Input for Instructed L2 Learners

The Relevance of Relevance

Anna Ni?egorodcew

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781788920681
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Teaching Language Arts
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book makes Relevance Theory (RT) relevant for L2 teachers and L2 teacher educators, in particular those working in foreign language teaching contexts. L2 classroom discourse data collected in seven research projects in the years 1984 – 2004 are reinterpreted in this book in the light of Relevance Theory - a theory of interpretation of the incoming messages. In this perspective the teachers' input for instructed L2 learners facilitates shifts in the learners' attention from meaning to form and vice versa. Such shifts of attention, according to Relevance Theory, change the level of expected optimal relevance of classroom communication, either focusing the students on form-oriented communication (accuracy), on meaning-oriented communication (fluency) or on meaning and form-oriented communication (fluency combined with accuracy). The latter is considered optimal for L2 learning/acquisition. Apart from the main focus on the relevance-theoretic interpretation of the teachers' input, the book presents an overview of other theoretical approaches to the question of input for instructed L2 learners: the SLA approach, the communicative L2 teaching perspective, and the L2 classroom discourse approach.

Chapter 1

The Role of L2 Classroom Input in the Light of Second Language Acquisition Models and Relevance Theory

The Role of L2 Classroom Input in the Light of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Models

Introduction

At first, it should be stressed that the understanding of the term input in SLA theory and in Relevance Theory is different. Although my aim is to view L2 input in terms of Relevance Theory, it is impossible to avoid references to L2 input as it is understood in SLA theory. That is why it seems appropriate to outline some current approaches to the role of input in SLA models.

Input is understood in them as raw (primary) L2 data (Gass, 1997) that reaches the non-native audience’s perceptual system, that is, the second language which is noticed by the audience. In terms of the L2 classroom, L2 input is the target language spoken by the teacher which is heard by the learners.

The SLA models which consider L2 input as one of the crucial factors in language acquisition, view the process of L2 comprehension as the decoding by the non-native audience of the meanings communicated by the native speakers. By the same token, the SLA models which are concerned with L2 classroom second language learning/acquisition view the L2 comprehension process as the decoding by the learners of the meanings communicated by the teachers.

On the other hand, Relevance Theory is concerned with the interpretation of the already decoded messages, and the main part of the comprehension process follows linguistic decoding. I will discuss the aforementioned difference in the following part of this chapter.

Krashen, Long and Swain (input/interaction/output models)

The first model which treated input, in the above raw L2 data sense of the word, as the main factor in L2 acquisition was Stephen Krashen’s Comprehensible Input Hypothesis (Krashen, 1981, 1982). Krashen claimed that the first necessary condition for the input to be acquired is its comprehensibility, which is in turn ensured by its approximate level of difficulty, slightly higher than the non-native speaker’s or the learner’s present proficiency level. Such input was called roughly tuned input.

The other necessary condition for the comprehensible input to be acquired, according to Krashen, is an accompanying low Affective Filter, which refers to the non-native speaker’s or the learner’s positive attitude towards L2 learning and everything that entails. According to Krashen’s model L2 acquisition will automatically occur when communication and comprehension are successful.

Critics of Krashen’s Comprehensible Input Hypothesis point out that his concepts are vague, e.g. it is not clear what is a slightly higher level of difficulty, and it is not explicitly stated whether they apply to all aspects and levels of L2 learning/acquisition (see McLaughlin, 1987). Moreover, Krashen’s theory conflates L2 acquisition and L2 comprehension, by claiming that once L2 input has been comprehended, it has also been automatically acquired, which, obviously, is not the case.

A similar SLA model, equating comprehension with acquisition of raw L2 input data was proposed by Michael Long (1983) as the Interaction Hypothesis. Long claimed that the input provided by native speakers for non-native speakers must be adjusted in interaction to become comprehensible. He identified a few types of interactional adjustments in conversations between native and non-native speakers, such as confirmation checks, clarification requests and comprehension checks. Long concluded that there exists an ‘indirect causal relationship between linguistic and conversational adjustments and SLA’ (Long, 1985: 388).

The indirect causal relationship was based upon deduction: if adjustments result in comprehension, and comprehension results in acquisition, then adjustments should result in acquisition. However, Long’s conclusion did not find consistent support in research studies, and even those studies that supported the hypothesis in its first part, concerning the relationship between adjustments and comprehension, did not support the second part, that comprehension equals acquisition (see Ellis, 1994).

In a weak version of the Interaction Hypothesis Long claims that the feedback on errors, received from the native speaker interlocutor during interaction can facilitate L2 development, but probably only in some aspects of L2 learning (Long, 1996), which is a much less radical claim, which could be much more easily accepted by L2 teachers.

In turn, Merrill Swain (1985) in a modification of the Comprehensible Input Hypothesis argued that comprehensible input alone, even in vast quantities, cannot make L2 learners fully competent target language speakers. What she postulated as a necessary condition for achieving native-like competence was ‘comprehensible output’, that is, the learner’s spoken language ‘as he or she attempts to create precisely and appropriately the meaning desired’ (Swain, 1985: 252).

Swain (1995) further elaborated her hypothesis, in which she distinguished three functions of output in L2 learning: the noticing function, the hypothesis-testing function and the metalinguistic function.¹ In the first and the third functions, learners’ output plays the role of input for them. According to Swain, learners’ own spoken language, that is, their output, helps them to notice gaps in their L2 knowledge and to reflect upon them. Consequently, learners’ output can function as input for conscious reflection.

However, in Swain’s output-as-input model, it is not clear how learners can notice gaps in their knowledge if they are not provided with any feedback on their errors. Moreover, even if they are aware of their deficiencies, they may not have time to reflect on them in oral communication.

Nevertheless, in contrast to Krashen’s and Long’s hypotheses, Swain puts stress on accuracy of target language forms. She realises that meaning-focused instruction does not suffice in acquiring accurate L2 forms.

Gass’s model

An integrated model was proposed by Susan Gass (1997) as an attempt at combining the Input/Interaction Hypotheses with the Universal Grammar Hypothesis² and cognitive approaches³ to L2 learning/acquisition. According to Gass, L2 input should be first noticed and related to the existing knowledge. Raw L2 data is claimed to be first filtered by a cognitive mechanism called apperception to become apperceived input.

Apperception is an internal cognitive act in which a linguistic form is related to some bit of existing knowledge (or gap in knowledge). We can think of apperception as a priming device that prepares the input for further analysis. Thus, apperceived input is that bit of language that is, noticed in some way by the learner because of some particular recognizable features. (Gass, 1997: 4)

The apperceived input is claimed to be understood due to the process of negotiation and input modification, which places Gass’s model as an elaboration of the Comprehensible Input and Interaction Hypotheses.

However, according to Gass, comprehended input is different from comprehensible input in that ‘the focus is on the hearer (the learner) and the extent to which he or she understands’ (Gass, 1997: 5). Gass also claims that in her model understanding may mean anything from general comprehension to detailed understanding of phonological or syntactic patterns.

At the next stage in Gass’s model comprehended input is either used for immediate communication and processed at the level of general meaning, or it is processed at the level of morphology, lexicon and syntax, and consequently incorporated into L2 learners’ grammar to become intake, that is, acquired language.

Gass’s psycholinguistic model seems oversimplified, particularly in that it makes a sharp distinction between general meaning-focused processing for immediate communication (for comprehension) and form-focused processing (for acquisition). Moreover, it is not clear what makes some comprehended input suitable for form-focused processing.

Ellis’s model

Another SLA model which places L2 input in the focus of attention and tries to integrate various aspects and stages of the process of L2 acquisition is the Integrated Theory of Instructed L2 Learning proposed by Ellis (1990). The author draws on Krashen’s and Long’s hypotheses, as well as on Bialystok’s and Bialystok and Sharwood-Smith’s cognitive models of L2 learning⁴ (Bialystok, 1978; Bialystok & Sharwood-Smith, 1985).

From the perspective of instructed L2 learners, Ellis’s model is interesting because it treats specific classroom input as an important factor in L2 acquisition. Ellis acknowledges that beside meaning-focused instruction, form-focused instruction has a role to play in L2 acquisition. He is aware of the complex nature of meaning-focused and form-focused instruction in the L2 classroom and the role played by the L2 teacher in shifting the focus from form to meaning and vice versa. In his interpretation, Ellis is close to the ideas expressed by Sperber and Wilson in Relevance Theory.

The input that derives from these two kinds of instruction [meaning-focused and form-focused] differs with regard to its communicative properties (e.g. meaning-focused instruction is likely to afford the learner an opportunity to listen to and to perform a greater range of linguistic functions than will form-focused instruction) and also with regard to the kind of response it typically evokes in the learner (e.g. form-focused instruction encourages the learner to reflect on the formal features of the language while meaning focused instruction encourages semantic processing […]. The instructional input in many lessons will be mixed, affording the learner the opportunity to attend to both meaning and form – to experience language or to study it. Teachers shift the focus as the lesson unravels – at one moment engaging the learners in meaningful communication and at another directing their attention to the linguistic code […]. Ultimately, of course, it is the learner and not the textbook or the teacher that determines in what way the input is attended to. (Ellis, 1990: 188)

The Integrated Theory of L2 Learning underlines the learners’ active role in attending to meaning-focused and/or form-focused input. According to Ellis, learners derive L2 explicit knowledge, i.e. knowledge about the language and conscious concepts, from form-focused instruction. Explicit knowledge is used to ‘sensitise the learner to the existence of non-standard form in her interlanguage and thus facilitates the acquisition of target-language forms’⁵ (Ellis, 1990: 195).

However, in Ellis’s view, it is only implicit knowledge, i.e. subconscious L2 knowledge, derived mostly from meaning-focused teaching, which is responsible for spontaneous L2 use. In other words, L2 is acquired first of all from meaning-focused teaching although form-focused instruction can somehow help the learners in the process.

The cognitive focus-on-form (FonF) approach

The cognitive focus-on-form approach (FonF) is an elaboration of the models which treat input to L2 learning as an important factor affecting cognitive processes of knowledge acquisition. In particular, the FonF model puts stress on L2 language forms as they are learned and/or acquired in communicative L2 classroom contexts. The approach draws on numerous research studies stimulated by the Interaction Hypothesis and its modification, the Output Hypothesis (Swain, 1985), which aimed at discovering input/interaction/output factors conducive to L2 acquisition (see Doughty & Williams, 1998).

It was the lack of native-like L2 acquisition in L2 classroom immersion contexts, where L2 learners had a great amount of comprehensible (and comprehended) input, which resulted in a renewed interest in focusing on L2 form in instructed L2 (Long, 1991).

What should be borne in mind is the distinction between focus-on-form (FonF) and focus-on-forms (FonFs) approaches. While ‘focus on form overtly draws students’ attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaning or communication’ (Long, 1991: 45, in Doughty, 2001: 210), focus on forms is concerned with explicit teaching of L2 forms only.

According to Doughty (2001), cognitive processes that are involved in L2 learning can be divided into macroprocesses, one of them being acquisition of input, and microprocesses, such as focus on form.

The crucial question asked by FonF approach is whether and how a microprocess, such as focus on form, which consists of teacher intervention, can influence an inaccessible and automatic macroprocess, such as acquisition of input.

Doughty claims that L2 learners must notice the gap between their nonnative-like forms and the target forms made salient by the teacher. Such noticing is possible due to the cognitive resources L2 learners possess, one of which is ‘a cognitive preference for re-utilizing recent speech’ (Doughty, 2001: 229).

Doughty (2001: 249) makes an interesting case for the existence of ‘small cognitive windows of opportunity’, through which L2 teachers could intervene by focusing on form in otherwise meaning focused activities. Such an approach is close to my understanding of the L2 teacher’s role in the language classroom, to be discussed in the following part of this chapter and exemplified in Chapter 5.

The questions that are asked by FonF researchers concern the time when shifts of attention from meaning (fluency) to form (accuracy) should occur. In other words, when L2 teachers should intervene in communicative activities. Another equally important question refers to the form of teachers’ interventions. Both questions have been only partly answered (see Havranek & Cesnik, 2001), but according to Doughty, it seems that teachers’ recasts⁶ of learners’ non-native-like forms following immediately those forms are most useful in cognitive processing at the level of macroprocesses.

The above outlined SLA models make a clear opposition between the focus on meaning and the focus on form. According to them, L2 acquisition is possible when learners are first and foremost focused on meaning (see The Comprehensible Input Hypothesis and the Interaction Hypothesis), or when the focus is on meaning but the learners’ attention is simultaneously focused on relevant forms (see The Integrated Theory of Instructed L2 Learning and The Cognitive Focus-on-Form Approach).

Finally, it should be stressed, following VanPatten (1996), that input processing for meaning is claimed to precede processing for form, but it is useful to train ‘language learners in effective processing, to make them more able to notice relevant cues in the input so that form-meaning links are more likely to be attended to’ (Skehan, 1998: 47).

In the following section of this chapter, I will briefly present some critical views on the role of input in SLA theory. The first type of criticism, referring to input accessibility for processing, treats input in a similar way to the treatment in the above outlined SLA models, that is, as raw (primary) L2 data.

Accessibility of input for processing

The focus on meaning and/or on form must take into account input accessibility to the learners. In the information-processing models, the internal cognitive systems possess constraints that make only some input accessible for further processing.

Such a constraint in Schmidt’s (1990) model refers to the notion of noticing the gap. In the model, some sort of awareness of the gap between the learner’s present L2 knowledge and the target form(s) is necessary before the learner can change his/her knowledge system.

According to Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis, input can be noticed if it is salient enough and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• 1 The Role of L2 Classroom Input in the Light of Second Language Acquisition Models and Relevance Theory
• 2 L2 Teaching Perspective on the Role of Instructional Input
• 3 L2 Classroom Discourse Perspective on the Role of Instructional Input
• 4 Evidence from L2 Classroom Discourse Research Projects
• 5 Classroom Discourse Data Interpreted in the Light of RT: Levels of Expected Optimal Relevance of L2 Classroom Input
• 6 L2 Teaching Implications
• References
• Index