Chapter 3 Noticing grammar

Instruction + Meaning and

Noticing
Instruction - form together

Grammar
Form-focus vs. Consciousness- interpretation
meaning-focus raising activities

Presenter Presenter Presenter

蘇淑貞 蔡鈺顏 胡美英
20978L009 20978L014 20978L020
Chapter 3 Noticing grammar

1. Instruction + or Instruction –
2. Form focus vs. meaning focus

• Presenter:
蘇淑貞
20978L009
 Grammar
•Less as a set of language facts
•More as a kind of mental process
•Activated whenever an utterance is in need of
fine-tuning
•Applying not only to production of language,
but to the way grammar develops in both L1
and L2 acquisition
•Many L2 learners do not get very far with
these developmental processes
•In some cases, little or no grammaring takes
place at all.
Instruction + and Instruction -
Dialogues taking place in downtown Cairo

•Writer: Hey Hamdi, where are you going?

Hamdi: I go to Sporting Club.
Writer (unable to resist a change to correct) : Go?
Hamdi (impatiently): Oh, go, going, went.
-

Interpretations about Hamdi’s outburst

1. ‘Correction is for classrooms –
the street is for communication!’
2. ‘You understand what I meant, so why the
correction?’
3. ‘Search me. I still don’t know the
difference between go/going/went.’
4. ‘Don’t expect me to say what I mean and
get it right at the same time?’
5. All of the above.
 • Hamdi knowing the
Know what difference between go,
A lag going and went – not
clear
Can do
•What Hamdi was trying
to say – clear to the writer
Hard to
focus
on communication meaning
both at
the form
accuracy
same
time
A proficient both at the same time
speaker  to say what he means.
acquires the
ability.  to get the forms right.

Hamdi’s system may freeze/fossilize at the I

go…stage.
Knock-on effect – a whole range of emergent
grammatical structures are effectively ‘turned off’
 Discovery activity- preventing
fossilization from occurring
1. Teaching Hamdi the grammar rules of English
and make sure he practises them until he get
them right?
2. Correct him every time he makes a mistake?
3. Give him books and tapes for exposure to
language in context?
4. Send him to an English-speaking country for a
couple of months?
5. All of the above?
6. None of the above?
 Instruction + Instruction -

• ‘learning’ • ‘acquisition’
• classroom-type • natural-type context
context • exposure/
• grammar rules and immersion
drills • comprehensible
• correction input
• form-focus • meaning-focus
• accuracy-focus • fluency-focus
 Form-focus vs. meaning-focus
• Correction – instruction + solution
• Form – instruction +
- getting the forms right for the meanings that
are intended.
• Correction – focus on form
• Teachers didn’t accept the way their students’
meanings were formed, but understood what they
meant.
• The alternative – instruction - a focus on meaning
Case1------ focusing on meaning only
T What did you do at the weekend, Ana?
S I go to the mountains.
T Oh, really? Did you go alone?
S No, I go with my friend.
T How nice. What did you do?
S We go skiing… No correction!
It is quite possible that the student’s
capacity to make the necessary changes to
her mental grammar would simple shut
down.
T What did you do at the weekend, Ana?
S I go to the mountains.
T Not go. What’s the past of go?
S Goed?
T No, it’s irregular. Look. Go – went
S I went to the mountains.
T Good. Juan, what did you do at the weekend?

Case2--Focusing on form only is not the ideal

mindset for exploring the communicative
possibilities of a new language.
 The argument for negative feedback
- for correction and a focus on form
A focus exclusively on meaning may not
be enough to trigger the reorganization of
the learner’s internal grammar.
Students can get very good at
communication using only minimal
resources.
 Case3 –nudging the student to self-correct
without interrupting the flow of the talk.

T What did you do at the weekend, Ana?

S I go the mountains.
T Last weekend, I mean.
S Last weekend, I .. Erm.. went to the mountains.
T Did you go alone?
S No, I go with my friend. Teacher’s checking
draws the student’s
T You went with your friend?
attention to the error.
S Yes, I went with my friend.
 Case 4 –
genuine communication breakdowns
S1 How long are you staying here?
Misunderstanding
S2 Three weeks.
shocks the
S1 Oh, so you were here for New Year?
speaker’s system.
S2 No, I arrive yesterday.
S1 But you say you are here since three weeks.
S2 No, I will be here for three weeks! You ask me
how long I am staying! Etc.

So, it may be a useful teaching strategy, a way of

showing how form and meaning are powerfully
interrelated.
 Case 5 – Ana doesn’t recognize these veiled
prompts to self-correction
T What did you do at the weekend, Ana?
S I go to the mountains.
T Last weekend?
S Yes.
T Did you go alone?
S No, I go with my friend.
T You went with your friend?
S Yes, I go with my friend, we go skiing.
Anna is
Not ready to notice, or too focused on getting her
meaning across, or the teacher’s feedback signals are too
subtle.
 The same occurs in children learning L1
Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy.
Father: You mean, you want the other spoon.
Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please Daddy.
Father: Can you say ‘the other spoon’?
Child: Other … one … spoon.
Father: Say ‘other’.
Child: other.
Father: ‘Spoon’.
Child: Spoon.
Father: ‘Other spoon’.
Child: Other … spoon. Now give me other one spoon?
 Conclusion-
• When focusing on meaning, they find it
very difficult to focus on form.
• Yet, unless they focus on form, there is a
danger that their capacity to restructure will
close down.
• The great challenge of teaching, then, is to
set up activities which are essentially
meaning-focusing, but with which a focus
on form can be engineered.
Chapter 3 Noticing grammar

1. Noticing
2. Consciousness-raising

• Presenter:
蔡鈺顏
20978L014
 Noticing
• In the cases above, the student didn’t
notice the subtle correction that the teacher
was offering.
•The notion of noticing is a key one in the
study of second language.
• For example: Being taught a new word in
a second language, and subsequently
seeing it everywhere. It must be there
before, but you simply didn’t notice it.
 Noticing – first suggested by
Richard Schmidt
• One effect of the Portuguese classes he
initially enrolled in was that they seemed to
prime him to notice things later, when he
was simply chatting with friends:
Journal entry, week 6
This week we were introduced to and
drilled on the imperfect. ……I noticed that
his speech was full of imperfect……(P35)
 Discovery activity
• Reflect on your own experiences of noticing
when learning a second language.
For example:
the Spanish expression ¡Ni se te occura! In
a comic strip – the context suggested that
this might mean ‘Don’t even think of it!’.
The author’s own learning experience
•Confirming it with a friend.
•Coming across the expression in an interview
•Now, waiting for an opportunity to try it out
 Schmidt’s conclusions
1. Classroom instruction was useful.
2. However, he also needed to notice it being
used naturally.
Complement with each other

Instruction + Instruction -
Both kinds of learning required a degree of attention.
In other words, language learning involves
conscious processes.
 Conscious processes –
applying to Hamdi’s case
Hamdi’s need Teacher’s need
To notice the way the present To provide opportunities for
continuous is preferred when Hamdi to become aware of
talking about activities in the distance to be covered
progress between the present state of
his L2 and the target forms
of that language
To summarize: in order to learn a language

• Learners must pay attention to linguistic

features of the input that they are exposed to

• Learners must notice the gap, ie they must

make comparisons between the current state
of their knowledge, as realized in their
output, and the target language system,
available as input
 Getting Hamdi to noticing the gap
• One way is to give him feedback when he
makes a mistake. However
Too much correction The learner shuts up.

Too little or too subtle

The learner simply doesn’t notice.
•One possibility is to encourage learners to compare their
output on a specific task with the output of a more
proficient speaker on the same task
–the grammaring activities in chapter 2
 Consciousness-raising

• Providing learners with feedback on

their output is one way

Consciousness-raising activities –
Activities designed to make
students aware of features of the
language – to notice them
 Consciousness- raising
Traditionally – by the teacher’s
explanations and presentation
T ‘the presentation continuous is formed by
the auxiliary verb be plus the present
participle. We use the present continuous to
describe things happening now. For
example, the sun is shining. Is that clear?’

Hamdi probably is thinking of the tennis

match he’s playing after class.
 An alternative
• T watch me. (walks across room) I am
walking across the room. I am walking. I
am walking. I am walking. What am I doing?
• S You are walking.
• T Good. Everyone, repeat.
• Ss You are walking.

Shortcut the explanations by using actions

to associate a form with a meaning.
 Another one
• The teacher draws two figures on the board to
have a situation or a context.
• Ex: He names one Chris and the other Kim. He
tells the class that one day Chris meet Kim in the
street. Kim is carrying a tennis racquet. The
teacher say: ‘Chris says to Kim’ “Hi Kim, where
are you going?” Kim says “I’m going to the club.”
‘OK,’ says the teacher, ‘repeat: I’m going to the
club. Everybody: I’m going to the club.’ Class
repeat in unison.
The summary of the 3 presentations

• We would seem to have all the necessary

ingredients (a context , a situation and
natural-sounding language) to guarantee
that the students, including Hamdi, can
make the connection from the classroom
context (the context of learning) to the real-
life context (the context of use), when and
where it occurs.
The problem of the presentations
• The clarity and relevance of the
presentation are no guarantee that the
transfer from classroom to real-life will
take place.
• Researchers have been saying for some
time that the process of learning( a
language at least) is not a mechanistic,
linear, input-output one.
 The process of learning a language
• Diane Larsen-Freeman
• Learning linguistic items is not a linear
process-learners do not master one item
and then move on to another. In fact, the
learning curve for a single item is not
linear either. The curve is filled with
peaks and valleys, progress and
backslidings.
Language development is more
organic than mechanistic.
 The difference of
consciousness-raising
• Reduced expectation
• not the expectation of immediate
and consistently accurate
production
 Two Views: PP & C-R
• 1. PP (Presentation + Practice)
input  output
• 2. C-R (Consciousness-raising)
input  noticing  intake  output
Chapter 3 Noticing grammar

1. Meaning and form together

2. Grammar interpretation activities

• Presenter:
胡美英
20978L020
 Meaning and form together
• The probably best kind of feedback –
sending a signal to the student that their
message is unclear or ambiguous
both

ill-formed a
message different
message
 Meaning and form together

The learner notices

the effect that
grammatical choices
have on meaning
the long-term
effects of
restructuring
To notice the effect of grammatical
choices on meaning
Starting with meaning

The frequent and repetitive occurrence

of a language item – not enough

Learners need to realize why the

choice of that item matters.
 The example

Presenting and practicing the present

perfect to a class of adult students in
Egypt

The pattern: Have you done X yet?

 Hisham – incapable of retrieving the
correct form, present perfect

• The sole purpose of the drill: practicing

the form of the present perfect
• As the attention shifted to the meaning,
the form went out the window, and
Hisham reverted to his default setting,
the past simple
 Reasons
The drill required no decision-making.
The drill did not allow the student to
appreciate the effect on meaning of the
‘marked’ form, the present perfect, over the
default form, the past simple.
The present perfect wasn’t made to matter.
Not mattering, it wasn’t noticed.
 An suggested activity
Ben Betty

Berry is half-way
Ben is back in the UK through her three-
after a three-week week holiday in
holiday in Egypt. Egypt.
The teacher is having a three-way
conversation with Ben and Berry by phone.
 A meaning-focused task

The students have to attend to the form

Past simple or present perfect?
The only clue is the form of the verb phrase
The form of the verb is made to matter.
 An Alternative
Students are going to
All the messages are
listen to some answer
from friends who are on
phone messages that the
holiday or who have just
teacher has just
returned from holiday.
received.

The students’ first tast is

Then ask the students to to guess which city or
listen again and tell the country each message
teacher which of his refers to. Here are the
friends are still on holiday messages:
and which are back home.
 The activity – almost wholly
meaning focused
The first task is easy, requires students to
pick out a few proper names.
The second task is much more subtle,
cannot be done without paying attention to
the verb forms.
The second task forces student to notice the
distinctions of forms.
 Grammar interpretation activities
Both the preceding activities –called either
called
conscious
ness- grammar
structured
raising interpretation
input tasks
tasks activities

The principles underlying them have been

elaborated by the writer and researcher Rod Ellis
 Ellis’ View
That comprehension is a prerequisite for
acquisition.
Preferably comprehension without immediate
production.
Forcing production of a newly learned item too
soon may be counter-productive, in that the effort
involved in articulation diverts attention away
from simply understand how the new item works.

Hence, the two tasks above require students

simply to listen and understand. This is why
they are called grammar interpretation activities.
 Task 1 p40
• The choice of verb form depends on their
understanding of the context.

• The fact that Kerouac is dead and Snyder is

alive will, in some cases, determine a
different choice of verb form
(past simple or present perfect)
Kerouac wrote a number of novels…
Snyder has written a number of books…
 Task 2 p41
• Students do not have to produce the targeted
verb forms.
• So, it is a true grammar interpretation activity.
The assumption –
Understanding precedes production.
Start with Task 2 and then follow with task 1.
The ‘slow release’ principle –
It might be better to delay the production task.
‘Learning is remembering understanding
something’ –
Two tasks could complement each other neatly.
 Ellis identifies three main goals for
grammar interpretation tasks:
1. To enable learners to identify the meaning(s)
realized by a specific grammatical feature;
2. To enhance input in such a way that learners
are induced to notice to a grammatical feature
that otherwise they might ignore;
3. To enable learners to notice the gap between
the way a particular form works to convey
meaning and the way they themselves are
using it.
 Anything that promotes
noticing, after all, must be
of enormous benefit to the
learner.
 Summary
The Restructuring
importance of of the learners’
consciousness, mental
in particular grammar will
of noticing occur.
both
Notice the gap
The choice of
between
form impacts
‘know how’
on meaning.
and ‘can do’.
 A focus on form can be integrated
into message-focused activities
a) By providing feedback on the
effectiveness of the learner’s message-
making, even if, sometimes, we have to
pretend we don’t understand.

b) Another activity, the grammar interpretation

task, a way of enhancing input so as to
optimize noticing.
• Chapter 2, grammaticization tasks, which
are output oriented.
• Chapter 4, a closer look at restucturing and
integrating it into a view of language
learning that sees grammar(ing) as being an
emergent phenomenon
• Chapter 5, implications for the teacher’s
role