SLA in the Instructional Environment

Teresa Pica

University of Pennsylvania

This state-of- the- art article reviews research on the role of instruction in
SLA and the types of research that have been carried out, from experi-
ments and classroom observation to task-based research and
meta-analyses. The author examines the constructs and theories that this
research has supported and concludes that more long-term classroom
studies are needed.

T
Introduction
he label, “instructional,” applied to “environment” suggests a set-
ting in which a content area or skill is organized, presented, and
explained to the learner. The second language (L2) instructional
environment is unique in that it can offer the L2 as the content or skill that
is instructed as well as the medium through which the instruction is
offered. Through the instructional environment, learners can access sam-
ples of L2 text and discourse. These can serve as evidence or information
that learners can apply to their developing interlanguage system and use
to modify and reconfigure its linguistic and communicative features.
Understanding, describing, and predicting what makes the L2 accessible
and the learner successful are central to the numerous studies that bear
the label, “instructional.” These include studies carried out in classroom
settings as well as in controlled environments in which the label,
“instructional” characterizes the treatments or conditions that make the
L2 available for learning. Findings from these studies have informed the
broader field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) at empirical and the-
oretical levels.
Research on the instructional environment has embraced dozens of
questions, topics, and themes, some of which are described in this arti-
cle. The instructional environment itself has been analyzed, in
descriptions of instructional moves, interaction structures, and partici-
pation patterns, and through comparisons of experienced and novice
instructors, form and meaning based approaches, and input oriented
and production driven methods (See Chaudron, 1988 and Lightbown &
Spada, 2006 for overviews). In attempting to link these components with
SLA, researchers have gone beyond describing the complexity, marked-
ness, and other features of instructional discourse, to discovering the

Working Papers in Educational Linguistics 23/1: 1-27, 2008

 WPEL VOLUME 23, NUMBER 1

interaction structures that draw attention to L2 form and meaning and

make the L2 available as input for learning (e.g., Doughty & Williams,
1998). Features of rule provision and corrective feedback are no longer
viewed as limited to the formation of conscious L2 knowledge. They
have taken on greater theoretical importance as vital contributors to cog-
nitive processes and learning outcomes (e.g., DeKeyser, 2003; R. Ellis,
2005).
Methodological issues reveal one of the many ways in which concerns
about SLA in the instructional environment resonate across the broader
field of SLA. Questions on the contributions of input, interaction, pro-
duction, and correction are relevant to all SLA environments and remain
at the forefront of SLA theory and research. The relationship of explicit to
implicit features, whether about learning, instruction, or knowledge, con-
tinue to perplex and fascinate scholars throughout the field. This article
will therefore look at research on SLA in the instructional environment as
it bears on broader theoretical concerns of the field at large and con-
tributes to its methodological needs.
The article first highlights research from the instructional environ-
ment that has introduced theoretical constructs to SLA and tested their
claims about input, interaction, feedback, and output processes. It then
describes ways in which task-based activities that originated in the
instructional environment have contributed to this research and propos-
es strategies through which they might do likewise for outcomes oriented
projects. The article ends with a brief discussion of the ways in which the
classroom can serve as an environment where instruction and research
can thrive, by providing an optimal context for the implementation of
task-based activities and by offering time as a commodity greatly needed
to address current questions on SLA.

Historical Perspectives and Methodological Concerns

Languages, like all other objects of learning, are acquired in con-

texts. Among the contexts available to language learners, the
instructional environment is one that has been a source of curiosity and
debate in the field of SLA since the early 1970’s. Long before that, sec-
ond languages were instructed (e.g., Howatt, 1984; Kelly, 1969) and
their acquisition was researched (e.g., Leopold, 1939-1949; see also
Hatch, 1980 for a detailed overview). However, during the seventies,
the instructional environment began to take on theoretical significance,
as advances in psycholinguistics provoked questions and concerns
about its role in SLA. Since the mind appeared capable of amassing,
sorting, and synthesizing intricate grammatical operations and complex
cultural rules, and of handling whatever ambient linguistic data it
encountered, what was left for an instructional environment to offer
the L2 learner?

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 SLA IN THE INSTRUCTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

Initially, it appeared as though the instructional environment had little to

offer the learner. The features of rule provision and error feedback that made
the instructional environment distinctive (Krashen & Seliger, 1975) were
believed to help build conscious knowledge of L2 forms and grammatical
structures. What the learner needed, however, was to acquire a systematic
interlanguage grammar that could be restructured unconsciously and
accessed readily for spontaneous, unmonitored use. SLA was seen as a pro-
cess of creative construction (Dulay, Burt, & Krashen, 1982) that resembled
first language acquisition. It required an environment composed of mean-
ingful input, made comprehensible through the familiarity of its topics, the
visual cues that accompanied it, and the interaction that provided support.
Such features were potentially available in the instructional environment,
but they could also be found in everyday settings, through informal L2 con-
tact, as well as in classrooms not designed for language study but abundant
with opportunities for language use (Krashen, 1976).
These reservations about the contributions of the instructional envi-
ronment began to shift in the eighties, when Michael H. Long published
a meta-analytical comparison of studies whose data on SLA had come
from instructional, exposure, and combined environments (Long, 1983).
Findings from these studies pointed to a superiority for the instructional
environment, particularly in the acquisition rate and level of attainment
of instructed learners. Although the meta-analysis was not able to pin-
point the factors responsible for this result, Long raised the possibility
that the discourse of the instructional environment, particularly its lin-
guistic complexity and markedness, might have played a role.
Since the time of Long’s meta-analysis, research on SLA in the instruc-
tional environment has burgeoned in size and scope. An update of Long’s
original meta-analysis by John Norris and Lourdes Ortega (2001) has lent
further insight and raised additional issues regarding the instructional envi-
ronment and SLA. Through a comparison of fifty-one studies whose data
came from four distinct types of instructional environments, Norris and
Ortega found that explicit, form-focused instructional environments result-
ed in more accurate and advanced SLA outcomes than those that followed
implicit approaches. Appearing at a time of considerable evidence and con-
vincing argument that implicit L2 knowledge is the basis for communicative
L2 use, (N. Ellis, 2003), the findings of the meta-analysis have suggested the
need to consider how explicit learning might contribute to the implicit
knowledge that learners eventually come to use (e.g., DeKeyser, 2003).
These findings have also posed methodological challenges to SLA
research. This is because so many of the analyzed studies obtained their
results through short-term treatments, and documented learning
through discrete point tests. These methodological approaches are
known to favor the learner’s demonstration of explicit over implicit
knowledge. Implicit knowledge takes a long time to acquire and its
acquisition is not always obvious on isolated test items. The findings of

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the meta-analysis thus underscore the need for long-term treatments

and for measures and tests more sensitive to the acquisition of implicit
L2 knowledge and the demonstration of its outcomes (Norris & Ortega,
2003, 2006; See also Doughty, 2003).
Methodological concerns have also been raised about the use of intact
classrooms versus the use of instruction in more controlled settings
(DeKeyser, 2003; Doughty, 2003). The instructional environment has
served as a source of SLA data beginning with early studies that compared
the morpheme accuracy order of learners from different instructional
backgrounds (Dulay & Burt, 1974; Pica, 1983) and has remained so to date.
Initially, there was a need for descriptive data on L2 classrooms. Studies
uncovered similarities and differences between teacher-fronted and stu-
dent group interaction (Pica & Doughty, 1985a, b); communicative and
grammar focused activities (Long & Sato, 1983); and high and low levels
of student turn taking and participation (Allwright, 1980). Over the years,
the instructional environment has taken on a much broader role in the
field of SLA, contributing research that has informed SLA theory about
“noticing the gap,” (Schmidt & Frota, 1986), “focus on form,” (Long, 1991),
and “modified, comprehensible output,” (Swain, 1985), and validated the-
oretical claims about the role of negative evidence (L. White, 1991), the
importance of recasts in meaning focused contexts (Doughty & Varela,
1998), and language “teachability” (Pienemann, 1989).
Much of the research has been carried out in intact classrooms, but a
good deal has also been conducted in controlled environments in which
the label “instructional” characterized the treatments or the conditions
under study rather than the setting of the study. Concerns have been
noted about the “ecological validity” of this approach to research, as it
has required the isolation and comparison of instruction-related variables
and treatments (DeKeyser, 2003; Doughty, 2003). As will be revealed
throughout this section, however, findings from this research have
demonstrated a good deal of external validity to instructional and infor-
mal environments alike. In addition, results of a recent study that
compared task based interaction in classrooms and laboratory conditions
suggest that setting type might not be as critical as other instructional
dimensions in addressing questions on the instructional environment
(Gass, Mackey, & Ross-Feldman, 2005). The study found striking similar-
ities in learner behavior across the two settings. Differences appeared to
be a function of the types of tasks in which the learners engaged rather
than the settings in which they worked.
Methodologically, the isolation and comparison of instruction-
related variables and treatments has been an important and
necessary step toward understanding their role in the SLA process
and their contributions to successful L2 outcomes. Together, studies
carried out across a range of instructional environments and activi-
ties have informed the field about learners’ needs to obtain input

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and evidence, to participate in form-focused interaction, to be given

form-focused feedback and instruction, and to produce and modify
their output. The following section details how research on instruc-
tional settings has influenced these theoretical constructs in the field
of Second Language Acquisition.

The Effect of Instructed SLA Research on Theoretical

Constructs

Input, Evidence, and SLA in Instructional Perspective

That L2 learners need to access comprehensible, meaningful input for
their learning is fundamental to second language acquisition theory. One
of the most comprehensive discussions of input appeared in a chapter of
the original Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (Long, 1996), and has
been updated by Long for the current volume. According to Long, learn-
ers need access to input that supplies positive evidence of relationships
between message meaning and the form in which that meaning is encod-
ed. Such input is found in the texts they read and hear, and in the
responses they receive to their questions and comments. When the input
is repeated, reformulated, and modified to insure comprehensibility, its
form and meaning relationships become more perceptually salient and
available to the learner. Since learners often need to have messages made
comprehensible, modified input provides an excellent source of positive
data on L2 morphology, syntax, and lexis. Unfortunately, it is not a guar-
anteed source, nor is it always sufficient, particularly for providing access
to L2 forms and features that are low in salience or lack communicative
transparency. In English, for example, forms such as articles and deter-
miners, with their elusive rules and patterns of use, are difficult for
learners to notice on their own. Researchers have explored alternative
ways to promote access to them.
One approach has been to enhance or enrich the input in which these
forms appear. However, studies in which such forms have been high-
lighted visually (Izumi, 2002; J. White, 1998), or made more abundant
through “flooding” in written and spoken texts (Trahey & L. White,
1993) have had disappointing results. While some degree of noticing
appeared to occur, its interlanguage application was incomplete. Thus,
in the Izumi study, the enhanced forms were not sufficiently noticed to
affect learners’ ability to use them in text reconstruction. In the J. White
study, even though learners were given texts with italics, bolding,
enlargement, and underlining, these enhancement devices did not make
a significant difference in their learning of possessive determiners. In the
study of Trahey and L. White, learners were able to add correct forms to
their interlanguage, but were not able to substitute them for older, incor-
rect versions, which remained in the interlanguage as well.

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A related approach has been to make learners’ more aware of low

salience forms through “consciousness raising” experiences that range
from providing them with texts in which the forms are highlighted and
to offering explicit instruction and explanation on form application
(Rutherford & Smith, 1985), to deciding among and discussing form
choices in grammar based activities (Fotos, 1994; Fotos & R. Ellis, 1991).
Although some success has been reported with respect to learners’ abili-
ty to notice these forms in future contexts (e.g., Fotos, 1994), questions
remain about the extent to which these interventions promote the kind of
implicit L2 knowledge learners need for to make form generalizations
and apply to productive use (See Doughty & Williams, 1998, pp. 239-240).
To help them notice items that are low in salience and to manage and
overcome the errors that ensue, learners appear to benefit from input that
supplies negative evidence about what is not in the L2. As Schmidt found
from self-study of his own learning processes (Schmidt & Frota, 1986),
even frequent exposure to forms that were low in perceptual salience was
not sufficient for him to detect what he needed to develop and change
them in his own production. Only when he was able to notice the “gap”
between his own, and target versions, was he able to move on in his
development and application of these forms. Schmidt identified the
importance of negative evidence through an instructional environment
that included formal classroom learning, everyday social interaction, and
informant consultation. His experience has inspired the study of negative
evidence across a broad range of contexts.
Much of what is known about negative evidence has come from stud-
ies that examined its role at process and short-term outcome levels, using
actual or adapted instructional materials or instructor intervention to
deliver treatments and collect data. These studies first identified L2 forms
and structures whose limited saliency or relative complexity made them
difficult for learners to master, but whose development was underway.
Negative evidence was then provided through “negative” or corrective
feedback to learner mis-productions or incorrect selections of these forms
and structures, and its usefulness for error revision and L2 development
was tracked. These studies revealed important findings on the role of
negative evidence in the modification, development, and in some
instances, retention, of linguistic items that had heretofore defied the
learner’s mastery.
Thus, in studies on English language learners, Carroll and Swain (1993)
found that a combination of instruction and negative feedback promoted
gains for dative constructions. Williams and Evans (1998) found that such
a combination also helped learners with participial adjectives, but not pas-
sives, apparently because they had better control over the participial forms
to begin with, and thus were more ready to make gains in their acquisition.
Negative evidence (L. White, 1991) was able to assist French learners with
English L2 adverb placement rules whose tiny differences with French had

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defied the learners’ grasp. Mackey and Philp (1998) and Spada and
Lightbown (1993) found that negative evidence helped students progress
through the stages of question formation, each an important step toward
mastery of this complex construction. Doughty and Varela (1998), whose
treatment was more lengthy and intensive than others carried out in the
instructional environment, found that feedback presented through repeti-
tion and recasting of past tense and aspect errors had a positive and lasting
effect on students’ learning.
With respect to languages other than English, Long, Inagaki, and
Ortega (1998) found that negative evidence, delivered through interlocu-
tor recasts immediately after a learner mis-production made a difference
in adjective ordering in Spanish and adverb placement in Japanese, espe-
cially when compared with an instructional modeling treatment
provided right before the learner’s attempts at production. Finally,
Tomasello and Herron (1988, 1989) found that when errors were induced
and feedback was immediate, learners were better able to revise gram-
matical features in French L2 that were prone to errors of English L1
transfer and overgeneralization.
Many of these studies were implemented under controlled conditions,
in which actual or adapted instructional materials were used to deliver
treatments and collect data (See Carroll & Swain, 1993; Iwashita, 2003;
Leeman, 2003; Long, Inagaki & Ortega, 1998; Mackey, 1999; Mackey &
Philp, 1998; Oliver, 1995; Williams & Evans, 1998). Others were carried
out in intact classrooms with researcher intervention (e.g., Doughty &
Varela, 1998; Lyster & Mori, 2006; Oliver, 2000; Oliver & Mackey, 2003;
Tomasello & Herron, 1988, 1989; Lightbown & Spada, 1990; L. White,
1991). These studies have revealed that negative evidence can be provid-
ed through formal instruction and explicit corrective feedback, as well as
from feedback that arises when interaction is modified in order to achieve
mutual comprehension. This latter, known as the negotiation of meaning,
has been shown to occur frequently during conversational interaction in
which learners engage, and to provide an especially rich resource for
input and evidence adjusted to their linguistic and communication needs.
Modified Interaction as a Source of Evidence
When interaction is modified by the negotiation of meaning, teachers,
classmates, and other interlocutors request clarification or confirmation
from the learner through utterances that attempt to understand the learn-
er’s intended meaning. These brief, but frequent interludes help the
learner to focus on form (Long & Robinson, 1998; Doughty & Williams,
1998) by shifting the learner’s attention to the form of the message and to
possible problems with its encoding. Simple signals such as “What did
you say?” or “Please repeat” are often used as well as linguistically elab-
orated responses. When an interlocutor seeks to confirm the learner’s
message, and thereby reformulates it, this helps the learner to notice the

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gap between the interlanguage encoding of its meaning and the encoding
of that meaning in the interlocutor’s request. This is shown in the fol-
lowing brief exchange:

Example 1.
Learner: My grass broken
Interlocutor: Your glasses? Are your glasses broken?

The importance of mutual comprehension and message comprehensi-

bility becomes especially acute when interaction is goal oriented and
requires learners and interlocutors to exchange and integrate information
they hold individually in order to solve a problem or complete a task.
(e.g., classroom-based studies of Pica, Lincoln-Porter, Paninos, & Linnell,
1996; Pica, 2002; Pica & Washburn, 2003). Such a focus on message form
is incidental, however, as learners’ attention is necessarily devoted to
repairing and resolving impasses in message communication in order to
reach their goal. In many cases, the attention paid to a message is not
directed at the accuracy of its grammatical form, but rather the precise-
ness of its content. Below is an example of what frequently occurs when
an interlocutor is asked to reproduce a picture based on directions from a
learner:

Example 2.
Learner: Two book. Draw two book.
Interlocutor: Two? Did you say two?
Learner: Yes

Thus, one of the concerns about negotiation is that its inexactness for
drawing attention to form and meaning limits its sufficiency for L2 learn-
ing. Nevertheless its frequency of occurrence during goal oriented
interaction makes it a useful, if inexact source of negative evidence for the
learner.
When comprehensibility is not at issue, as often happens when teachers
are familiar with their students’ interlanguage errors and are engaged with
them in classroom routines and lessons, the teachers may use negotiation
signals to promote accuracy, through what has been referred to by Lyster
(1998) and Lyster and Ranta, (1997) as the negotiation of form. They found
this signaling technique to be particularly effective for learners in correcting
their lexical errors and many of their syntactic errors as well. To modify their
phonological errors, however, learners in their studies appeared to benefit
from another kind of intervention, known as recasts. These responses,
known to be abundant in classroom and caregiver settings, have been the
subject of numerous studies in the instructional environment. Results of the
studies have not been uniform, but their further analysis has shed light on
the conditions of time and setting in which recasts work best.

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Recasts: Variation across the Instructional Environment

When interlocutors respond to a learner by recasting the learner’s
message they restate what they believe to be the meaning of the message,
but they recode its errors into an accurate form. This recoded message
provides positive evidence as input for learning. Its timely proximity to
the learner’s error provides negative evidence that helps the learner to
notice the gap in form between the original message and the recast one.
There has been a considerable amount of debate about recasts as an inter-
vention in the learning process. While acknowledging the effectiveness of
the recast in drawing the learner’s attention to form and meaning, some
researchers question whether it is the positive, negative, or combined evi-
dence that makes the recast an effective response to the learner. Other
researchers point to studies in which recasts were not effective, presum-
ably because their preservation of the message meaning had made their
minor corrective properties difficult for learners to notice.
In attempting to resolve this theoretical debate, several studies,
(Ayoun, 2001; Doughty & Varela, 1998; Leeman, 2003), together with
reviews of recast studies and comparisons of their methods by
Doughty (2001) and Nicholas, Lightbown, and Spada (2001) have shed
considerable light on the ways in which recasts can best help the learn-
er. These works reveal that both the positive and the negative evidence
in a recast can be useful. Because recasts are encoded as immediate,
semantically contingent response moves, their formal and functional
properties are made more salient to the learner, so that they can be
noticed and applied to the developing grammar. Thus, it is the imme-
diacy in timing and saliency of positioning of recasts that make useful
to the learner.
Beyond settling a theoretical debate, the analysis of recasts has revital-
ized the role of positive evidence in the L2 learning process. Meaningful,
comprehensible input works best when given in response, rather than pre-
emptively through initiation moves, to the learner. Lending further
support to this perspective is a study by Long et al. (1998), and a review
by R. Ellis (1999). Together, they emphasize that where positive evidence
does not make a difference for the learner, the evidence has been supplied
in the form of enhanced texts, pre-modified on the basis of interlocutor
judgments about the learner’s abilities and needs. In studies where posi-
tive evidence does make a difference, the evidence has come from
immediate interlocutor responses that incorporate or reformulate the
learner’s very own message. This form of adjusted input is far more direct
and individualized than its pre-modified counterpart.
Several studies have pointed out the fact that recasts are not always
practical. First, the limited salience of their reformulation makes them
less likely to be noticed by learners, compared, for example with explicit
corrections or even confirmation checks, which also reformulate, but do

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so with through a shift toward rising intonation. Even those recasts that
are noticed have been found to have little impact in the immediate term
(e.g., Mackey & Philp, 1998; and Philp, 2003). Findings on recasts in the
classroom setting have been subject to these same concerns, as it is diffi-
cult for teachers to recast errors of form when they are engaged in
meaningful instruction. As Lyster (1998) and Lyster and Ranta (1997)
have noted, when recasts are used in controlled research conditions, their
function is restricted to that of responses to errors. However, during
classroom interaction they can be serve as reinforcements to student con-
tributions of accurate content and as expressions of approval or
acceptance. These non-corrective, pedagogical functions of classroom
recasts tend to obscure the negative evidence they contain. Thus, Lyster
and Ranta (1997) found that classroom learners were less likely to notice
or show “uptake” of the negative evidence that was encoded in their
teacher’s recasts, and were more responsive to their teacher’s explicit cor-
rections and form-focused instruction.
Arecent study by Lyster and Mori (2006) has pointed out the role played
by context and setting in determining the effectiveness of recasts in getting
learners to demonstrate their uptake and repair their errors. Though recasts
were abundant and predominant in the two very distinct immersion envi-
ronments they compared, learners in the environment with a lower
communicative orientation responded to them more frequently than learn-
ers in a more communicative program, where the learners were more
responsive to prompts. Accordingly, Lyster and Mori advanced their
“counterbalance hypothesis,” that instruction and feedback are more like-
ly to be effective when they are counterbalanced, rather than congruent,
with a classroom’s predominant communicative orientation.
Form-Focused Instruction
During form-focused instruction, learners are provided with informa-
tion and corrective feedback about language forms and rules within the
context of communicative activities, through either immediate, extempo-
raneous intervention within a communicative activity or in follow up
work shortly thereafter (Lightbown & Spada, 1990; Spada & Lightbown,
1993). Instructional features such as display or evaluation questions, met-
alinguistic statements, and explicit evaluations provide relevant
information on what the learner can do in order to understand and pro-
duce the L2. In form-focused instruction, whether immediate or delayed,
there is usually a reference to the learner’s problems with form, especial-
ly the ways in which such problems can interfere with the
communication of meaning.
Functional grammar instruction (Harley, 1989), is also form-focused,
but is implemented through materials and activities pre-planned from
the classroom curriculum. These instructional tools integrate a form-
focused component into a content-oriented classroom. Students are

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provided with opportunities to practice specific forms that they have not
been able to learn from subject content alone, by engaging in a range of
classroom experiences, including role plays, class projects, problem solv-
ing grammar tasks, and board, card, and picture games. These additions
to their curriculum facilitate access to L2 forms through the communica-
tive functions and meanings that they serve.
Research on functional grammar instruction, carried out predomi-
nantly in Canadian French immersion programs, has revealed positive
outcomes for students’ learning of French L2 conditionals (Day &
Shapson, 1991); verb tense and aspect markers (Harley, 1989); noun gen-
der marking (Harley, 1998); and tu-vous distinctions (Lyster, 1994). Aside
from revealing the value of functional grammar instruction to L2 learn-
ers, these studies have shown researchers that it is possible to carry out
studies on SLA in authentic classroom environments. Not only did the
classrooms provide cohorts of learner participants, they also allowed for
an extended period of instructional treatment, data collection, and testing
as well as all too rare outcomes data on SLA.
Processing Instruction
As another type of instruction oriented toward drawing attention to
form, processing instruction, has been successful in helping learners to
identify sentence constituents and understand message meaning (e.g.,
VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993). Learners are given explicit instruction on
how to process L2 input whose word order is different from that of their
first language or is a marked alternative in the L2. Passive constructions
in English are good candidates for processing instruction that identifies
sentence agents and objects to learners who are used to relying on the
unmarked, “default” Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) patterns they already
mastered in their L1. After instruction, learners are better equipped to
understand the correct meaning of “The dog was chased by the cat” than
they would have been, had they relied on predictable SVO order and real
world experience to believe that it was the dog who was chasing the cat.
Processing instruction appears to be especially effective for assisting
learners’ comprehension of sentences with marked constituent order. As
several studies have revealed, however, not all rules, forms, and struc-
tures are amenable to this approach. As was illustrated by Allen’s work
(2000) on French causative verbs and DeKeyser and Sokalski’s (2001)
studies on Spanish morphosyntax, rule focused and practice oriented
instruction can be just as effective as processing instruction for aiding
learners’ sentence comprehension and interpretation and more effective
in facilitating production of most grammatical forms and constructions.
Output Production and Advancement in SLA
In addition to the positive and negative evidence that comes from
modified input, feedback, and instruction, learners’ own production can

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serve as a resource for evidence, as well as a mechanism for important

learning processes. Some of the most compelling arguments about the
role of output have come from Merrill Swain (1985, 1998), and originated
with her review of test data on long-term French immersion learners. Her
analysis revealed scores that were considerably lower in production accu-
racy than in the receptive areas of reading and listening, despite the
learners’ access to input that was meaningful, copious, and comprehen-
sible. To explain the data, Swain turned to the instructional environment
of the immersion classroom. Its emphasis on content transmission neces-
sarily reduced students’ opportunities to produce spontaneous L2 output
and to adjust what might be a comprehensible, but grammatically inac-
curate message into a syntactically more successful one. She proposed
that if all learners, not just those in classroom settings, were given oppor-
tunities to modify their message production toward greater
comprehensibility or accuracy, they might be able to move from an inter-
language characterized by semantic processing and juxtaposition of
constituent features, to one distinguished by syntactic processing and
message organization.
From her initial argument about “comprehensible output” as a neces-
sary mechanism in SLA (Swain, 1985, p. 252), Swain went on to propose
that learners’ production, especially their modified production of their
responses during collaborative undertakings, would be a source of feed-
back and a basis for their hypothesis testing. It could also help them
notice the insufficiencies of their own grammatical and lexical reper-
toires, and motivate them to listen more carefully for needed structures
and words in new contexts in which such features might be found. Over
the years, many of Swain’s proposals have been confirmed through stud-
ies in authentic and controlled classroom settings (e.g., He & Ellis, 1999;
Izumi, 2002; Linnell, 1995; McDonough, 2005; Paninos, 2005; Pica,
Holliday, Lewis, & Morgenthaler, 1989; Shehadeh, 1999, 2001; Swain,
1993; Swain & Lapkin, 1998).
Some of the research has shown that output production prior to
opportunities to hear input and notice its features is more effective
for SLA than input noticing activities alone (Izumi, 2002; Paninos,
2005). Other studies have shown that interlocutor feedback can affect
the learner’s ability to produce syntactically complex and accurate
structures (Linnell, 1995) and to advance through the stages of ques-
tion formation (McDonough, 2005). These and other studies have
revealed ways in which the impact of output on the learning process
is heightened when it is produced in response to feedback. While
feedback has long been viewed as a means whereby learners can seek
additional input (Krashen, 1976), and more recently as a source of
negative evidence, it appears equally important as a trigger for learn-
ers to modify their production of output and thereby advance their
interlanguage development.

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 SLA IN THE INSTRUCTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

An increasing number of researchers have focused on learner produc-

tion within the theoretical perspective of information processing theory,
which views SLA as the acquisition of a complex cognitive skill, and
therefore responsive to direct instruction and practice. The most convinc-
ing studies have used artificial languages, assisted through monitored,
computer interaction, which allowed the researchers to control instruc-
tional treatments and track learning over time (e.g. de Graaff, 1997;
DeKeyser, 1997). Learners were first given explicit instruction of linguis-
tic rules, which was followed by opportunities for practice. This
combination was shown to greatly aid the learner’s ability to apply the
rules to subsequent activities. Although there have been theoretical con-
cerns as to whether the resultant learning revealed skill demonstration
only and not implicit, generalizable knowledge, one of the most careful-
ly implemented studies (DeKeyser, 1997) found that production practice
might best be viewed within the framework of rule automaticity.
Accordingly, DeKeyser has argued that a sequence of explicit rule learn-
ing followed by opportunities for practice and application can lead to
highly automatized L2 knowledge, readily available for a range of com-
municative uses.
L2 Teachability and Learner Readiness
The importance of readiness for instruction has been a theme with
considerable resonance in the field of SLA for several decades. Early on,
in advancing his “input hypothesis,” Stephen Krashen (1981) looked to
the importance of the learner’s readiness for what he considered optimal
and sufficient input. As such, the input would need to be meaningful,
comprehensible, and encoded slightly beyond students’ current level of
language development. Because these features were difficult to opera-
tionalize for empirical study, the construct remained acknowledged, but
untested, until Manfred Pienemann’s studies on developmental stages in
German L2 and his “teachability hypothesis” on the role of instructional
intervention in speeding up the learner’s rate of passage through them
(Pienemann, 1985; 1989). His findings revealed that learners could not
skip any stages in their sequence of L2 development, but that appropri-
ately timed instruction in features that were teachable, i.e., at the stage
just beyond their current stage, could help them go through intermediate
steps more quickly than they would have if left on their own.
Thus, Pienemann (1989) and R. Ellis (1989) were able to show that
learners at the “particle” stage in their German L2 development benefit-
ed from instruction on the next, “inversion” stage when given instruction
on particle movement. This enabled them to extend their ability for sep-
arating particles from other constituents within phrases and moving
them to sentence final position, to the ability to separate and move parti-
cles internally, within a sentence as well. Learners at stages below
“particle,” who could not yet separate particles from other constituents in

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 WPEL VOLUME 23, NUMBER 1

phrases, were not yet ready and able to benefit from “inversion” instruc-
tion. Recently, Pienemann has advanced his theory of “processibility,”
through which he has been able to predict cross-linguistically the syntac-
tic structures that learners are ready to process at particular stages in their
development. His studies of English, Japanese, and Swedish have pro-
vided empirical support to his claims (Pienemann, 1998).
Several other studies have expanded the construct of learner readi-
ness by connecting it with instructional features. For example, Mackey
and Philp (1998) found that learners who were ready to advance to the
next stage of English question formation did so successfully if their ques-
tion errors were recast. However, other “ready” learners, whose question
errors were not recast, did not advance as consistently as the recast
group. “Unready” learners were not able to benefit from the recasts of
their questions. Similar findings were reported by Han (2002) and Oliver
(1995), although their research questions addressed recasts, not readiness.
In trying to explain why some of the learners were not able to take advan-
tage of the recasts used in responses to their errors, Oliver, for example,
argued that the errors had emanated from spontaneous, conversational
interaction, and included mis-produced features and structures that were
well beyond the developmental level of the students. Together these
studies suggest that it is the combination of readiness for instructional
treatment and the treatment type that can make a difference in the learn-
er’s progression across the sequences of L2 development.
Lightbown (1998) has raised important issues regarding readiness,
within a classroom perspective. Acknowledging the variation in readi-
ness that is likely within a given classroom of learners, she has proposed
that form-focused, L2 input, tailored to the more advanced students, can
also serve at least some of the input needs of students at lower levels
(Lightbown, 1998). Supportive findings from her work with Spada
(Spada & Lightbown, 1999) have shown that across the sequences of
question formation, even low level students can begin to display knowl-
edge of advanced features, albeit not as consistently as peers who are
closer to the stage where these features might next be anticipated. R. Ellis
(1989) has provided an additional perspective on variation in readiness,
reflected in the higher and lower levels found within each stage of indi-
vidual learner development. He has suggested ways in which
instructional interventions can be tailored to the more advanced dimen-
sions of each stage (R. Ellis, 1995; 2003).
In addition to the issues raised by Lightbown with respect to the
feasibility of applying constructs of teachability and readiness within
the classroom are concerns about the scope of its application (Pica,
2007), as teachability applies to stage-related forms and constructions,
and these constitute only a portion of the L2 forms that learners need
to know and be able to use for communication. In English, for exam-
ple, many L2 forms are acquired, not in developmental sequences, but

14
 SLA IN THE INSTRUCTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

on an individual basis, and thus vary according to learner orientations

toward functional or formal accuracy, learner age, perceptual acuity,
and access to input. Their learning trajectory is less predictable, and
their mastery less likely than is the case for forms acquired in a devel-
opmental sequence. Grammatical inflections for verb tense and noun
number, and functors such as the copula, for example, neither align
with developmental sequences, nor fall into a predictable order of
acquisition.
Because these variational features often have limited perceptual
salience or communicative value for learners, they are seldom mastered
on their own (e.g., Harley, 1989, 1993; Long, 1996). Yet, indications of
readiness for their learning appear quite early in L2 development, as
functions arise for their application, along with contexts for their use,
and as the forms themselves begin to emerge, as target-like items as well
as mis-formations.
For example, in describing previous events in their lives, learners
might not be able to attach the non-syllabic past –ed form to a verb, as
in, we moved. However, their use of a base form of the verb with a past
adverbial, as in we move last year, or with reference to a time or place
in their past, as in we move 1956 suggests that they might be ready to
begin acquiring the –ed form to more fully express past meaning.
Similarly, they might use the connector and instead of but, thus filling
its function as a connector, albeit a mis-formed one. This would sug-
gest that the learner is aware of the need to express connections
grammatically, and is ready to focus on the forms to do so.
Interventions that draw the learner’s attention to such features
whose functions are already apparent might therefore begin early dur-
ing the acquisition process, as soon as contexts for their use appear in
the learner’s messages, when form omission and mis-formation alter-
nate with form suppliance. Such interventions would need to be
sustained throughout the course of L2 development, to allow for the
time needed for mastery by the learner. In addition to assisting the
learner, this approach would also enable researchers to track the learn-
er’s increasing accuracy in using these features and to account for the
factors behind their variation in the interlanguage.
The learning of variational, low salience forms and the study of
their acquisition require a longer stretch of time than that used in most
of the studies on SLA. As simple as this seems, its actualization is dif-
ficult. It is not easy to locate learners who can commit their time and
patience to the research rigors of a long-term project, even if results of
the project might lead to information that could assist their learning.
The instructional environment can play a crucial role in this long-term
endeavor in two distinctive ways, through the design and implemen-
tation of task-based activities as tools for L2 instruction, acquisition,
and research, and in the use of the classroom as a research site.

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 WPEL VOLUME 23, NUMBER 1

Tasks as Instruments for L2 Teaching, Learning, and

Research

Tasks that engage language learners in meaningful, goal-oriented

communication in order to solve problems, complete projects, and reach
decisions have been used for a broad range of instructional purposes.
They have served, for example, as units of course syllabi, activities for
structure or function practice, and language focusing enhancements to
content based curricula. Connections between task activity and commu-
nicative uses of the L2 inside and outside the classroom have made tasks
attractive to educators and their students.
Tasks have had great and growing appeal to researchers as well.
Demands on learners’ attention, comprehension, and production as they
carry out a task can lead them to obtain feedback, draw inferences, and
test hypotheses about L2 forms and features, and produce more accurate
and developmentally advanced output. Observing and measuring these
task behaviors provide researchers with further insight into the process-
es of implicit learning.
Many of the tasks used in research have been taken directly or adapt-
ed from professional references (e.g., Brumfit & Johnson, 1979; Ur, 1988),
scholarly publications (e.g., R. Ellis, 2003; Nunan, 1989), and student text-
books (e.g., Harmer & Surguine, 1987; Helgesen, Brown, & Mandeville,
2000). Among the tasks most widely used are those which require learn-
ers to exchange information, either by drawing from the same initial pool
they are given, or by transferring and sharing their initially unique con-
tributions (See Pica, Kanagy, & Falodun, 1993 for an overview and
examples). These latter are often referred to as information gap tasks (See
Doughty & Pica, 1986; Pica, 2005; Pica, Kang, & Sauro, 2006 for individu-
al studies). Information exchange tasks have been used primarily to
ground instructional treatments or interventions that generate opportu-
nities for modified interaction, support provision of modified input, and
stimulate feedback and the production of modified output. Many studies
cited in this article have used tasks in these ways.
Among the studies, Pica, Lincoln-Porter, Paninos, and Linnell (1996)
used information exchange tasks to study the ways in which opportuni-
ties for modified interaction on these tasks helped the learners extend
modified input and request clarification to each other. The tasks required
the learners to choose pictures as their partners narrated a story line. Gass
and Alvarez-Torres (2005) used information gap tasks as a way to gener-
ate different sequences of input and interaction that could then be
studied for their role in vocabulary learning. Tasks designed by Iwashita
(2003) for both information transfer and information exchange provided
a way to deliver modified input and feedback to learners, which, in turn
allowed her to compare the effects of these interventions on Japanese L2
learning. The picture description and drawing tasks used by Nobuyoshi

16
 SLA IN THE INSTRUCTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

and Ellis (1993), generated clarification requests to learners’ attempts at

production, which provided data for their study of the modified output
in the learners’ responses.
Although the language used to carry out a task need not be pre-spec-
ified, a task can be designed so that the information exchanged in
attaining its goal favors the use of specific grammatical forms (e.g.,
Loschky & Bley-Vroman, 1993; R. Ellis, 2003). Many studies have
employed such form-focused tasks for variational forms of limited com-
municative transparency and low salience, as well as for sequential
features with considerable operational complexity. These linguistic and
communicative properties made forms and features difficult to master
despite learners’ readiness to do so.
In the study of Doughty and Varela (1998), for example, students’
reports of their science experiments provided contexts for them to pro-
duce past time morphology. When they made errors of suppliance, the
researchers repeated and recast their utterances, and then tracked the
results of this intervention over time. This commonly used classroom
task, which was part of the everyday curriculum, thus turned into an
effective learning tool for the students, as well as a helpful means of data
collection for the researchers.
Pica et al. (2006) applied the structures of three widely used
Information Gap Tasks, Spot the Difference, Jigsaw, and Grammar
Communication, to the reading passages of a film appreciation course.
The resulting tasks were then used to generate learners’ modified inter-
action, noticing, and awareness of English articles and verb morphology
in the passage. These were the linguistic features that had been difficult
to learn from course content alone. Pairs of learners read the same origi-
nal passage, and then were given slightly modified versions of the
passages, with sentence level differences in articles or verb forms. For
example, a sentence in the original passage might have the table. The same
sentence in one student’s version might be modified with a table, while
the other student’s version would retain the table from the original. Each
pair had a mix of some of the original and modified sentences.
Withoutlookingateachother’sversions,theywereaskedtoworktogeth-
er to locate differences between the sentences (for Spot the Difference),
and/or reorder the sentences to match the original (for Jigsaw), or fill in
blanks to make the sentences complete (for Grammar Communication).
They then had to choose what they believed were the ”better” versions of
their sentences, justify their choices for selection, and recall the selected sen-
tencesinordertojointlyreconstructtheoriginal.Allthreetaskswereeffective
in drawing students’attention to the targeted forms and retaining them dur-
ing text reconstruction over the short duration of the study.
Muranoi (2000) also focused on English articles through problem solv-
ing tasks that required article suppliance for their completion. She used
the tasks to look for ways in which learners produced and modified their

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 WPEL VOLUME 23, NUMBER 1

production as they negotiated their plan for solving the problems. Similar
design and implementation of tasks that drew learners’ attention to low
salience features were shown by Iwashita (2003) for particles in Japanese;
Leeman (2003), for features of Spanish agreement; Long et al. (1998), for
Japanese adjective ordering and locatives and Spanish adverb placement;
Mackey and McDonough (2000) for Thai noun classifiers; Newton and
Kennedy (1996) for English prepositions and conjunctions; and
Nobuyoshi and Ellis (1993) for English past time markers. Researchers
have also customized tasks to draw learners’ attention to sequentially
acquired, complex forms such as English questions and relative clauses.
Some of their studies (e.g., Izumi, 2002; Mackey & Oliver, 2002; Mackey
& Philp, 1998; McDonough, 2005; Spada & Lightbown 1999) have been
described in this article.
Socioculturally oriented, information exchange tasks are designed to
promote collaborative interaction through which learners can support and
guide each other’s L2 learning. Merrill Swain and Sharon Lapkin (2001),
for example, have used the “dictogloss” to provide a basis for the process
of “scaffolding,” whereby learners can support each other when confront-
ed with task components they cannot yet accomplish on their own (See
also Kowal & Swain, 1994). Working independently, learners take notes
while listening to a teacher-delivered text. Next they meet in pairs or
groups, using their notes to co-construct the text, which they then present
orally to their classmates. The task appears to be especially effective for
vocabulary learning (e.g., de la Fuente, 2002; Gass & Alvarez-Torres, 2005;
Smith, 2005, Swain, 1998, and Swain & Lapkin 2001).
As this brief review makes evident, task methodology has been effec-
tive in helping learners with forms that they are ready to learn but find
challenging. At the same time, it provides researchers with an effective
approach to data collection on important L2 processes and outcomes.
However, task methodology has been employed largely in short-term
research. Even when durations of several weeks time were reported,
these durations included delayed post testing, carried out after the actu-
al treatment was over (e.g., Doughty & Varela, 1998; de la Fuente, 2002;
Iwashita, 2003; Izumi, 2002; Smith, 2005; Spada & Lightbown, 1999;
Takashima & Ellis, 1999).
Just as extending the period of time for post testing is important for
addressing questions on L2 retention, so too is extending the period of
treatment time important for questions on learning processes and L2 out-
comes, especially for those areas of SLA that defy short-term
intervention. Ideally, a controlled environment would allow for the iso-
lated study of key factors of input, interaction, feedback, and output in
SLA. The use of tasks would surely provide a good deal of relevant data
in these areas. Realistically, though, finding learners willing to participate
in a controlled study, over an extended time, is not an easy enterprise for
SLA researchers. Opportunities to compensate through funding or

18
 SLA IN THE INSTRUCTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

through tutoring or teaching services, though possibly effective, are usu-

ally not feasible, due to cost and time constraints. This is where intact
classrooms might play an important role. Although they do not allow for
random selection and assignment, they can provide large cohorts of
learners, who are likely to be available for weeks or months of treatment
time. Most learners and their teachers would be familiar with the kinds
of information exchange tasks that have originated from, and can be
accommodated to, their current, familiar classroom curriculum. The com-
bination of tasks and classroom settings can play a role in the
methodology needed to address questions on SLA within and beyond the
instructional environment.

Conclusion: Expanding the Role of Tasks and

Classrooms in SLA Research
L2 classrooms are first and foremost environments for teaching and
learning. Although they also serve as environments for research, much
of the research in classrooms to date has been aimed at describing
instructional practices rather than testing the effects of instructional
interventions on SLA. Studies that expanded the role of the classroom as
an SLA research environment (e.g., Day & Shapson, 1991; Doughty &
Varela, 1998; Harley, 1989, 1998; Lyster, 1994) are instructive in the
design of future studies. All used activities and tasks that were consis-
tent with the curriculum, schedule, and format of the classrooms where
they carried out their studies, and were therefore not intrusive to the
work of teachers and students.
Information-Exchange tasks add an additional component to research
in the classroom, however, due to their dual role as tools for data collec-
tion and instructional interventions. As learners work together to reach
task goals, their L2 exchanges provide interaction-based data that can
address questions on evidence, its accessibility through input, interac-
tion, feedback, and output, and its relationship with cognitive processes
such as noticing and attention, However, when designed with research
concerns in mind, such tasks also risk of appearing like tests to classroom
participants, as indeed was found by Pica et al. (2006). Their attractive-
ness for communication can be offset by their inconsistency with the
content of the classroom curriculum. Learners might be willing to carry
them out over the short-term, but are likely to lose interest in them over
time.
To enhance their authenticity and insure their long-term use,
research tasks first need to be integrated into curriculum texts, top-
ics and assignments, and have enough variety to warrant sustained
participation. With this in mind, Pica et al. (2006) based their
research tasks on the texts students were asked to read and discuss
in their daily classroom life. In keeping with the course emphasis on

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 WPEL VOLUME 23, NUMBER 1

academic English, task directions began with a purpose statement,

i.e., that the task would help the students become “more accurate
and precise” in their speaking and writing in areas such as reviewing,
editing, organizing and reporting information. The tasks were simple
to implement for long-term application by the teacher, as the
researchers could not be on hand on a daily basis. Teacher, researcher,
and student involvement was ongoing in task design, piloting, and
revision. Directions were reworded and revised frequently, based on
numerous pilot runs. Such preparation, though labor intensive, was
considered an investment by the researchers, affording both the
opportunity to carry out more than one study, and to collaborate, pre-
sent, and publish their work over time.
Early in this article, methodological issues were raised regarding
the instructional environment from the point of view of L2 teaching
and learning, as well as research on the SLA that occurs there. A
meta-analysis by Norris and Ortega (2001) had found that explicit,
form-focused instructional environments resulted in more accurate
and advanced SLA outcomes than those that had followed implicit
approaches. However, as they argued, this was largely because so
many of the analyzed studies had used short-term treatments, and
documented L2 learning through discrete point tests. These two char-
acteristics reduced the possibility for a valid comparison, as implicit
approaches are claimed to promote implicit knowledge. Such knowl-
edge takes a long time to acquire and is ill-served by isolated test
items.
The findings of the meta-analysis suggested several new directions
for the field. One direction involved the tracking of the ways in which
explicit learning might contribute to the implicit knowledge that learn-
ers eventually come to use. Research on this front is well underway
(e.g., DeKeyser, 2003). Another direction was to lengthen the treatment
and research time for both individual studies and multi-study compar-
isons. Any number of controlled settings would be ideal for such
projects, but it is difficult to imagine many participants able and will-
ing to commit to this effort. The classroom, with a cohort of learners in
place over time, offers a site worth considering, not only for its
promise in responding to issues on the consequences of implicit L2
teaching, but also for its ecological validity in informing questions on
evidence, input, feedback, and output. From its introduction of theo-
retical constructs such as “notice the gap,” “focus on form” and
“teachability,” to its contributions of task-based activities and class-
rooms sites, the instructional environment has made many
contributions to the study of SLA. The richness of these resources for
responding to current methodological needs and addressing broader
research goals bodes well for contributions of an even greater magni-
tude through future studies.

20
 SLA IN THE INSTRUCTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

Teresa Pica is a professor in the Educational Linguistics program. She holds an M.A. in
speech pathology from Columbia University Teachers College and a Ph.D. in educational
linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests in second lan-
guage and foreign language acquisition have focused on social interaction between
language learners and native speakers and the role of instruction in the acquisition pro-
cess.

[email protected]

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