[Xmca-l] Re: L2

["Rémi A. van Compernolle"]

Martin:

Yes, basically. The evidence in neurolinguistics shows that it’s really really hard (if at all possible) to proceduralize an L2 (in the sense of it becoming implicit knowledge, subserved by procedural memory, etc.). Paradis’s argument is that highly proficiency L2 users speed up access to declarative processes that end up being functionally equivalent (or close) to the way that implicit, procedural competence works for native speakers. So if you’re tired after working all day in an L2 (I’ve had this experience too, and continue to have it when I teach upper division French culture and sociolinguistics courses in French), it’s because it takes a lot of attentional resources to do these things, which isn’t the case if you’re using your L1, at least that’s the theory.

I use this basic argument as a rationale for doing explicit teaching. We don’t know how, if at all, we can impact upon implicit/procedural competencies in L2 development, but we do know that we can intervene to promote conscious control. So if we can give learners really good L2 tools (e.g., concepts, categories of meaning, etc.) that mediate their controlled L2 performance, we get really good performances, provided we include communicative tasks that link the metalinguistic to the communicative performance. And at some point, with lots of practice, says Paradis at least, some implicit/procedural competencies may develop in parallel.

Adam



Rémi A. van Compernolle
Assistant Professor of Second Language Acquisition & French and Francophone Studies
Department of Modern Languages
Carnegie Mellon University
Baker Hall A60M
412-268-1122



On Nov 3, 2014, at 1:10 PM, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co> wrote:

> Adam,
> 
> Are you referring here to the way that until a L2 is automatized it requires deliberate control? I get home tired at the end of the say because when I'm speaking Spanish I do so with deliberate awareness - I have to will the utterances to emerge. I have the L2 resources available in some form, but I need to actively deploy them at all levels, whereas in L1 the lexicogrammar takes care of itself.
> 
> Martin
> 
> On Nov 3, 2014, at 12:52 PM, Rémi A. van Compernolle <compernolle@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I’ve argued in my recent work that in a lot of cases it isn’t the L2 that’s internalized to function intrapsychologically but rather metacognitive strategies subserved by declarative memory systems that are deployed to regulate the deployment of L2 resources. 
> 
>