TESOL: Grammar through communication activities

TESOL: Grammar through Communication activities

by Patrizia GiampieriGraduate Student

MSc Applied Linguistics

Aston University, Birmingham, UK

February 2015

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TABLE OF CONTENT

Introduction and background page 3

Methodology_ __ page 3

Analysis page 7

Conclusions page 14

Key word list page 16

Reference List page 17

Appendix page 19

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Introduction and background

Victoria (a nickname) is a 18-year-old student, who used to be one of my student and told me she

could neither remember grammar rules, nor apply them. Two years ago, after completing the school

year and meeting regularly, she had in fact gained a good grasp of the grammar rules and could

apply them quite automatically. Therefore, I understood that there had been something wrong with

my teaching method. I was used to preparing students by practising discrete grammatical structures

and providing explicit and focused grammar instructions where rules were presented, manipulated

(Nassaji&Fotos, 2011:3) and then drilled (Hinkel&Fotos, 2002:14). My approach to grammar was

therefore based on “constrained constructed responses” (Ellis, 2006a:86), such as fill-in-the-blanks,

sentence joining, sentence transformation and translation activities by means of de-contextualised

sentences. There were no communicative tasks involved and my grammar explanations were mostly

carried out in the student's L1.

Victoria's teacher suggested that she took grammar lessons. My main concern was therefore with

improving her grammatical accuracy, according to the school program. Furthermore, considering

the fact that Victoria could neither remember grammar rules nor apply them after so much work, I

decided to change my teaching approach and proposed a new method, as I learnt in this module.

Therefore, I planned to teach grammar with a focus on communication skills improvement and help

her understand and apply grammar rules correctly by stimulating her implicit knowledge,

conscious processing (Schmidt 1990:131ff) and noticing (“no noticing, no acquisition”, Ellis

1995:89).

The aim of this assignment is therefore to explore whether grammar rule teaching can be improved

by focusing on communication, by providing corrective feedbacks (Lyster et al.2013) and by means

of reconstruction tasks (Thornbury 1997) and pre-tasks (Nassaj&Fotos 2011:13, Willis&Willis

1996:12).

Methodology

My action research was carried out by 12 face-to-face lessons, one or two hours each, delivered

over a period of one month and a half. Recordings were carried out in order to monitor the student's

progress, check and correct her mistakes and improve noticing. Books and texts were chosen on the

basis of their level of complexity vis-à-vis the student's school program. To this respect, I selected

two school books which contained the grammar rules the student needed to practise together with

some communication tasks, such as: pre-task activities (Nassaj&Fotos 2011:13, Willis&Willis

1996:12) (preparing the student to a text by brainstorming and by highlighting some of the

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vocabulary used in a story); and reconstruction tasks (dictogloss, translations and re-translations,

text reading and dictations followed by oral reproduction), aimed at matching the student's

reconstructed text with the original one (Thornbury 1997:330ff) and enhancing noticing. The texts

and tasks were selected in order to help Victoria practise grammar exercises while enhancing her

communication skills. To this aim, she was asked to read texts (most of the times silently) and

summarise them orally. Sometimes, I dictated texts to her and asked to carry out reconstruction

tasks. However, the main focus was to improve her grammar knowledge, therefore the lessons were

aimed at giving her a chance to consolidate patterns and rules while practising verbs and sentence

building.

At the end of each lesson, I used to ask Victoria how she felt and what she found particularly

difficult or motivating. On the basis of her answers and of her visible improvements or difficulties, I

decided each time how to carry on the action research and the following lessons.

In order to focus the student's attention on language, I also introduced the term “noticing” during

our lessons, in phrases like “what differences do you notice?” (Thornbury, 1997:333). Our lessons

were aimed at promoting the student's language processing and converting “input” into “intake”

(Thornbury 1997:330).

With the student's consent, I also decided to explore whether it was possible to learn grammar by

enhancing the implicit knowledge of the target language (TL) by means of a focus-on-form (FonF)

approach, and by providing corrective feedbacks (CF).

FonF is a meaning-based methodology (Hinkel&Fotos, 2002) where grammar instructions are

combined with communicative language learning. According to Nassaji & Fotos, FonF in fact

“involves the teacher's attempt to draw the student's attention to grammatical forms in the context of

communication” (2004:131). In addition, FonF enhances students' implicit knowledge and

interlanguage while fostering oral/written production:

“because the acquisition of implicit knowledge occurs as a result of learners attending to linguistic

form at the same time they are engaged with understanding and producing meaningful messages”

(Ellis 2006a:101)

Following Fotos' advice (1998:302-3), I tried to “combine explicit grammar instruction with

communicative activities” by reviewing the target structures in context while providing CF on

errors. CF are “responses to learner utterances containing an error” (Ellis 2006b:28). Research

proved that students prefer to be corrected, as there is a

“clear tendency for learners to express a preference for receiving CF over having their errors

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ignored”

(Lyster et al.2013:7)

Therefore, I decided to provide immediate corrections on errors, in order to help Victoria notice and

self-repair. In this way, CF allowed to match her current level of knowledge with the target

language (Schmidt & Frota, 1986).

To this respect, I used both explicit and implicit CF, as suggested by Lyster et al. (2013:4). Explicit

CF were: elicitations (promoting the student's self-correction by means of wh- questions and

encouraging to reformulate erroneous phrases); explicit corrections (reformulating the student's

error and providing a clear indication of the error) and metalinguistic explanations (providing

metalinguistic comments on the student's errors, in order to make sure she understood the

corrections and processed the language consciously). According to Ellis (2006a:84), in fact,

grammar teaching provides students with the tools to understand grammatical forms

metalinguistically and to internalize them:

“grammar teaching involves any instructional technique that draws learners' attention to some

specific grammatical form in such a way that it helps them either to understand it metalinguistically

and/or process it in comprehension and/or production so that they can internalize it”.

All activities were also aimed at consciousness-raising:

“drawing of learners' attention to the formal properties of language" because “learners may then

notice a particular linguistic feature in subsequent input”

(Cross, 2002:1)

I also used implicit CF (Lyster et al.2013:4), such as prompts, in the form of clarification requests

(phrases like pardon? or I don't understand, aimed at signalling an error while the student spoke),

and verbatim repetitions of an utterance, often with the right intonation, aimed at highlighting a

pronunciation error and promoting repair. Prompts were used because they improved Victoria's

memory, as “retrieval and subsequent production can strengthen associations in memory” (Lyster et

al.2013:11), whereas verbatim repetitions were considered important because wrong

pronunciations sometimes entailed grammar errors (see “read” in L-12,T-3,l-5 and L-12,T-4,l50:52):

<<V:I read(0.2)only(.)I only read(0.2)read=read>>(L-12,T-3,l-5)

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<<P:(..)the verb paradigm(0.1)is(.)read=read=read(0.1)will you say it again(.)please?

V:yes(.)read(.)read(.)read>>(L-12,T-3,l-50:52)

However, most of my CF were metalinguistic explanations and explicit corrections. The other CF

could only be used at the end of the action research, when Victoria was able and confident to

respond in a timely manner. At the beginning, in fact, my prompts and elicitations mostly confused

her (see the Analysis here below and L-2,T-1,l-4:7).

Instructions were also aimed at helping Victoria notice the target structure and its use in

communicative activities, in order to foster language acquisition (or “trigger the cognitive processes

involved in restructuring the learners' internal linguistic system” Fotos, 1998:302-3).

I also tried to enhance noticing, which is vital for language processing, because students do not

reproduce new forms automatically:

“learners do not move immediately from an understanding of new language forms to the

spontaneous production of those forms”

(Willis 2003:7)

“noticing has supposed implications for language processing and the actual acquisition of linguistic

features"

(Cross, 2002:1)

According to Thornbury (1997:326) noticing facilitates in fact “the process whereby explicit

knowledge becomes implicit knowledge”.

For these reasons, I tried to stimulate Victoria's conscious processing, being the “necessary

condition for one step in the language learning process” (Schmidt 1990:131). In order to reach

acquisition, learners must in fact “notice the gap” (Schmidt & Frota, 1986), which entails

comparing the linguistic system they realize in their output with the TL system available as input

(Thornbury, 1997:327). When a structure is pointed out to students, they start noticing and

incorporating it into their “spontaneous language production” over time (Willis 2003:7).

In this way, my corrections were aimed at fostering noticing, because they allowed to compare

students' output with the target language, or to:

“make comparisons between interlanguage output and target language models” (Thornbury,

1997:327)

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Interlanguage (IL) is the student's attempted language output:

“a separate linguistic system based on the observable output which results from a learner's

attempted production of a TL norm”

(Selinker, 1972:214)

Fossilisation characterised Victoria's language production. Fossilisation is a mechanism that

speakers tend to maintain when performing their IL (Selinker, 1972:29). Fossilisable linguistic

phenomena are:

“linguistic items, rules, and subsystems which speakers of a particular L1 tend to keep in their IL

relative to a particular TL”

(Selinker, 1972:215)

In this action research, it was remarkable how Victoria's fossilisation gradually decreased, as the

result of her conscious language processing, enhanced implicit knowledge and communicative skills

improvement.

Another important role in our lessons was played by motivation, which I tried to encourage by

congratulating on Victoria's improvements. Research proved in fact that motivation is very

important to language learning (Dornyei 2001).

All 12 lessons, together with the initial and final tests, are reported in the Appendix, with a thorough

analysis of the text used, the encountered difficulties, the improvements made and the results

attained. There are also full descriptions on the texts and tasks performed, with information about

why I chose them.

Analysis

Victoria made an initial test to help me assess her grammar knowledge. She showed difficulties in

making questions, in the use of auxiliary verbs, in applying the simple past and present perfect

tenses, in the terminal -s and if clauses.

In the light of the above, L-1 started with a simple reconstruction task, based on a short text (65

words) in the present tense. Victoria read the text and repeated its content while I was both

recording and transcribing her words. Although she seemed to understand the text, she had

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difficulties in reproducing it orally; in using the right words and in applying grammar rules while

speaking. According to Willis, in fact, students can utter correct forms only when they pay “careful

attention” (Willis, 2003:7). During the first lesson, she was probably too emotional to pay enough

attention to grammar rules while speaking (there were, in fact, many little pauses and uncertainty,

highlighted by hmm and word repetitions, together with some mistakes). Her reconstruction task

was unsuccessful: she could not find any relevant differences between her summary (which I

transcribed) and the original text. Therefore, she did not notice her mistakes. For this reason, I

provided metalinguistic explanations in order to be sure she could notice and correct them in

subsequent use.

In L-2 the level of difficulty of the text increased, both in length and in grammar (it contained past

simple and past perfect verbs, relative clauses and the possessive case), although still consistent

with her school program. In her reconstructed version she could not find any mistakes and she

forgot all terminal -s. Her sentences were linked to each other with no apparent logic in the use of

conjunctions:

<<the dog Harry eat this sandwich(fff)but(0.1)(hmm)Jim has(0.2)has other(hmm)sandwich(hmm)

(0.2)bu=but(.)the dog and Jim(hmm)(0.1)are sick>>(L-2,T-1,l-9:10)

In order to improve noticing and consciousness-raising, I used elicitation and asked why she used

the present simple tense and what this choice would imply (T-3,l-6). Victoria replied in Italian; she

said she used the present tense because she did not remember the irregular verb paradigms.

Unfortunately, my elicitation did not help her notice all missing -s. I hence asked Victoria to

translate some de-contextualised phrases and I noticed that when she concentrated on single

phrases, she made no mistakes (T-4). The problem was, as pointed out by Willis (2003:7-8), that as

long as she focused carefully on single utterances, she showed some control over the -s, but when

she focused on meaning or when real time processing was involved, she was more likely to lose

control over the syntax, and, as a result, over the -s. In this way, Victoria tended to “fossilise”

(Selinker, 1972) and utter “errors” in her IL when her attention was focused on difficult matters (in

this case: repeating the text content) or when she was anxious (when she felt she was making

mistakes). Therefore, the appearance of such behaviour was not limited (only) to a phonetic level

(Selinker, 1972:216). In this lesson I tried to provide CF by means of clarification requests and

prompts, thinking they could enhance self-repair, but, at this stage, I was wrong as my interruptions

mostly confused her (see below):

<<P:sure?

V:(0.10)(hmm)(0.10)

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P:that's ok(.)please continue(.)

V:(non ricordo più=I can't remember any more)>>(L-2,T-1,l-4:7)

Some improvements were visible in L-3, when Victoria read and summarized orally a text written

by myself. It was the same story as L-2, but with some minor differences; compared to L-2, the text

was simpler both in content and in syntax. Victoria's oral summary was successful: she started to

self-repair (she corrected herself soon after uttering mistakes) and her phrases were logical,

although she did not notice that the two stories were different. Despite this, her grammar improved

(all past tense verbs were correct), and her confidence and fluency increased (there were less hmm

and word repetitions). In answering my questions, however, Victoria forgot some terminal -s (T-2,l-

11:13), probably because of the difficulties in structuring an answer in a very short time:

<< in the first(0.1)story(0.2)Joyce ma=make(.)sandwiches>>(T-2,l-11)

At the end of this lesson, despite Willis' suggestion that rehearsal is of little help with the terminal

-s (2003:15) and in order to enhance her memory and implicit knowledge, I asked her to write down

10 times two phrases where she forgot the -s (T-3). I noticed that this actually helped: from L-5 on,

she did not forget the terminal -s any more:

<<he(hmm)don't=he doesn't eat jam(.)but he eat=he eats honey>>(L-5,T-1,l-9)

In L-4 I read aloud a text written in the past tense which contained both direct and indirect speech

phrases. In the text were also some words she did not know, but I had thought she could guess their

meanings and understand the story anyway. Unfortunately, I had not taken into due consideration

the challenges of the listening task. Therefore, the reconstruction activity was unsuccessful. In order

to help her understand a text, summarise it orally and enhance her communication skills, I proposed

some pre-tasks (Nassaj & Fotos, 2011:13; Willis & Willis, 1996:12) and I noticed how drawings

were vital to understand the story content. I also proposed dictoglosses and showed some drawings

representing their content (T-3). Victoria could grasp their meanings, but she was still unable to

reproduce the stories and dictoglosses in English. After this lesson, I understood how listening was

an issue for Victoria, but as listening was not the focus of our action research, with her consent we

decided to carry out other tasks in the following lessons.

From L-5 on Victoria continued her progress: she visibly improved the use of the past tense verbs

(see below); not only did she start noticing her mistakes but, at the same time, she also knew how to

correct them:

<<he doesn't=he didn't(hmm)worry>>(L-5,T-1,l-5)

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<<one day he(0.3)saw something strange>>(L-5,T-1,l-3)

She further improved her self-repair and started questioning herself about any grammar rule

application she was not sure of (hence, her consciousness had been successfully “raised”):

<<something strange(hmm)(0.4)be=between(?)(.)between the fruit>>(L-5,T-1,l-3:4)

Also her logic (in the use of conjunctions) improved visibly:

<<and=but the boss said>>(L-5,T-1,l-4)

It seemed, therefore, that her implicit knowledge and language processing were improving. As a

result, her fossilisation decreased.

At the end of each lesson, I used to provide metalinguistic explanations in order to facilitate her

consciousness-raising and to be sure she would understand, notice and internalize (Ellis 2006a:84)

rules for further processing.

In L-6 I proposed a pre-task by showing some pictures (L-6, Appendix 1) which described a story.

The brainstorming and the subsequent reconstruction activity were successful. She showed a good

mastery of the verb paradigms and the drawings helped her understand and summarise the story

content logically. From L-6 on, her self-repair was also on pronunciation:

<<Molly heard=heard(hmm)a woman's voice>>(L-7,T-1,l-5)

Also laughter emerged, as an important way to release pressure (Bull&Ma, 2001:15) while

continuing self-repair and processing the language consciously:

<<and the girl %and the girl%(0.6)(hmm)%falled(?)%>>(L-6,T-1,l-3)

Laughters were uttered in all the following lessons also as a sign of her increased confidence and

motivation.

Another sign of confidence increase, was visible from L-7 and was the sudden drop of the Italian

discourse marker allora (meaning well) used to start all oral summaries:

<<(allora)in the USA(.)(hmm)>>(L-1,T-1)

<<(allora)Joyce(.)in the morning>>(L-2,T-1)

<<(allora)Jo=Joyce('hh)>>(L-3,T-1)

<<(allora)Nadia and(.)George>>(L-4,T-1)

<<(allora)Jack is a student>>(L-5,T-1)

<<(allora)On Christmas Juliana (.)>>(L-6,T-2)

<<Molly Wilson was a waitress>>(L-7,T-1)

I did not tell her the English equivalent of allora, but I expressed my congratulations on its drop,

explaining that it was a sign of her increased confidence and a way to “internalize” Ellis(2006a) the

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English language.

In L-8 I proposed a different reconstruction task: a translation and re-translation, in order to verify

her level of accuracy and whether that “extra effort involved” might “trigger noticing” (Thornbury

1997:330). As suggested by Thornbury (1997:333), Victoria used a dictionary, although I did not

think that this had been determinant to her success, because the text arrangement, the use of

conjunctions were good, and grammar rules were applied correctly. At the end, I provided

corrective feedbacks on her mistakes by using metalinguistic explanations and explicit corrections.

L-9 started with some good news, which increased Victoria's motivation further. She told me she

had made a test at school and, although still not being a complete pass mark, it was higher. With the

student's consent, L-9 was a little more complex than the others (although still in line with the

school program); there were in fact some words she did not know, whose meaning she had to guess

in context. In addition, the plot was more complex than the previous stories; the text contained

humour, which could have made it difficult. Furthermore, from L-9 on, I started asking some

comprehension questions in English. As a result, Victoria was requested to think of and organise an

answer in a very short time. I knew that my questions might have confused her (see L-2). For these

reasons, the level of complexity of L-9 increased in content, grammar and in the involved tasks.

However, Victoria performed very well; she was able to understand the text, organise her summary

and answer to my questions correctly and in a logical way:

<<P:Ok(.)did he like the work?

V:No(0.4)because(hmm)he(hmm)(0.2)he wasn't adap=adapt for(.)this job>>(L-9,T-3,l-4)

She also continued to self-repair both in grammar and in pronunciation:

<<he was out bank staff=staff>>(L-9,T-1,l-8)

<<four night=nights a week>>(L-9,T-3,l-6)

In L-10 I proposed a dictation with the view to further converting her “input” into “intake”

(Thornbury 1997:330). Differently from the previous lessons, this time Victoria was happy to

correct the discrepancies between the dictated text and her written production, because, thanks to

the corrections, she could understand the words which were not clear to her and which did not make

sense (Miss taken identity vs. Mistaken identity; he route vs. he wrote). Such spelling errors were

obviously due to the challenges raised by the listening task. Despite this, her oral production was

very good. Her increased confidence was remarkable: Victoria interrupted me while I was making

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questions. I considered this eagerness to speak (taking the turn) a further increase in confidence and

motivation:

<<P:what happened to Mr.Fra[

V: [Mr. Frank(hmm)(..)>>(L-10,T-4,l-3:4)>>

<<P: how long did he have to stay in pri[?

V: [Mr. Frank stayed in prison(..)>>(L-10,T-4,l-15:6)

In this lesson, her subsequent oral self-repair decreased a little in view of the decreased mistakes

uttered.

In L-11 I tried eliciting her self-correction by means of wh-questions, (Lyster et al. 2013:4), but she

was probably tired, and used Italian to provide an answer and, in a way, to repair:

<<P:what is the difference(.)between(.)take(0.1)and give?

V:(hmm)ta(.)take(hmm)(cioè take vuol dire prendere e give dare)>>(L-11,T-2,l-4:5)

From L-11 on, however, it was interesting to notice that Victoria's hmm decreased substantially, as a

result of her increased confidence and of the language practice and processing. In addition, she

continued to self-repair:

<<Mr. Frank(hmm)ask=asked bec=why the money(hmm)(no)when(.)the money>>(L-11,T-1,l-11)

Up to L-11, all my corrective feedbacks and explicit corrections were followed by metalinguistic

explanations in order to make sure Victoria understood them for further processing, noticing, and

consciousness-raising.

With the student's consent, L-12 started with a listening task. Victoria was asked to repeat a story I

read aloud, but this was unsuccessful because she could not understand the overall story content due

to the challenging task. However, this time the confidence she had been raising helped her not to

feel disappointed. I then proposed a dictation, in which Victoria still made some spelling mistakes

(Garden instead of Guardian). However, after making her notice and correct her mistakes, she

successfully summarized the story orally. I provided explanations in English (T-4) and used

prompts, elicitations and verbatim repetitions to induce repair, obtaining successful results (see

a,b,c,d here below). I decided to do so in the very last lesson, because in a previous lesson(L-2)

Victoria proved not to be ready for interruptions:

a)<<V:the guardian angels(hmm)i=are(..)>>(L-12,T-4,l-3)

(..)<<P:who are the guardian angels?(0.1)again(.)say it again(.)ya>>

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V:(0.2)the guardian(0.1)angels('hh)are(0.6)were>>(L-12,T-4,l-5:6)

b)<<P:pardon?

V:a(:)re(0.3)

P:sure?(0.1)Are you sure?

V:(0.17)%no%(hmm)(0.8)were>>(L-12,T-4,l-19:22)

c)<<P:this(.)or these?

V:this>>(L-12,T-4,l-27:28)

d)<<P:the past simple of(.)to wear(.)is(.)wore(.)say it(.)please

V:wore>>(L-12,T-4,l-39:41)

Another important success, probably triggered by my explanations carried out in English, was her

clarification question in English, whereas, up to this lesson, she only had uttered the Italian

equivalent ripeti? (see e):

e)<<V:repeat(.)please?>>(L-12,T-4,l-30)

Although L-12 was much longer than all other lessons, Victoria performed very well and was

always able to structure sentences correctly, both from a grammatical and a logical point of view.

She also continued to self-repair or question herself on words she was not sure of:

<<there was(no)there were>>(L-12,T-5,l-3)

<<weared(0.1)wo=wored(?)>>(L-12,T-5,l-5)

<<ha(0.2)hat(.)ed them>>(L-12,T-5,l-10)

The final test consisted mainly of the same kind of exercises Victoria had made at the beginning of

our action research and that she was used to making at school. She showed a good mastery of

grammar rules and improved in all areas where, at the beginning, she had made mistakes (use of

auxiliary verbs, terminal -s, making questions, if clauses). Therefore, I considered the result of this

action research positive, also in view of her improved communication skills (logic use of

conjunctions and sentence building).

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Conclusions

This assignment was carried out with the view to verifying whether it was possible to improve one

of my student's grammar knowledge on the basis of 12 face-to-face lessons, delivered over a period

of one month and a half. Being my past teaching methods unsuccessful, because the student could

not retain most of the grammar rules she had been practising, I decided to propose grammar lessons

focused on communication skills improvement, by a FonF approach (Nassaji&Fotos 2004, Ellis

2006a), which implied “no separate grammar lessons but rather grammar teaching integrated into a

curriculum consisting of communicative tasks” (Ellis 2006a:101), together with reconstruction

activities (Thornbury 1997), pre-tasks (Nassaj&Fotos, 2011:13; Willis&Willis, 1996:12) and CF

(Lyster et al.2013), mostly in the form of metalinguistic explanations and explicit corrections.

Other forms of CF, such as prompts, verbatim repetitions and elicitations could be used at the end,

when the student was confident enough and able to react to my CF in a timely manner and

successfully (without losing “track” of her speech).

I consider this action research successful and the goal to improve the student's grammar knowledge

attained. This is proved both by the final test and by her step-by-step improvements undertaken

from L-1 to L-12, where she showed improvements in speaking, applying grammar rules, and in

organising and connecting sentences logically.

The first improvement was her self-repair, in the form of subsequent oral self-corrections after a

wrong utterance. When she could not self-repair (for instance, because she did not remember the

right word), she questioned herself about the correctness of the word uttered. Consciousness-raising

was therefore triggered. An important sign of her increased self confidence was laughter used as a

way to release pressure (Bull&Ma, 2001:15), as well as the drop of the Italian discourse marker

allora at the beginning of her oral summaries. This showed improvements in her implicit

knowledge, language processing and in the internalization of English words into her interlanguage.

Her interruptions while I was making questions were also other signs of her eagerness to speak and

increased confidence and motivation. In the very last lesson, she started asking clarification

questions in English, which showed other improvements in her interlanguage.

CF were introduced gradually because Victoria tended to lose “track” of her speech if I interrupted

her. Therefore, I first asked comprehension questions (L-9,T-3), then clarification requests (L-11,T-

2) and, in the final lesson, I also used verbatim repetitions, prompts and elicitations (L-12,T-4). In

this way, Victoria reacted gradually by processing the language consciously and increasing her

communication skills.

In this assignment, it was also interesting to remark Victoria's decreased fossilisation (Selinker,

1972), as a result of her conscious language processing and enhanced implicit knowledge. Another

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relevant factor which I noticed, was how congratulations motivated her and helped language

acquisition (Dornyei 2001).

For these reasons, I consider this action research successful. There are still some improvements to

undertake, which mostly concern the student's listening skills. However, not being listening our

main focus, I would not consider this as affecting the assignment results.

This action research was also very important for my professional development as it proved how

motivating students is important and, in order to teach grammar, focusing on communication skills

(in the form of oral reproduction followed by corrective feedbacks on errors) is vital because it

helps students notice mistakes, correct them in subsequent use and internalize rules and patterns.

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Key word list

CF = corrective feedbackFonF = focus-on formIL = interlanguageL1 = the student's native languageL-1, L-2, ..= lesson 1, lesson 2 etc.T-1, T-2, .. = task 1, task 2 etc. (the tasks proposed in each lesson)l-1, l-2, .. = line 1, line 2 etc. of the task proposed l-1:2 = line 1 and 2 of the task proposed TL = target language<<words>> = excerpt from the lesson transcripts(..) = words omitted

Transcript key list(.) micro pause(0.1) 1 second pause etc.= no pause between two wordsitalics words uttered in Italian(?) question mark tone('hh) intake of breath% laughing(:) prolonged vowelword mispronounced word (wrong vowel sound or accent)(fff) snorting

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Reference ListBull, S. & Ma, Y., 2001. Raising Learner Awareness of Language Learning Strategies in Situations of Limited Resources, Interactive Learning Environments 9(2), 171-200

Cross, J., 2002. 'Noticing' in SLA: Is it a valid concept? TESL-EJ, 1072-4303, 6(3)

Dornyei, Z. 2001. Teaching and researching motivation. New York: Longman

Ellis, R., 1995. Interpretation tasks for grammar teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 87-105

Ellis, R., 2006a. Current Issues in the Teaching of Grammar: An SLA Perspective. TESOL Quarterly 40(1)

Ellis, R., 2006b. Researching the effects of form-focussed instruction on L2 acquisition. AILA Review 19, 18–41

Fotos, S., 1998. Shifting the focus from forms to form in the EFL classroom. ELT Journal Volume 52(4). October 1998. Oxford University Press

Hinkel, E., & Fotos, S., 2002. New Perspectives on grammar teaching in second language classrooms. Mahwah, N.J. L. Erlbaum Associates

Lyster, R., Saito K, Saito M., 2013. Oral corrective feedback in second language classrooms. Language Teaching, 46, 1-40. doi:10.1017/S0261444812000365

Nassaji, H. & Fotos, S., 2004. Current developments in research on the teaching of grammar. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24, 126-145

Nassaji, H. & Fotos, S., 2011. Teaching Grammar in Second Language Classrooms. Integrating Form-Focused Instruction in Communicative Context. Oxon: Routledge

Schmidt, R., 1990. The Role of Consciousness in Second Language Learning. Applied Linguistics, Vol. 11, No. 2. Oxford University Press

Schmidt, R. & Frota, S., 1986. Developing basic conversational ability in a second language: a case study of an adult learner of portuguese. In R.R. Day (Ed.), Talking to learn: Conversation in second language acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. 237-326

Selinker, L., 1972. Interlanguage, IRAL; International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 10(3). Walter De Gruyter Company. 209-231

Thornbury, S., 1997. Reformulation and reconstruction: tasks that promote `noticing', ELTJ, 51(4), 326- 335

Willis, D., 2003. Rules, Patterns and Words. Grammar and Lexis in English Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press

Willis, D & Willis, J., 1996. Consciousness raising activities in the classroom. In Willis and Willis (Eds.). Challenge and Change in language Teaching. Oxford: Heinemann

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Text booksRagazzini G., Zaccarini M., 1985 Keep up your English, Le Monnier, Firenze

Swan M., Walter C., 1985 The Cambridge English Course 2 Student's Book, Cambridge University Press

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APPENDIXInitial Test In this first Lesson Victoria was asked to take an initial test. The proposed exercises, written by myself, were chosen with regard to those she practised at school and was supposed to deal with, according to her program. The exercises were aimed at testing her knowledge of the English grammar before the action research took place. No feedback on her errors was provided, at this stage.1.PUT THE VERB IN THE CORRECT FORM AND TENSE:Phrases Victoria's solutionsLisa ___ (go) to the pub with some friends last night. ____ (you/see) her?No, because I _____ (study) maths all night.

Lisa went to the pub with some friends last night. Were you see her?No, because I have studied maths all night.

If it ___ (rain) I ___ (come/not) to the party tomorrow.

If it rain I wasn't come to the party tomorrow.

On Sundays, she ___ (eat) brunch, then she ___ (go) swimming. ____ (be/not) it dangerous?

On Sundays, she eat brunch, then she go swimming. Will not be it dangerous?

Yesterday the phone ___ (ring) while I ___ (get) in. I ____ (can/not) answer. It ___ (be) my sister, probably.

Yesterday the phone rang while I was getting in. I could not answer. It was my sister, probably.

___ (you/to) on holiday last summer?No, I ___ (go/not). We ___ (had/not) enough money and I ___ (have) to study maths.

Where were you go on holiday last summer?No, I didn't go. We hadn't enough money and I had to study maths.

2.WRITE THE FOLLOWING PHRASES IN THE PASSIVE VOICE:1.People speak nonsense sometimes.=Nonsense are spoken by people sometimes.3.When I was a child, my teacher taught me many things:=When I was a child, many things were taught me by my teacher.

3.TRANSLATIONS (the words in italics were suggested)Italian Victoria's translation into EnglishHai visto Maria recentemente? No, non la vedo da sabato scorso

Has you seen Maria recently?No, I haven't seen her since last Saturday

Non so dove posso comprare del caffé.Devi andare al supermercato, è aperto fino alle 21 e lì il caffé è buono, è fatto con chicchi biologici (organic).

I don't know where I can buy some coffee.You have to go to supermarket, it has opened until 21 and there the coffee is good, it make with organic grains.

Tua madre ti fa uscire dopo le 10?Solo di sabato.

Your mother lets you go out after 10?Only on Saturdays.

Se avessi saputo dove andavi, sarei venuto con te.

If I know where you were going, I would have gone with you.

Se non smetti (stop) di gridare, ti farò smettere io.

If you don't stop to scream, I make you stop.

Final comment: From the exercises above, it was possible to notice that Victoria had difficulties with the simple past tense, the present perfect tense, the if clauses and the terminal -s. She had problems with making questions in general and with applying the auxiliary verbs correctly. The principles of the passive voice and of the past continuous tense were clear.

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Lesson 1In our first lesson I proposed a reconstruction task (Thornbury 1997) in order to foster Victoria's noticing and enhance her language acquisition. She read a short passage and was asked to repeat its content. She repeated it twice. The second time, after my corrective feedbacks, was performed better, although she still could not notice her mistakes. Finally, I proposed an exercise to test the knowledge of irregular verb paradigms, because she told me she had difficulties in keeping irregular verbs in mind. I was surprised to see that her difficulties were actually due to associating the verb morphology with its pronunciation. Therefore, her problems were not keeping irregular verb paradigms in mind, but memorizing how to pronounce and, subsequently, write them.

task 1 (T-1): I first asked Victoria to read a short passage (TEXT 1) and to write down few notes in order to keep the text content in mind, then to summarize it orally (TRANSCRIPT 1). I recorded her. task 2 (T-2): Afterwards, I asked her to listen to the recording and to write down the text again on the basis of the recording. Then, I asked her to look for mistakes in her text (CORRECTION 1). She only corrected "restaurant" (marked in red) and wrote "restaurants". Not finding anything else to correct, I provided metalinguistic explanation and made her notice that "self service" was a modifier, not a noun. task 3 (T-3): After my feedbacks and corrections she repeated the passage once again (TRANSCRIPT 2). This task was less challenging and Victoria felt more confident. She now made less mistakes and her success motivated her. task 4 (T-4): In the end, I asked her, in Italian, to tell me the past simple and past participle of “to fall”. She did not answer at first, then she said "felt". I corrected her explicitly and she told me she only had short-term memory on irregular verb paradigms. Therefore, I proposed an exercise on irregular verbs. In particular, she had to make a matching exercise (invented by myself) which was aimed at verifying whether her difficulty to keep irregular verbs in mind was due to the verb morphology or pronunciation. I wrote down some irregular verb paradigms in scrambled order (see TEXT 2) and asked her to match them. She only made one mistake and mixed "taught-taught" with "thought-thought" (see Victoria's SOLUTIONS). I understood therefore that she lacked exercises more on pronunciation than on keeping verb paradigms in mind.

Final comments: The first task was quite challenging as a start; she had difficulties in summarizing the text (there were, in fact, many little pauses and uncertainty, highlighted by hmm and word repetitions). However, such difficulties were more due to the reconstruction task itself (i.e. the oral production) than to the application of grammar rules. I thought in fact that starting with a text with a basic grammar (the simple present) would not be challenging for her, in view of the fact that the grammar proposed was simple and in line with her school program. The text book, and the text itself, were chosen on the basis of their minor level of difficulty, from either a grammar and a content point of view. As a matter of fact, Victoria did not have many difficulties in understanding the text content. However, she had problems with reproducing it orally; in using the right words and applying grammar rules while speaking. According to Willis, students in fact can utter correct forms only when they pay “careful attention” (Willis, 2003:7). On this first lesson, therefore, she was probably too emotional to pay enough attention to the grammar rules.

TEXT 1In the United States there are quite inexpensive self-service restaurants called cafeterias and automats. In an automat almost anything can be bought: there are small windows through which people can see the dish they want. Next to each window there is a slot. When the right amount of money has been dropped into the slot, the window opens and the food can be taken out.

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(text adapted from Keep Up Your English, Ragazzini G, Zaccarini M, 1985, Le Monnier).

TRANSCRIPT 1 (task 1 (T-1): text 1 oral summary)(allora) in the USA (.) (hmm) there (0.1) are (0.1) many ('hh) restaurant and sel=self service (0.2) shops (0.2) you(:) (.) you (fff) put (0.1) your (hmm) money in (.) small (hmm) small (0.3) small slots ('hh) (0.1) and (hmm) in this (0.1) self service (hmm) (0.2) in this self service (0.1) you can (.) bu(:)y (.) (hmm) anything

CORRECTION 1 (task 2 (T-2): Victoria's corrections on her oral summary; corrections are marked in red)(allora) in the USA (.) (hmm) there (0.1) are (0.1) many ('hh) restaurant and sel=self service (0.2) shops (0.2) you(:) (.) you (fff) put (0.1) your (hmm) money in (.) small (hmm) small (0.3) small slots ('hh) (0.1) and (hmm) in this (0.1) self service (hmm) (0.2) in this self service (0.1) you can (.) bu(:)y (.) (hmm) anything

TRANSCRIPT 2 (task 3 (T-3): second oral summary)In the USA (hmm) there are (0.1) many re=restaurants (.) and (0.1) self service (hmm) restaurants (0.4) ('hh) in these (0.3) restaurants (hmm) there are (0.2) there are (0.1) small windows (.) where you ca(:)n (.) ta=take(?) (.) take (0.1) your food (0.2) and put (0.1) your (hmm) money (0.2) these (hmm) restaurants (0.3) sell anythink

Key list(.) micro pause(0.1) 1 second pause etc.= no pause between two wordsitalics words uttered in Italian(?) question mark tone('hh) intake of breath% laughing(:) prolonged vowelword mispronounced word (wrong vowel sound or accent)(fff) snorting

TEXT 2 (task 4 (T-4) : matching verbs)teach felt havesee write dofelt sing blownstand grow bemake stricken donethink read caughtstroke blew wrotetaught had fallfallen made sangfeel fell seensung did drivewas/were been stoodsaw had taughtcaught thought readwritten made strikestood catch drove

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blow grown thoughtdriven grew read

Victoria's SOLUTIONS (outcome of task 4 (T-4))1.teach 3.felt 17.have2.see 12.write 18.do3.felt 10.sing 13.blown4.stand 15.grow 8.be5.make 7.stricken 18.done6.think 16.read 11.caught7.stroke 13.blew 12.wrote6.1.taught 17.had 9.fall9.fallen 5.made 10.sang3.feel 9.fell 2.seen10.sung 18.did 14.drive8.was/were 8.been stood2.saw 17.had 6.1.taught11.caught 1.6.thought 16.read12.written 5.made 7.strike4.stood 11.catch 14.drove13.blow 15.grown 1.6.thought14.driven 15.grew 16.read

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Lesson 2This lesson was aimed at fostering Victoria's communication skills by means of a reconstruction task; with her consent, she was asked to pay some attention to grammar rules while speaking. The text chosen was in line with Victoria's (supposed) knowledge of grammar, and was not considered difficult. However, she showed some difficulties in understanding the content and her oral reproduction contained grammar mistakes and discrepancies vis-à-vis the original text. In addition, she did not notice any differences between the original text and her oral version of the story. The terminal -s was still forgotten and, in order to overcome this issue, I proposed some standard de-contextualised grammar exercises, which were in line with what she was used to making at school. In this lesson I tried to introduce CF in the form of prompts and clarification requests, but Victoria was not ready for this, yet.

task 1 (T-1): I first asked Victoria to read (silently) a short story (TEXT 1) and to summarize it orally (TRANSCRIPT 1). I took notes while she was speaking and tried to provide corrective feedbacks by means of prompts or clarification requests (both marked in blue), but I noticed that she got confused and lost track of her speech. Therefore, I decided not to interrupt her any more. task 2 (T-2): Then, I asked her to listen to the recording and read my notes in order to spot mistakes. She neither found any mistakes nor re-organised the text to make it more comprehensible (CORRECTION 1). The reconstruction task (Thornbury, 1997:330) was therefore not successful. For instance, she did not notice that almost all verbs of the present tense were missing the terminal -s and that her story was different from the original one. task 3 (T-3): In order to let her notice her mistakes and foster her consciousness-raising (“drawing of learners' attention to the formal properties of language" because “learners may then notice a particular linguistic feature in subsequent input”, Cross, 2002:1), I asked her why she had decided to tell the story in the present tense (TRANSCRIPT 2) and what this choice would imply. I started in English, but she showed difficulties in understanding. Therefore, I continued in Italian. She told me she was feeling more confident with the present tense, because of her lack of memory of the irregular verbs paradigms (it seemed, therefore, that the matching exercise of our first lesson neither increased her confidence nor her implicit knowledge). I hence asked her to have a look at her corrections again (T-2), but she continued not to notice all missing terminal -s.task 4 (T-4): At this point, I asked her to translate some simple, de-contextualised phrases, all in the third singular person of the simple present (TEXT 2). She made no mistakes. I hence understood that the problem was, as pointed out by Willis (2003), that as long as she focused carefully on single utterances, she showed some control over the -s, but when she focused on meaning or on building complex phrases, she was more likely to lose control over the syntax, and, as a result, the -s was “forgotten”.

Final comments: I thought that clarification requests, prompts (T-1) and elicitation (T-3) (all marked in blue) could help Victoria notice grammar mistakes and elicit self-repair, but, at this stage, I was wrong. I noticed in fact that my interruptions mostly confused her. From this point of view, the proposed tasks were too difficult. As a matter of fact, it was possible to notice Victoria's difficulties in reconstructing the text (the logic of her story was not clear, there were many hmm and word repetitions, together with grammar mistakes).Victoria tended therefore to “fossilise” (Selinker, 1972), by uttering “errors” in her interlanguage (IL) when her attention was focused on difficult matters (in this case: repeating carefully the text content) or when she was anxious (when she felt she was making mistakes). The appearance of such behaviour was not limited (only) to a phonetic level (Selinker, 1972:216). According to Willis, this happened because “what learners produce spontaneously is often very different from what they produce when they are concentrated on making sentences” because they can utter correct forms when they pay “careful attention” (Willis, 2003:7). At the end of the lesson, I provided

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metalinguistic explanations on her errors in order to make her notice the missing -s.

TEXT1Joyce Andrews made sausage sandwiches for her husband's lunch. Only one of them was left, and she gave it to her little dog, Henry. Later in the morning Henry was ill and couldn't stand up. She called her husband, Jim, at the office and told him not to eat any more of those sandwiches. Jim went to the doctor and got some medicine, which made him sick. So when he was back home, he went to bed at once. The next morning, however, both he and the dog were quite fit again. Then the milkman came and explained that the day before the dog had attacked him, and he had dropped a bottle of milk on its head. That explained everything.(Ragazzini G, Zaccarini M, 1985, Keep Up Your English, Le Monnier)

TRANSCRIPT 1 (task 1 (T-1): text 1 oral summary)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)1.V:(allora) Joyce (.) in the morning ('hh) ma=make (hmm) a sandwich for (0.2) her (hmm) husband and (0.2) in this sandwich (hmm) there (.) there are (0.4) there are (0.1) many (0.3) (hmm) (0.2) sausages (.) but (0.2) (hmm) the sausages (0.2) (hmm) are bad (0.4) ('hh) but (.) in this morning (0.1) the dog (.) Harry (hmm) eat 2.P: pardon?3.V:in (.) this (.) morning (0.4) the(:) dog (0.1) Harry (0.2) eat (hmm) this (.) sandwich 4.P: sure?5.V:(0.10) (hmm) (0.10)6.P: that's ok (.) please continue (.)7.V:(non ricordo più) (=I don't remember any more)8.P: you said (0.1) in the sandwich there are many sausages (.) but the sausages are bad (.) the dog Harry eat (.) can you (0.1) can you say this again (.) please?9.V:(0.8) (hmm) (0.7) the dog (0.4) Harry (0.4) the dog Harry eat (hmm) this sandwich (fff)but (0.3) 10. (0.1) (hmm) Jim has (0.2) has other (hmm) sandwich (hmm) (0.2) bu=but (.) the dog and Jim 11.(hmm) (0.1) are sick (0.2) (hmm) they come(no no)go to (.) to(:) (hmm) the hospital (hmm) and 12.(0.1) the doctors (0.1) ta=take (hmm) many medicines (hmm) medicines (0.3) medicines (.) 13.but(no)and the next morning (0.2) (hmm) the next morning (.) the next morning (hmm) they are 14.(.) fine ('hh) fine (.) and the dog (hmm) attacks (0.1) the milkman (0.3) (hmm) and the bottle of 15.milk (0.1) (hmm) brek (hmm) on the animal's head

CORRECTION 1 (task 2 (T-2): Victoria's corrections on her oral summary)(punctuation has been added to facilitate reading)Joyce in the morning make a sandwich for her husband and in this sandwich there are many sausages but the sausages are bad, but in this morning the dog Harry eat this sandwich but Jim has other sandwich but and the dog and Jim are sick. They go to the hospital and the doctors they take many medicines and the next morning they are fine and the dog attacks the milkman and the bottle of milk brek break on the animal's head.

TRANSCRIPT 2 (task 3 (T-3): fostering Victoria's noticing by asking questions on her tense choices)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)(P: Patrizia; V:Victoria)1.P: ok (.) Victoria (.) have a look at my notes (0.4) read my notes (.) please2.V:hmm3.P: can you notice any differences (.) be=between my notes and the original text? (0.4) Are the two 4.texts different?

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5.V:(0.8)6.P: which tense did you use? (0.4) and which tense was used in the text?7.V:(0.6) (ri=ripeti?)(recording interrupted as we continued speaking Italian)


TEXT 2 (task 4 (T-4): de-contextualised, standard grammar exercises on the terminal -s)Translation exerciseItalian Victoria's translationsAnna suona il piano Anna plays the pianoRoberta fa errori Roberta makes mistakesArianna prepara i panini per Giuseppe Arianna makes sandwiches for GiuseppeIl tuo amico dice che sono brutto, ma Jenny dice che sono bello

Your friend says I'm ugly, but Jenny says I'm beautiful

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Lesson 3In order to develop Victoria's text-scanning skills by spotting differences between two similar texts (Thornbury, 1997:333), hence to improve her noticing, Victoria carried out a reconstruction task. I asked her to read a short story and repeat the content. The story was written by myself and was very similar to the one in L-2. In particular, it had the same characters and almost the same content; it was simpler from both a semantic and a syntactic point of view. This was aimed at facilitating her reconstruction: repeating it orally without making too many grammar mistakes; reproducing it logically and making it as faithful as possible to the original text. The level of grammar knowledge of this new story was in line with her school program.

task 1 (T-1): Victoria read a text (TEXT 1) and told me its content. I recorded her and transcribed her words (TRANSCRIPT 1). task 2 (T-2): Then, I asked her to compare text 1 of Lesson 2 with this new text and spot differences from both a semantic and a syntactic point of view (TRANSCRIPT 2). My questions were aimed at improving her noticing skills and conscious processing and I also introduced the verb “notice”, as suggested by Thornbury (1997:333). From a syntactic point of view, she noticed that in the previous text some verbs were in the past perfect form, whereas in TEXT 1 they were not. Unfortunately, she did not notice many differences in meaning. task 3 (T-3): In order to help her memorize the use of the terminal -s and enhance her implicit memory, I asked her, for homework, to write down 10 times two phrases where she forgot the -s. Despite Willis' suggestion that rehearsal is of little help with the terminal -s (2003:15), some progress were made: in the transcribed phrases (APPENDIX 1), there were still some mistakes, but not in the terminal -s.

Final comments: In her oral summary, Victoria used the past simple tense and made less mistakes. She also started to self-repair (words marked in green). I was pleased to see that the matching exercise of L-1 on irregular verbs paradigm started producing some positive effects and that she started feeling confident. It was possible to notice that when Victoria was asked to summarize the text orally, she was more confident and she performed better. She in fact organised the text structure better. However, when she had to answer directly to my questions and prepare an answer in a very short time, she made more mistakes (T-1, compared with T-2, was better performed).However, Victoria's progress was visible. Her self-repair was evident and her uncertainty decreased (there were less hmm and word repetitions). Furthermore, the logic of her story was clear. This was also probably due to the text proposed, which was simpler, both in content and in grammar. I congratulated on this first success.

TEXT 1 (similar to text 1 of Lesson 2)Joyce was preparing the breakfast for her husband, Henry, when the milkman arrived. She heard him shouting and ran outside. Her dog was attacking him and the milkman hit the dog with a bottle of milk. She suddenly took her dog to the Vet and forgot to say goodbye to her husband.

TRANSCRIPT 1 (task 1 (T-1): text 1 oral summary)(allora) Jo=Joyce ('hh) was making the (.) breakfast for her husband (0.1) (hmm) bu=but in that moment (0.3) but in that moment (0.2) in that moment (.) (hmm) the(:) milkman arrived to(:) to(?) the door (0.3) she ru=(no)=ran (.) she ran (.) outside (0.2) (fff) and the (.) her dog was (hmm) wa(:)s (hmm) was (0.4) attacking the milkman (0.2) the man hit the dog ('hh) with a bottle of milk (hmm) and Joyce take=took (hmm) her dog to ('hh) to(:) the vet

TRANSCRIPT 2 (task 2 (T-2): questions to enhance Victoria's noticing)

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(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)(P: Patrizia, V:Victoria)1.P: Victoria (.) which differences can you notice (.) between this text (.) and the previous one?2.V:(ripeti?)3.P: ok (.) which are (.) the differences (.) between (.) the two (.) texts?4.V:these stories (.) are (.) in the past time and (no no and) the first (hmm) story (0.2) used (.) the 5.(hmm) the (0.6) (genitivo sassone)6.P: possessive case7.V:possessive case and (hmm) it (0.2) it used (0.2) the (0.4) (il trapassato)8.P: past perfect9.V:past perfect 10.P: ok (0.2) did you notice (.) any difference in meaning? (0.1) Are the stories different?11.V:(hmm) (0.6) (hmm) (0.4) in the first (0.1) story (0.2) Joyce ma=make (.) sandwiches 12.to=(no)=for (0.1) for her (0.2) her=husband (0.1) and the dog (0.3) (hmm) eat thi(:)s (0.2) 13.sandwich i(:)n (0.1) the second (.) text (0.3) (hmm) the dog (.) don't eat (0.2) the=sandwich


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APPENDIX 1 (T-3)

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Lesson 4In this lesson I integrated grammar with communication and stimulated Victoria's communication skills by means of a reconstruction task and a dictogloss (Thornbury 1997). In particular, Victoria was supposed to tell me the content of a story in her own words. However, this time the text was read aloud by myself and the listening task was very challenging, resulting in being unsuccessful. Furthermore, the text contained some words she did not know (for example: overtake, rare window, shatter, swerve, realize etc.), which I had not considered and which made the comprehension very difficult. Hence, this time I overestimated her capabilities because I had thought the text itself did not contain many grammar rules or words she could not understand. For instance, in her entry test, she showed a good grasp of the passive voice which the text contained. Therefore, I felt the text (and its general content) could have been dealt with quite easily, but I underestimated the word pronunciation issue and the challenges of the listening task.

task 1 (T-1): Firstly, I read aloud a text twice (TEXT 1). The first time, I asked Victoria to take notes, in order to tell me the text content. The second time, I asked Victoria to tell me the grammatical features of the text I read aloud.Unfortunately, Victoria got emotional and was unable to understand the full content. She said the text was too complicated and she had troubles with the meaning of some words she could not understand and transcribe (TRANSCRIPT 1). task 2 (T-2): Therefore, I opted for a much shorter text (a phrase) (TEXT 2), and I asked her to tell me the content and grammar features of the short sentence. Unfortunately, Victoria was confused again and could not tell me either the content or the grammar rules I applied. Therefore, I asked her some questions (TRANSCRIPT 2), just to verify whether she understood something, but she did not.task 3 (T-3): I tried therefore with very short stories (dictogloss) as suggested by Thornbury (1997:331), and asked her to repeat their content (TEXTS 3). This time, however, I decided to represent the text content by drawings (APPENDIX 1), before telling the whole story. Showing her the drawings was a pre-task activity, as suggested by Nassaj & Fotos, 2011:13 and Willis & Willis, 1996:12, aimed at preparing Victoria to the text content by stimulating her brainstorming and by highlighting some of the vocabulary used in the story. As a matter of fact, I noticed that if her attention was focused first on the drawings, she was much more able to grasp the meaning of the phrases, even though she was still unable to repeat their content in English ( in fact, she repeated the content in Italian).

Final comments: At the end of this lesson, Victoria was quite disappointed and felt that no steps forward were made. I suggested seeing the situation from another point of view: this lesson was the first one where I read something aloud to her. It was comprehensible that she had some difficulties with this new, listening task.

TEXT 1 (the text was read aloud by myself)Nadia drove as fast as she could without attracting attention.Soon they left the suburbs of Moscow behind. George began to relax a little. Then Nadia said:"Look behind, George. I think we're being followed."George turned round. The road was straight and behind them, about half a kilometre away, was a large black car. As it got closer, Nadia said It is the secret police. I recognise the car"."Can't you go any faster?" George asked.By now, the other car was only metres behind them. It was much more powerful than theirs, but as it started to overtake, Nadia shouted "Hang on George!" and swerved violently from side to side, forcing the other car to drop back. Suddenly the rear window shattered and George realized that he was being shot at for the first time in his life.

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(Ragazzini G, Zaccarini M, 1985, Keep Up Your English, Le Monnier)

TRANSCRIPT 1 (task 1 (T-1): text 1 oral summary)(allora) Nadia and (.) George (hmm) were in (0.2) Moscow (0.4) Geo(:)rge (0.1) was rela=relaxing (hmm) when (.) Nadia (hmm) Nadia (0.1) told to (no) told (senza il to) George that (0.2) that (0.4) (hmm) there (.) wa=was (0.1) a large (0.1) black (0.2) car (hmm) (0.5) then (.) Nadia told (0.1) (no) said that (0.2) these=that was (0.1) a car (hmm) of se=the secret police (0.2) the (0.1) (fff) the car (.) rou=rounded (0.2) George (.) (no)=they (0.1) went (0.3) they went (.) together (0.5) George (no)=Nadia said (non ricordo più)(=I can't remember any more)

TEXT 2 (uttered by myself)Brigitte said: "It was nice knowing you. Had I had more time, I would have introduced you my little boy, Jeremy".

TRANSCRIPT 2 (task 2 (T-2): asking questions about text 2)(P: Patrizia; V:Victoria)P: from that phrase (.) do you think Brigitte introduced Jeremy or not? V:(0.4) (non ho capito)(=I did not understand)P: who is Jeremy?V:Jeremy (.) is (0.3) Brigitte's boyP: can you(:) (.) can you tell me anything else (.) from this phrase?V:(ripeti?)P: did you notice (.) other things (.) in this phrase?V:no (.) no


TEXTS 3 (task 3 (T-3): dictogloss)a)There was a young woman of Riga who went for a ride on a tiger. They returned from the ride with the woman inside and a smile on the face of the tiger.b)She sells sea-shell on the sea shore.

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APPENDIX 1 (T-3)a)

b)

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Lesson 5In this lesson I proposed some other reconstruction tasks (Thornbury 1997) in order to improve Victoria's communication skills and self-repair. In these tasks, Victoria was asked to read a text and repeat its content in her own words. I was very careful this time to propose a text which was at her level of knowledge and contained the grammar rules she was used to practising at school. After reading the text, I suggested that Victoria asked me the meaning of words she did not know (which were: chopped, bits, conveyed, labelling).

Task 1 (T-1): Victoria read TEXT 1 twice and repeated the content while I was recording her. While she was speaking (TRANSCRIPT 1), I transcribed her words. Victoria continued to self-repair, both in the past and in the present tense. Our exercises in L-1 and L-3 (the matching exercise and the 10-time re-written phrases) started being beneficial.task 2 (T-2): Then, I asked her to listen to the recording and read the transcript in order to spot mistakes (CORRECTION 1). task 3 (T-3): At the end, I tried to provide corrective feedbacks in English on the mistakes she did not mark (TRANSCRIPT 2) and I continued fostering her noticing. Unfortunately, Victoria was not able to concentrate on my words and interact. Therefore I provided metalinguistic explanations in order to be sure she understood.

Final comments: I was pleased to see that Victoria not only started noticing some mistakes but, at the same time, she also knew how to correct them. In addition, I was pleased to see that she continued to self-repair (words marked in green in the transcript) and questioned herself about those she was not sure of (word with “?” and marked in green). It seemed, therefore, that both our communication activities and the matching exercise we carried out in L-1 started being successfully applied in her grammar reproduction. The tasks were in fact aimed at fostering noticing (because “noticing has supposed implications for language processing and the actual acquisition of linguistic features" Cross, 2002:1) and conscious processing on her grammar choices. To this respect, Schmidt (1990:131ff) wrote that “conscious processing is a necessary condition for one step in the language learning process”.

TEXT 1 Jack, a student, was at home for his summer holidays. Not to get bored, he took up a job at a jam factory. At first he worked at a washing machine, which washed the dust and dirt and other things off the fruit. Then he worked at the chopper, a machine that chopped the fruit into little bits. One day he saw something strange on the moving belt that conveyed the fruit, and didn't know what to do with it. The boss told him not to worry, but to look out for insects and pull them out. Jack's last job was at the labelling machine, which stuck labels on the glass pots. When he left the factory in September, he had never seen jam actually being made. He had seen enough, however, not to eat jam any more. Instead, now he has honey with bread and butter for breakfast.

TRANSCRIPT 1 (task 1 (T-1): text 1 oral summary)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)1.(allora) Jack is a student ('hh) and (.) for summer (.) he (hmm) he started wo=to work in factory 2.('hh) in this factory (hmm) (0.2) in this factory make (hmm) jam (hmm) Jack (hmm) (0.3) Jack 3.(hmm) was washing (hmm) machine (hmm) (0.3) one day he (0.3) saw something strange (hmm) 4.(0.4) be=between(?) (.) between the fruit (hmm) and=but the boss said (.) said (0.4) hi(:)m(?) (0.3) 5.said him (hmm) that he doesn't=he didn't (hmm) worry because (hmm) there is a i=insect (hmm) 6.between the fruits=the fruit (hmm) whe=when (0.2) (hmm) Jack (hmm) started (hmm) to work 7.(hmm) (0.3) to work (hmm) (0.5) to work (hmm) in (0.5) other (0.1) place in the factory (hmm) 8.and (.) in September he left (hmm) to the factory no=from (.) from the factory and now (hmm)

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9.he (hmm) don't=he doesn't eat jam (.) but he eat=he eats honey with bread and butter for breakfast


CORRECTION 1 (task 2 (T-2) : Victoria's corrections on the transcript)(punctuation has been added to facilitate reading)Jack is a student and for summer he started to work in a factory. In this factory, (make) made jam. Jack was washing machine. One day he saw something strange between the fruits but the boss said him that he didn't worry because there is a insect between the fruits. When Jack started to work in other place in of the factory. and In September he left from the factory and now he doesn't eat Jam but he eats honey with bread and butter for breakfast.

TRANSCRIPT 2 (task 3 (T-3): attempt to provide corrective feedbacks in English)(P: Patrizia; V:Victoria)P: ok (.) I would start with (.) with (.) in this factory made jam (0.2) I would use a passive form here (.) and write (.) in this factory jam was produced (.)V:(cioè)?P: userei il passivo e riscriverei la frase (.) in this factory (.) jam was produced (.)V:ah (.) va beneP: I wouldn't use (.) I would not use (.) between (.) but (.) in (.) V:(hmm)P: (0.3) non userei (.) between (.) come preposizione di luogo (.) perché vuol dire (.) tra (.) ma userei (.) in (.) (0.4) poi (.) perché hai messo (.) there is an insect (.)? Dovevi usare il passato (.) no?(recording interrupted as we continued speaking Italian)

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Lesson 6In Lesson 4, I had noticed that Victoria performed better when she saw some drawings describing the content of a story. In this lesson, I suggested another pre-task activity (Nassaj & Fotos 2011:13; Willis & Willis 1996:12) and used pictures to highlight the vocabulary used in the story. In this way, I prepared her to carry out a task by means of brainstorming. The text book was different this time, but still in line with her knowledge of grammar and the words it contained were not difficult to understand. I chose it because of its explanatory drawings and because the exercise proposed some practice on irregular verbs. Therefore, it was a good way to test her improvements in the use of the simple-past tense verbs. The story content was not particularly difficult as the words which could be “new” were described by drawings or pictures (see APPENDIX 1). Only the verbs were not translated, but they had been studied and practised at school.

task 1 (T-1): First of all, I started with showing her some pictures describing the story. I asked her to imagine and tell me the whole story, before reading it. In this way I prepared Victoria for both the story syntax and content. Victoria told me the story content before reading it (TRANSCRIPT 1).task 2 (T-2): Victoria told me the story content after reading it (TRANSCRIPT 2). It was remarkable that the content of transcript 1 and 2 were extremely similar, therefore the pre-task activity had been very successful. Furthermore, between transcript 1 and transcript 2, I provided no corrective feedbacks and the corrections Victoria made in transcript 2 were due to her self-repair only.I took note of her second speech, and I showed her the transcript in order to help her notice her mistakes. I provided corrective feedbacks by means of metalinguistic explanations.

Final comment: From this lesson on, Victoria was more confident and relaxed. This was noticeable by the tone of her voice and her laughing, (laughter can be in fact useful to release pressure, Bull & Ma, 2001:15)B

Although she still made some mistakes and/or long pauses before uttering words, she was less uncertain and she continued to self-repair (words marked in green). This time her self-repair was also on pronunciation. The logic and arrangement of her speech improved very much and her motivation increased accordingly. It was noticeable that she was now able to use simple-past tense verbs fluently or to self-repair subsequently, if she made a mistake.

TRANSCRIPT 1 (task 1 (T-1): Victoria imagined the story content before reading it)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)1.One day (0.3) a girl (hmm) left (0.4) on helicopter (0.4) (hmm) but during the voyage (0.3) (hmm) 2.she (0.3) during the voyage (0.3) she (0.2) no no during the voyage the helicopter (0.2) was 3.breaked (0.6) and the girl %and the girl% (0.6) (hmm) %falled(?)% in the jungle (0.5) anzi (0.3) 4.between (0.2) the jungle (0.6) jungle senza il the ('hh) (hmm) (0.6) in this jungle (.) there were (.) 5.some animals ('hh) snakes spiders and caimans (0.3) and (.) she (hmm) (0.3) heard (.) heard 6.(hmm) (0.5) heard strange (hmm) (0.10) %versi% (hmm) this girl=this girl (hmm) had (0.2) with 7.her (hmm) (0.2) just some sweets (0.6) and (0.4) (hmm) she (hmm) (0.3) she(?) (0.5) (hmm) and 8.she made (.) an hut (0.4) (hmm) for (0.3) for (0.8) for sleeped (0.3) and leaved (0.2) no for (0.2) to 9.sleep an hut to sleep and to live=li=live (hmm) (0.4) one day (0.2) arrived an helicopter (0.5) ('hh) 10.and she (.) was (0.4) no she (.) she saved

TRANSCRIPT 2 (task 2 (T-2): oral summary)(allora) On Christmas Juliana (.) a seventeen year old (0.1) German girl (hmm) (0.2) left (0.1) with her mother (0.3) (hmm) (0.4) to (0.2) Peru (hmm) (0.3) during (hmm) the voyage (0.2) on the=the airplane (0.3) (hmm) (0.2) they (hmm) (0.2) they=met (0.5) a storm (0.1) and she=and her plane

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(0.6) broke (0.2) ('hh) (hmm) she (0.4) no=Juliana (.) Juliana (hmm) (0.3) Juliana (hmm) hit from the airplane (.) and she fell (.) in the jungle (0.5) there (0.3) (hmm) (0.5) there (.) she (0.4) (hmm) she (0.2) she=had (0.1) she had (0.6) she had (.) arms and legs (0.2) cut (0.2) but (0.1) and (.) and (0.3) and=she (0.2) had not (.) her (0.1) her=glasses (0.5) so (.) she didn't see (0.2) ('hh) in the jungle there (.) there=were (.) some animals (0.4) and (0.1) but she (hmm) (0.3) didn't hear (.) one day (.) she (.) (hmm) she heard (0.1) sound of helicopter (0.3) and (.) but the (.) (hmm) the helicopter (hmm) couldn't (.) (hmm) see her (0.5) her (0.8) she (.) she didn't know (0.2) what to do (.) but (hmm) she had with her sweets (0.2) and she found (hmm) a hut (.) and one day (0.2) one day (.) she was saved


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APPENDIX 1 (T-1)

Swan M., Walter C., 1985, The Cambridge English Course 2 Student's Book, Cambridge University Press.

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Lesson 7The aim of this lesson was to help Victoria consolidate and improve her confidence and communication skills. Her improvements in grammar had become quite evident since the last lesson. As a matter of fact, she proved to feel particularly comfortable with reading a story and summarizing it orally. Therefore, I decided to propose another reconstruction task of the same kind. The text book used was the one she had become acquainted with, for its style, the words used (which were not too difficult to understand) and the grammar rules applied. In this way, I aimed at improving her communication skills and motivation by using a text with a “style” she had become used to, and by helping her perform the task she proved to be particularly good at.At the same time, however, I proposed another task she had been previously unsuccessful at: listening comprehension. I read a story aloud and asked her to repeat the content in her own words. In this way, I tested her improvements, if any.

task 1 (T-1): In this lesson, Victoria read a story (TEXT 1) and repeated its content orally. I recorded and transcribed her summary (TRANSCRIPT 1). In Transcript 1 she self-repaired while she was speaking and her corrections were both on grammar features and on pronunciation (self-repaired words are marked in green).task 2 (T-2): Afterwards, I read aloud the end of the same story (TEXT 2) and asked her to tell me what happened (TRANSCRIPT 2). I transcribed her words while she was speaking.In both her oral productions, her relaxation and increased confidence were noticeable and accompanied by her laughing.task 3 (T-3): Then, I asked her to listen to the two recordings and read the transcripts in order to correct her mistakes (TEXT 3 and 4).Although Victoria had some more difficulties with text 2 due to the listening task, she improved her listening skills and continued to self-repair (in particular, when I asked her to correct her mistakes in writing: TEXT 3 and 4; her corrections are marked in red).task 4 (T-4): In the end, I asked Victoria to translate text 1 into Italian (the translation is not reported). The aim of this task was to prepare her for a re-translation task she would do in next lesson, as a way to improve noticing, as suggested by Thornbury (1997:330-1).

Final comment: It was very interesting to see that she improved very much, both in her oral production and in her listening and comprehension skills. This time, it was probably due to the fact that I read the end of the same story (T-2) she had read the beginning of (T-1). Therefore, she already knew the plot and the words used. It was also interesting to hear that Victoria did not start her summaries with the Italian discourse marker "allora", but she started immediately in English. Her confidence was therefore raising and she had started “internalizing” (Ellis 2006a) the English language.This was a 2-hour lesson.

TEXT 1 (this text was read by Victoria)Molly Wilson was a waitress at a hotel. One morning, she had to take breakfast to a women in room 12. the woman was in the bathroom, so Molly put the tray on a table. There was a small handbag – an evening bag- on the table. Molly quickly opened the bag. It was empty. She shut it and turned to go."Thief! What are you doing at my bag?" a voice cried.Molly looked round. The woman had been watching her from the bathroom door. The police were called to the hotel. Everything seemed clear. The police officer's report said that Wilson was caught while attempting to steal from an evening bag. The next day Molly was taken to court. The woman from room 12 was there too, and the judge questioned her.(Ragazzini G, Zaccarini M, 1985, Keep Up Your English, Le Monnier)

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TEXT 2 (this text was read aloud by myself)The woman said, "I saw the waitress opening my bag. By chance, there was nothing inside it. She then shut the bag and turned away. My money was in another handbag - ". "Did she attempt to steal the evening bag itself?""No, sir. She left it on the table. But if my money had been inside it..."."Thank you", the judge said. "This court must only consider the facts. The evening bag was empty. Now a person cannot steal anything from an empty bag. Since stealing from that bag was not possible, then attempting to steal from it is also impossible. The waitress is not guilty of any crime. Case dismissed".That afternoon Molly Wilson went back to her job at the hotel. (Ragazzini G, Zaccarini M, 1985, Keep Up Your English, Le Monnier)

TRANSCRIPT 1 (task 1 (T-1): oral summary of TEXT 1)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)1.Molly Wilson was a waitress at hotel (0.1) (hmm) one morning she (.) she went (.) to (.) (hmm) 2.she went to (0.5) to room twe=twelve where (0.3) where (0.1) where was (sì) where was (hmm) 3.(.) a woman (.) on the table (0.1) in the room (.) there was (hmm) a small handbag (hmm) in 4.this=(no) ('hh) and Molly (.) and Molly (.) opened this bag=this evening bag ('hh) (hmm) but this 5.(0.1) but this is=this was empty (.) ('hh) (hmm) Molly (hmm) Molly heard=heard (hmm) a 6.woman's voice (.) and this (.) woman (hmm) cried to Molly (hmm) cried to Molly (.) that she (0.2) 7.she was a thief (0.2) the hotel (0.1) (hmm) called a police=a police and (0.4) and (0.2) the 8.officer=officer's police (0.5) said (0.1) that (.) Molly (0.3) that Molly (hmm) (0.2) that Molly (0.1) 9.that Molly had=been=watching (hmm) (no) %('hh)% that Molly (.) Molly (.) was=was watching 10.in the evening bag (.) of the woman (0.4) the next day (0.2) Molly was taken=was (0.5) (no) was 11.(0.10) taken=taken to court

TRANSCRIPT 2 (task 2 (T-2): oral summary of TEXT 2)The first to (.) speak=to spoke is=the first to spoke was (.) a woman (.) and she (hmm) she (.) told (0.5) no she %told% (hmm) that (0.4) hi=her money (.) was (0.2) i(:)n another (0.2) evening bag (0.2) and (0.2) (hmm) (0.3) this (0.2) (hmm) these bag (.) ('hh) was empty (0.2) and the court (0.1) considered this fact (0.2) ('hh) (hmm) (0.3) Molly (.) wasn't %(accusata)% and=but she (0.2) (hmm) she (hmm) she (0.4) in the afternoon she (0.8) returned(?) at the work.

TEXT 3 (task 3 (T-3): spotting mistakes in recording/transcript 1)Molly Wilson was a waitress at (in a) hotel (0.1) (hmm) one morning she (.) she went (.) to (.) (hmm) she went to (0.5) to room twe=twelve where (0.3) where (0.1) where (there) was (sì) where was (hmm) (.) a woman (.) on the table (0.1) in the room (.) there was (hmm) a small handbag on the table (hmm) in this=(no) ('hh) and Molly (.) and Molly (.) opened this bag=this evening bag ('hh) (hmm) but this (0.1) but this is=this was empty (.) ('hh) (hmm) Molly (hmm) Molly heard=heard (hmm) a woman's voice (.) and this (.) woman (hmm) cried to Molly (hmm) cried to Molly (.) that she (0.2) she was a thief (0.2) the hotel (0.1) (hmm) called a police=a police and (0.4) and (0.2) the officer=officer's police (0.5) said (0.1) that (.) Molly (0.3) that Molly (hmm) (0.2) that Molly (0.1) that Molly had=been=watching (hmm) (no) %('hh)% that Molly (.) Molly (.) was=was watching in the evening bag (.) of the woman (0.4) the next day (0.2) Molly was taken=was (0.5) (no) was (0.10) taken=taken to court

TEXT 4 (task 3 (T-3): spotting mistakes in recording/transcript 2)The first to (.) speak=to spoke is=the first to spoke was (.) a woman (.) and she (hmm) she (.) told (0.5) no she %told% (hmm) that (0.4) hi=her money (.) was (0.2) i(:)n another (0.2) evening bag

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(0.2) and (0.2) (hmm) (0.3) this (0.2) (hmm) these bag (.) ('hh) was empty (0.2) and the court (0.1) considered this fact (0.2) ('hh) (hmm) (0.3) Molly (.) wasn't %(accusata)% and=but she (0.2) (hmm) she (hmm) she (0.4) in the afternoon she (0.8) returned(?) at the work.


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Lesson 8In the previous lesson, I asked Victoria to translate TEXT 1 into Italian. The text to translate was already known. In addition, Victoria had been practising exercises on it (i.e. a listening comprehension task and an oral production), therefore this task did not present any difficulties. I proposed a re-translation task in order to verify Victoria's accuracy and whether the “extra effort involved may in itself trigger noticing” (Thornbury 1997:330). Victoria was allowed to use a dictionary, as suggested by Thornbury (1997:333).

task 1 (T-1): In this lesson, I asked Victoria to re-translate a text in English (TEXT 2). This, was aimed at improving her noticing (Thornbury 1997:330-1) by letting her compare the original text with hers. At the same time, this task helped me understand how good, at this stage, her written production was and see whether some grammar rules had been retained or not.Her re-translation was done very well. A bilingual dictionary was used. I provided corrective feedbacks on her mistakes and on some grammatical features by using metalinguistic explanations and explicit corrections. Being my explanations in Italian, no recording was made, this time.

Final comment: I congratulated myself on the good work she had done. Her satisfaction was very visible.

TEXT 1 (this text was translated into Italian)Molly Wilson was a waitress at a hotel. One morning, she had to take breakfast to a women in room 12. The woman was in the bathroom, so Molly put the tray on a table. There was a small handbag – an evening bag- on the table. Molly quickly opened the bag. It was empty. She shut it and turned to go."Thief! What are you doing at my bag?" a voice cried.Molly looked round. The woman had been watching her from the bathroom door. The police were called to the hotel. Everything seemed clear. The police officer's report said that Wilson was caught while attempting to steal from an evening bag. The next day Molly was taken to court. The woman from room 12 was there too, and the judge questioned her.(Ragazzini G, Zaccarini M, 1985, Keep Up Your English, Le Monnier)

TEXT 2 (task 1 (T-1): Victoria's re-translation)Molly Wilson was a waitress in a hotel. One morning she had to take breakfast to a woman in the room 12. Woman was in bathroom, so Molly put the tray on the table. On the table there was a small bag, an evening bag. Molly opened quickly the bag. It was empty. She closed it and she turned to go. “Thief! What were you doing to my bag?” a voice cried. Molly looked around. The woman was looking her from the bathroom door. The police were called by the hotels. Everything seemed clear. The report of the police officer said (that) Wilson had been seen while attempting to steal from an evening bag. The after morning Molly was taken to court. Also the woman of room 12 was there and the judge questioned her.

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Lesson 9This lesson started with some good news, which increased Victoria's motivation even more. She told me she had made a test at school and, although still not being a complete pass mark, it was higher. She told me, she had “celebrated” this event with her family and was very satisfied. I congratulated myself.

As I saw that Victoria was making much progress and felt particularly confident with reading texts and summarizing them orally, I proposed the same task as before. The story was taken from the book we had been working in this action research, because she was acquainted with its “style” and grammar. However, this time the text was a little more complex, in order to verify how she would “react” and whether she would be able to overcome some difficulties. There were, for instance, some words I knew she did not know and the plot was a little more complex than the other stories she had been reading. The text contained in fact some humour. In addition, from this lesson on, I started asking her some questions about the story content. This was not carried out before because I preferred to let Victoria speak uninterruptedly using her own words. I knew, in fact, that my questions might confuse her (as in L-2), because she was supposed to think of and utter an answer in a very short time. From this lesson on, however, as she was feeling more confident, and I started asking questions in order to see how she would answer, in order to verify the logic of her sentences and whether she would apply grammar rules correctly.

task 1 (T-1): Victoria read TEXT 1 twice. She asked the meaning of some words she did not understand, then she summarized the text orally (TRANSCRIPT 1) and I transcribed her words. task 2 (T-2): Then, I asked her to listen to the recording and read my transcript. She marked few errors (CORRECTION 1). I provided metalinguistic explanations and explicit corrections on the errors she did not spot, and corrected also the pronunciation of some words, asking her to repeat them correctly (verbatim repetitions) (the transcript of this is not reported).task 3 (T-3): Finally, I asked few questions about the text content (TRANCRIPT 2). More than verifying her text comprehension, this task was aimed at letting her talk and helping me analyse the use of words and application of grammar rules. I considered this task well done.

Final comment: I considered all tasks very successful: she was able to structure her summary and answer to my questions in a logical way, using the right words and applying grammar rules correctly. The text, considered “difficult” comparing to the previous ones, was dealt with with no particular difficulties. It was also remarkable that Victoria did not start her summary with the Italian discourse marker allora (meaning well). I considered this a sign of her increased confidence. She also continued to self-repair, both in her grammar (transcript 2) and in her pronunciation (transcript 1) (words marked in green).This was a 2-hour lesson.

TEXT 1I particularly remember my job at the bank.I was out playing with a jazz group about four nights a week, getting back to my bed, full of beer, smoke and blues. The mornings were hell. I got back to consciousness through the clamour of the alarm clock and pulled on my threadbare suit to take up my daylight role as assistant stamp and envelop licker. I believe the bank staff were required to be at their desks by nine, but thanks to chronic over-sleeping I was seldom there before half past. Amazingly I survived about four weeks of this before the manager finally called me into his office for the big show-down.We faced each other over the great expanse of this mahogany desk as he recited a full list of my late arrivals and absences, major and minor errors. It was undoubtedly an impressive performance. I was almost flattered that he had kept such detailed records of my incompetence. He solemnly gave me a

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final warning, I think we both knew it was a waste of time, but there was a ritual to be gone through.I remember I even determined to change my life. I set my alarm clock and forced myself to get out of bed in the grey light of dawn to gulp down coffee and cornflakes.That first morning I fell asleep on the bus and If it hadn't been for the conductor I'd been half way to Piccadilly. I arrived at the bank simply ages early. I'd never seen the place empty before. I still think it was a magnificent achievement for someone as habitually idle as I was. And if I had managed to stay awake long enough to greet the manager on his arrival I might have gone on to be a big name in banking. But it was not to be. By nine o'clock I was sleeping over my desk, dead to the world. They woke me, gently, to give me my cards. They were right. I wasn't bank staff material.(Ragazzini G, Zaccarini M, 1985, Keep Up Your English, Le Monnier)

TRANSCRIPT 1 (task 1 (T-1): oral summary of text 1)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)1.V:This character (.) (hmm) worked in (hmm) at the bank=in a bank (hmm) but (hmm) about four 2.nights a week he (.) he played (hmm) with a jazz group (0.4) (hmm) (0.4) he (hmm) full of beer 3.and smoke in the last (0.3) morning (0.2) he (hmm) he went to(:) to the work (0.5) one day (0.2) 4.and=and (.) he arrived (.) at the work (hmm) (in ritardo?) 5.P: late6.V:late (0.6) one day (.) his boss (0.5) took (0.1) on his desk (0.1) a list full of (0.1) late arrivals 7.and (.) absences and errors (0.5) (hmm) but (hmm) (0.2) he (0.4) but he (0.4) he (hmm) di= but he 8.(hmm) (0.8) no (0.6) in (0.2) in (.) in a little time (.) he was out bank staff=staff.


CORRECTION 1 (task 2 (T-2): Victoria's corrected her mistakes, which are marked in red)This character (.) (hmm) worked in (hmm) at the bank=in a bank (hmm) but (hmm) about four nights a week he (.) he played (hmm) with a jazz group (0.4) (hmm) (0.4) he (hmm) full of beer and smoke in the last (0.3) morning (0.2) he (hmm) he went to(:) to the work (0.5) one day (0.2) and=and (.) he arrived (.) at the work (hmm) (in ritardo?) late (0.6) one day (.) his boss (0.5) took (0.1) on his desk (0.1) a list full of (0.1) late arrivals and (.) absences and errors (0.5) (hmm) but (hmm) (0.2) he (0.4) but he (0.4) he (hmm) di= but he (hmm) (0.8) no (0.6) in (0.2) in (.) in a little time (.) he was out of bank staff=staff.

TRANSCRIPT 2 (task 3 (T-3): questions on text 1)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)(P: Patrizia; V:Victoria)1.P: All right. Can you tell me where (0.1) the guy=the boy used to work? Where did (.) the guy work?2.V:(hmm) This (.) boy worked in (0.1) in a bank

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3.P: Ok (.) did he like the work?4.V:No (0.4) because (hmm) he (hmm) (0.2) he wasn't adap=adapt for (.) this job5.P: Did he have (.) any hobbies?6.V:yes (0.2) ('hh) the guy (hmm) was playing (.) in a jazz group about four night=nights a week7.P: Good (hmm) how did he go to work? (0.4) How did he go to work?8.V:(hmm) he (.) he went to work by bus

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Lesson 10In this lesson I proposed a reconstruction task: a dictation, as suggested by Thornbury (1997). The aim of this task was to develop her linguistic competence by matching her written reproduction with the original text. In this way, I aimed at increasing her noticing and converting “input” into “intake” (Thornbury 1997:330).The text book used was the one she had been acquainted with since the beginning. There was no increased level of difficulty, either in grammar or in content. My aim was to let her speak, possibly uninterruptedly (without my intervention or word suggestions) about the text content, while I could verify the correct application of grammar rules and text comprehension. In order to do so, at the end of the lesson, we carried out a little conversation.

task 1 (T-1): I dictated a short text to Victoria (TEXT 1). She wrote it down (TEXT 2).task 2 (T-2): I let her do a reconstruction task by matching the original text with hers. Victoria highlighted her mistakes (marked in red in CORRECTION 1).task 3 (T-3): Then, I asked her to compare her text with the original one and see if she could notice any differences. We carried out a little conversation while matching the two texts (TRANSCRIPT 1). task 4 (T-4): Afterwards, I asked some comprehension questions (TRANSCRIPT 2), aimed at verifying her comprehension and letting her speak.

Final comment: Although her written production (the dictated text) contained some relevant errors due to the challenges raised by the listening task, I considered all tasks well done, both from the grammatical and the speech content/fluency point of view. As a matter of fact, when comparing the original text with hers, she was happy to understand how words should have been written, in order to make sense (she wrote, in fact “Miss taken identity” instead of “Mistaken identity” ; “he route to his brother” instead of “he wrote to his brother” etc.).In her oral production (transcript 1 and 2), the grammar errors decreased considerably (almost all past tense verbs were correct, with no use of subsequent self-repair, see words marked in green) and the logic of her speech further improved (she used conjunctions correctly). In addition, it was possible to notice that Victoria interrupted me few times while I was making questions or clarifying them (words marked in blue in transcript 2). I considered this eagerness to speak (i.e. taking the turn) a further increase in confidence. The Italian discourse marker allora was uttered again (transcript 2), as well as some other words in Italian (no, sì, meaning no, yes; and ripeti?, meaning repeat), highlighted in yellow. These, were probably caused by some tension due to either the listening task (listening and understanding my questions) or to the fact that she was about to utter sentences at once (with no previous “preparation”, such as reading notes previously written).This was a 2-hour lesson.

TEXT 1 (original text) (numbers have been inserted to structure the text)Mistaken Identity1.While travelling abroad, Mr Jackson Frank ran short of money. So he wrote to his brother, asking for £ 500. "Send the money by telegram", he wrote, "to the Fisher Bank in London".2.After a week he began calling at the Fisher Bank. He showed his passport. "Nothing has come for you", he was told. 3.This went on for two weeks, and Mr frank got very worried. He sent a telegram to his brother, asking where the money was. 4.There was no reply, and no money arrived for him.5.In the fourth week Mr Frank was arrested for failing to pay his hotel bill. His passport and

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baggage were taken from him. He tried to explain the problem, but no one believed him. 6.He was sent to prison for sixty days.(Ragazzini G, Zaccarini M, 1985, Keep Up Your English, Le Monnier)

TEXT 2 (task 1 (T-1): Victoria's written text) (numbers have been inserted to structure the text)Miss taken identity1.While traveling abro Mr Jackson Franck ran short of money. So he route to his brother, asking for four. "Sand the money by telegram", he route, "to the Fisher Banck in London".2.He his passport. Nothing, he was told. 3.This went on for two a week, and Mr Franck got very worried. He sent a telegram to his brother, asking where the money. 4.There was no replay, and no mony arrived for him.5.In the 4th week Mr Franck was arrested for falling to pay his hotel build. His passport and baggege were taken from him. He tryed to explain the problem, but no one belived him.6.He was sent to prison for sixteen days.

CORRECTION 1 (task 2 (T-2): reconstruction task: Victoria marked her mistakes in red) "(..)" indicates missing partsMiss taken identity1.While traveling abro Mr Jackson Franck ran short of money. So he route to his brother, asking for four. "Sand the money by telegram", he route, "to the Fisher Banck in London".2.(...) He (..) his passport. Nothing, (...) he was told. 3.This went on for two a week, and Mr Franck got very worried. He sent a telegram to his brother, asking where the money (was). 4.There was no replay, and no mony arrived for him.5.In the 4th week Mr Franck was arrested for falling to pay his hotel build. His passport and baggege were taken from him. He tryed to explain the problem, but no one belived him.6.He was sent to prison for sixteen days.

TRANSCRIPT 1 (task 3 (T-3): noticing differences between the original text and the text Victoria wrote) (P: Patrizia; V:Victoria)P: Ok (hmm) I would like now to know (.) now which differences you noticed between your text and the original text (0.1) can you explain which are the differences? (0.2) What things did you notice? (0.2) What seems to be different?V:(hmm) to write thi=(no, sì)=this (.) this text I had difficulties (.) in some word (.) (hmm) because (.) (hmm) I didn't he=hear them at school bec=because I didn't (0.1) use (.) these words (hmm) Bu(:)t I=I know I know (0.2) I am better in the (.) past the past tense verbs.

TRANSCRIPT 2 (task 4 (T-4): comprehension questions on Text 1)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)(P: Patrizia; V:Victoria)1.P: Ok (.) now I would like to ask you a few questions about the=the text (.) my first question is 2.the following (.) what happened to Mr. (.) Frank while travelling abroad? (0.1) what happened to 3.Mr. Fra [4.V: [Mr. Frank (hmm) (0.6) ('hh) Mr. Frank (hmm) wrote (.) to his brother (.) to(:) have some (.) 5.money to(:)=to pay (hmm) the hotel 6.P: right (.) so (.) does that mean that he didn't have the money? (0.1) does that mean that (.) he 7.didn't have the money? (0.3) did Mr. Frank have the money or not?

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8.V: [no, no9.P: no (.) ok ('hh) my second question is (.) what did he ask his brother to do? 10.V:(allora) (hmm) Mr. Frank ('hh) ask=asked to(:) (hmm) his brother (hmm) (0.2) five (0.3) five 11.hundred pounds 12.P: (0.2) ok (.) and what did he do after a week? (.) what did he do after a week?13.V:(hmm) after week=in the after week (.) Mr. Jack=Mr. Frank (hmm) (0.2) was (.) arrested 14.becau(:)se he=he didn't pay (.) the hotel 15.P: how long did he have to stay in pri[?16.V: [Mr. Frank stayed in prison=in the prison (.) for sixty days17.P: ok (0.2) ('hh) you told me before (.) that after a week (.) he was arrested (0.3) 18.V:(ripeti?)19.P: you told me that (.) he first sent a telegram (.) and after a week he was arrested (0.1) are you 20.sure about this?21.V:oh (0.2) no=no (0.3) (looking at her script) a=after a week (.) Mr. Frank sent (0.1) a ne(:)w (.) 22.telegram to his brother (0.2)23.P: (0.1) ok (.) so actually when was he (.) arrested? (0.1) when was he arrested? 24.V:(hmm) he wa(:)s (.) arrested (no) he was arrested (0.2) after (.) four (.) fourth wee=week


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Lesson 11In this lesson, Victoria carried out a reconstruction task she had become acquainted with: an oral summary. In particular, she summarized text 1 of the previous lesson. The text had already been dealt with successfully, therefore the task was not difficult to her. This lesson was aimed at further improving her motivation and confidence, as well as at fostering her practice and application of grammar rules while improving her communication skills and speech fluency.

task 1 (T-1): Victoria read again TEXT 1 of the previous lesson and, in addition, she also read the story end. Then, she summarized the whole text orally (TRANSCRIPT 1).task 2 (T-2): Afterwards, we played the recording and I made her notice some mistakes (TRANSCRIPT 2). I provided corrective feedbacks by means of metalinguistic explanations and explicit corrections. During my questioning, I tried to use elicitation (eliciting her self-correction by means of a wh-question, Lyster et al. 2013:4) (words marked in blue). However, Victoria was tired in this lesson and was not very keen on speaking English. Therefore, I had to interrupt our recording and I continued my explanations in Italian.

Final comment: In this lesson it was interesting to notice how Victoria's hmm decreased substantially while her capacity to self-repair continued (words marked in green). There was one word (from, highlighted in yellow) she did not self repair, but, in a way, she questioned herself whether it was right or wrong. Furthermore, she used laughter again, as a sign of pressure release (Bull & Ma, 2001:15). The Italian discourse marker allora was not uttered, showing confidence and an increased “internalization” (Ellis 2006a) of the English language.

WHOLE TEXT 1 LESSON 11Mistaken IdentityWhile travelling abroad, Mr Jackson Frank ran short of money. So he wrote to his brother, asking for £ 500. "Send the money by telegram", he wrote, "to the Fisher Bank in London".After a week he began calling at the Fisher Bank. He showed his passport. "Nothing has come for you", he was told. This went on for two weeks, and Mr frank got very worried. He sent a telegram to his brother, asking where the money was. There was no reply, and no money arrived for him.In the fourth week Mr Frank was arrested for failing to pay his hotel bill. His passport and baggage were taken from him. He tried to explain the problem, but no one believed him. He was sent to prison for sixty days.-STORY ENDWhen he came out, he went immediately to the Fisher Bank. The clerk he spoke to was a new man. "Have you received £ 500 for me?" he asked. "My name is Jackson Frank". The clerk checked his books. "Yes, Mr Jackson, it's here. It came by telegram – let me see – oh, more than two months ago. We wondered where you were". He showed Mr. Frank the order. "Pay Mr. Frank Jackson the sum of £ 500.."."But my name is Jackson Frank, not Frank Jackson"."Oh, that's all right, sir. It was in our books under the letter "J", but it's your money". The clerk laughed. "A human mistake, sir! We're all human beings, aren't we? And so we all make mistakes."Mr Frank was silent. He really wanted to hit somebody. At last he said, "A human mistake – is that what you call it? I think some humans need kicking".(Ragazzini G, Zaccarini M, 1985, Keep Up Your English, Le Monnier)

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TRANSCRIPT 1 (task 1 (T-1): oral summary)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)1.Mr. Jacko=Jackson Fra=Frank (hmm) (0.6) %(0.2)% asked (.) some money (.) to his brother but 2.thi=this money (.) don't=didn't arrive to(:) the Fisher Bank (0.3) after (.) one week (0.4) he (hmm) 3.(0.4) he (hmm) he (no) he (0.5) want=he (hmm) (fff) he sent=sent a new telegram to his brother 4.(hmm) (0.2) but (.) this money don't arrive=didn't arrive ('hh) (hmm) after fourth week (.) Mr. 5.Frank was arrested because he (.) didn't (no=sì) he didn't (hmm) pay his hotel ('hh) (hmm) (0.2) 6.Mr. Frank (0.2) tried to explain the problem (.) but (hmm) no one believed him (0.4) (hmm) and 7.he (.) he was (0.2) sent (.) to prison and (0.2) and he (no) he was sent to prison fo(:)r (.) sixty days 8.(0.2) then (.) then when he came out (.) ('hh) he went to Fisher Bank (.) and he asked to(:) 9.clerk=to the clerk (0.5) if (.) the money (hmm) arrived (0.3) the clerk (0.4) tried the=the money in 10.the books (.) and he (0.3) he (.) he ta=he took the (0.3) five thousand pounds (.) to(:) Mr. Frank. 11.Mr. Frank (hmm) ask=asked bec=why the money (hmm) (no) when (.) the money arr=arrived to 12.the Fisher Bank (.) and (.) the clerk sa=said that (.) the money arrived (hmm) fro=from (no) 13.from(?) more two months ago ('hh) (0.2) a=and the clerk didn't=didn't take this money to(:) Mr. 14.Frank (0.1) becau(:)se (0.1) because they (.) didn't know (.) the name and surname (.) of Mr. 15.Jackson Frank

TRANSCRIPT 2 (task 2 (T-2): elicitation)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)(P: Patrizia; V:Victoria)1.P: ok (.) I noticed (.) that you made (.) few mistakes (0.2) let's talk about them (0.3) (hmm) you 2.said (.) the clerk (.) didn't (.) take (0.1) didn't take (.) this money to Mr. Frank (.) right?3.V:yes4.P: what is the difference (.) between (.) take (0.1) and give?5.V:(hmm) ta(.) take (hmm) (cioè take vuol dire prendere e give dare)6.(=she explained the difference in Italian; the recording was interrupted as we continued in Italian)


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Lesson 12In this last lesson, we were eager to verify whether Victoria had made some improvements in her listening skills. Therefore, I read a text aloud and asked her to summarize it orally. In Lesson 4, she was not able to understand the words, the grammar rules applied and the story meaning. Also this time she failed, but her attitude was completely different: the confidence she had been raising helped her not to feel disappointed. Another activity was then proposed: a dictation, which, despite the challenges due to the listening task, was better than the one in L-11.The text proposed was not particularly difficult in words and in grammar, and it was sourced from the book she had become acquainted with.

task 1 (T-1): I read a short text aloud (TEXT 1) and I asked Victoria to tell me the content with her own words. Unfortunately, also this time she was not able to summarize it (TRANSCRIPT 1) because there were too many words she had not understood, either morphologically or semantically. However, despite her incapability to reproduce the text orally, she was not as demotivated as in Lesson 4 (she laughed while saying she had not understood the text). Her confidence had in fact increased and failing a listening task was not a good reason any more to think she did not have a good grasp of the language. task 2 (T-2): Therefore, I dictated the same text, giving her the possibility to compare the original text with hers (TEXT 2), at the end of my dictation. She marked her mistakes (TEXT 2, words marked in red). The listening task was still challenging for her (she wrote “Garden” instead of “Guardian”; “to there on hands” instead of “into their own hands” etc.). However, she had improved, compared to L-11.task 3 (T-3): Then, I asked her which differences she could find between the two texts (TRANSCRIPT 2). I did so to improve her noticing and self-repair and to improve her communication skills. As a matter of fact, differently from the other times, Victoria was more confident with English and used Italian very few times (for instance: when she did not remember how to say “to make mistakes” and she asked me the translation, or when she uttered the conjunction quindi, meaning therefore). She used self-repair and laughter to release pressure. task 4 (T-4): Then, I asked her few questions, to verify the text comprehension (TRANSCRIPT 3) and I provided explanations in English. I sometimes interrupted her with some prompts (clarification requests) on words she mistook, and I asked her to do some verbatim repetitions on words she did not pronounce correctly. I also uttered elicitations with the view to promoting her self-repair (all marked in blue). This time, differently from before (Lesson 2), my interruptions did not confuse her and she was able to continue her summary (although it took her 17+8 seconds to start again – time marked in red). This was also the first time Victoria asked me in English to repeat something she had not understood, without using the metalinguistic ripeti? (highlighted in yellow).task 5 (T-5): Then, I asked her to read the end of text 1 (TEXT 3), to take few notes while she was reading and to tell me the whole text orally (text 1 + text 3) (TRANSCRIPT 4). She continued to self-repair or to question herself on those words she was not sure of (words marked in green).task 6 (T-6): Finally, I asked her to spot her mistakes (TEXT 4) and I provided metalinguistic explanations on those she did not mark (she was too tired to listen to me in English).

Final comment: In this lesson, I was very pleased to see that, although the number of tasks had increased substantially, Victoria performed very well. This was a lesson of over 2 hours.

TEXT 1Guardian Angels in New YorkAccording to a recent survey, 70 per cent of New York residents say that fear of crime is the worst

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aspect of living in the city. Worried and frightened, some New York citizens have taken matters into their own hands. That's why volunteer citizen groups have been formed, and the most conspicuous of these are among which the Guardian Angels. They are crime-fighting teenagers who patrol the city wearing red berets and T-shirts, on the T-shirt is an eagle's eye.(Ragazzini G, Zaccarini M, 1985, Keep Up Your English, Le Monnier)

TRANSCRIPT 1 (task 1 (T-1): trying to repeat the story content after the listening task)(P: Patrizia; V:Victoria)P: ok (0.2) now I will ask you few questions (.) about the text that I (0.1) read (0.1) my first question is the following (0.2) ('hh) who are the guardian angels? (.) did you understand (.) who the guardian angels are? V:(0.6) %I don't know %P: ok (.) what do they do? (0.2) did you understand (.) what the guardian angels do?V:(0.8) %no%

TEXT 2 (task 2 (T-2): dictation)(...)= missing wordsVictoria's corrections on her errors are marked in redGarden Angels in New YorkAccording to a reason survey 70 present of NY residents say that fear of crime is the worst aspect of living in the city.Worried and fritend, some NY cityzens have taken matters in two there on hands.Thats why voluntear citizen (...) have been formed and the most conspicuous of these are among which the garden angels.They are crime-fitting teenagers how patrol the city wearing red berrets and t-shirts, on the t-shirt is an aglas.

TRANSCRIPT 2 (task 3 (T-3): asking Victoria the differences between the original text and hers)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment)(P: Patrizia; V:Victoria)1.P: ok (.) can you tell me the differences (.) between (.) the text that I read (.) to you and the text (.) 2.that you wrote3.V:(0.2) i(:)n my text I(:) had (0.1) many errors (0.1) because I (.) don (0.1) I didn't know (0.3) 4.ma(:)ny words (0.1) ('hh) because (0.2) in the school I (0.1) don=I didn't (0.1) he=hear these 5.words ('hh) (hmm) and I (0.3) I(:) (0.3) I (.) I read (0.2) only (.) I only read (0.2) read=read (0.1) 6.and (0.2) in (0.2) other (0.2) words (0.4) ('hh) I (0.3) I had (0.8) (sbagliare)7.P: I made mistakes8.V:ok (.) I (quindi) I made mistakes (0.6) (hmm) in (hmm) (0.3) in the words (0.1) that I(:) (0.8)9.P: that you?10.V:that I (hmm) (0.5)11.P: do not use? (0.1) didn't know?12.V:(0.6) %yes% 13.P: yes (.) what? 14.V:%(0.5)% (0.5) that I (0.1) didn't (0.5) didn't use

TRANSCRIPT 3 (task 4 (T-4): comprehension questions and explanations)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)(P: Patrizia; V:Victoria)

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1.P: I'm going to ask you now (.) few (0.1) questions to verify your comprehension (0.1) of the text 2.(.) ('hh) so (.) who are the guardian angels?3.V:the guardian angels (hmm) i=are ('hh) the(:) (0.2) gua=guardian o(:)f (.) the city (.) New York 4.(0.1) of=the New=York=city5.P: (0.5) ok (0.3) can you repeat it (.) please? (0.2) Again (.) who are the guardian angels? (0.1) 6.again (.) say it again (.) ya7.V:(0.2) the guardian (0.1) angels ('hh) are (0.6) were (0.7) (hmm) were the (0.3) guardians (0.2) 8.of (.) the New York city9.P: (0.2) you have corrected one thing (.) which is good (.) you corrected guardian (0.1) you said 10.before guardian (.) and now you added (0.1) you added the s (.) guardians (.) which is good (.) 11.ok? ('hh) (0.1) you don't have to put the article (.) the (0.1) before (.) New York city (.) that's the 12.second error 13.V:(hmm)14.P: ok? But that's ok (.) that was the first question (0.1) ('hh) let's go to the second one (0.1) ('hh) 15.what do they do? (.) what do guardian angels do?16.V:(0.1) ('hh) the guardian angels (hmm) (0.4) controlled (.) controlled (hmm) controlled New 17.York city ('hh) (0.1) because (0.1) (hmm) the crime (0.5) wa(:)s (0.3) the=the worst aspect (.) 18.and the(:) (0.1) the residents (.) of (.) New York (0.5) New York (hmm) a=are (0.4)19.P: pardon?20.V:a(:)re (0.3)21.P: sure? (0.1) Are you sure?22.V:(0.17) %no% (hmm) (0.8) were 23.P: very good (.) you see? Were (.) no (.) are24.V:were (hmm) (0.5) were (0.10) 25.P: s=scared? (.) oh (0.1) tired (.) you mean26.V:tired (.) o(:)f (0.1) these (0.2) of the(:)se (.) problem27.P: this (.) or these?28.V:this29.P: this (.) ok (.) that's ok (0.3) third (.) question (.) what did they wear?30.V:repeat (.) please?31.P: yes (.) what did they wear? (.) what did they (.) have on? 32.V:(hmm) (0.1) the guardian angels (0.1) (hmm) (0.3) wear (0.1) weared ('hh) (hmm) with (.) red 33.berets (.) and t-shirt ('hh) (.) on thi (.) this t-shirt ('hh) (hmm) wa(:)s an (0.1) angle's eye34.P: ok (0.1) repeat please (.) there are (.) a couple of mistakes (.) repeat please35.V:('hh) the guardian angels (0.4) wear (.) weared (0.4) %(fff)%36.P: ok (.) go on37.V:(hmm) (0.3) with (.) read (.) berets (0.1) ('hh) and t-shirts (0.1) on (0.2) this (.) these t-shirt(.)s 38.(.) t-shirts is (0.1) (mi sono sbagliata) were %angle's% angle's eye ('hh)39.P: ok (.) now you have to repeat with me (0.1) ok? (.) you have to repeat (0.3) the past simple of 40.(.) to wear (.) is (.) wore (.) say it (.) please41.V:wore42.P: wore (hmm) to wear=wore=worn43.V:worn44.P: ok? And (.) the animal (.) the bird (.) is not called (.) angle (.) but (.) it is called eagle (.) eagle 45.(.) repeat it (.) please46.V:eagle47.P: ok?48.V:eagle's eye49.P: eagle's eye (.) very good (0.2) then (.) the very last thing (0.1) hmm (.) you corrected yourself 50.(.) when you used (.) the verb (.) read (0.2) because (.) the verb paradigm (0.1) is (.) read=read

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51.=read (0.1) will you say it again (.) please?52.V:yes (.) read (.) read (.) read53.P: very good

TEXT 3 (end of text 1)The Guardian Angels are carefully selected and trained. They work in teams of eight, and carry no weapons. They reflect the racial mix of New York, with people from many ethnic groups. The Mayor of New York hates them, but the New Yorkers love them. Originally they worked on the subway, but they are now expanding to patrol parks and ferries and public housing projects. They also escort children and senior citizens on day trips.(Ragazzini G, Zaccarini M, 1985, Keep Up Your English, Le Monnier)

TRANSCRIPT 4 (task 5 (T-5): repeating texts 1+3 orally)(lines are numbered because some are reported in the assignment analysis)1.In the New York city (0.2) ('hh) the sev=seventy percent of (.) New York residents ('hh) a=were 2.(0.5) (hmm) were tir=ty (no mi sono sbagliata) (hmm) New York residents (.) ('hh) tired o(:)f 3.(hmm) the crime (0.1) in the city (0.4) ('hh) for this way (0.4) there wa=there was (no) there were 4.(.) many groups (.) and (.) these groups (.) these groups (0.5) were (0.5) the (.) the 5.gua=guardians=guardian angels (0.3) these (.) groups (0.5) weared (0.1) wo=wored(?) wo (non mi 6.viene) with (0.1) a red berets (.) a(:)nd (0.2) t-shirt (0.2) (niente a) red berets and t-shirt (hmm) 7.and t-shirts (.) on this t-shirt (hmm) we=was an e=eagle's eye (0.2) (hmm) these (.) teams ('hh) 8.were (hmm) (0.3) of (.) eight people (0.1) a(:)nd (0.4) and these people (hmm) (0.2) are (0.1) 9.these people were (0.2) (hmm) fro(:)m (.) many ethnic groups (0.5) the (.) the major (.) the major 10.of (.) New York City ha (0.2) hat(.)ed them (.) but the New Yorkers (hmm) (0.1) love them (0.3) 11.these groups (0.3) controlled (0.1) the subway (0.1) parks ('hh) and the(:) publics=public (.) 12.builds (hmm) they (0.1) escorted (.) children (.) and the old people (.) in the New York city

TEXT 4 (task 6 (T-6): Victoria's spotted mistakes in her oral summary, her corrections are in red; punctuation has been added to facilitate the text comprehension)In the New York city the seventy percent of New York residents were tired of the crime in the city. For this way there were many groups and these groups were called the guardian angels. These groups wored with red berets and t-shirts on this these t-shirts was an eagle's eye. These teams were of eight people and these people were from many ethnic groups. The major of New York City hated them but the New Yorkers loved them. These groups controlled the subway, parks and the public builds in New York. They escorted children and the old people in the of New York city.


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Final Test Victoria made some final fill-in-the-blanks, standard, de-contextualised grammar exercises, in order to verify her improvements. The proposed exercises were in line with what she had practised at school, with her school program and, therefore, with what she was supposed to know.

EXERCISE 1 : PUT THE FOLLOWING PHRASES IN THE PASSIVE VOICE1.Yesterday I cleaned my room:Yesterday my room was cleaned (by me).2.My sister is going to cut her hair:The hair of my sister is going to be cut.3.John will buy a new car:A new car will be bought by John.4.Teresa would write a new book if she had the time:A new book would be written by Teresa, if she had the time.

EXERCISE 2 : PUT THE VERB IN THE CORRECT FORM:Exercise Victoria's solution1.How long _____ (you/know) Simon?Oh, I first ___ (meet) him when I ___ (be) 11. We ____ (be) friends ever since.

How long have you known Simon?Oh, I first has met him when I was 11. We have been friends ever since.

2.___ (he/be) nice when he ___ (be) a kid?Not at all. He ____ (use to) tease me all the time. He ___ (change) when he ___ (meet) Teresa.

Was he nice when he was a kid?Not at all. He used to tease me all the time. He changed when he met Teresa.

3.Yesterday at 3 I ___ (go) to the library to ___ (meet) Eric. Before that, I ___ (buy) a nice present for him.

Yesterday at 3 I went to the library to meet Eric. Before that, I bought a nice present for him.

4.While I ____ (read) a book, the phone ___ (ring). It ___ (be) Mary who ___ (ask) me to ___ (go) out with her, but I ___ (tell) her I ___ (can/not).

While I was reading a book, the phone rang. It was Mary who asked me to go out with her, but I told her I could not.

5.If you ___ (see) John tomorrow, please ___ (tell) him I ___ (wait) for him at 3 in front of the post office.

If you see John tomorrow, please tell him I will wait for him at 3 in front of the post office.

6.I ____ (know/not) that yesterday you ___ (pass/not) your exam.Yeah, nobody ___ (know) that I ___ (fail).

I didn't know that yesterday you didn't pass your exam.Yeah, nobody know that I failed.

7.Every Saturday, John and Mary ___ (go) swimming. Afterwards, he ____ (invite) her for dinner.

Every Saturday, John and May go swimming. Afterwards, he invites her for dinner.

EXERCISE 3: TRANSLATIONSText to translate Victoria's translationsTi piace il Jazz?A Maria piace il Jazz?

Do you love Jazz?Does Maria love Jazz?

Dove sei stato ieri?Sono andato al cinema con Paul

Where were you yesterday?I went to the cinema with Paul

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Se partirò per (for) l'Australia, mi verrai a trovare?1.Ti verrei a trovare solo se avessi I soldi2.Ti verrò a trovare se avrò I soldi

If I leave for Australia, will you visit me?1.I would visit you only, if I had the money2.I will visit you if I have the money

Se avessi comperato quella casa, me ne sarei pentito (pentirsi=to regret)

If I had bought that house, I would have regretted.

Se non metti (to put) zucchero nel caffé, è amaro If you don't put sugar in the coffee, it is too bitterHai visto Paul recentemente?No, non lo vedo da Novembre

Have you seen Paul recently?No, I haven't seen him since November

Final comment: There are few mistakes (marked in red) and some minor ones. In whole, the test (and the whole action research) was successful and I expressed my congratulations to Victoria: she really made great steps forward.

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TESOL: Grammar through communication activities

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