Walton Burns
5 Sept. 2013
Dr. Gordon
Theories of Second Language Acquisition
Philosophy of Language Paper: What is Noticing?
“Teacher!” The student raised his hand. The class was taking the unit test on the passive
voice. “What is the passive?” We had spent the better part of the week discussing the passive.
We had put verbs into the passive, read examples of the passive, talked about reasons for the
passive, played games with the passive. How was it possible that Raphael (names were changed
to protect the innocent) didn’t know what the passive was?
Every teacher has had the experience of teaching a subject in-depth only to discover a
student who simply has seemingly not learned anything. In Raphael’s case, he had somehow not
learned the word “passive” although he remembered the lessons well. While that does not bother
me, it does leave the question, “What does it take to get students to learn a piece of information
such as a vocabulary word or a grammatical morpheme?” And the related question, “What is my
role as a teacher?”.
A number of theories have attempted to address the question of how students learn and
several of them help us to understand how teachers can best present information so that students
retain it. One of the most influential theories of language learning does much to explain why
students do not always learn what we teach them. Sadly, it seems to suggest teachers play little
of a role in helping students acquire language.
According to Krashen, students acquire much of a second language in the same way that
babies acquire their first language: unconsciously, by taking in a lot of input. Specifically
Krashen posits that students need comprehensible input. That is, students implicitly learn much
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of a second language by processing input that is just above their level. Krashen does allow for a
limited role for learning. In the classroom, students are taught and do learn rules of syntax or
morphological forms. However, this information is only available as a way of monitoring output
– editing and correcting what students produce (Saville-Troika, 2006, p. 45). It has no role in
determining what students take in.
Furthermore, Krashen posited a natural order of language acquisition. The natural order
hypothesis states that students acquire a second language in a prescribed innate order, similar to
the order that we acquire our first languages in (Lightbown & Spada, 2013, p. 106), and not in
the order presented by a teacher.
Krashen then seems to posit a limited role for the teacher, at least in helping students
speak and listen to a second language. Teachers can provide comprehensible input, no easy thing
to do. However, the process of acquisition is an innate and subconscious one (Saville-Troika,
2006, p. 45) and thus outside of teacher control. Furthermore, while teachers may be able to draw
their students’ attention to a grammatical form, the natural order hypothesis suggests that
students will not learn something just because it is brought to their attention. No matter how
often you ask the student to underline the irregular past tense verbs in a passage, they will add
the regular past tense ending –ed to every verb they encounter until their brains are ready to learn
past tense verbs.
Schmidt has an interesting analysis of natural orders that may explain exactly what
teachers need to do in order to help students notice and retain language features. He posits that,
to a limited extent, the reason students learn certain things first is precisely because they notice
them first (Schmidt, 1990, p. 143). In other words, sequences of acquisition may help us
understand what teachers can do to ensure students learn new language features.
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Schmidt (1990) notes that there are several factors that determine whether a student will
learn a particular feature of language. Among others, he cites the frequency the student is
exposed to the feature and the perceptual salience—or how noticeable it is (Schmidt, 1990, p.
143). All of these are criteria that are related specifically to whether or not a student will notice a
feature of language.
Looking at one list of L2 acquisition from Dulay and Burt (1974), articles and the use of
the verb ‘to be’ as a copula (I am a teacher) are the first two items ESL students tend to learn (as
cited in Saville-Troika, 2006, p. 44). If we analyze these items in light of Schmidt’s criteria, both
of them are used quite frequently in English, and the use of to be is extremely common in
beginner level sentences specifically. What is this? It’s a pen. What is your name? My name is
Ali. I am a student. An informal survey of my bookshelf shows the verb “to be” as one of the
first two lessons in every textbook I own. Determiners such as a, the, some and any are also
found in the beginning level textbook—usually in the context of food or asking for things (I want
an apple). Thus it is likely that students will notice these features as they are frequently repeated
in their input.
Both are also relatively perceptually salient because they are separate words. The cat
sounds very different from cat or even a cat). Although the contracted ‘to be’ is often
deemphasized and elided by native speakers (Whas your name?), teachers at beginner levels
often do not contract them, I suspect. I certainly don’t. And in fact, emphasizing and failing to
contract the verb ‘to be’ might be considered by Krashen to be part of giving students
comprehensible input.
Thus it appears the teacher may play more of a role in helping students notice and learn
grammatical features and this is reflected in orders of acquisition. Specifically teachers can draw
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students’ attention to what they want them to learn by repeating it frequently in the input, by
making it noticeable, and by ensuring that the item is presented in a context that is not too far
above the level of the students. Schmidt actually defines a few other criteria that help students
notice language including expectations and task demands (Schmidt, 1990, p. 143-4). So
preparing students to hear a particular language feature and designing activities that ensure that
they need to use the target feature can help students notice and ultimately learn it.
Is there evidence that noticing leads to learning? Schmidt (1990) cites his own experience
learning Portuguese. He kept a diary and conducted regular interviews in order to record his own
language learning (Schmidt, 1990, p. 140-14). He discovered that grammatical features that he
noticed—mentioned in his diary for example—did in fact make their way into his output
indicating that learning had taken place. We can all relate to the experience of hearing about a
topic for the first time, and then suddenly hearing people talking about it everywhere.
Interestingly, Schmidt discovered that there were grammatical forms that he was taught by his
teacher and that were present in input that he himself never produced. Furthermore, there were
grammatical forms that he was clearly being exposed to, that were in the input, which he did not
produce until something caused him to notice it. Thus it appears that causing students to notice a
grammatical feature is a useful tool for teaching language.
Schmidt also cites information processing theory as an explanation for how noticing
plays a role in learning. Information processing theory holds that learning something new
demands considerable cognitive resources. Learning requires a great deal of attention and
brainpower. However, through practice skills become automatized which takes less attention and
cognitive resources (Saville-Troika, 2006 p. 73-74). Because we have limited mental resources,
what we learn is largely a product of what we pay attention to. As Krashen suggested, input is
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important. However, we can only process and learn what we notice which Lightbown & Spada
(2013) define as “using cognitive resources to pay attention to”. Schmidt (1990) also explicitly
identifies his concept of noticing with information processing theory. While he declines to state
the specific role noticing or paying attention plays in processing information he does conclude
that noticing is necessary for a feature of language to move from input to intake, that is to be
processed and learned.
Having reviewed some of the theory behind the role attention and noticing play in
helping students learn, it is worth looking at some methods that teachers can use to draw
students’ attention to target language features.
As noted above, Schmidt cited several features that make a language item noticeable:
expectations, frequency, perceptual salience, student level, and task demands (Schmidt, 1990, p.
143). While there is little teachers can do about students’ levels, at least during class, all the other
factors are to at least some extent under teacher control.
Schmidt’s theory of noticing supports a number of practices that many teachers already
engage in or are recommended by teaching textbooks such as Ur (2012): For example in a lesson
on a new piece of grammar, teachers prime expectations by telling students what they will be
learning (Ur, 2012, p. 25) or even previewing a simple example on the board. Teachers also
attempt to create repeated input by exposing students to the grammar item repeatedly in both
spoken and written form (Ur, 2012, p. 44). Teachers also try to increase perceptual salience by
underlining the target grammar on the board or writing it in a different color, or bolding
examples in a text or over-enunciating when speaking. And teachers attempt to create valid tasks
that require students to use the target grammar (Ur. 2012, p. 43). And while teachers cannot on
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the fly change students’ levels, they can adjust the difficulty of examples, explanations and tasks
to make them accessible by the students (Ur, 2012, p. 282).
Teachers are also often advised to give students meaningful practice in a meaningful
context. This technique may help students notice the new language item, particularly if it is one
that have already been exposed to. For example the present perfect is often used in the context of
questions about your life such as, “Have you ever been to Spain?” or “Have you seen this movie
before?” Students have likely already been exposed to this form if they are living in an Englishspeaking country. By presenting the grammar in this context, the teacher may be helping the
student notice something they have already heard. Certainly the student is more likely to notice
the form in the future outside the classroom. Another technique, relating new items to prior
knowledge, may prime the student’s attention to learning as per Schmidt. However, it may also
play a role in helping students notice something they already know. Or it may reduce the
information processing load. For example, if students are reading a text about computers that
also uses target vocabulary words, the task of noticing the vocab will be much easier for students
who know about computers. Processing the content is already automatized leaving more room
for the brain to process the new vocabulary. On the other hand, students unfamiliar with the topic
will have divided attention between learning about computers and learning the vocab.
It is also worth noting that error-correction techniques that draw a student’s attention to
the mistake are often more effective than other techniques. “Recasting” or repeating the correct
form when a student makes a mistake is the least effective method of error-correction (Ur, 2012,
p. 95), likely because it is easy for the student to ignore it—I have had plenty of conversations
such a student saying, "Yesterday I goed to the store.” I reply, recasting, “You went to the
store?”, only to have the student say something like, “Yes, I goed there to buy bread.” Error
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correction techniques that involve drawing a student’s attention to the error and getting them to
correct it themselves appear to be more effective (Ur, 2012, p. 95).
In conclusion, it appears that teachers may in fact play a role in what students learn.
However, mere input is not enough. Students need to have their attention drawn to the target of
the lesson. There are a variety of ways to do this including presenting an item clearly and giving
students the opportunity to repeat it and use it in a meaningful way.
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References
Lightbown, P. M., Spada, N., Ranta, L., & Rand, J. (2013). How languages are learned: Fourth
edition Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Saville-Troike, M. (2006). Introducing second language acquisition. Cambridge University
Press.
Schmidt, R. W. (1990). The Role of Consciousness in Second Language Learning. Applied
linguistics, 11(2), 129-158.
Ur, P. (2012). A course in English language teaching. Cambridge University Press.
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