I. SLA theories
I.1 The input hypothesis
● ‘________________ People acquire language in only one way - by receiving comprehensible input by understanding messages. (Krashen, 1985)
● ‘i +1’ . The i represents input at the level at which the student is now; ‘+ 1’ is just a little beyond.
● The learners could deduce the syntactic structure of the language and could produce by merely being exposed to comprehensible input (Skehan, 1998)
● ___________ Context : Curtain and Pesola (1994) explain that whether or not the input has been comprehended depends on how the input has been provided. They say that when the input is spoken in a meaningful context from which the learners get interest, this is the situation where the input provides comprehension.
● Two knowledge for comprehension: Anderson and Lynch (1988)
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____________ knowledge: using background of knowledge and procedural knowledge
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___________ Knowledge : knowledge of situation; physical setting, and knowledge of co-text; what has been, will be said
This means that when the listener comprehends the language he/she does not mainly rely on the linguistic features but also uses all the knowledge s/he can use.
I.2 Output Hypothesis: Comprehensible __________
● Comprehensible input is necessary but not _________ since production proliferates learner’s syntactic awareness of linguistic form.
● __________ practice is necessary in order to acquire language. It would encourage or push the learners to be aware of the structure of the language.
The role of chunks
(a) ___________ function: during the early stages, to help learners to hold a place in those conversational interactions which will generate ‘input’ for a creative internal learning mechanism, but are otherwise marginal to the learning process;
(b) ___________ : that they play a much more central role in learning, feeding directly into the learning mechanism through a process of gradual analysis and unpacking of the chunks themselves.
___________ negotiation : Long (1981) claims that language might be acquired through meaning negotiation since through this process learners could have more comprehensible input and it leads to acquisition.
I.3 The role of awareness in language learning
Consciousness in information processing theories
Atkinson and Schiffrin (1968) highlighted two major stages; Short term and long term memory
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The ___________ memory system is considered to be limited in capacity, and to require conscious effort and control.
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The ___________ memory system, in contrast, is very large in capacity, can operate in parallel fashion, and may not be always susceptible to conscious effort and control (Skehan, 1998).
Short term Memory
Figure 2.1: The operation of memory system, adopted from Skehan (1998, p. 44).

Short-term memory
Input output
Long-term memory
Figure 2.2: Memory systems and language, adopted from Skehan (1998, p. 45).
Consciousness and second language learning
Schmidt (1990) proposes that the crucial construct of noticing starts to account for the way in which (a) not all input has equal value and (b) only that input which is noticed then becomes available for intake and effective processing. Noticing, in other words, operates as a necessary but not a sufficient condition for effective processing to take place (Skehan, 1998). Schmidt (ibid.) suggests five influences that promote noticing by reflecting the learners’ control of selective and voluntary attention in second language acquisition;
(1) ___________ : is an important determinant that helps perception and noticing which facilitate language acquisition. This expectation, with innate universals may act as unconscious contextual constraints on what is noticed and it could provide noticing features in input through the establishment of expectation.
(2) ___________ increases the likelihood of an item being noticed in input. In other words, the more frequent a form, the more likely it is to be noticed and then become integrated in the interlanguage system (Skehan, 1998).
(3) ______________________ concerns kinds of form that stands out amongst others. The more a form stands out in the input stream, the more likely it is that it will be noticed (Skehan, 1998).
(4) ___________ concerns the present ability of the learner which might influence noticeability. Skehan (1998) explains it as the learner’s readiness to notice. In this case, he states, noticing might be a function of what the internal structures or mechanisms are predisposing the learner to be ready to attend to.
(5) ___________ Schmidt (ibid.) argues, are a powerful determinant of what is noticed since the learners may notice some grammatical features through carrying out tasks that are requiring imagination and abstraction, and stimulate the learners’ noticeability (Skehan, 1998, Schmidt, ibid.). In such cases, tasks will inexorably draw attention to such a grammar point (Ellis, 1995) and make particular forms salient because of their centrality to a particular task.
III. Task Types
Skehan (1993) categorised the tasks into two division, familiarity and processing .
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___________ tasks involve the extent to which the task draws on ready-made or pre-packaged solutions. It is implicated when all that is required is the accessing of relevant aspects of schematic knowledge. It requires pre-packaged solutions focusing more on form of language than meaning transferring, i.e. ‘ focused, closed, and convergent’ tasks,
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____________ is concerned with the amount of on-line computation that is required while doing a task, and highlights the extent to which the learner has to think through the content of the task while doing it (i.e., to engage in a number of mental operations). ‘unfocused, open-ended, and divergent’ tasks might be involved in ‘processing’ tasks which focuses more on meaning transferring than learning linguistic form.