Chicken or egg?

Question

"N. Ellis (1996), for example, has suggested that learners bootstrap their way to grammar by first internalising and then analyzing fixed sequences. Classroom studies by Ellis (1984), Myles, Mitchell & Hooper (1998; 1999) and Myles (2004) demonstrate that learners often internalize rote-learned material as chunks, breaking them down for analysis later on."

Is that statement true, learners?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

learners often internalize rote-learned material as chunks

True in spades, as they say!

You always have to start somewhere. With a language you know nothing of, where do you start? With other people's words. The same as a child. The child of Russian-speaking parents doesn't just spew forth Spanish one day. He uses other people's words (e.g., his parents') as a starting point. The central point of facility with language is that it is acquired through imitation (as opposed to analysis, for example).

I find that in learning a foreign language I can get quite a bit of mileage out of 300 - 400 set phrases which require little to no analysis - just memorized chunks.

(An aside: I find the same thing is also true of opinions. We all start with other people's opinions before we catch on to the idea of how to form our own. Did you ever notice how children in grade school inevitably have the same prejudices as their parents?)

CJ

Milky · Answer

It was really a question for learners, Jim.

Nona the brit · Answer

You didn't specify learners of English.

Jim has clearly been a 'learner' of other languages. So have I, and I would have commented, but I see you are not interested in learners of other languages.

Milky · Answer

So you don't think "learners" implied NNES?

Nona the brit · Answer

Well, your original quote was about second language acquisition in general, not just English, and this is in the linguistics forum, so no.

MrPedantic · Answer

It would be extraordinary if the experiences of NNESs when learning English were radically different from the experiences of NESs when learning other languages.

For instance, you've mentioned your own knowledge of Spanish in the past, Milky. Did you internalize rote-learned material as chunks, breaking them down for analysis later on? (And was much bootstrapping involved?)

MrP

Milky · Answer

<It would be extraordinary if the experiences of NNESs when learning English were radically different from the experiences of NESs when learning other languages.>

It would indeed, but at the moment I am only interested in the NNES experiences and views on this.

CalifJim · Answer

at the moment I am only interested in ...

Consider my comments retracted then.

CJ

Milky · Answer

CalifJim
at the moment I am only interested in ...
Consider my comments retracted then.

CJ

Hey, no. What's done is done.

I have no right to tell you what to post here. Sorry.

Mr Patrick · Answer

Hi Milky, hi everyone,

My credentials: I first started learning English as a 11-year-old, in a setting where the teacher was non-native and where contact with the English language outside the classroom was very scarce. I remained in similar settings until, age 20, I went to London, England, for studies.

My comments: I agree with most of the analysis and recommendations of the linked text. Specifically, I believe that the English language is particularly rich in "fixed sequences", and that my proficiency in English depended on the memorizing, contextualising, and applying of those fixed sequences. Furthermore, I believe that, in my case, any explicit grammar training I may have received only served to check and confirm the structures that I was "organically" acquiring at that time.

However, I am also highly critical of the scarcity of this rote-learned materials in the typical EFL/ESL classroom. If you present only very few sequences for each social situation, students will not internalize them properly, but use them as Pavlowian reflexes (I'm fine. And you? - Very well, thank you.). If you want students to use (and abuse) rote-learned material to express their own needs and emotions, they must be aware of the rich variety in such structures that the English language offers.

I also believe there is no single category of NNES as you seem to put forward. The stimuli received by NNS at a British University differs a great deal from the stimuli that act on the students that walk into my EFL/ESL/EIL classroom in central Chile.

Lastly, I think it is impossible to answer your question without making reference to the diversity in learning styles that will be found amon even the most homogeneous group of students, and to the multiple intelligences of Gardner. Different people learn by different paths. Maybe one path is (on the whole) more efficient than any other, but not all students will be suitable to follow it.

Chicken or egg?

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