Comprehensible Input, Negotiation of meaning, and FonF
How does noticing new linguistic, discursive, pragmatic features develop into
automatized use of language (reinforced comprehension and unconscious
production)?
What psycholinguistic processes activated during proceduralization are most
conductive for noticed form features to develop into automated ones?
Variable that play part in the interlanguage development: provide evidence
or reflect the use of such evidence.
Socio-cultural
Social roles
Attitudes and values
Per-locutions
Non-verbal means of communication
Motivation
Psycholinguistic
Subject matter (meaning and context)
Situation, concepts
Input comprehensibility
Psycholinguistic processes
Output
Variables that constrain interlanguage development:
Recycling dependent
Learner variability
Language features (rules)
Comprehensibility of input
Ok, if the input is structured according
to certain linguistic parameters, then
yes, I agree. But if the input is a result
of a natural use of language with
certain linguistic features made salient,
so-called enhanced input, then it’s
another story and Krashen perhaps
never thought about this possibility.
The same goes to the teacher
2. Structured exposure may prove effective (see
VanPatten and Oikennon, 1996: Explanation vs.
structured input in processing instruction. Studies in
L2A, 18 (4), 495 - 510) compared with explicit rule
instruction and implicit randomly ordered series of
instances during training. Ellis (1993, The structural
syllabus and L2A. TESOL Quarterly 27 (1), 91 - 113)
used two criteria: well-formedness test and
demonstration of explicit knowledge of the rules.
Successful performance, according to Ellis, can be
achieved with the synergy of rule rule knowledge and
that gained from structured exposure (p. 28)
4, 5, 6. According to Krashen, deliberate focus on form
in the classroom, whether in the input to which the
learner is exposed, or in the feedback on learning
provided by the teacher, will not lead to any
improvement in implicit knowledge.
feedback. If the learner wants to test a
hypothesis she deduced and build on
her own, she may opt for pre-emptive
feedback initiated by her or reactive
feedback in the form or recast or even
a rule. Why not?
3. Information processing theory sees the human being
as a complex mechanism struggling to impose
organization on information derived through the
senses. ‘Bottom-up’ data-driven processing permits us
to attend to perceptions, organize them and then
extract the meaning from them. ‘Top-down’
conceptually-driven processing enables us to obtain a
rapid expectation of what is likely to occur on the basis
of previous experience, and to match this against the
incoming sensory data. <…..> ‘New’ information is thus
derived as a result of expectations produced by topdown processing eventually merging with the data
derived from bottom-up processes. (59).
If we could trace patterns in NS – NNS interaction while performing on a
communicative or learning task and negotiating the meaning, and focusing on
Form, we could be better off at making decisions regarding the nature of
supplementary up FonF activities for learners to facilitate their autonomous
information processing
Complexity of output
2. According to Reber (1989, 1993), when the
stimulus domain is simple, and learner
attention is focusd on relevant aspects of the
structures to be learned, then explicit
conscious rule search and conscious
application of rules following instruction can be
more effective than implicit learning. (p. 26)
2. Prototypical rules, according to DeKeyser, R.
1995 (Learning L2 grammar rules: An
experiment with a miniature linguistic system.
Studies in L2A, 17(3), 379 - 410) are harder
than categorical rules in the sense that they are
probabilistic, and impossible to reduce to
economical rule statements that apply without
exception to the morphological forms
concerned. Learning conditions: subjects of
Implicit-inductive condition (I-I) received no
instruction on rules on morphology simply
viewed the sentence-picture pairs, whereas
subjects in the in the explicit-duductive
condition (E-D) were additionally instructed in
the rules for 5-minute periods before the start
of the 2nd, 3rd, and 11th training sessions.
Following training, the subjects of the two
groups were tested to produce written
sentences describing both old and new
pictures. No significant difference was found
between the performance of the 2 groups in
describing old pictures and applying categorical
rules. However, E-D group proved significantly
more successful than I-I (55% to 33%) in
generalizing instruction on categorical rules to
the production of novel sentences describing
new pictures. The implications may be that I-I
learning on categorical rules was more itemdependent and memory-based than the E-D
learning. In contrast, there was no difference
between the condition in production of
prototypically determined morphemes on
sentences describing old and new pics,
although the I-I learners appeared to be more
sensetive to the probabilistic nature of those
rules. (pp. 28 - 29).
2. Other dimensions of rule complexity have
been suggested that may interact in similar
ways with learning conditions: learnability,
markedness of structures described by rules,
the interactions of L2 rules and L1 knowledge,
the interactions of structural complexity and the
transparancy (or lack thereof) of pedagogical
explanations. (p. 29)
FonF
Competition for attention resources. Attention
pool is limited or there’s no real competition for
attention resources between meaning and
form. Needs to be verified.
3. Since our attention is limited, we find
interpretation difficult when processing
demands exceed our capacity. It is important,
therefore, that we build up a series of relatively
automatic processes requiring very little of our
attention, so that we can release our energy for
the concerns which require more deliberate
bottom-up processing. (60).
Abstractness of meaning
2. Explicit learning may be better for the simpler
categorical rules. However, in contrast to Krashen
and Reber, Implicit learning was not superior to
explicit learning on the complex prototypical rules. (p.
29).
3. Instead of being based on structural concerns,
grading for these progressivists is to be achieved
through the sort of sensitive raising and lowering of
the rhetorical level of talk and of text that native
speaker interlocutors manifest when interacting with
learners, or that mothers and caretakers show when
talking to children. (59)
Negotiation of meaning
1. I would like to suggest that negotiation, and
especially negotiation work that triggers
interactional adjustments by the NS or more
competent interlocutors, facilitates acquisition
because it connects input, internal learner
capacities, particularly selective attention, and
output in productive ways. (pp. 451-452)
2. The FonF approach is partly motivated by
so-called Interaction Hypothesis which holds
that SLA is a process explicable by neither a
purely linguistic nativist nor a purely
environmentalist theory. According to this
hypothesis, a crucial site for language
development is interaction between learners
and other speakers, especially, but not only,
between learners and more proficient
speakers, and between learners and certain
types of written texts, especially elaborated
ones. Particularely important is the negotiation
for meaning that can occure more or less
predictably in certain interactions, for example,
according to the kinds of tasks in which
speakers are engaged and the prevailing task
conditions. (22)
3. Where tasks encountered present novel problems with little relationship to existing schemata
and with few contextual clues, effective bottom-up processing become very important. Where
tasks present familiar problems, top-down processing may provide rapid solutions. (60).