Pamela Foster
Biographic Data
| ID | 98929 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Pamela Foster |
| GIVEN NAMES | Pamela |
| FAMILY NAME | Foster |
| SIGNATURE | FOSTER P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Alabama |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3132-7431 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 59 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Pauline Foster's essential bookshelf: Oral fluency in a second language
Pauline Foster was Professor of Applied Linguistics at St. Mary's University until her retirement in 2020, and is currently a Senior Research Associate at University College, London. Pauline has published her research widely, including papers on task-based language performance, classroom interaction, idiomaticity, and the development of instruments for oral language analysis. Pauline's i-10-index is 29, with more than 10,500 citations
HIV Knowledge, Risk Factors, and Utilization of Services in the US Rural Deep South
Task design, L1 literacy, and second language oracy: A close replication of Tavakoli and Foster (2008)
This paper reports a replication of part of Tavakoli and Foster’s (2008) investigation into the influence of narrative task design on second language (L2) oral performance. The initial study found in part that narratives with both foreground and background information elicited significantly greater syntactic complexity than those with only foreground information. This close replication adds the variable of literacy, conducting the study with adul…
First Language Literacy and Second Language Oracy: A Partial Replication of Foster and Skehan (1996)
This article responds to calls for greater inclusivity in second language acquisition research and, more specifically, to calls to explore further the impact of first language literacy on second language oracy (e.g., Tarone et al., 2009). We conducted a partial replication of Foster and Skehan's (1996) influential study of task complexity, planning time, and performance over measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. The initial study and oth…
African American Clergy Recommendations to Enhance the Federal Plan to End the HIV Epidemic: A Qualitative Study
Implicit Statistical Learning in Naturalistic and Instructed Morphosyntactic Attainment: An Aptitude-Treatment Interaction Design
We investigated the potential influence of implicit learning mechanisms on L2 morphosyntactic attainment by examining the relationship between age of onset (AoO), two cognitive abilities hypothesized to underlie implicit learning (phonological short-term memory and implicit statistical learning), and performance on an auditory grammaticality judgment test (GJT). Participants were 71 Polish-English long-term bilinguals with a wide range of AoOs (1…
Oral fluency in a second language: A research agenda for the next ten years
This paper reviews how the construct of oral fluency in a second language (L2) has been defined and researched over the last twenty-five years. The emerging picture is somewhat kaleidoscopic, as domains of cognitive, social, individual and linguistic influences on L2 speech have been opened up for study. L2 fluency research presents a wealth of directions for future exploration, five of which have been laid out here as an achievable, though not c…
Reducing the African American HIV Disease Burden in the Deep South: Addressing the Role of Faith and Spirituality
Bringing Community and Academic Scholars Together to Facilitate and Conduct Authentic Community Based Participatory Research: Project United
Cultural competency, trust, and research literacy can affect the planning and implementation of sustainable community-based participatory research (CBPR). The purpose of this manuscript is to highlight: (1) the development of a CBPR pilot grant request for application; and (2) a comprehensive program supporting CBPR obesity-related grant proposals facilitated by activities designed to promote scholarly collaborations between academic researchers …
Fluency
Though the term “fluency” may apply equally to the language skills of reading, writing, or listening, it is most commonly applied to speaking.
Task Design and Second Language Performance: The Effect of Narrative Type on Learner Output
This article presents a study examining how narrative structure and narrative complexity might influence the performance of second language learners. Forty learners of English in London and sixty learners in Teheran were asked to retell cartoon stories from picture prompts. Each performed two of four narrative tasks that had different degrees of narrative structure (loose or tight) and of storyline complexity (with or without background events). …
Task‐based language learning research: Expecting too much or too little
There are many assumptions about task‐based language learning (TBLL) for which empirical support would be illuminating. Some of these are researchable and others are not, and it is important to distinguish between the two. Robust investigations into learning are not easy to design and should not necessarily be regarded as the pathfinder for language pedagogy, though critics sometimes may represent research into TBLL as claiming this role. This pa…
Native Speakers and Task Performance: Comparing Effects on Complexity, Fluency, and Lexical Diversity
This article argues that a native‐speaker baseline is a neglected dimension of studies into second language (L2) performance. If we investigate how learners perform language tasks, we should distinguish what performance features are due to their processing an L2 and which are due to their performing a particular task. Having defined what we mean by “native speaker,” we present the background to a research study into task features on nonnative tas…
Negotiation for Meaning and Peer Assistance in Second Language Classrooms
This paper investigates the value of language classroom negotiation of meaning from both cognitive and sociocultural perspectives. According to Long (1985, 1996) comprehensible input gained through interactional adjustments such as negotiating meaning and modifying output is central to second language acquisition, and much research has been undertaken to discover which classroom activities give learners the greatest benefit from this type of inte…
Cognition and tasks
Introduction Unlike any other skill that you could care to mention (algebra, tennis, driving, playing the bagpipes), language can work well despite poor execution. Its meaning is recoverable even when its form is incorrect. ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane’, or ‘ET phone home’ are not grammatical, nor particularly subtle, but they get the job done. This useful characteristic of language means that learners can decode and encode the semantic contents of a mes…
Measuring spoken language: A unit for all reasons
The analysis of spoken language requires a principled way of dividing transcribed data into units in order to assess features such as accuracy and complexity. If such analyses are to be comparable across different studies, there must be agreement on the nature of the unit, and it must be possible to apply this unit reliably to a range of different types of speech data. There are a number of different units in use, the various merits of which have…
The Influence of Task Structure and Processing Conditions on Narrative Retellings
This article explores the effects of inherent task structure and processing load on performance on a narrative retelling task. Task performance is analyzed in terms of competition among fluency, complexity, and accuracy. In a study based on 47 young adult low-intermediate subjects the fluency of performance was found to be strongly affected by degree of inherent task structure; more structured tasks generated more fluent language. In contrast, co…
A Classroom Perspective on the Negotiation of Meaning
It is widely argud that engaging in communicative language tasks helps a leamer develop in an L2 in several ways Tasks provide an opportunity not only to produce the target language, but also, through conversational adjustments, to manipulate and modify it Checking and clanfying problem utterances (‘negotiating for meaning’) ensures that task participants receive comprehensible input and generate comprehensible output, both of which have been cla…
Task type and task processing conditions as influences on foreign language performance
This paper examines the effects of planning and post-task activity on task-based performance. It is motivated by the need, given recent claims that task-based instruction has desirable pedagogic qualities, to investigate the effects of choosing different types of tasks, as well as different task implementation conditions, on the fluency, accuracy and complexity of the language which is produced when tasks are carried out. Three tasks are investig…
The Influence of Planning and Task Type on Second Language Performance
This study focuses on the impact of different variables on the nature of language performance in the context of task-based instruction. Characteristics of tasks are discussed, and then a framework is offered that can organize the nature of task-based instruction and relevant research. The framework is used to generate predictions regarding the effects of three different tasks (Personal Information Exchange, Narrative, and Decision-Making) and thr…
The Influence of Task Structure and Processing Conditions on Narrative Retellings
This article explores the effects of inherent task structure and processing load on performance on a narrative retelling task. Task performance is analyzed in terms of competition among fluency, complexity, and accuracy. In a study based on 47 young adult low-intermediate subjects the fluency of performance was found to be strongly affected by degree of inherent task structure; more structured tasks generated more fluent language. In contrast, co…
Task Design and Second Language Performance: The Effect of Narrative Type on Learner Output
This article presents a study examining how narrative structure and narrative complexity might influence the performance of second language learners. Forty learners of English in London and sixty learners in Teheran were asked to retell cartoon stories from picture prompts. Each performed two of four narrative tasks that had different degrees of narrative structure (loose or tight) and of storyline complexity (with or without background events). …
First Language Literacy and Second Language Oracy: A Partial Replication of Foster and Skehan (1996)
This article responds to calls for greater inclusivity in second language acquisition research and, more specifically, to calls to explore further the impact of first language literacy on second language oracy (e.g., Tarone et al., 2009). We conducted a partial replication of Foster and Skehan's (1996) influential study of task complexity, planning time, and performance over measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. The initial study and oth…
Implicit Statistical Learning in Naturalistic and Instructed Morphosyntactic Attainment: An Aptitude-Treatment Interaction Design
We investigated the potential influence of implicit learning mechanisms on L2 morphosyntactic attainment by examining the relationship between age of onset (AoO), two cognitive abilities hypothesized to underlie implicit learning (phonological short-term memory and implicit statistical learning), and performance on an auditory grammaticality judgment test (GJT). Participants were 71 Polish-English long-term bilinguals with a wide range of AoOs (1…
Oral fluency in a second language: A research agenda for the next ten years
This paper reviews how the construct of oral fluency in a second language (L2) has been defined and researched over the last twenty-five years. The emerging picture is somewhat kaleidoscopic, as domains of cognitive, social, individual and linguistic influences on L2 speech have been opened up for study. L2 fluency research presents a wealth of directions for future exploration, five of which have been laid out here as an achievable, though not c…
Native Speakers and Task Performance: Comparing Effects on Complexity, Fluency, and Lexical Diversity
This article argues that a native‐speaker baseline is a neglected dimension of studies into second language (L2) performance. If we investigate how learners perform language tasks, we should distinguish what performance features are due to their processing an L2 and which are due to their performing a particular task. Having defined what we mean by “native speaker,” we present the background to a research study into task features on nonnative tas…
Task‐based language learning research: Expecting too much or too little
There are many assumptions about task‐based language learning (TBLL) for which empirical support would be illuminating. Some of these are researchable and others are not, and it is important to distinguish between the two. Robust investigations into learning are not easy to design and should not necessarily be regarded as the pathfinder for language pedagogy, though critics sometimes may represent research into TBLL as claiming this role. This pa…
HIV Knowledge, Risk Factors, and Utilization of Services in the US Rural Deep South
The Influence of Planning and Task Type on Second Language Performance
This study focuses on the impact of different variables on the nature of language performance in the context of task-based instruction. Characteristics of tasks are discussed, and then a framework is offered that can organize the nature of task-based instruction and relevant research. The framework is used to generate predictions regarding the effects of three different tasks (Personal Information Exchange, Narrative, and Decision-Making) and thr…
Task type and task processing conditions as influences on foreign language performance
This paper examines the effects of planning and post-task activity on task-based performance. It is motivated by the need, given recent claims that task-based instruction has desirable pedagogic qualities, to investigate the effects of choosing different types of tasks, as well as different task implementation conditions, on the fluency, accuracy and complexity of the language which is produced when tasks are carried out. Three tasks are investig…
A Classroom Perspective on the Negotiation of Meaning
It is widely argud that engaging in communicative language tasks helps a leamer develop in an L2 in several ways Tasks provide an opportunity not only to produce the target language, but also, through conversational adjustments, to manipulate and modify it Checking and clanfying problem utterances (‘negotiating for meaning’) ensures that task participants receive comprehensible input and generate comprehensible output, both of which have been cla…
The Influence of Task Structure and Processing Conditions on Narrative Retellings
This article explores the effects of inherent task structure and processing load on performance on a narrative retelling task. Task performance is analyzed in terms of competition among fluency, complexity, and accuracy. In a study based on 47 young adult low-intermediate subjects the fluency of performance was found to be strongly affected by degree of inherent task structure; more structured tasks generated more fluent language. In contrast, co…
Measuring spoken language: A unit for all reasons
The analysis of spoken language requires a principled way of dividing transcribed data into units in order to assess features such as accuracy and complexity. If such analyses are to be comparable across different studies, there must be agreement on the nature of the unit, and it must be possible to apply this unit reliably to a range of different types of speech data. There are a number of different units in use, the various merits of which have…
Cognition and tasks
Introduction Unlike any other skill that you could care to mention (algebra, tennis, driving, playing the bagpipes), language can work well despite poor execution. Its meaning is recoverable even when its form is incorrect. ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane’, or ‘ET phone home’ are not grammatical, nor particularly subtle, but they get the job done. This useful characteristic of language means that learners can decode and encode the semantic contents of a mes…
Negotiation for Meaning and Peer Assistance in Second Language Classrooms
This paper investigates the value of language classroom negotiation of meaning from both cognitive and sociocultural perspectives. According to Long (1985, 1996) comprehensible input gained through interactional adjustments such as negotiating meaning and modifying output is central to second language acquisition, and much research has been undertaken to discover which classroom activities give learners the greatest benefit from this type of inte…
Task‐based language learning research: Expecting too much or too little
There are many assumptions about task‐based language learning (TBLL) for which empirical support would be illuminating. Some of these are researchable and others are not, and it is important to distinguish between the two. Robust investigations into learning are not easy to design and should not necessarily be regarded as the pathfinder for language pedagogy, though critics sometimes may represent research into TBLL as claiming this role. This pa…
Native Speakers and Task Performance: Comparing Effects on Complexity, Fluency, and Lexical Diversity
This article argues that a native‐speaker baseline is a neglected dimension of studies into second language (L2) performance. If we investigate how learners perform language tasks, we should distinguish what performance features are due to their processing an L2 and which are due to their performing a particular task. Having defined what we mean by “native speaker,” we present the background to a research study into task features on nonnative tas…
Task Design and Second Language Performance: The Effect of Narrative Type on Learner Output
This article presents a study examining how narrative structure and narrative complexity might influence the performance of second language learners. Forty learners of English in London and sixty learners in Teheran were asked to retell cartoon stories from picture prompts. Each performed two of four narrative tasks that had different degrees of narrative structure (loose or tight) and of storyline complexity (with or without background events). …
Fluency
Though the term “fluency” may apply equally to the language skills of reading, writing, or listening, it is most commonly applied to speaking.
Bringing Community and Academic Scholars Together to Facilitate and Conduct Authentic Community Based Participatory Research: Project United
Cultural competency, trust, and research literacy can affect the planning and implementation of sustainable community-based participatory research (CBPR). The purpose of this manuscript is to highlight: (1) the development of a CBPR pilot grant request for application; and (2) a comprehensive program supporting CBPR obesity-related grant proposals facilitated by activities designed to promote scholarly collaborations between academic researchers …
Reducing the African American HIV Disease Burden in the Deep South: Addressing the Role of Faith and Spirituality
Oral fluency in a second language: A research agenda for the next ten years
This paper reviews how the construct of oral fluency in a second language (L2) has been defined and researched over the last twenty-five years. The emerging picture is somewhat kaleidoscopic, as domains of cognitive, social, individual and linguistic influences on L2 speech have been opened up for study. L2 fluency research presents a wealth of directions for future exploration, five of which have been laid out here as an achievable, though not c…
African American Clergy Recommendations to Enhance the Federal Plan to End the HIV Epidemic: A Qualitative Study
Implicit Statistical Learning in Naturalistic and Instructed Morphosyntactic Attainment: An Aptitude-Treatment Interaction Design
We investigated the potential influence of implicit learning mechanisms on L2 morphosyntactic attainment by examining the relationship between age of onset (AoO), two cognitive abilities hypothesized to underlie implicit learning (phonological short-term memory and implicit statistical learning), and performance on an auditory grammaticality judgment test (GJT). Participants were 71 Polish-English long-term bilinguals with a wide range of AoOs (1…
First Language Literacy and Second Language Oracy: A Partial Replication of Foster and Skehan (1996)
This article responds to calls for greater inclusivity in second language acquisition research and, more specifically, to calls to explore further the impact of first language literacy on second language oracy (e.g., Tarone et al., 2009). We conducted a partial replication of Foster and Skehan's (1996) influential study of task complexity, planning time, and performance over measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. The initial study and oth…
Task design, L1 literacy, and second language oracy: A close replication of Tavakoli and Foster (2008)
This paper reports a replication of part of Tavakoli and Foster’s (2008) investigation into the influence of narrative task design on second language (L2) oral performance. The initial study found in part that narratives with both foreground and background information elicited significantly greater syntactic complexity than those with only foreground information. This close replication adds the variable of literacy, conducting the study with adul…
Pauline Foster's essential bookshelf: Oral fluency in a second language
Pauline Foster was Professor of Applied Linguistics at St. Mary's University until her retirement in 2020, and is currently a Senior Research Associate at University College, London. Pauline has published her research widely, including papers on task-based language performance, classroom interaction, idiomaticity, and the development of instruments for oral language analysis. Pauline's i-10-index is 29, with more than 10,500 citations
HIV Knowledge, Risk Factors, and Utilization of Services in the US Rural Deep South
Psychology (17 works) · Linguistics (14 works) · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning (13 works) · Mathematics education (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Cognitive psychology (8 works) · Fluency (8 works) · Second Language Acquisition and Learning (8 works) · Second Language Learning and Teaching (8 works) · Sociology (8 works)