October 3, 2011

Form in instruction situated Form in instruction – Research Form-focused instruction and Focus on Form

-- in Practice

Brief overview of M2 TPOVs

Spada, N. & P. Lightbown. (2008). Form-Focused Instrution: Isolated or Integrated? TESOL Quarterly 42(2): 181-207.

Nassaji, H. & S. Fotos. (2004). Current Developments in Research on the Teaching of Grammar. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24, 126-145.

Celce-Murcia, M. & D. Larsen-Freeman. (2004).The Grammar Book, 2nd Edition, New York: Newbury House.

Relationship to meaning (Laws of Form, Brown, 1969)

Form and social relationships Models Attending to form Correcting “deviant” form Form and cognitive style Krashen’s (1972) “monitor” Interlanguage & form “Focus on form: after the fact” (vs form-focused

instruction: teach grammar before other)

Children & FFI Classroom-based SLA & FFI Krashen (1982) position on underlying

grammatical development Nature of early studies related to FFI

(discrete-point & metalinguistic - talk about grammar - biases)

Essential tie in FFI to meaning

Johnson (1982) “unificationist vs separationist”

Long (1991) “focus on form” target of opportunity

Isolated FFI “ . . . Primary purpose to teach about form that would not be acquired naturally” (p. 187 spada and lightbown) esp, academic functions

Integrated – In classroom during communication.

Long (1991) FonF should be fully integrated Transfer appropriate processing (TAP), cf.

MATESOL program epistemology LB&S (1990) Young learners w/”certain” lg

features (p.190) Jean (2005) w/FFInt, learners showed more

vocab variety (All are learned vocab, grammar are

learned together)

Stern (1992) still a place for isoffi (Writing papers, essays, etc. this would be

helpful in this context) DeKeyser (1998) FFI first . . . , Trofimivich

(2005) TAP model would predict isoffi would work

better e.g., w/some types of composition instruction, especially ESP @ higher levels.

No solid empirical research comparing Int w/Iso

L1 influence◦ Iso advantageous, esp. where l2 developed

Salience◦ Iso if the features are relatively “simple”, e.g., 3rd

person singular ‘-s” Input frequency

◦ Iso useful when forms are not frequent Rule complexity

◦ Int useful when structure “too difficult to do . . . “

Communicative value◦ Int, if errors lead to clear comm errors

Learner development level◦ Int once a feature has emerged in IL

Learner age◦ Iso w/older learners (but adults more aware of

Int., Ohta, 2000) Lg-learn aptitude

◦ More working memory; more int awareness

Learner & teacher prefs◦ Mismatches, learners wanting more FFI, in

general, expectations◦ Learning styles—focus on class or group

response, not individual learners◦ Variability among instructors (Borg, 2001)◦ Burgess & Etherington (2002): Int useful, but not

sufficient◦ General variability in research

“ . . . Give students a feel for . . .aware of general rules and formulas” (CM&LF, 1984)

Bring to attention, vs. notice Noticing characterized by uptake or later

evidence to that effect (How do you know?) Question: How to make it stick. Monitoring modalities: e.g., haptic-

integrated pronunciation instruction

Hammering on FonF (repetition) Hopping on FonF (targets of opportunity) Hitting on FonF (strong sensual anchoring) Harping on FonF (comment only, w/o anchor

or follow up) Hoping on (they’ll get it w/o attention) Modalities: visual, auditory, kinesthetic,

haptic (visual + kinesthetic)management

Feedback on errors Metalinguistic terminology Statement of rules Explanations (stopping and asking for

rules.) Note: “Context” is a communicative activity

(before noticing) demonstrate or model Ask to describe or explain function (p. 413) Paraphrases Collocation Students find examples of form in text and

are required to come up w/explanation Bring to attention & manipulate

Deconstruct form Relate to other forms; relate to system Expand form Show error Correcting errors Do an activity to correct it . . . (p. 493) Note: FonF, less practice strategy work

Processing instruction – tasks that encourage comprehension, ~production

Interactional feedback, i.e., negotiation or modification strategies, recasts

Textual enhancement, elaboration Task-based instruction, esp. consciousness

raising “ . . .more research is needed . . .”

Collaborative output, “pushed output” (Swain, 1985), activities which have require FonF opportunities “engineered in”

Discourse-based approaches, esp. in written media w/cultural and rhetorical FonF strategies

Essential conditions: (p. 137)◦(1) learner noticing and continued

awareness, ◦(2) repeated meaning-focused exposure

to input containing them◦(3) opportunities for output and practice

“ . . . More research is necessary . . .”

Grammar-translation Method Audiolingual Method Silent Way Method (developed in response to

audio-lingual method) different way of seeing learner’s role.

How do they treat form

What is it? What was it's historical context? What are the principle techniques and

tasks? How does the method order the "line of

march"?

1. Pedagogical (in the classroom) 2. Professional (for persuading colleagues) 3. Political (for persuading administrators or

public "owners")

How does it deal with "form” in general? What were it’s strengths in its historical

period? What were its potential shortcomings? What evidence do you see of FonF?