Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-27gpq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T18:23:18.251Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

LEARNING WITHOUT AWARENESS REVISITED

Extending Williams (2005)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2010

Mika Hama*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
Ronald P. Leow*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
*
*Address correspondence to: Mika Hama, Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University, 37th and O Streets, NW, Washington, DC 20057-1051; e-mail: mh278@georgetown.edu; or Ronald P. Leow, Department of Spanish & Portuguese, Georgetown University, ICC 403, 37th and O Streets, NW, Washington, DC 20057; e-mail: leowr@georgetown.edu.
*Address correspondence to: Mika Hama, Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University, 37th and O Streets, NW, Washington, DC 20057-1051; e-mail: mh278@georgetown.edu; or Ronald P. Leow, Department of Spanish & Portuguese, Georgetown University, ICC 403, 37th and O Streets, NW, Washington, DC 20057; e-mail: leowr@georgetown.edu.

Abstract

The role of awareness or consciousness in learning has been a relatively contentious issue in non-SLA fields (e.g., cognitive psychology). With the publications of Williams (2004, 2005), a similar debate appears to be brewing in the field of SLA. Contrary to Leow (2000), who reported that unawareness did not appear to play an important role in second or foreign language development, Williams (2005) offered empirical evidence that learning without awareness appears to be feasible. At the same time, it is also noted that Leow’s and Williams’s (2005) research designs measured unawareness at different stages (online encoding and offline retrieval, respectively) of the acquisitional process. The present study revisited and extended Williams’s (2005) study by using a hybrid design to gather concurrent data at the stage of encoding and during the testing phase as well as nonconcurrent data after the experimental exposure. Some methodological changes were also implemented to probe deeper into learners’ thought processes. The quantitative analyses performed on the data of 34 carefully screened participants revealed that, at the encoding stage, unaware learners do not appear capable of selecting or producing the correct determiner-noun combination when required to do so from options that include both animacy and distance information. The qualitative data underscore the importance of not only situating the measurement of the construct (un)awareness from different stages—that is, both online and offline—but also triangulating data from several sources in any report on its role in learning. Plausible explanations for the differences in findings are discussed.

Type
Research Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bialystok, E. (1979). Explicit and implicit judgments of L2 grammaticality. Language Learning, 29, 81103.Google Scholar
Bowles, M. A. (2003). The effects of textual input enhancement on language learning: An online/offline study of fourth-semester Spanish students. In Kempchinsky, P. & Pineros, P. (Eds.), Theory, practice, and acquisition: Papers from the 6th Hispanic Linguistic Symposium and the 5th Conference on the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese (pp. 359411). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Bowles, M. A. (2004). L2 glossing: To CALL or not CALL. Hispania, 87, 541552.Google Scholar
Bowles, M. A. (2008). Task type and reactivity of verbal reports in SLA: A first look at a L2 task other than reading. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30, 359387.Google Scholar
Bowles, M. A., & Leow, R. P. (2005). Reactivity and type of verbal report in SLA research methodology: Expanding the scope of investigation. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 415440.Google Scholar
Curran, T., & Keele, S. (1993). Attentional and nonattentional forms of sequence learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 189202.Google Scholar
Dulany, D. E., Carlson, R. A., & Dewey, G. I. (1984). A case of syntactical learning and judgment: How conscious and how abstract? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 541555.Google Scholar
Dulany, D. E., Carlson, R. A., & Dewey, G. I. (1985). On consciousness in syntactic learning and judgment: A reply to Reber, Allen, and Regan. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 114, 2532.Google Scholar
Ellis, R. (2001). Investigating form-focused instruction. Language Learning, 51, 146.Google Scholar
Ellis, R. (2004). The definition and measurement of explicit knowledge. Language Learning, 54, 227275.Google Scholar
Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A. (1984). Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A. (1993). Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data (Rev. ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Isaac, S., & Michael, W. B. (1997). Handbook in research and evaluation: A collection of principles, methods, and strategies useful in the planning, design, and evaluation of studies in education and behavioral sciences (3rd ed.). San Diego, CA: Educational and Industrial Testing Services.Google Scholar
Leow, R. P. (1995). Modality and intake in SLA. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17, 7989.Google Scholar
Leow, R. P. (1997). Attention, awareness, and foreign language behavior. Language Learning, 47, 467505.Google Scholar
Leow, R. P. (1998a). The effects of amount and type of exposure on adult learners’ L2 development in SLA. Modern Language Journal, 82, 4968.Google Scholar
Leow, R. P. (1998b). Toward operationalizing the process of attention in second language acquisition: Evidence for Tomlin and Villa’s (1994) fine-grained analysis of attention. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19, 133159.Google Scholar
Leow, R. P. (2000). A study of the role of awareness in foreign language behavior: Aware versus unaware learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 557584.Google Scholar
Leow, R. P. (2001). Attention, awareness and foreign language behavior. Language Learning, 51, 113155.Google Scholar
Leow, R. P. (2006). The role of awareness in L2 development: Theory, research, and pedagogy. Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching, 2, 125139.Google Scholar
Leow, R. P., & Bowles, M. A. (2005). Attention and awareness in SLA. In Sanz, C. (Ed.), Mind and context in adult second language acquisition: Methods, theory, and practice (pp. 179206). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Leow, R. P., & Morgan-Short, K. (2004). To think aloud or not to think aloud: The issue of reactivity in SLA research methodology. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 3557.Google Scholar
Litman, L., & Reber, A. S. (2005). Implicit cognition and thought. In Holyoak, K. J. & Morrison, R. G. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of thinking and reasoning (pp. 431453). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nissen, M., & Bullemer, P. (1987). Attentional requirements of learning: Evidence from performance measures. Cognitive Psychology, 19, 132.Google Scholar
Perruchet, P., & Amorim, M.-A. (1992). Conscious knowledge and changes in performance in sequence learning: Evidence against dissociation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18, 785800.Google Scholar
Perruchet, P., & Pacteau, C. (1990). Synthetic grammar learning: Implicit rule abstraction or fragmentary knowledge? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 119, 264275.Google Scholar
Perruchet, P., & Pacteau, C. (1991). Implicit acquisition of abstract knowledge about artificial grammar: Some methodological and conceptual issues. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 120, 112116.Google Scholar
Perruchet, P., & Pacton, S. (1996). Implicit learning and statistical learning: One phenomenon, two approaches. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 233238.Google Scholar
Reber, A. S. (1976). Implicit learning of synthetic languages: The role of instructional sets. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 2, 8894.Google Scholar
Reber, A. S. (1993). Implicit learning and tacit knowledge: An essay on the cognitive unconscious. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, P. (1995). Aptitude, awareness, and the fundamental similarity of implicit and explicit second language learning. In Schmidt, R. (Ed.), Attention and awareness in foreign language learning (pp. 303357). Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Rosa, E., & Leow, R. P. (2004a). Awareness, different learning conditions, and L2 development. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25, 269292.Google Scholar
Rosa, E., & Leow, R. P. (2004b). Computerized task-based exposure, explicitness, type of feedback, and Spanish L2 development. Modern Language Journal, 88, 192216.Google Scholar
Rosa, E., & O’Neill, M. D. (1999). Explicitness, intake, and the issue of awareness. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21, 511556.Google Scholar
Rott, S. (2007). The effect of frequency of input-enhancements on word learning and text comprehension. Language Learning, 57, 165199.Google Scholar
Sachs, R., & Polio, C. (2007). Learners’ uses of two types of written feedback on a L2 writing revision task. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 29, 67100.Google Scholar
Sachs, R., & Suh, B.-R. (2007). Textually enhanced recasts, learner awareness, and L2 outcomes in synchronous computer-mediated interaction. In Mackey, A. (Ed.), Conversational interaction in second-language acquisition: A series of empirical studies (pp. 197227). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sanz, C., Lin, H.-J., Lado, B., Bowden, H. W., & Stafford, C. A. (2009). Concurrent verbalizations, pedagogical conditions, and reactivity: Two CALL studies. Language Learning, 59, 3371.Google Scholar
Schmidt, R. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 11, 129158.Google Scholar
Schmidt, R. (1993). Awareness and second language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 13, 206226.Google Scholar
Schmidt, R. (1994). Deconstructing consciousness in search of useful definitions for applied linguistics. AILA Review, 11, 1126.Google Scholar
Schmidt, R. (1995). Consciousness and foreign language learning: A tutorial on the role of attention and awareness in learning. In Schmidt, R. (Ed.), Attention and awareness in foreign language learning (pp. 163). Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Schmidt, R. (2001). Attention. In Robinson, P. (Ed.), Cognition and second language instruction (pp. 332). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shanks, D. R., Green, R. E. A., & Kolodny, J. A. (1994). A critical examination of the evidence for unconscious (implicit) learning. In Umiltà, C. & Moscovitch, M. (Eds.), Attention and performance XV: Conscious and nonconscious information processing (pp. 837860). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Shanks, D. R., & St. John, M. F. (1994). Characteristics of dissociable human learning systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 17, 367447.Google Scholar
Shook, D. J. (1994). FL/L2 reading, grammatical information, and the input-to-intake phenomenon. Applied Language Learning, 5, 5793.Google Scholar
Tomlin, R. S., & Villa, V. (1994). Attention in cognitive science and second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16, 183203.Google Scholar
VanPatten, B., & Sanz, C. (1995). From input to output: Processing instruction and communicative tasks. In Eckman, F., Highland, D., Lee, P., Mileham, J., & Rutkowski Weber, R. (Eds.), Second language acquisition: Theory and pedagogy (pp. 169185). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Williams, J. N. (2004). Implicit learning of form-meaning connections. In Williams, J., VanPatten, B., Rott, S., & Overstreet, M. (Eds.), Form-meaning connections in second language acquisition (pp. 203218). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Williams, J. N. (2005). Learning without awareness. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 269304.Google Scholar
Wong, W. (2003). Textual enhancement and simplified input: Effects on L2 comprehension and acquisition of non-meaningful grammatical form. Applied Language Learning, 13, 109132.Google Scholar