Temporal variables in L2 classroom input : a descriptive and experimental study

Griffiths, Roger Thomas (1991) Temporal variables in L2 classroom input : a descriptive and experimental study. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Abstract

In the L2 literature, temporal variables such as speech rate, pause phenomena and hesitation phenomena, arc widely reported to be amenable to modification to facilitate NNS comprehension and such modification is assumed to characterise NS-NNS classroom interaction. However, the early studies which gave rise to these assumptions largely failed to follow pausological conventions and, consequently, their findings cannot be relied upon.

More recent studies have, however, indicated that there are speech rate levels at which NNSs experience rapidly reduced comprehension and there is evidence that hesitation phenomena can result in perceptual problems for NNSs. The experimental studies reported in this thesis support both of these findings.

Findings from descriptive studies of NS-NNS classrooms, however, indicate that actual modification of temporal variables is not as widespead (at least in the context under consideration) as the L2 literature would suggest.

In descriptive studies of 18 NS-NNS and 5 NNS-NNS full content lectures, 12 NS-NNS short lectures, and 30 EFL lessons, speech rate is not observed to be significantly different from that found in comparable NS-NS baseline conditions. Nor is speech rate in the EFL lessons seen to significantly change over time or to students of differing proficiency levels. Although this finding would not be expected from a reading of the L2 literature it could, however, be predicted from the infinitely fuller specialized literature where the difficulties of speech rate modification have long been recognised.

However, filled pauses, which are demonstrated to generate perceptual problems for low-proficiency NNSs, are seen to be extensively modified in classroom deliveries in the corpora described above. Indications of other modifications, e.g. in mean length of run between silent pause, are also observed.

Implications of these findings for L2 teachers, teacher-trainers and materials producers arc considered, and an agenda for future research is proposed.

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