Review: Who’s Helping Whom?: Learner/Heritage-Speakers’ Networked Discussions in Spanish

“The interactionist model predicts that oral discussions between native speakers (NSs) and non-native speakers (NNSs), as well as those that only involve NNS, will prime second language learners to notice their linguistic limitations, which is an essential step in the SLA proces (Gass 1997).” 

The article “Who’s Helping Whom?: Learner/Heritage-Speakers’ Networked Discussions in Spanish” (Blake & Zyzik 2003) examines the application of the Interactionist Hypothesis in regards to NNSs and HSs of Spanish  in an SCMC environment. The authors question if the interactionist model would prime NNSs and HSs in the same way it primes NSs and NNSs in SCMC interactions to notice their linguistic limitations. The linguistic limitations encountered by the  NNSs and NSs are typically lexical or grammatical. Studies have been conducted among NNSs and NSs in chat environments but not in connection witht HSs.  


“The conversation is momentarily put on hold while the particular item, be it lexical or grammatical, is negotiated... Pellettieri (1999) and Blake (2000) have shown that these ‘priming’ benefits also obtain for learner/learner discussions within the medium of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC).”


Heritage speakers are often referred to as NSs, which typically means the speaker spoke the language in reference as an L1.  However, the NSs and HSs have different connotations in the world of linguistics.  Blake and Zyzik provide a great review of what is a HS. In simplest terms, in this study a HS refers to someone who has typically spoken Spanish at home but had most if not all their education in English. The authors further mention that there are various types of HSs based on their contact with the language. In the case of their study there are two, Type I are HSs that have both parents who speak Spanish at home, and Type II are students who have only one parent who speaks Spanish at home and they feel more dominant in English than Spanish. It is good that the authors establish a good definition of what a HS is in relevance to their study. As a heritage Spanish speaker and heritage Spanish instructor I think it is necessary to identify the cultural and linguistic differences among heritage speakers.



“No one has probed the pairing of L2 learners with heritage speakers”



Our universities systems are beginning to offer more courses for HSs in Spanish, as well as for other languages.  The addition of these classes separate the NNSs from the HSs to better meet the students’ needs.  The authors want to bring these two populations together via chat using task-based negotiation. Through these tasks negotiations the authors investigate if HSs provide advanced linguistic knowledge to the conversations without the unequal power presence in interactions among NSs and NNSs. The importance of the tasks are based on Swain’s  Output Hypothesis (1985, 1995):
1) it provides an opportunity for meaningful use of one’s linguistic resources
2) it allows the learner to test hypotheses about the target language
3) it encourages to move from semantic to syntactic processing


The idea of pairing both type of learners is to create negotiation of meaning among the speakers. Learners modify their language when they sense a linguistic problem in their output, by finding a new form. But mot importantly i this case is that they look for feedback from their interlocutor(s) to make sure there is no misunderstanding or miscommunication. The interlocutor also may provide feedback to make sure he/she is not misunderstanding the message.


In accordance with the literature, it seems lexical items are the most commonly negotiated. However, there are other important areas in language competence.  The authors pay attention to vocabulary, syntax, morphology, employment of different registers and express ideas with idiomatic expression and cultural references. Within their study the authors seek to find negotiation in these categories by looking at three general areas: lexical, grammatical, and pragmatic. The authors hypothesized they would find example in all three areas.


Methodology
University Intermediate Spanish for Native Speakers N=11 HSs
University Intermediate Spanish N=12 NNSs
Via Chat in computers located in different building in the University campus


The students completed a two-way jigsaw task in a HS/NNS pair to solve an ‘apartment hunting’ task. In this activity students had apartment postings from an apartment seeker website in Madrid. Each student had to share the postings they had so they could choose which rental they were going to choose, they each had four different postings. They had to consider budget, wants, and needs. The students connected with the other Spanish student for an hour  without knowing their partner had a different linguistic background.


Within the eleven pairs, a total of 36 negotiations were found: 24 lexical, 4 grammatical, and 2 pragmatic. This outcome is consistent with previous findings (e.g. Blake 2000).  The outcome also showed the majority of the resolutions were coming from the HSs, with only 5 reslutions offered by NNS, and 2 self-corrections offered by NNSs. I have found the pairing of HSs and NNSs helps the HSs in building their confidence as an ‘expert’.  It is good to see that although the majority of resolutions are executed by HSs, the NNs are receiving the external feedback that is helpful to them.

" Spanish heritage HSs can be a valuable resource to L2 learners, given a careful presentation of collaborative tasks."


I enjoyed this study but at times found many different models being tested, not just the Interactionist Hypothesis. I see this as a study that may be easily replicated.