Pedagogical Translanguaging in L2 Teaching for Adult Migrants: Assessing Feasibility and Emotional Impact
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors present a well-structured and engaging study exploring the use of pedagogical translanguaging to teach derivational morphology to adult learners of French and Greek as second languages. A particularly interesting aspect developed in the study is the attention paid to the emotional impact of using pedagogical translanguaging. Another positive element is undoubtedly the large number of participants in the study.
However, while the study offers valuable insights, several areas require further elaboration.
A significant omission is the lack of reference to the extensive body of research on morphological awareness, particularly in relation to second language acquisition and morphological instruction. The authors might consider incorporating at least the findings included in the meta-analyses and systematic reviews by Carlisle 2010; Bowers, Kirby & Deacon 2010; Goodwin & Ahn 2010; Bowers, Kirby & Deacon 2010 and Goodwin & Ahn 2013 on the effects of morphological instruction. This would provide a more comprehensive theoretical framework and highlight the significance of their findings in relation to the existing literature.
The authors' conceptualization of 'learning derivation' would also benefit from referencing the morphological awareness literature. With this respect, a more precise definition of the learning outcomes of the intervention implemented is recommended. What exactly do the authors intend for learners to achieve? An implicit sensitivity to the word structure? The ability to explicitly describe the word structure? The ability to classify the sublexical components? The ability to infer meaning from complex words,or to reason on the syntactic properties of the morphological pattern? A clearer articulation of the learning objectives would strengthen the study's theoretical grounding.
The role of the learners' first language (L1) in second language acquisition is another area that warrants further attention. While the authors acknowledge the potential benefits of translanguaging, they do not reference to the large body of literature addressing interplay between L1 and L2 and on cross linguistic influence. Moreover, there is limited discussion about how positive transfer might vary across different native language groups, and whether it is equally advantageous for all learners.
Additionally, the concept of analogy, while central to the study, is not adequately defined or justified. A more explicit discussion of how analogy is conceptualized in the study and how it relates to other theoretical frameworks would be beneficial. The recognition of second language linguistic structures and the abstraction of grammatical features can take place without any comparative or contrastive analysis between the native language and the second language.
At line 254, the authors state: The corner stone of PTL tool we developed lies in the systematic, explicit linking between the learners’ existing languages’ knowledge and the new language" => How do we know that this link actually occurred? Was it verified or assessed in any way?
The authors' claim that pedagogical translanguaging can activate spontaneous analogical reasoning in learners, especially those with limited formal education, is intriguing. However, more evidence is needed to support this claim. For instance, how was the effectiveness of the intervention in fostering analogical reasoning assessed? Were learners able to independently make comparisons between their L1 and L2? How could the teacher verify the effectiveness of the comparison with the L1 and possibly to guide such a comparison?
Studies on morphological awareness indicate that this ability is not a given, even in monolingual or bilingual adolescents with extensive exposure to the second language. If the teacher is unfamiliar with the learners' native language, it remains to be seen and verified how much learners are able to develop this skill independently and benefit from it. While perceiving that a word has a morphological structure is a first step, being able to use this awareness to make inferences about the meaning of words and their morphosyntactic characteristics is a more complex and crucial ability. The latter skills have a beneficial effect on the development of vocabulary, reading, and text comprehension, as demonstrated by a vast body of literature.
The study would benefit from a more detailed description of the instructional activities. What specific tasks were learners engaged in? How were the target affixes presented and practiced? A more thorough account of the instructional procedures would allow readers to evaluate the study's findings better and replicate the intervention.
Line 308: How was the socioeconomic status of the participants determined?
Line 316: How was the learners' exposure to the second language determined? Does this solely refer to the number of lesson hours? This should be clarified.
In step 2 of the teaching procedure, on lines 350 and following: what is the task for the participants? Is it to recognize the morphologically complex word and transcribe it? What kind of reflection is developed with this task?
In step 3 of the procedure, was translation into the first language always possible? To what extent did the morphological structures of the second language lexicon align with those of the first language? What happened when learners came from typologically very distant language systems from a morphological point of view and could not count on an isomorphism of word formation systems?
In step 4: which affixes were presented? What symbols were used? And for what purpose? As before, how was it verified that learners had successfully reflected on and compared the structure of words in the second language with those of the first language?
Table 1 refers to ‘pleasure to learn': since these are the results of the teachers' questionnaire, perhaps it would be more effective to indicate 'teachers' perception of learners' pleasure to learn' or make it more clear that it is the teacher’s evaluation. Furthermore, when referring to the value 'ease to learn', is this a subjective evaluation by the teacher, or was the effectiveness evaluated in some way?
In general, it would be useful for the authors to clarify what they mean by 'teaching of affixes': what did they do to teach affixes? In particular, I have the impression that pedagogical translanguaging was not actually used by the teachers to teach derivational morphology, but rather was used by the learners to learn derivational morphology.
It would also have been interesting to observe what the teachers know about derivational morphology, as some studies indicate that teachers themselves have limited competence in this area. We can therefore ask whether the training they were exposed to was sufficient, especially considering that many of these teachers were volunteers without necessarily adequate training in the linguistic field.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe subject of the article is very timely and most interesting as it studies pedagogical translanguaging among adult migrants, especially the impact on forced migrants who often suffer high emotional vulnerability.
However, there are two main points that should be modified to ensure the scientific value of the article. The first one is related to the literature review section 1.2. Emotions in L2 learning where the validity of the control-value theory is presented. It is well written, but the section needs clarifications as data collected is not evident from the text, but the reader should go back to the original studies in order to understand who did what with whom and where. The author(s) know(s) well their field of study, but they should also think about the audience who is not so familiar with the topic. They should also give the abbreviation SES the first time in unabbreviated form (socio-economic status, SES).
The second main point is related to the description of the data, especially the participants. There are a lot of instability related to the number of participants and some arguments should be re-evaluated: for instance, what does it mean that “[s]ince there are no relevant differences between the three groups, all participants are treated as a single group”. There are 96 L2 Frech participants (Switzerland), 31 L2 Greek participants (Greece) and 14 L2 Greek participants (France), their ages vary between 14 and 77, and learners come from 40 different countries. Already the number of participants varies a lot, their age and number of countries where they come from. This point needs more clarifications. Furthermore, the article focuses on adult migrants, which means that the authors should discuss in more detail what adult means – here it seems to be over 14 years old which is not generally accepted definition. The socio-economic status ranged between poor (N=15) and upper-middle class (N=17), what about the rest of the participants? Which are all the categories and number of participants in each category? The same imprecision continues through the data presentation; the total number (=N) is not always 141 as it should be. All these imprecisions have an impact on the statistical calculations and the discussion of the results and therefore should be verified. I am sure the calculations are well done but in order to be consistent and increase validity and reliability of the study, it is recommended that that the data is correctly described and if needed, delimited in a more sound and coherent way. See more precise comments below.
To sum up, I think that this article could contribute well to the field of education sciences and especially to teacher training in Turkish educational context. However, the manuscript cannot be accepted for the publication in its current form and should be rewritten. My recommendation is to make major revisions before publishing the manuscript.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe suggestions have been incorporated quite effectively. Here are some additional recommendations for the authors to consider for further improvement of the text.
71-79: “Derivational morphology, i.e. the formation of new words by adding affixes to the root (prefixes, suffixes, infixes etc.), is part of morphological awareness which involves three dimensions”
This phrasing is not precise enough. On one hand, derivational morphology makes reference to the structures of the language and to its characteristics. Morphological awareness refers to the speakers’ ability to perceive, manipulate, and reflect on the internal structure of the word. The nature of the two constructs is different, a more precise and correct reformulation is necessary here.
73-74: The dimensions of morphological awareness presented here are only one of several proposed in the literature. It should be emphasized that the authors have selected this particular set from a range of options.
377-381 Below each sentence the derivatives are repeated but this time the root is missing, i.e. _ _ _ _ _ _évo (= to travel). Participants read the sentences aloud and then fill in the missing root of the derivatives, i.e. taksiðévo. This activity helps them realize that the derivatives provided have a common root and, thus, activates their morphological structure awareness.
I suggest using a glossing system to clarify the process of morphological reflection. In what sense does “ ____évo (= to travel)”? What kind of derivational element is -évo in Greek?
399 In this step, the learners
Please note that this sentence is incomplete
407_410 e.g., the learners were presented with the word kafés (= coffee), the picture 407 of a coffee shop and the globe icon symbolizing location and were expected to form 408 the Greek derivative kafenío ).
I would use glosses here as well. Please pay attention to the blank spaces left
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe text is well constructed and all revisions add the quality of the article.
One minor modification suggested: page 7, line 329: remove the end parenthesis, which is not needed.
Author Response
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