Language Level

Before creating a CALL tool, we first needed to carefully consider the target group for whom we want to develop the program. One essential aspect of this analysis is the language level, which must be carefully analyzed in order to account for an environ-ment where the student is best stimulated and hence learns most efficiently (an aspect outlined by Krashen’s Monitor Model, as discussed in Chapter 2, subsection 2.2.5).

As is the case in most European countries, in Switzerland the expected language level is expressed using the classification model developed by the Council of Europe in its publication Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR;

Council of Europe (2001)).

In addition to (and based on) the CEFR guidelines, the syllabus of the concerned cantons (BS¹, BL², AG³, SO⁴, BE⁵, NW⁶) gives a comprehensive overview of the goals that are to be achieved by the end of each school year.

Across all cantons, students are expected to have attained the CEFR language lev-els displayed in Table 5.1 for the three secondary school levlev-els 2C (basic requirements), 2B (intermediate requirements) and 2A (advanced requirements) by the end of lower

1http://www.volksschulen.bs.ch/unterricht/faecher-lehrplaene.html

secondary instruction.

Table 5.1: CEFR levels to be attained after lower secondary school for English as an L2

Level Receptive Productive

2A B1 B1

2B A2 A2

2C A1 A1

In the following sections we will discuss the requirements given by the CEFR for competences that are relevant for the research at hand – namely communicative and interactional productive skills. We will not go into detail about receptive skills, as the analysis of the receptive skills is not part of the evaluations covered in this thesis. In the following we will investigate the linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic compe-tences that are demanded for the various levels 2A (CEFR B1), 2B (CEFR A2) and 2C (CEFR A1). This analysis helps us choose an adequate difficulty level for our CALL-SLT exercises as they are discussed later in this chapter.

5.2.1 Communicative Competences

In order to produce spoken – or more precisely interactive – language, as is the case in our research setting, learners need communicative language competences. As described in the CEFR (Council of Europe (2001)), communicative skills comprise the three components of linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic competences. In the following sections we will address each of those competences in order to better understand the current and expected level of our target group. This helps us realistically adjust the difficulty level of the customized exercises of CALL-SLT, as discussed further on in this chapter.

The question of how such oral productive skills can be measured and evaluated with a CALL tool such as CALL-SLT will be discussed in Chapter 6.

5.2.1.1 Linguistic Competences

Linguistic competence – the first of the three communicative competences – is defined as “knowledge of, and ability to use, the formal resources from which well-formed, meaningful messages may be assembled and formulated.” (Council of Europe (2001), p. 109) In this area of competence, the CEFR further distinguishes between six cat-egories, which are (1) lexical competence, (2) grammatical competence, (3) semantic competence, (4) phonological competence, (5) orthographic competence (“knowledge of and skill in the perception and production of the symbols of which written texts are composed,” Council of Europe (2001) p. 117) and (6) orthoepic competence (skill to

“produce a correct pronunciation from the written form,” Council of Europe (2001) p.

117). For our work we are mostly interested in categories one to four.

As far as the general linguistic range is concerned, the CEFR describes the A1 and A2 levels as mainly covering basic language skills, such as expressions about personal details or communication in everyday situations, whereas the B1 level also covers more challenging, unpredictable situations in which the student is expected to communi-cate creatively and not merely with memorized patterns, as is the case for levels A1 and A2. More detailed extracts of the CEFR definitions can be found in Appendix A.1.

To return to the four points mentioned above and beginning with the first of them, lexical competenceis defined as the “knowledge of, and ability to use, the vocabulary of a language” (Council of Europe (2001), p. 110) and consists of both lexical and grammat-ical elements. Examples of lexgrammat-ical elements are fixed expressions with phenomena such as sentential formulae (e.g. greetings, proverbs, archaisms, etc.), phrasal idioms (e.g.

metaphors or intensifiers), fixed frames (i.e. chunks) and other types of fixed phrases or collocations, as well as single word forms, among which are also polysemous words (words with several meanings).

Grammatical elements comprise all of the following: articles, quantifiers, demon-stratives, personal pronouns, question words and relatives, possessives, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions and particles.

As the CEFR definitions indicate (c.f. Appendix A.2), we are aiming for a range of linguistic competences that vary from a basic vocabulary repertoire of isolated words and phrases for the A1 level, to a vocabulary range that allows students to express basic

needs in A2, up to an advanced vocabulary range and control, which allows B1-level students to communicate pertinently about their everyday life situations.

Although vocabulary range and control are important competences that are neces-sary to interact in communicational situations, they are not sufficient. Next to vocab-ulary skills, grammatical competences also play an important role in linguistic compe-tences, since without knowledge of the grammatical characteristics of a language L2 utterances cannot be produced efficiently.

Grammatical competence is defined as the “knowledge of, and ability to use, the grammatical resources of a language.” (Council of Europe (2001), p. 112) Those gram-matical resources are used to produce and understand meaningful and well-formed sentences. The main difference compared to lexical competence, where the students memorize and reproduce fixed strings or single word forms, is that the grammatical competence allows them to produce any type of well-formed sentence from scratch, tra-ditionally using a combination of morphological (internal organization of words) and syntactical (organization of words into sentences) competences.

The requirements concerning grammatical accuracy for levels A1, A2 and B1 vary from limited control of simple structures up to partially correct and mainly understand-able use of simple structures. The grammatical competences cited in the CEFR (c.f.

Appendix A.3) indicate that we can expect all levels to use simple grammatical struc-tures. Whereas the A1 level is only expected to use systematically learned sentence patterns, the A2 and B1 levels are expected to construct grammatical structures from previously learned principles. Although errors will occur at all three levels, the A2 and B1 levels typically produce grammatical sentences that are understandable by native speakers and make clear what the subject is trying to say.

As a further component of linguistic competences, we will now discuss the semantic competence, which allows students to logically control the organization of meaning.

This is especially important in spontaneous interactional speech, where the awareness and control over meaning must be mastered in order to construct meaningful conver-sation.

Semantic competence is defined as the “learner’s awareness and control of the or-ganization of meaning.” (Council of Europe (2001), p. 115) In the context of semantic competence we distinguish between (1) lexical semantics regarding word meaning, (2) grammatical semantics for meaning of categories or structures, and (3) pragmatic se-mantics dealing with logical relations.

Although all three types of semantic competence are essential to well-functioning L2 interaction, in our work we are mostly interested in lexical semantics, which is closely linked to vocabulary range and control, as discussed above.

Once the linguistic basis has been set with the necessary skills in lexical, grammati-cal and semantic competences, the next step is to master the phonologigrammati-cal competence.

This skill is closely linked to lexical competence and can present an important obstacle for fluent L2 communication if it is not mastered sufficiently by a student.

Phonological competence is defined as the skill in the perception and production of phonemes, allophones, distinctive features, syllable structure, prosody, and phonetic reduction. Although the expected skills for the phonological competence naturally vary across the A1-B1 levels, all levels are expected to produce understandable L2 speech when using previously learned words and phrases.

Requirements for phonological control (c.f. Appendix A.4) indicate that A1-level students should be able to correctly pronounce a limited set of learned words, whereas A2-level students are expected to be understood by natives with the majority of their produced output. The B1 level further expects students to pronounce their utterances correctly and clearly enough without having to repeat themselves to be understood by native speakers. Although an accent is granted on all levels, the primary goal of the pronunciation competence is to be able to take part in a conversation with native speakers and to be understood – with little or no help – by them.

Since phonological control is a competence that is more difficult to train than other linguistic competences – which can in large parts be learned from books – we put a special focus on this competence in our customized CALL-SLT lessons.

5.2.1.2 Sociolinguistic Competences

In contrast to formal linguistic competences, explained in the preceding subsection, so-ciolinguistic competences deal with the social dimension of language use. Components of this competence include linguistic markers of social relations (e.g. greetings, address forms), politeness conventions, expressions of folk wisdom (e.g. proverbs, idioms), reg-ister differences or dialects, and accents.

To better understand what this implies for beginner students of a second language, we will again examine the classifications of sociolinguistic appropriateness defined by the CEFR (c.f. Appendix A.5). Requirements for sociolinguistic appropriateness at the A1 level can be summarized by the ability to have basic social interactions while respecting basic politeness. The A2-level student is expected to socially interact in the L2 using basic language functions, common socializing habits and everyday polite forms; and the B1-level student is expected to handle a wide range of language functions and politeness conventions, and to have the ability to recognize and respect differences between the L1 and L2 community that are important for sociolinguistic interaction.

5.2.1.3 Pragmatic Competences

The last of the communicative language competences that we will address is the prag-matic competence. This competence can be divided into the three sub-categories dis-course competence,functional competenceand design competence, which are explained below (based on the CEFR, Council of Europe (2001)).

1. Discourse competence: The production of coherent language sequences by organized and structured arrangement of individual sentences.

2. Functional competence: The use of spoken discourse in communication for particular functional purposes to guarantee that each initiative is meaningful for the purpose of the communicational interaction.

3. Design competence: The logical sequencing of interactions, such as structured sequences of actions (e.g. question/answer, request/(non-)acceptance) following commonly accepted interactional and transactional schemata.

The pragmatic competences in which we are most interested are the discourse and functional competences, which guarantee fluent and meaningful communication. Two of the main indicators of successful pragmatic competence can be measured via fluency and propositional precision indicators, as can be seen in the definitions by the CEFR in Appendices A.6 and A.7. For spoken fluency, the expected skills vary between in-fluent and short utterances (A1), to short and relatively in-fluent utterances (A2), up to longer L2 utterances that are mostly fluent (B1). As far as propositional precision is concerned, levels A2 and B1 mainly differ in the range of topics that should be successfully covered. Whereas A2 students are expected to produce simple and direct exchanges of topics familiar to them, B1 students are additionally expected to be able to explain and express a wider range of ideas and problems precisely and comprehensi-bly. (Propositional precision is a skill that is not defined for the A1 level of competence.) In this section we have addressed various competences that are necessary for suc-cessful conversational speech in the L2 – from linguistic competences to sociolinguistic and pragmatic competences. All three of those competences are clearly very important for forming meaningful and successful linguistic interactions with native speakers.

For our work, the linguistic and the pragmatic competences of spoken fluency are of prime interest, since we believe that those are the competences that are exceptionally suitable to be trained by means of a CALL application such as CALL-SLT.

Since we want to create a CALL tool with which the students can practice their spoken productive skills, we are interested in the subjects’ vocabulary range (and con-trol), their grammatical accuracy in forming L2 utterances, their phonological control in doing so, and their fluency in L2 oral production. In Chapter 7 we will present the results of our evaluation on how the students’ competences in L2 vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and fluency developed during the use of CALL-SLT.

As we have seen in this section, we can expect students of all levels (A1-B1, or 2C-2A respectively) to have at least some basic knowledge of all relevant competences with which we can work. The prerequisites to use a CALL tool are generally few, since the level of difficulty of the system interactions can be varied depending on each student’s level. A 2C student who might have a limited vocabulary range can easily use the help function provided by the system and imitate an example from a native speaker; he or she hence learns skills through this imitation process. A 2A student, on

the other hand, who has better vocabulary control and whose grammatical accuracy is high, might want to concentrate on other aspects of his or her oral production, such as phonological control or fluency.