attached will promote the comprehension of phrases such as: to take off, to give off, to run off, to put off, etc.

This type of study lends itself particularly well to the use of visual/spatial-type classroom exercises. When students are required to create visual representations of the metaphorical meaning behind opaque phrasal verbs, the product frequently leads to a mental representation which facilitates future understanding. This type of exercise would impart critical understanding of phrasal verbs with the English verb ‘to get,’ for example (e.g. to get up, to get around, to get off, to get over, etc.). Asking students to illustrate the meanings of these expressions, first in the literal sense, then through their metaphorical meaning, would encourage a more profound comprehension as the structure of the satellites would be compared through visual representation. Such a notion has been explored in a study conducted by Takahashi and Matsuya (2012) in which they tested visual aids on the retention of opaque English phrasal verbs. Their findings suggest that the use of cognitive-oriented learning devices, specifically visual images of phrasal verbs, is capable of promoting the uptake of phrasal verbs (p. 1298).

As such, the teaching of English phrasal verbs should be considered from a cognitive linguistics perspective as the “technique of making learners aware of the motivation underlying the figurative meanings of phrasal verbs is one potential tool for semantic elaboration” (Alejo González, et al., 2010, p. 62). Furthermore, various instruc tional techniques within the realm of phrasal verbs do exist which may ultimately facilitate the learning and incorporation of native-like expression in the English L2 classroom. Direct instruction of the role of English prepositions, the use of negative evidence in the EFL classroom, and instruction via conceptualization and metaphor have all been proven to support the effective instruction of English phrasal verbs. These techniques may be incorporated wholly or in part into any EFL classroom in which the goal is greater native-like capacity for L2 English speakers.