Presenter: Leonora L. Mingo, Ph.D. Research Title: The Negotiation of Meaning in the Talking Circle in the Tertiary ESL Context Presenter: Leonora L. Mingo, Ph.D.

KEY CONCEPTS Negotiation of Meaning Classroom Interaction Language Learning Tasks

KEY CONCEPTS Communication Strategies Interpersonal Values Group Work

INTRODUCTION The discipline known as Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has gone a long way in terms of identifying what processes an individual has to undergo in acquiring one or more second or foreign languages. - Nunan (2000)

INTRODUCTION SLA researchers are interested in both product (i.e., language used by the learners) and process (i.e., the mental process and environmental factors) that influence the acquisition process.

INTRODUCTION A growing body of research has been conducted with regard to - learning processes, - types of classroom tasks, - kinds of classroom organizations that appear to facilitate SLA

INTRODUCTION This implies that research in SLA considers the different factors in the classroom and finds out how these factors contribute to second language acquisition.

INTRODUCTION In English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom, for example, the major concern of the second language (L2) teachers is how to generate rich and meaningful interactions that will aid SLA.

INTRODUCTION The essence of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is the engagement of learners in communication in order to allow them to develop their communicative competence. - Murcia (2006)

INTRODUCTION In recent years, the use of group work in ESL classrooms has become a widespread practice.

INTRODUCTION In the Philippine setting, Bautista (1996) and Genuino’s (2000) studies on group work offered a host of research possibilities that learner-learner interaction may offer, one of them is negotiation of meaning.

INTRODUCTION For more than a decade now, group work has been widely used by the teachers in Notre Dame of Dadiangas University (NDDU) in General Santos City not only in the ESL classrooms, but also in the classrooms of the other disciplines.

INTRODUCTION The idea of considering group work as one of the variables in the present study lies in the fact that:

INTRODUCTION First, this type of classroom organization is commonly used by L2 teachers in the locale of the study, yet there has not been any empirical study that unravel the dynamics of group work

INTRODUCTION Second, there is that inquisitiveness in finding out what processes students undertake when they are asked to accomplish a task.

INTRODUCTION Within the goals of this study, it is deemed necessary that at the outset, the use of Talking Circle, a term adopted from Ernst (1994), is established to refer to a group of five students engaged in a language learning task in the classroom.

DEFINITION OF TERMS 1. Negotiation of Meaning This study looks at negotiation of meaning beyond incomprehensibility of input.

DEFINITION OF TERMS It extends its scope by looking at negotiation of meaning as a collaborative work which second language learners undertake to achieve mutual understanding.

DEFINITION OF TERMS In this manner, this study takes note of: the emerging patterns on how students negotiate how they employ communication strategies while negotiating

DEFINITION OF TERMS what nature of interaction takes place in the Talking Circle how students’ interpersonal values may shape group interaction

DEFINITION OF TERMS 2. Talking Circle Talking Circle (a.k.a. group work) pertains to a classroom event composed of five members who are engaged in a language learning task in an ESL classroom.

DEFINITION OF TERMS 3. ESL Context This pertains to the classroom context of an English 1 course where the teacher and the students are part of the community.

DEFINITION OF TERMS 4. Communication Strategies The way communication strategies are referred to in this paper is anchored on the idea that they are elements of interaction.

DEFINITION OF TERMS Its working definition is taken from Corder (1981) which says that communication strategies are systematic techniques employed by a speaker to express his meaning when faced with some difficulty.

DEFINITION OF TERMS Only those verbal and nonverbal strategies used by the speaker which have direct contribution to negotiation of meaning are taken into consideration.

DEFINITION OF TERMS 5. Interpersonal Values They pertain to certain critical values involving the individual’s relationships to other people or the people’s relationships to him.

DEFINITION OF TERMS The interpersonal values mentioned in this study were derived from the Survey of Interpersonal Values (SIV), a standardized instrument developed by Leonard V. Gordon, Ph.D. in 1960.

DEFINITION OF TERMS In his instrument, he only highlighted the following interpersonal values which are: Support Conformity

DEFINITION OF TERMS Recognition Independence Benevolence Leadership

DEFINITION OF TERMS 6. Ethnographic Research This is a qualitative research approach used to examine in depth the negotiation of meaning which involves personally attending, observing, and audio-video taping interactions.

DEFINITION OF TERMS This ethnographic study employs other ways of gathering data i.e., by document analysis, survey of interpersonal values, focus group discussion, journal writing, and the use of playback sessions.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 1.Describe the emerging pattern on how students negotiate meaning in the Talking Circle

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 2. Identify the communication strategies students employ as they engage in the negotiation of meaning

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 3. Find out how the identified interpersonal values may have influenced students’ involvement in the Talking Circle

A SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM SHOWING THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

THE NEGOTIATION OF MEANING IN THE TALKING CIRCLE IN THE TERTIARY ESL CONTEXT SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORIES PRAGMATICS AND SPEECH ACT THEORY SOCIOCULTURAL LEARNING THEORY Monitor Model (Krashen, 1979) Discourse Model (Hatch, 1978) Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1978) Linguistic/ Cognitive Focus Interactive (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969) (Vygotsky, 1978)

A SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM SHOWING THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Second Language Acquisition Theories ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY A MODEL OF NEGO- TIATION MEANING IN ESL CONTEXTT Second Language Acquisition Theories Socio- cultural Theory Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory I N T H E T A L K I N G C I R C L E N A T U R E O F I N T E R A C T I O N Support Conformity Recognition Benevolence Independence Leadership E S L C O N T E X T VERBAL STRATEGIES NONVERBAL STRATEGIES NEGOTIATION

METHODOLOGY Research Method Ethnographic research method was used in the study.

METHODOLOGY In using ethnographic research method the primary concern is to analyze the data as they are, rather than to compare them to other data to see how similar they are. Therefore, generalizability of findings is not the concern of this study. -Van Lier (1988)

METHODOLOGY The Participants The participants of the study were 45 first year Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) students enrolled in the English 1 (Communication Arts and Skills 1) course.

METHODOLOGY The Setting The study was conducted in Notre Dame of Dadiangas University, a Marist school in General Santos City.

METHODOLOGY As a classroom-based research, the English 1 classroom located in Bro. Henry Ruiz Building, Room 203 served as the setting of the study.

METHODOLOGY The Talking Circle A total of nine (9) Talking Circles having five members in each group was organized.

METHODOLOGY The Language Learning Tasks This study had used two-way information gap tasks or the so-called required information gap tasks as well as jigsaw tasks.

Phase I (Pre-Classroom Interaction) METHODOLOGY Data Collection Phase I (Pre-Classroom Interaction) Document Analysis Survey of Interpersonal Values (SIV)

Phase II (Actual Classroom METHODOLOGY Phase II (Actual Classroom Interaction) Audio-Video Taping Students’ Journals

Phase III (Post Classroom Interaction) METHODOLOGY Phase III (Post Classroom Interaction) Play back Sessions (PBSs) Focus Group Discussions (FGDs)

METHODOLOGY The transcript of the videotaped interaction was the main source of the data. The other sources such as students’ journals, playback session notes, and focus group discussion transcripts were used for triangulation purposes only.

METHODOLOGY Micro-level Analysis The transcripts were analyzed by episodes for the negotiation of meaning and communication strategies.

METHODOLOGY Macro-level Analysis Summation of the micro-level analysis, together with the results on how students’ interpersonal values might have influenced their involvement in the Talking Circle.

FINDINGS The emerging pattern on meaning negotiation is shown in Figure 1.

FINDINGS The recurrent adjacency pairs in the 90 episodes showed that clarification requests and confirmation checks were frequent, agreeing with Long (1983) and Scarcella and Higa’s (1981) claims on learner-learner interaction.

FINDINGS In some cases, allocating a turn to the next speaker or introducing the next item/phrase/picture to be negotiated signaled that mutual understanding was reached between the speaker and the interlocutors.

FINDINGS During the negotiation process, the following occurred: -To make input comprehensible to the interlocutors, it was evident that speakers made language modifications.

FINDINGS - When a certain item was not available in the speakers’ interlanguage, they tried to admit their inadequacy but worked hard to put the message across to keep the communication line open.  

FINDINGS -When the speakers felt uncertain of their ideas, they tended to conform to the ideas of the interlocutors, a manifestation of the influence of a student’s interpersonal value.

FINDINGS -When faced with language difficulty, the speaker opted the easiest way out of the difficulty, i.e., to give out the correct answer or information.

FINDINGS Speech acts under the categories of representatives, directives, and expressives were predominantly used.

FINDINGS Instances of metacognition occurred, i.e., when students talked about the procedures of the task or expressed their emotional reactions to the task.

FINDINGS 2. Communication Strategies The verbal strategies commonly used by the speakers were ranked as follows:

FINDINGS (3) filled pauses (4) self-repair (1) message abandonment (2) code-switching (3) filled pauses (4) self-repair

FINDINGS the utterance (6) association and direct appeal for help; (5) repetition of words within the utterance (6) association and direct appeal for help;

FINDINGS (7) circumlocution (8) giving out the correct item or phrase (9) indirect appeal for help (10) unfilled pauses and other- repair.

FINDINGS The nonverbal strategies frequently used by the speakers in both task types were ranked as follows: gestures;

FINDINGS (2) nodding one’s head (3) shaking one’s head (4) eye contact

FINDINGS The frequent use of message abandonment as a communication strategy allowed interlocutors to provide scaffolds leading to meaning negotiation.

FINDINGS The use of code-switching (i.e., from English language to Cebuano, Ilonggo, or Filipino language) enabled speakers to compensate for an unavailable item in the target language to convey the message and to carry on a conversation.

FINDINGS 3. Interpersonal Values Influencing the Interaction in the Talking Circle The male members’ high value, support, tended to influence their involvement in the Talking Circle.

FINDINGS This is manifested by giving and sharing ideas, confirming one’s ideas, reminding the group of what to do, cooperating and participating to finish the activity fast.

FINDINGS The low value, leadership, might have influenced the male members’ involvement in the Talking Circle since nobody from the male members wanted to lead the group.

FINDINGS The female members’ high values, conformity and support, were likely to influence their involvement in the Talking Circle.

FINDINGS Several occasions showed during interaction where female members conformed to the group mates’ ideas.

FINDINGS Female members’ support was not only confined to assisting each other to finish the task, but also to reminding the group of their schedules on playback sessions and focus group discussions.

FINDINGS The female members’ low value (leadership) tended also to shape the group’s interaction as manifested by their anxieties to lead, lack of leadership skills, and distressing experiences on leadership.

CONCLUSIONS 1. Most of the episodes generate a pattern of asking for clarification-clarifying, asking for confirmation-confirming, inquiring-answering, guessing-rejecting/agreeing, co-constructing-agreeing/disagreeing, and giving the correct phrase-confirming.

CONCLUSIONS 2. In the negotiation of meaning, students experience comprehensible input and undergo interactional modifications to produce comprehensible output.

CONCLUSIONS 3. L2 learners resort to communication strategies like message abandonment, code-switching, filled pauses, self-repair, etc. in order to finish an utterance as they grappled for words in their interlanguage.

CONCLUSIONS 4.The ‘unobservable’ aspect (i.e., the interpersonal values such as support, conformity, and leadership) students may bring with them as they participate in group work seems vital in shaping the interaction.

CONCLUSIONS 5. A picture emerges of L2 learners conforming to others’ ideas and supporting one another not only during small group interaction in the classroom but also even outside classroom activities.

CONCLUSIONS 6. The use of other data gathering techniques such as students’ journals, play back session notes, and focus group discussion transcripts provides information crucial to understanding Filipino second language learners.

RECOMMENDATIONS 1. The role of task is very significant in meaning negotiation. Therefore, ESL teachers should design language learning tasks which can elicit negotiation of meaning for the students to experience interactional modification, essential for second language acquisition.

RECOMMENDATIONS 2. Since L2 learners are communication strategy users, students should be taught on how to cope with communication failures. Teachability of communication strategies is encouraged and should receive support from ESL teachers.

RECOMMENDATIONS 3. Students should also be taught socioaffective strategies on how to request for clarification, ask for repetitions, slow down, and explain.

RECOMMENDATIONS 5. For future researchers, the following are suggested: -To explore other variables like gender and L1 background to find out their effects in the negotiation of meaning

RECOMMENDATIONS to learn in an ESL context -To conduct more research in L2 classroom using ethnographic research method to give an accurate picture of what it is like to learn in an ESL context

A Model of Negotiation of Meaning in the ESL Context

TRIGGER INFLUENCE PROCESS OUTPUT Support Conformity Leadership LANGUAGE LEARNING TASKS TRIGGER Support Conformity Leadership COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES Verbal: Message abandonment Code-switching Fillers Self-repair Repetition of words within the utterance Association Appeal for help (direct/indirect) Circumlocution Giving out of the correct item/phrase Other repair Accentuation Approximation Comprehension Confirmation Outright admission of not knowing Substitution Non-verbal: Gestures Nodding of head Shaking of head Eye contact RECURRENT ADJACENCY PAIRS Asking for clarification – making a clarification Asking for confirmation – confirming Co-constructing – agreeing Co-constructing – disagreeing Abandoning – co-constructing Inquiring – answering Guessing – rejecting Guessing – agreeing Giving the correct item/phrase/sentence – confirming INFLUENCE PROCESS NEGOTIATED MEANING OUTPUT INTERPERSONAL VALUES

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