Pedagogical grammar as the framework of tefl research. Part 11. The impact of the monitor on the quality of the foreign language acquisition

Abstract

The relevance of the paper is explained by the need of establishing a common framework to integrate the research in teaching foreign languages, specifically in the development of grammar competence, into a single area with uniform approaches, terminology and criteria. Its aim is to analyse the notion of the ‘monitor’ with the purpose of its further accounting for in the development of academic programs and actual teaching. Basing on the analysis of experimental data in the half-a-century retrospective, the author attempts to generalize the data concerning the effect of the monitor on the quality of the foreign-language acquisition. It was found that in some cases, the experimental results were strongly affected by the mainstream ideas predominant at the particular periods in the specific area, such as the concept the overwhelming advantage of conscious approach in the Soviet theories of the 1960-1970s. The paper shows the methodological shortcomings of the experimental design, which affected the results in those enquiries, like the principal use of discrete tests, non-critical confusion of declarative and procedural knowledge, short-term experiments, inadequate ways of the subjects’ speech samples elicitation etc. Though the later research demonstrated a greater variety of results, the monitor hypothesis’ validity is open to debate because of the impossibility to establish not only the degree of the monitor’s participation in an individual’s speech production, but even the very fact of this participation. The most common proofs of the monitor use are the subjects’ own evidence, when they try describing the way they use their knowledge of the specific rule in the speech production process. However, in many cases, it is difficult, even for the speakers themselves, to explain the way of editing their own utterances. The criticism also concerns the fuzzy definition of the monitor itself, resulting in its occasional coincidence with the meaning of ‘learning’ (in Krashen’s terminology), inability of the theory to explain the receptive types of speech activity, its limitedness to syntax and its problematic ability to establish the use of monitor in specific cases. Thus, though the probability of the speakers’ monitor use is beyond any doubt, the degree of its application depends on a variety of factors, probably extends far beyond the way a language is acquired, and needs additional research.