Welcome to Flexible Positions by Pornpros
This is rather a similar idea to the one we used in Flexible Positions when we talked about the learner as a'pornpros learning sex device'. It was an analogy derived fromcomputers. By performing tests on it we are investigating the nature of the device, what it can and cannot do. By definition the native speaker's'language-processing device' is fully developed and, consequently, if it is required to perform certain operations on certain data, we can predict with nearly 100 per cent certainty what the result will be. Using this computer model we can call the test instructions the `programme' and the language material of the test the 'data'; the subject's responses are then the output' of the device. More FlexiblePositions at Pornpros Network This is shown diagrammatically in pornpros figure 69. It is from the responses of the subject that we infer something about the overall efficiency of the language-processing device, or ,the learner's grammatical competence'. The results of the test are expressed in terms of the numbers of right or wrong responses, his score. We finish up with an answer to the question: how much of the target language does the learner know ? We do not necessarily finish up with the sort of information which will enable us to reconstruct the grammar of the learner's interlanguage. Tests are designed as measuring Flexible Positions instruments, not for finding out the nature of the learner's knowledge. This is the big difference between tests and what we shall call elicitation procedures. To find out what a learner knows, rather than how much he knows, different procedures are required. I shall say more about this matter shortly. |