後設語言知識與動機、自制力、自我語言能力評估以及語言成就之關係探究

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩士論文 Master Thesis Graduate Institute of English National Taiwan Normal University. 後設語言知識與動機、自制力、自我語言能力評估和語言成就之關係探究. An Investigation of the Relationships between Metalinguistic Knowledge, Motivation, Self-regulation, Self-perceived Proficiency and Language Achievement. 指導教授：曾文. 鐽博士. Advisor: Dr. Wen-Ta Tseng 研究生：林巧婷 Graduate: Tina Ciao-Ting Lin. 中華民國九十八年六月 June, 2009.

(2) 摘要後設語言知識屬於一種外顯知識，指的是學習者對於目標語言的文法規則及術語等方面的明確認知。後設語言知識對語言學習十分重要，但是如何測量學習者的後設語言知識，以及後設語言知識和學習者的第二語言能力之關係究竟為何，則還沒有定論。目前也鮮少有研究探討後設語言知識和情意因素之間的關係，而大部分與動機相關的研究都著重在動機對於字彙學習以及學習策略的影響。因此，本研究將學習者之第二語言能力分為自我語言能力評估以及實際上的語言成就兩方面，依據文獻研擬了一份後設語言知識試卷，在情意因素方面採用了動機及自制力問卷，旨在探討後設語言知識、動機、自制力以及自我語言能力評估和語言成就之間的關係。本研究對象為來自中台灣一所女子高中六個班級的 279 位高二學生。在沒有時間限制的情況下，279 位高二學生依序完成試題冊上的題目，包括自我能力評估(聽、說、讀、寫)、自制力問卷、動機問卷(自我效能、內在動機、外在動機、表現取向、精熟取向)、以及後設語言知識測驗。並在收集施測結果之後，進行相關及階層迴歸分析。研究發現: (一)自我效能、外在動機以及精熟取向對於學習者的自我語言能力評估有顯著影響。(二)後設語言知識、自制力、自我閱讀能力評估、以及內在動機則對語言成就有顯著的影響 (三)自我效能對於自我能力評估的影響力最大，後設語言知識則對語言成就最有預測力。(四)自制力為抑制變項，能使內在動機的預測力由不顯著變為顯著。. i.

(3) ABSTRACT Metalinguistic knowledge is defined as learners’ explicit knowledge about the rules and grammatical terms of the target language and is important in language learning. However, many former studies presented inconsistent findings about the relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and L2 performance. Besides, affective factors like motivation and self-regulation were seldom included in previous research. L2 performance in the present study is determined as learners’ own perceptions of their proficiency and actual language achievement to examine different factors that may contribute to the two dimensions of L2 performance. Thus, the present study aims to investigate the relationships between metalinguistic knowledge, motivation, self-regulation, self-perceived proficiency and language achievement. 279 2nd-grade students from a senior high school in central Taiwan were invited to participate in the study. They were asked to evaluate their proficiency on the four language skills, finish the self-regulation and motivation questionnaires, and complete a metalinguistic knowledge test, which was established by the researcher herself. All the data were analyzed with correlation and hierarchical regression models. The findings showed that: (1) motivational components such as self-efficacy, extrinsic motivation and mastery orientation had a strong influence on self-perceived proficiency; (2) metalinguistic knowledge and self-regulation held a significant predictive power on language achievement; (3) self-efficacy was found to be the best predictor of self-perceived proficiency and metalinguistic knowledge had the strongest predictive power on language achievement; (4) self-regulation was a suppressor variable which altered the predictive power of intrinsic motivation on language achievement.. ii.

(4) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This master thesis could not have been finished without the support of many people. First of all, I would like to express my deepest and sincerest gratitude to my thesis advisor, Dr. Wen-Ta Tseng. His insightful understandings about this field enlighten me and sharpen my perceptions of academic studies. Without his guidance and support, this thesis could not have been accomplished. Dr. Tseng always offers cordial encouragement and professional advice whenever I am confronted with obstacles and challenges. He patiently discusses with me and generously gives me valuable feedback. His suggestions and comments are of great help to my thesis and I am full of hope and confidence again whenever we exchange opinions with each other in each meeting. I am also grateful to my committee member, Dr. Yi-Chien Li and Dr. Yeu-Sheng Hsieh. Without Dr. Li’s careful reading of my thesis, I could not have improved and enriched my thesis. Thanks to Dr. Hsieh’s genuine advice on the methodology section, the results could be interpreted from a more precise and professional perspective. I would also like to thank my dear friends. Chi-Jun helps me deal with the enormous pressure and his unfailing support and concern motivate me to keep going and overcome the predicament. The encouragement of Drew, Irene, and Trista comforts me and reduces my anxiety toward the thesis. My appreciation also goes to the English teachers and students in Taichung Girls’ Senior High School for their participation in the study. They all deserve my utmost gratitude. Without them, I could not have been so devoted to my thesis.. iii.

(5) TABLE OF CONTENTS 摘要 ........................................................................................................................... i ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... iii List of Tables ........................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION .................................................................... 1. 1.1 Background ................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Definition of Terms ...................................................................................... 8 1.2.1 Implicit Knowledge ........................................................................... 8 1.2.2 Explicit Knowledge ........................................................................... 8 1.2.3 Metalinguistic Knowledge ................................................................. 9 1.2.4 Motivation....................................................................................... 10 1.2.5 Self-regulation................................................................................. 12 1.2.6 Self-perceived Proficiency............................................................... 13 1.2.7 Language Achievement ................................................................... 13 1.3 Significance of the Study ........................................................................... 13 1.4 Organization of the Thesis ......................................................................... 13 CHAPTER TWO. LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................... 15. 2.1 From Meaning to Form .............................................................................. 15 2.2 Implicit Knowledge & Explicit Knowledge ................................................ 17 2.3 Interaction between Implicit & Explicit Knowledge ................................... 19 2.4 Studies & Measurement of Explicit Knowledge ......................................... 24 2.4.1 Grammaticality Judgment Tests ....................................................... 25 2.4.2 Language Aptitude Tests.................................................................. 28 2.5 Studies and Measurement of Metalinguistic Ability.................................... 30 iv.

(6) 2.6 Measurement of Metalinguistic Knowledge ............................................... 34 2.7 Studies of Metalinguistic Knowledge: Metalinguistic Knowledge and L2 Performance .................................................................................................... 36 2.8 Motivational Studies .................................................................................. 42 2.9 Self-regulation Theories ............................................................................. 44 2.10 Purposes & Research Questions ............................................................... 47 CHAPTER THREE. METHODOLOGY ........................................................... 50. 3.1 Participants ................................................................................................ 50 3.2 Instruments ................................................................................................ 51 3.2.1 Metalinguistic Knowledge Test........................................................ 51 3.2.2 Motivation Questionnaire ................................................................ 52 3.2.3 Self-regulation Questionnaire .......................................................... 53 3.2.4 Self-perceived Proficiency Scale ..................................................... 53 3.2.5 Language Achievement ................................................................... 54 3.3 Procedures ................................................................................................. 54 3.4 Data Collection and Analysis ..................................................................... 54 CHAPTER FOUR. RESULTS ............................................................................. 57. 4.1 Correlation Analysis................................................................................... 57 4.2 Regression Analysis ................................................................................... 59 CHAPTER FIVE. DISCUSSION ........................................................................ 65. 5.1 Learners’ Self-perceived Proficiency .......................................................... 65 5.1.1 Self-perceived Proficiency & Metalinguistic Knowledge ................. 65 5.1.2 Self-perceived Proficiency & Self-regulation................................... 67 5.1.3 Self-perceived Proficiency & Motivation......................................... 68 5.2 Learners’ Language Achievement .............................................................. 70 5.2.1 Language Achievement & Metalinguistic Knowledge ..................... 70 v.

(7) 5.2.2 Language Achievement & Self-perceived Proficiency ..................... 71 5.2.3 Language Achievement & Self-regulation ....................................... 73 5.2.4 Language Achievement & Motivation ............................................. 74 5.3 Chapter Summary ...................................................................................... 75 CHAPTER SIX. CONCLUSION ........................................................................ 77. 6.1 General Conclusions .................................................................................. 77 6.2 Pedagogical Implications ........................................................................... 78 6.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research ....................................... 79 REFERENCES........................................................................................................ 81 APPENDICES ........................................................................................................ 91 Appendix A Specific Plan for Metalinguistic Knowledge Test ....................... 91 Appendix B Self-perceived Proficiency Scale ............................................... 93 Appendix C Self-regulation Questionnaire .................................................... 94 Appendix D Motivation Questionnaire .......................................................... 95 Appendix E. Metalinguistic Knowledge Test.................................................. 97. vi.

(8) List of Tables. Table 1. Correlations Between Language Achievement, Metalinguistic. Knowledge, Self-perceived Proficiency, Self-regulation and Motivation........................................................................................ 58 Table 2. Correlations Between Language Achievement, Self-perceived. Proficiency, and Self-perceived Proficiency on Four Language Skills. ......................................................................................................... 58 Table 3. Correlations Between Self-perceived Proficiency, Language. Achievement and Components of Motivation. .................................. 59 Table 4. Hierarchical Regression Analysis with Self-perceived Proficiency. as the Dependent Variable ................................................................ 60 Table 5. Hierarchical Regression Analysis with Language Achievement as. the Dependent Variable ..................................................................... 63. vii.

(9) CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION This chapter commences with the background of the research together with the rationale of the present study in section 1. Several key terms used in the study are defined and elucidated for further clarification, including implicit knowledge, explicit knowledge, metalinguistic knowledge, self-perceived proficiency, self-regulation and language achievement. Finally, the significance of the study and the overall organization of the thesis are stated in the final section of this chapter.. 1.1 Background Since the late 1970s, the development of the Communicative Approach has engendered the inception of Communicative Language Teaching, which advocates fluency and meaning, as opposition to language accuracy and form accentuated in Grammar Translation Method and Audio-Lingual Method. Researchers’ increasing attention to learners’ communicative competence reflects the observed fact that students’ capacity to make grammatically correct sentences does not guarantee their ability to appropriately use the language in other occasions of their daily lives (Widdowson, 1978). To improve this, Communicative Language Teaching promotes the importance of exposing learners to communicatively-oriented activities and developing their ability to use the language properly in daily communication. One of the researchers who emphasized and advocated fluency and meaning in language learning was Krashen (1981), asserting that the sufficient provision for learners with comprehensible input within learners’ understanding or slightly beyond their present language levels (i.e. i+1) could facilitate their second language learning. 1.

(10) What Krashen described was the process in which children acquired their first language without paying conscious attention to grammar and form, or receiving any explicit instruction. Contrarily, many researchers contended that learners’ L2 performance and proficiency could not be achieved only by placing emphasis on meaning (Alderson et al., 1997; Harley & Swain, 1984; Lyster, 1987). Explicit instruction and grammar-focused activities were thus gaining support from researchers (Dekeyser, 1995; Han & Ellis, 1998; N. Ellis, 1994; R. Ellis, 2004; Terrell, 1991). Celce-Murcia (1991) and Long (1988) also stressed the importance of form-focused instruction and the necessity to incorporate grammar instruction into a meaningful context. The pendulum swung from communicatively-oriented practices back to explicit instruction. In addition, explicit knowledge as well as implicit knowledge was obtaining attention from researchers. The dichotomy and the respective definitions of the two constructs were proposed by Ellis (2004, 2005). Moreover, the investigation about the relationship (e.g., Green & Hecht, 1992; Hu, 2002; Macrory & Stone, 2000) or the interaction (e.g., Bialystok, 1994; Dekeyser, 1998; Krashen, 1982; Paradis, 1994; Sharwood-Smith, 1981) between implicit and explicit knowledge was conducted as well. Implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge, the two juxtaposed constructs, had distinct characteristics respectively. According to Ellis (2005), implicit knowledge is unconscious and unanalyzed while explicit knowledge involves learners’ conscious attention to form and is verbalizable. The process of the acquisition of implicit knowledge is analogous to the way children acquired their L1, without paying deliberate attention to grammar and form and can be automatically processed. On the contrary, learners’ explicit knowledge is generally developed and promoted through formal instruction. The trigger of the application of explicit knowledge requires 2.

(11) learners’ conscious attention and it involves learners’ controlled processing. Regarding the relationship and interaction between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge, many researchers attempted to explore the extent (if any) that implicit knowledge could possibly contribute to explicit knowledge or vice versa. It was discovered that learners’ ability to use implicit knowledge exceeded their ability to use explicit knowledge (Green & Hecht, 1992). Macrory & Stone (2000) found a disparity in learners’ use of explicit knowledge and spontaneous production, which could be regarded as a representation of implicit knowledge. According to Hu (2002), the provision of consciousness-raising tasks could enhance participants’ accuracy of structures if they paid attention to the formal aspects of language and applied their explicit knowledge. In addition to the investigation on the relationship between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge, some researchers explored the issue of transformation or interaction between the two constructs. Dekeyser (1998) and Sharwood-Smith (1981) claimed that explicit knowledge was not only related to implicit knowledge but also could be converted into implicit knowledge through practice. However, Krashen (1982) asserted that acquisition and learning were two ways for adults to learn a language and acquisition was more important than learning. It was impossible for learning to transform into acquisition but instead, learning could serve as a monitor for the acquisition system. To sum up, explicit knowledge plays a decisive role in implicit knowledge and language learning. In addition to explicit knowledge, metalinguistic knowledge, which is defined as learners’ explicit knowledge about the language (Roehr, 2006) or “the knowledge of the technical terminology needed to describe language” (Ellis, 1994, p.714), is gaining attention from researchers as well. Numerous metalinguistic studies were conducted with different ways of operationalizing and measuring metalinguistic knowledge and most studies adopted the similar research design to 3.

(12) investigate the link between metalinguistic knowledge and L2 performance. However, these studies presented inconsistent findings. Metalinguistic knowledge, according to Alderson et al (1997), was regarded as a subsection of explicit knowledge. Sharing certain characteristics with explicit knowledge, metalinguistic knowledge was also verbalizable and its elicitation required learners’ conscious attention. A variety of instruments for measuring metalinguistic knowledge were developed. Many researchers operationalized metalinguistic knowledge as learners’ ability to identify, correct, and provide verbal explanations about L2 features (Elder and Manwaring, 2004; Green and Hecht, 1992; Hu, 2002; Morris, 2003; Renou, 2001; Roehr, 2007; Sorace, 1985). Macrory & Stone (2000) required participants to recall the rules of a particular structure and the situations in which they would use the structure. However, verbal explanation might complicate the results due to the subjectivity issue involved. In order to avoid the subjectivity that verbal explanation may involve, Ellis (2005) developed the metalinguistic. knowledge. test,. which. includes. an. untimed. computerized. multiple-choice test with two sections. On account of the subjectivity issue involved in verbal explanation, the researcher in the present study designed another metalinguistic knowledge test with multiple choices on the basis of the first section of Ellis’s (2005) metalinguistic knowledge test, which was a more independent and objective measure and was proved to be a representative test for metalinguistic knowledge as scores on the metalinguistic knowledge test loaded on explicit knowledge. However, the metalinguistic knowledge test used in Ellis’s (2005) study only included 17 grammatical structures and was not comprehensive and representative enough to fully represent L2 learners’ metalinguistic knowledge. Hence, the researcher in the present study established an item bank of 50 items which focus on a wide range of grammatical structures that the participants have learned in junior 4.

(13) high school in the hope of measuring learners’ metalinguistic knowledge in a more comprehensive manner. The most typical research design adopted by previous research was the investigation of the relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and L2 performance. While some studies revealed a weak relationship (e.g., Alderson et al., 1997; Elder et al., 1999; Han & Ellis, 1998), some researchers corroborated a significantly positive correlation (e.g., Morris, 2003; Roehr, 2007; Renou, 2001) between metalinguistic knowledge and L2 performance. As a result, one of the present study’s purposes is to provide more evidence to confirm the relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and L2 performance through correlation analysis and the effects of metalinguistic knowledge on L2 performance will be further explored through hierarchical regression analysis. However, L2 performance in previous studies was mostly determined from various dimensions. In Roehr’s (2007) study, learners’ L2 proficiency was determined as their competence in grammar and vocabulary in a 45-item language test. Renou (2001) measured the participants’ L2 French proficiency through a proficiency test which included listening, reading, and cloze sections. Elder & Manwaring (2004) determined learners’ learning outcomes as their performance in a Chinese achievement test. As a result, in the present study the participants’ L2 performance will not be determined exclusively as their performance in one language test that may contain items addressing different aspects of proficiency; instead, their L2 performance will be determined as their actual performance on the first monthly exam and their general self-perceptions of their proficiency on listening, speaking, reading, and writing ability. By doing so, the present study can further investigate what factors will contribute to their own perceptions of proficiency and language achievement and analyze if self-perceived proficiency and language achievement are influenced by different sets of variables. Additionally, the effects of 5.

(14) metalinguistic knowledge on self-perceived proficiency and language achievement can also be examined. In. addition. to. the. relationship. between. metalinguistic. knowledge,. self-perceived proficiency and language achievement, more metalinguistic studies that incorporate other kinds of factors are needed since metalinguistic knowledge is influenced by many different factors in addition to L2 performance. For example, Paradis (2004) indicated the potential influence of motivation on metalinguistic knowledge by asserting that metalinguistic knowledge, linguistic competence, pragmatics and motivation were four cerebral systems that were crucial to language learning. Obviously, metalinguistic knowledge can possibly be affected by motivation and Paradis (2004) suggests that motivation needs to be taken into account in metalinguistic studies. As seen from the aforementioned metalinguistic studies, few of them incorporated motivation into the research and considered the underlying effect of motivation on metalinguistic knowledge. Furthermore, motivation has been believed to play a decisive role in language learning but most studies have addressed the effect of motivation on vocabulary learning (Elley, 1989; Gardner & MacIntyre, 1991; Tseng & Schmitt, 2008) and learning strategies use (Biggs, 1988, 2003; Gardner, et al., 1997; MacIntyre & Noels, 1996; Schmidt & Watanabe, 2001) with scarce studies investigating metalinguistic knowledge and motivation simultaneously except for Perales and Cenoz’s (2002) study which included attitude, motivation, anxiety and metalinguistic awareness in their research. Therefore, in addition to metalinguistic knowledge, the present study also subsumed motivation into the research design and explored the effects of motivation on self-perceived proficiency and language achievement. Metalinguistic knowledge and motivation will also be juxtaposed for comparison to see if they have different effects on self-perceived proficiency and language achievement. 6.

(15) In addition to motivation, another affective variable, self-regulation, has been found to be essential in language learning and many different theories were proposed to. explain. the. self-regulation. processes. (i.e.,. operant,. phenomenological,. social-cognitive, information processing, volitional, Vygotskian, and constructivist). However, few studies on self-regulation juxtapose self-regulation and variables such as motivation, metalinguistic knowledge and L2 performance and investigate their relationships with each other. In conclusion, explicit knowledge, especially metalinguistic knowledge, has been gaining attention from researchers and many studies have been conducted to examine the relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and L2 performance. Even though metalinguistic knowledge has been considered to play an indispensable role in L2 learning, its contribution to and relationship with L2 proficiency were not confirmed and still needed further empirical evidence. Hence, the present study sets out to confirm the basic relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and L2 performance by conducting correlation analysis at the first phase. Besides, since L2 performance was usually determined as performance in certain language achievement tests addressing different aspects of the target language, the present study is original in dividing L2 performance into two dimensions (i.e. self-perceived proficiency and language achievement) and investigating the effect of metalinguistic knowledge on the two dimensions. Besides, according to Paradis’s (2004) claim, metalinguistic knowledge is highly related to motivation but most motivational studies only limitedly address its effect on vocabulary and strategies use without investigating motivation and metalinguistic knowledge simultaneously except for Perales & Cenoz’s (2002) research. Previous studies on self-regulation scarcely incorporate metalinguistic knowledge, motivation and L2 performance altogether. Consequently, the present metalinguistic study is original in incorporating affective variables (i.e. 7.

(16) motivation and self-regulation) and determining L2 performance in the two dimensions—learners’ actual language achievement and learners’ own perceptions of their proficiency to investigate their basic relationships with each other and the potential effects of metalinguistic knowledge, motivation and self-regulation on the two dimensions of L2 performance.. 1.2 Definition of Terms 1.2.1 Implicit Knowledge Implicit knowledge refers to the knowledge of language (Han & Ellis, 1998). It is unanalyzed in the sense that language learners are not aware of the implicit knowledge they are using; in other words, implicit knowledge does not involve learners’ conscious intention and that accounts for its characteristic of being “nonverbalizable.” Implicit knowledge is made up of a collection of past experiences and it consists mainly of procedural knowledge. The acquisition of implicit knowledge is like how we acquire our first language in a natural environment. Learners’ use of implicit knowledge is related to their spontaneous language use and learners are able to employ implicit knowledge automatically without deliberate attention on form and rules.. 1.2.2 Explicit Knowledge Explicit knowledge is the knowledge about language (Han & Ellis, 1998; Ellis, 2004). Contrary to implicit knowledge, explicit knowledge involves learners’ awareness of the language and their attention to form. As explicit knowledge can be analyzed, learners are capable of verbalizing the rules or the structure of the language they are learning by using terminology or technical language. It involves declarative 8.

(17) knowledge of grammatical rules and learners usually gain access to explicit knowledge through controlled processing.. That is, learners would attend to form and. accuracy in language production and it is like how we learn the second or foreign language (e.g. English) in formal instruction, in which learners are taught grammar and rules of the language and they are expected to produce accurate utterances by paying attention to grammar and structure.. 1.2.3 Metalinguistic Knowledge Metalinguistic knowledge is generally defined as learners’ conscious knowledge of the formal aspects of the target language. According to Ellis (1994, p.714), “metalingual knowledge” is the “knowledge of the technical terminology needed to describe language.” On the other hand, in Roehr’s (2007, p.179) study, metalinguistic knowledge is defined as “a learner’s explicit or declarative knowledge” which included the syntactic, morphological, lexical, pragmatic, and phonological features of L2. Roehr (2007, p.179) further defined it as “explicit knowledge about categories” as well as “relations between categories.” Alderson et al. (1996, p.2) pointed out that “…it would appear that whatever explicit knowledge consists of, it must include metalanguage, and this metalanguage must include words for grammatical categories and functions.” It seemed that explicit knowledge was a wider construct than metalinguistic knowledge and metalinguistic knowledge belonged to explicit knowledge. While implicit knowledge is not available for verbalization and does not involve awareness, explicit knowledge can be measured through verbal reports or articulation of the rules. According to Ellis (2004), a way to measure learners’ metalanguage is through verbal reports but learners might vary in their precision and accuracy in describing a rule by themselves. Therefore the participants’ metalinguistic 9.

(18) knowledge in the present study is not accessed through their verbalization, but their proper application of the rules and understanding of grammatical terminology. It is measured through the Metalinguistic Knowledge Test designed by the researcher on the basis of the test in Ellis (2005).. 1.2.4 Motivation As Brown (2000, p.160) noted, motivation was “probably the most frequently used catch-all term for explaining the success or failure of virtually any complex task.” De Bot, Lowie and Verspoor (2005, p.72) remarked that “when it comes to systematically investigating the effect of motivation on language learning, it appears that it is a rather difficult concept to operationalise.” Nonetheless, the concept appears too simplistic and general to specify the composites of motivation and the process that people may experience (Dörnyei, 2001a, 2001b). Dörnyei (2001b, p.1) asserted that “motivation is an abstract, hypothetical concept that we use to explain why people think and behave as they do.” Additionally, Pintrich and Schunk (2002, p.5) defined motivation as “the process whereby goal-directed activity is instigated and sustained.” However, despite the process-oriented perspective taken by Pintrich and Schunk (2002), their definition is incomplete on account of the fact that they failed to take the post-task motivational processes into account, i.e., learners’ evaluation of task performance and attribution of success or failure of task to proper causes. Consequently, Tseng (2009, p.11) argued that the definition of motivation should be operationalized as “the process whereby goal-directed behaviors are instigated, sustained and evaluated.” The motivation questionnaire adopted in the present study includes items addressing the five components of motivation: self-efficacy, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, performance orientation, and mastery orientation. As for the categorization of the motivation questionnaire items, each composite 10.

(19) concerned different dimension of the participants’ motivation. Self-efficacy deals with learners’ judgment of their abilities and competence to execute a course of action when participating in a task (Bandura, 1986). People with higher self-efficacy are more likely to take part in a task while people with lower self-efficacy may avoid doing it. Therefore, self-efficacy is likely to influence choices of tasks, effort, aspiration, and persistence. Dörnyei (2001a, p. 23) concurred that self-efficacy should be regarded as a motivation antecedent since “self-efficacy beliefs are only indirectly related to actual competence and abilities because they are the product of a complex process of self-persuasion that is based on cognitive processing of diverse sources.” Intrinsic motivation (IM) and extrinsic motivation (EM) are two of the three types of motivation proposed under the self-determination theory (Dörnyei, 2001a). Intrinsic motivation refers to completing a task for the sake of fun and pleasure while extrinsic motivation means doing a task for external outcomes. People with intrinsic motivation might do tasks for the enjoyment that the tasks produce; people with extrinsic motivation tend to accomplish a task in order to obtain an award or avoid punishment. Mastery orientation and performance orientation are specified in relation to the goal-orientation theory (Ames, 1992), which concerns not only the purpose for achievement, but also how the goals are attained. Mastery orientation refers to learners’ intention to facilitate their learning and to live up to their own learning standards without considering the engendered outcomes. Performance orientation refers to learner’s intention to demonstrate his/her competence or capability for the sake of others’ opinions. Learners with mastery orientation believe that they are likely to succeed if they make efforts and they will pursue the achievement of learning process and content (Dörnyei, 2001a). Learners with performance orientation believe that learning can display their abilities and obtain recognition from others and they 11.

(20) will seek for the achievement of learning outcome and social comparison (Dörnyei, 2001a).. 1.2.5 Self-regulation The significance that self-regulation may attribute to learners is that self-regulation could help learners to develop responsibility for their learning outcomes (Zimmerman, 1990). Schmitt (2000) and Nation (2001) both asserted that learners’ responsibility for vocabulary learning played a critical role in their achievement of higher level of lexical knowledge. The definition of the concept of self-regulation varies according to different researchers. However, some similarities can be drawn and observed from these definitions. Schunk and Zimmerman (1994, p. ix) defined self-regulation as “self-generated thoughts, feelings, and actions, which are systematically oriented toward attainment of their goals.” Wlodkowski (1999, p.329) considered self-regulation to be “a process by which learners control their behavior, feelings, and thoughts to attain academic goals.” Zimmerman (2000, p.14) offered the definition as “self-generated thoughts, feelings, and actions that are planned and cyclically adapted to the attainment of personal goals.” Pintrich and Schunk (2002, p.176) regarded self-regulation as “the process whereby students activate and sustain cognitions, behaviors, and affects that are systematically oriented toward attainment of their goals.” Summarizing the definitions given by many researchers, Tseng (2008, p.7) conceptualized self-regulation as “the self-directed processes by which systematic operations of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are attuned to take control over a chosen action.” As can be seen from the above definitions, self-regulation is essential to learners’ achievement and attainment of goals. Self-regulated learners can control their behavior or feelings autonomously in order to complete certain tasks. 12.

(21) 1.2.6 Self-perceived Proficiency As the name suggests, the participants’ self-perceived proficiency will be evaluated by the participants themselves. The participants will be asked to evaluate their own proficiency in listening, speaking, reading and writing according to the four levels (i.e., bad, not good, good, very good).. 1.2.7 Language Achievement Language achievement in the present study refers to the participants’ English learning outcomes in school.. The participants in the present study are 11th graders,. and their language achievement will be determined as their English scores of their first monthly exam in this semester.. 1.3 Significance of the Study There are several aspects regarding the significance of the study. First of all, the metalingistic knowledge test used in the present study can serve as an item bank for future studies. Secondly, the study can provide pedagogical implications based on the results and reveal the potential factors that will contribute to better self-perceived proficiency and language achievement. Besides, the extent of the effects of the predictors can be specified according to the hierarchical regression analysis and the strongest predictors of each dependent variable can be explored. The implications can thus function as guidelines and suggestions for teachers to help learners build confidence or to improve their performance on exams.. 1.4 Organization of the Thesis The thesis is organized in five chapters. Chapter 1 describes the general 13.

(22) background of the study. Some key terms are defined and listed for clarifications and the significance of the study is explicated at the end of chapter 1. Chapter 2 provides a review of previous studies on explicit knowledge and metalinguistic knowledge. Former motivational studies and some self-regulation theories are also presented in this chapter.. Chapter 3 is methodology and it delineates background information of. the participants, instruments used in the study, the procedures for administering the study, and data collection and analysis. Chapter 4 presents the results of the study and Chapter 5 offers the discussion of the results. Chapter 6 concludes the whole study and provides some pedagogical implications. Limitations of the study are acknowledged and recommendations for future studies are presented as well.. 14.

(23) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW The present study investigated the relationships between metalinguistic knowledge test, motivation, self-regulation, self-perceived proficiency, and language achievement. Therefore, this chapter begins with review about researchers’ previous focus on meaning and their increasing attention to form in second language teaching. Following the transition of background in the field of SLA, a dichotomy of implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge as well as respective characteristics is delineated. Then the studies on interface position between implicit and explicit knowledge asserted by researchers will be presented. Since the main test adopted in the present study is used to assess participants’ metalinguistic knowledge, which is considered relevant to and included in explicit knowledge, previous research and measurement about explicit knowledge is then explicated. Finally, to reiterate the aim of the present study, past studies and measurement about metalinguistic ability are reviewed and the relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and L2 performance, which is the most widely employed research design, are presented to further serve as the theoretical foundation of the study.. 2.1 From Meaning to Form Since the late 1970s, the Communicative Approach, which focuses on fluency and meaning, has had great influence on teachers and learners. Learners are exposed to communicative activities to facilitate their ability to communicate genuinely as many researchers observe that students can make grammatically correct sentences but cannot use the language properly outside the classroom (Widdowson, 1978). To equip 15.

(24) learners with adequate communicative competence, the Communicative Language Teaching underlying the theoretical perspective of the Communicative Approach aims to promote the importance of learners’ ability to use the language in real communication as well as learners’ capacity to perform functions appropriately within a social context. The communicatively-oriented practices which promote fluency and meaning are considered to be oppositions to explicit formal instruction (Alderson et al., 1997; Mitchell & Hooper, 1991). One of the previous theories that supported the communicative practices claimed that if learners were provided with comprehensible input, or the language input that was just a little beyond the learners’ present level but within their grasp of comprehension, it was sufficient for the learners to acquire a second or foreign language (Krashen, 1981). This view corresponds to the consensus that we acquire our native language without any awareness of the grammar of the language. However, research has shown that learning a language by only focusing on meaning could not ensure L2 learners’ linguistic accuracy (Alderson et al., 1997; Harley & Swain, 1984; Lyster, 1987). Many researchers and educators started to pay attention to the role of grammatical knowledge and explicit grammar instruction in the field of SLA (Dekeyser, 1995; Han & Ellis, 1998; N. Ellis, 1994; R. Ellis, 2004; Terrell, 1991). Some researchers suggested that it was necessary to pay some attention to instruction on aspects and features of language and explicit grammar instruction should be incorporated in meaningful contexts rather than be treated as a separate curriculum (Celce-Murcia, 1991; Long, 1988). Sharwood-Smith (1980) was one of the researchers who emphasized the importance of attention to form:. Instructional strategies which draw the attention of the learner to specifically structural regularities of the language, as distinct from 16.

(25) the message content, will under certain conditions significantly increase the rate of acquisition over and above the rate expected from learners acquiring that language under natural circumstances where attention to form may be minimal and sporadic. (Cited in Rutherfield & Sharwood-Smith, 1985, p.275). According to Germain and Seguin (1995), grammatical knowledge is essential to learners because (1) many language achievements are based on learners’ grammatical knowledge; (2) learners having adequate grammatical knowledge can have better comprehension since grammar can enhance learners’ abilities to decode input and (3) learners would be more motivated and less anxious if they possess the knowledge of the language. In spite of the prevailing popularity of the Communicative Approach, the importance of accuracy and explicit grammar instruction appears to gain increasing attention from researchers in SLA. Therefore, the distinction between the two constructs, explicit knowledge, which is related to grammar awareness and accuracy, and implicit knowledge, which is often associated with spontaneous and automatic language use, needs to be defined and established. Another issue to be considered is whether the two constructs are correlated or if explicit knowledge contributes to the development of implicit knowledge. In other words, the relationship and interaction between explicit and implicit knowledge have been the research purposes of many studies.. 2.2 Implicit Knowledge & Explicit Knowledge Due to the lack of valid measures of second language implicit and explicit learning, Ellis (2005) developed a battery of tests and established operational definitions of the two constructs— implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Implicit knowledge is defined as the tacit knowledge that involves intuitive awareness 17.

(26) and procedural knowledge and is therefore easily accessed by means of automatic processing. It is the kind of knowledge that native speakers acquire without deliberate intention. in. a. naturalistic. environment;. therefore,. implicit. knowledge. is. nonverbalizable and is only potentially learnable within critical period. Compared with explicit knowledge, implicit knowledge is considered more structured and thus can be used with more certainty. Explicit knowledge, in contrast, refers to learners’ knowledge and capacity to state rules specifically and it involves declarative knowledge, which comprises a collection of facts about L2. It shows more individual variability and is relatively more “inaccurate, imprecise, and inconsistent” (Ellis, 2004). Explicit knowledge involves learners’ conscious awareness, meaning that learners know what they have learned and they are aware of features of the target language. Learners can gain access to explicit knowledge by means of controlled processing at any age and explicit knowledge is considered to play a role of “monitoring” or “editing” the accuracy of language production (Ellis, 2004). Ellis provided a working definition of explicit knowledge as “the conscious awareness of what a language or language in general consists of and/or of the roles it plays in human life” (p.229). He further defined explicit knowledge in a simpler term as “knowledge about language and about the uses to which language can be put.” Furthermore, Ellis (2004) defined explicit knowledge from a different perspective, that is, from what explicit knowledge is not and then consider what it is. According to Ellis, explicit knowledge is not an attitude, a practice or an activity, nor is it a pedagogical construct. The content of explicit knowledge may include pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, pragmatic features, and sociocritical features (Ellis, 2004). Explicit knowledge is distinct from “the processes through which it is constructed” (i.e. explicit learning) and from “the uses to which it is put” (i.e. explicit 18.

(27) performance). To conclude the definition of explicit knowledge, Ellis (2004, p.244-245) provided a complete summary for the construct: Explicit L2 knowledge is the declarative and often anomalous knowledge of the phonological, lexical, grammatical, pragmatic, and sociocritical features of an L2 together with the metalanguage for labeling this knowledge. It is held consciously and is learnable and verbalizable. It is typically accessed through controlled processing when L2 learners experience some kind of linguistic difficulty in the use of the L2. Learners vary in the breadth and depth of their L2 explicit knowledge. While there is a general consensus that implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge have great influence on L2 production, different opinions about the relationship between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge arose. Moreover, their respective contributions to other variables such as L2 proficiency and learning outcome still remained unsettled. In the following section, the relationship between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge will be presented.. 2.3 Interaction between Implicit & Explicit Knowledge Green and Hecht (1992) devised a test in which 300 German learners of English and 50 native speakers of English were shown twelve ungrammatical sentences. They were asked to correct the errors and provide explanations or rules for these ungrammatical sentences. These errors in the sentences were chosen because the grammatical concepts had been included in the syllabus and they were frequently encountered in learners’ communicative tasks. The results showed that only fewer than half of the participants could provide a correct rule while they could achieve 78 percent of the error corrections. Besides, for the connection of correct rules with 19.

(28) correct error corrections, it seemed that correct rules could lead to correct error corrections. That is, if students had a correct rule available, they could make an accurate correction. However, learners were still able to make accurate corrections even if they learned incorrect rules (corrections 70 % correct) or when they knew no rule at all (corrections 55% correct). Green and Hecht concluded that a complex relationship seemed to exist between explicit rules and error corrections. Students were likely to correct the errors with implicit knowledge, which then prompted the use of explicit knowledge. In other words, the participants’ ability to use implicit knowledge (i.e. error correction) appeared to surpass their ability to use explicit knowledge (rule provision) and their explicit knowledge of the rules was only included as a subsection of implicit knowledge. Macrory and Stone (2000) conducted a project in a comprehensive school in the north-west of England. Ten students participated in the study and none of them showed particular talent or difficulty in learning French. The researchers investigated the learners’ own perceptions of their knowledge about the perfect tense in French by asking the students to recall what they knew about the rule of the perfect tense and in what situation they would use it. Moreover, the researchers assessed the participants’ actual knowledge of forms within the perfect tense by devising a gap-filling test in an oral and a written form to elicit their auxiliary use of participle. Finally, a semi-structured interview was conducted to see if the participants were able to use the structure in speaking and writing. The findings revealed that most participants were able to state clearly their knowledge about the perfect tense and all reported that they would use the structure when referring to actions in the past. On the gap-filling tests, they generally gave an auxiliary verb and a past participle as answers but when required to use the perfect tense in speaking and writing, they did not supply any auxiliary. Macrory and Stone thus indicated that there was a weak relationship 20.

(29) between the participants’ use and knowledge of the perfect tense in French. The learners could provide a clear understanding of the structure but they were less able to make use of the structure in spontaneous language production especially when referring to a third person. The study displayed a discrepancy between knowledge, which was considered to be related to explicit knowledge, and spontaneous language use, which was a representation of implicit knowledge. In the study of Hu (2002), he involved 64 Chinese learners of English at a university in Singapore in order to examine the extent to which metalinguistic knowledge could be employed in spontaneous writing tasks. The participants were required to complete a spontaneous writing task by writing a narrative and an argumentative in the first round. After the writing task, they were given a rule-verbalization task and an untimed error-correction task to raise their consciousness of the focused six structures in the study. Then the second round spontaneous writing task was undertaken, followed by another error-correction task with time pressure. Finally, the participants were provided with a prototypicality judgment task in which six pairs of structures were listed for them to judge which one was more prototypical. Hu discovered that when the learners were equipped with correct metalinguistic knowledge, their accuracy with prototypical structures increased and their prototypical uses of the structures were less susceptible to differences in their attention to form. Besides, the participants’ accuracy with the six structures increased in the second spontaneous writing task after the participants were drawn attention to form through the post-consciousness-raising activities, indicating their more use of and access to metalinguistic knowledge. More explicit knowledge appeared to result in better performance in spontaneous writing tasks. The studies reviewed above were to some extent connected to each other in their design. Green & Hecht (1992) and Macrory & Stone (2000) investigated the 21.

(30) relationship between implicit and explicit knowledge while Hu (2002) explored the extent to which metalinguistic knowledge could contribute to writing tasks. Among the studies, explicit knowledge was mostly operationalized as the learners’ ability to explain rules or correct errors in sentences, and implicit knowledge was considered to emerge in spontaneous oral language production. Many other studies further discussed the issue that whether or not implicit knowledge could be converted into explicit knowledge or vice versa. Holding the non-interface position, Paradis (1994) claimed that “explicit and implicit memory rely on different cerebral systems and are differentially involved during the acquisition/learning of a foreign language” (p.393). In his opinion, explicit knowledge could only be used consciously and accessed with deliberate attention. It could be used to check the accuracy of the utterances produced automatically by means of implicit knowledge but it was not likely to evolve into the automatic production. Explicit knowledge could only be employed when learners tried to make sentences slowly or judge the grammaticality of a sentence. Whereas some people argued that explicit knowledge could gradually become automatic through practice, Paradis (1994) negated the transformation between the two and compared the non-interface relationship to the phenomenon that once a caterpillar became a butterfly there was no caterpillar. He suggested that implicit and explicit knowledge “have different contents, and hence one cannot become the other, or be converted to the other or be transferred to the other” (p.405). According to Paradis (2009), four reasons could account for the non-transformation between implicit and explicit knowledge: (1) They are two distinct sources of knowledge and metalinguistic knowledge remains the same even if implicit knowledge is acquired. (2) They have qualitatively different nature. (3) They rely on separate and anatomically different cerebral systems. (4) One cannot notice what becomes internalized. Instead of 22.

(31) practicing the rule repeatedly, learners could possibly practice the utterances where the rule was used to automaticize the process by focusing attention on the form to be practiced. It was the “frequency of occurrence” and then the “frequency of practice” (Ellis, 2002) that was crucial in facilitating its “incorporation” (Paradis, 2009) into implicit knowledge. Another theory of second language acquisition that has been influential and associated with the strong non-interface perspective was the one proposed by Stephen Krashen (1982). According to him, “acquisition” and “learning” are two ways for adults to learn a second language. Acquisition will take place when learners are exposed to samples of the second language and it resembles how learners acquired their first language without paying conscious attention to form. Therefore, acquisition was primarily connected with implicit knowledge while explicit knowledge was seen relevant to “learning,” which developed via conscious attention to form and rules. For Krashen, acquisition was more prevalent and important since it was available in fluent communication and he asserted that learning could not transform into acquisition. Learning, instead, served as a monitor or an editor to correct the utterances produced by the acquisition system. Learners would use the monitor model only when they have sufficient time, when they pay attention to form, or when they know the rules. Likewise, Bialystok (1994) maintained that explicit knowledge differed from implicit knowledge and it was not likely for explicit knowledge to become implicit. Instead, it was the access to knowledge that changed and it was the easier access that resulted in more automatic processing and more fluent performance. Despite the change of access to knowledge, “the representation of the knowledge, in terms of clarity of structure, can never become less explicit” (p. 567). Bialystok’s position, therefore, was regarded as a weaker form of the noninterface position (Ellis, 2005). 23.

(32) In addition to the noninterface position, some claimed there was a strong interface relationship between implicit and explicit knowledge. Sharwood-Smith (1981), who first proposed the claim, and Dekeyser (1998) thought that explicit knowledge could be automaticized and turned into implicit knowledge through prolonged practice and implicit knowledge could lead to learners’ explicit explanation of rules.. 2.4 Studies & Measurement of Explicit Knowledge Apart from those studies that aimed to explore the relationship between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge, several studies narrowed down their focus and examined the effect of explicit knowledge or its relationship with other variables. Researchers also adopted a variety of instruments to determine and elicit participants’ explicit knowledge. Regarding the measurement of explicit knowledge, Ellis (2004) presented three main ways of measuring explicit L2 knowledge: grammaticality judgment tests, language aptitude tests, and tests of metalanguage. Concerning the studies that employed grammaticality judgment tests to measure explicit knowledge, some studies examined the disparity between participants’ capacity to apply explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge (Bialystok, 1979; Green & Hecht, 1992; Sorace, 1985), whereas some studies focused on particular aspects of participants’ explicit knowledge (Han & Ellis, 1998; Hu, 2002). With regard to the studies that adopted language aptitude tests, in some studies exploring the relationship between L2 proficiency and explicit knowledge, explicit knowledge was measured by means of the Words in Sentences Test section in the MLAT (Perales & Cenoz, 2002) or explicit knowledge was determined as participants’ language analytic ability, which was composed of grammaticality sensitivity and inductive language learning ability (Roehr, 2007). Additionally, there were studies including affective variables like 24.

(33) aptitude into the research besides L2 proficiency. For example, Robinson (1995) investigated the relationship between explicit knowledge, aptitude, and awareness by using Paired Associates and Words in Sentences in MLAT. With respect to tests of metalanguage, it will be elaborated and expatiated in the next section—Studies and Measurement of Metalinguistic Ability.. 2.4.1 Grammaticality Judgment Tests Bialystok (1979) had three groups of English speaking learners of French (i.e. 317 participants) participate in her study. The instruments used in the study were 24 isolated French sentences, in which 6 sentences were grammatically correct and 18 sentences contained grammatical errors on categories such as adjectives, indirect or direct object pronoun, and verb formation. The participants were assigned to one of the three conditions: (a) they listened to the sentence and judged if it was grammatical or not (b) they identified the affected parts of speech in the ungrammatical sentences (c) they matched one of the nine rules provided in the test to explain the error violated by each ungrammatical sentence. All the participants were given spontaneous and delay time conditions. The results showed that implicit knowledge was employed to judge the grammaticality of the sentences while explicit knowledge was essential in further analysis of the incorrect sentences. Sorace (1985) conducted a study to investigate the development of metalinguistic knowledge and the relationship between knowing and using a language with two groups of students of Italian (i.e. nine beginners and eight intermediate students). The participants were asked to complete three types of test: a written Judgment Test (JT), which was meant to tap into metalinguistic knowledge, an oral Picture Description Task (PDT), which represented a non-communicative condition and an informal conversation with the interviewer, which served as a communicative 25.

(34) occasion. The JT included ungrammatical sentences with errors of six grammatical structures in Italian and the participants were required to (1) write in English if the sentence was correct or not (2) make corrections of the errors (3) formulate the statement of the rules to explain the errors. A developmental pattern of metalinguistic knowledge emerged in the study that formulation of the rules was the most difficult task for them to achieve, appearing at the last stage of the developmental pattern. As stated in the previous section, Green and Hecht (1992) investigated the relationship between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge. As for their measurement of implicit and explicit knowledge, they adopted a grammaticality explanation test, in which the participants were asked to correct twelve sentences and then provide explanations of the rules. The results showed that the participants’ ability to correct the errors (i.e. implicit knowledge) exceeded their ability to provide rule explanations for the errors (i.e. explicit knowledge). In addition, there were studies focusing on particular aspects of explicit knowledge. Han & Ellis (1998) invited 48 adult learners with intermediate-plus level from a university intensive English program to their study. Their study aimed to explore ways of measuring implicit and explicit knowledge and examined the roles of implicit and explicit knowledge in general language proficiency. Scores were gained from the following instruments which focused on learners’ knowledge of verb complements: a timed oral production test, a timed grammaticality judgment test, a delayed grammaticality judgment test, the TOEFL, the SLEP (Secondary Level English Proficiency Test) and an interview aimed to tap into participants’ metalanguage. The results showed that there was a clear distinction between these measures that executed with time limit (for implicit knowledge) and these that did not (for explicit knowledge). All measures were found to correlate with scores on the SLEP but only the delayed grammaticality test was discovered to correlate with the 26.

(35) scores on the TOEFL. Hu (2002) invited 64 Chinese learners of English to participate in his study. What differed from the previous studies was that the aspect studied was the prototypicality of six English structures. The participants’ metalinguistic knowledge about the six structures was measured through a verbalization task and a judgment task was implemented for the participants to judge the prototypicality of the uses. As for their attention to form, it was operationalized by two production tasks (spontaneous writing tasks and error correction tasks) and by time limit. It was found that participants’ displayed greater accuracy with more prototypical ones in writing and error-correction tasks and a significant interaction existed between prototypicality and attention to form. All the aforementioned studies investigated learners’ explicit knowledge by taking advantage of the grammaticality judgment tasks to measure participants’ explicit knowledge. According to Ellis (2004), participants were usually required to perform the three operations as elicitation of their explicit knowledge: “(a) identification of the ungrammatical sentences (b) correction of the errors and (c) provision of rules” (p.249). Green & Hecht’s (1992) study did not include (a) since all the sentences in the study were ungrammatical. To overcome the problem of potentially inaccurate and imprecise verbalization in (c), Bialystok (1979) developed a test for learners’ receptive knowledge of rules as learners could choose one reasonable rule from a list of nine rules. Several studies (e.g., Green & Hecht, 1992; Hu, 2002) required participants to verbalize the rules and most studies examined a range of grammatical features except that Han & Ellis (1998) focused on the use of verb complements and Hu (2002) investigated the prototypicality of six English structures. These studies “attempted to investigate explicit knowledge as conscious 27.

(36) awareness” (Ellis, 2004, p.249) but only Sorace (1985) operationalized the Judgment Test (JT) as a measure of metalinguistic knowledge. As a matter of fact, in terms of the content of the Judgment Test, it is more like a measurement of explicit knowledge than of metalinguistic knowledge. Other studies using the grammaticality judgment test claimed that learners’ capacity to judge the grammaticality of a sentence could reflect their access to explicit knowledge but could not ensure their use of metalinguistic knowledge. Ellis (2004) also maintained that grammaticality judgment tests could be a way of measuring explicit knowledge but obtaining a measure of metalanguage required verbal reports. Perhaps that is why Ellis (2005) designed an untimed GJT and a metalinguistic knowledge test as measures of explicit knowledge but separated GJT from metalinguistic knowledge test.. 2.4.2 Language Aptitude Tests For language aptitude tests, Ellis (2004) defined “the ability to reflect on language and extract abstract information” as one aspect of language aptitude. According to the classic model of language learning aptitude developed by Carroll (Carroll, 1965; Carroll & Sapon, 1959) aptitude was not a general unitary ability but a composite of four constituent abilities: 1. phonetic coding ability: the ability to identify and remember sounds in L2; 2. grammatical sensitivity: the ability to recognize how words function grammatically in sentences; measured by the Words in Sentences Test section. 3. inductive language learning ability: the ability to infer grammatical rules from language examples; 4. rote-learning ability: the ability to form and remember associations between sounds and meaning; measured by the Paired Associates section. (cited from Roehr, 2007, p.176). 28.

(37) Among the five subsections in MLAT developed by Carroll and Sapon (1959), the most widely-used section “Words in Sentences Test” was regarded as a direct measure of grammatical sensitivity. Perales & Cenoz’s (2002) study also employed the section as one part of the test for metalinguistic awareness. Test takers were presented with a key sentence with one part of speech underlined and then another five parts of speech was underlined in a second sentence. They had to choose one option from the five to match the part of speech in the key sentence and one of the findings revealed that there was a significant correlation between L2 proficiency in Basque and metalinguistic awareness. Another study that also used the Words in Sentences Test was Robinson’s (1995) study. He incorporated four independent variables and aimed to examine the effect of the independent variables on the accuracy in grammaticality judgment tasks. The four independent variables were learning conditions with four levels (i.e., implicit, incidental, explicit rule-search and explicit instructed condition), rules to be learned with two difficulty levels (i.e., simple and complex), language learning aptitude assessed by the two subsections (i.e., Paired Associates and Words in Sentences) of the MLAT, and awareness measured with the three ways (i.e., noticing, search, and verbalization of rules). The findings revealed that language learning aptitude correlated with both learning and awareness in the implicit, instructed, and rule-search conditions, but not in the incident condition. Participants’ awareness for noticing rules did not facilitate learning for participants in any condition, their awareness for searching for rules caused better learning for learners in the implicit condition and their awareness for verbalizing rules enhanced learning for both learners in implicit and rule-search conditions. On the other hand, Skehan (1986, 1989) updated Carroll’s model of four components and reconceptualized it, propounding that grammaticality sensitivity and inductive language learning ability should be categorized together as the language 29.

(38) analytic ability. Roehr’s (2007) study examined advanced university students’ L2 proficiency-metalinguistic knowledge relationship and the relationship between the two sections of the metalinguistic knowledge test (e.g., ability to correct, describe and explain plus language analytic ability). The language analytic section was based on the Words in Sentences section in MLAT and the participants were required to apply knowledge about grammatical categories and relations between grammatical categories. The participants did not have to use any metalinguistic knowledge about terminology here since one part of speech in each sentence was underlined. Not only did a positive relationship between the linguistic ability and metalinguistic knowledge emerge, but also a principal component analysis suggested that the two sections of the metalinguistic knowledge test were of the same construct—explicit knowledge.. 2.5 Studies and Measurement of Metalinguistic Ability As what Ellis (2004) defined, metalinguistic knowledge was considered learners’ conscious knowledge about grammatical terminology and it was explicit and declarative in nature. Though metalinguistic knowledge is explicit and verbalizable, it is not considered identical to explicit knowledge. Instead, explicit knowledge is regarded as a wider construct that included metalinguistic knowledge (Alderson et al., 1997). In recent years, as there has been increasing research interest in form-focused instruction and grammar, several studies addressed the issue of metalinguistic awareness, metalinguistic reflection, and metalinguistic knowledge, which were not synonymous with each other but relevant to each other to certain extent. Andrews (1999) conducted a study to investigate the metalinguistic awareness of two groups of native and non-native speakers teaching English in Hong Kong. The study focused on teacher metalinguistic awareness, which was related to teachers’ 30.

(39) explicit knowledge of grammar and grammatical terminology but not “synonymous with explicit knowledge about language” (p.144). The term metalinguistic awareness was therefore specified as learners’ “reflections upon their explicit knowledge about language,” the relationship between the knowledge itself and extent of the knowledge application. The teachers were given a test with 60 items created by Alderson et al. (1997). The test consisted of four sections, with the first section testing learners’ ability to recognize metalinguistic terms and functions, the second section focusing on learners’ production of proper metalinguistic terms, the third section dealing with error identification and correction tasks, and the final section asking learners to explain the errors by stating proper rules. The results confirmed the two hypotheses that the group of teachers with teaching experience performed better than the group of inexperienced teachers , and the NNS teachers generally performed better than the NS teachers. As it can be seen from the instruments used in the study, the test aimed to elicit not only the participants’ metalinguistic knowledge (e.g., the tasks of error identification, correction and rule explanation were frequently used to measure metalinguistic knowledge), but also the application of the knowledge itself (e.g., learners’ production and recognition of terminology) and that was in accordance with the definition of metalinguistic awareness given at the beginning of the study. In addition to drawing learners’ attention to form by arousing their metalinguistic awareness, another possible way was to have them verbalize their reflection about language, that is, their metalinguistic reflection about the target language. In Simard’s (2004) study, metalinguistic reflection was elicited through the use of diary and it referred to the “acts of reflection about the language that are under conscious control including the learner’s intentional planning of his/her linguistic processing” (Gombert, 1992, p.41, cited in Simard, 2004, p.35). The study took place in Quebec, Canada, with 81 grade six French speaking students assigned to one of the 31.

(40) three groups (i.e., the control group, experimental enriched group, and experimental regular group) and measured in three periods of time (i.e., pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-test) through their diary writing and tests for metalinguistic reflection ability. The obtained data showed that the enriched group wrote more explicit comments about the L2 more frequently in their diaries. Teaching might have a stronger effect than the diary task on their metalinguistic reflection capacity since the enriched group was drawn attention to aspects of the L2 more frequently by the instructor. Besides, the students’ ability to reflect on the language was not affected or facilitated by the diary writing because it remained almost the same throughout the study. The participants seemed to be able to reflect on the L2 before the pre-test and Simard suggested that it supported the early emergence of metalinguistic awareness. As for the pre-test and post-test differences, the students’ capacity to reflect on the target language decreased for all three groups on the delayed post-test and this may be due to the students’ boredom with the test. Simard’s (2004) study suggested that L2 learners reflected on the target language through the use of diaries which included open-ended questions could elicit learners’ metalinguistic reflection. However, what lacked in Simard’s (2004) study was the investigation of the relationship between metalinguistic reflection and actual L2 learning. As a result, Simard et al. (2007) aimed to further address this link. Twenty nine sixth-grade students of an intensive ESL class participated in the study and a journal-writing task was applied to collect students’ metalinguistic reflection. L2 learning was measured by a grammatical accuracy test and two vocabulary test (one receptive and one productive). The grammatical accuracy test consisted of a cloze passage and a multiple-choice fill-in-the-blank test. The participants made significant gains from the pre-test to the post-test on the grammatical and vocabulary tests but there was no significant correlation between the gains and their 32.