Investigating Instructed Second Language Acquisition – Detailed Study Notes

Distinction Between Uninstructed vs. Instructed SLA

  • Uninstructed SLA (aka naturalistic, spontaneous, unguided, untutored, informal)
    • Learned through authentic social interaction with no pedagogical guidance.
  • Instructed SLA (aka guided, tutored, formal)
    • Involves systematic pedagogical intervention (classroom teaching, self-study courses, CALL, etc.).
  • Practical face validity of the distinction is obvious, yet whether the underlying acquisition processes differ remains controversial.

Extreme Positions in the Debate

  • “Two-Process” view (e.g. Krashen’s Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis)
    • Instructed learning = conscious, declarative, used only for monitoring.
    • Uninstructed acquisition = subconscious, follows a fixed natural order; no interface.
    • Famous quotation: “Language can’t be taught. It can only be learned …” (Wong-Fillmore, 1989, p.315).
  • “Single-Process” view (e.g. Gass 1989; Felix 1981; Bardovi-Harlig 2000)
    • Fundamental mechanisms are identical across contexts; context only supplies input.
  • Both extremes treat SLA as self-contained and context-invariant.
  • Contemporary consensus: instruction can and often does influence SLA, but how and to what extent is an open empirical question.

Why Study Instructed SLA (ISLA)?

  • Social significance: most L2 learners worldwide acquire the language at least partly through instruction.
  • Applied value: informs curriculum design, teaching methods, resource allocation.
  • Theoretical value: forces scholars to specify mechanisms of learning, knowledge types, processing, and their interaction with pedagogy.

Over-Arching Research Questions (Housen & Pierrard)

  1. \textbf{Mechanisms} – Are acquisition/learning, implicit/explicit learning distinct neurologically or cognitively?
  2. \textbf{Knowledge} – How does instructed L2 knowledge differ from naturalistic knowledge (implicit vs. explicit, procedural vs. declarative, metalinguistic awareness)?
  3. \textbf{Processing} – How does instruction affect controlled vs. automatic processing, monitoring, task effects?
  4. \textbf{Nature of Instruction} – What unites/differentiates consciousness-raising, input flooding, focus-on-form, provision of negative evidence, strategy teaching, etc.?
  5. \textbf{Interactions} – How do instruction, learner variables (age, aptitude, motivation, L1), and linguistic target features interact?

Proposed Descriptive Framework

1. Potential Effects of Instruction

  • Basic dimensions of SLA it may alter:
    • \textit{Route} – developmental order/stages.
    • \textit{Rate} – speed of progress.
    • \textit{End-state} – ultimate attainment / proficiency ceiling.
  • Components of SLA it may influence:
    • \textit{Exposure} – quantity/quality of input & output opportunities.
    • \textit{Propensity} – motivation, orientation to notice/use the L2.
    • \textit{Internal Processes} – automatisation, restructuring.
  • Three learning sub-processes:
    1. Knowledge internalisation (new forms/meanings).
    2. Knowledge modification (error reduction, restructuring).
    3. Knowledge consolidation (fluency, automatisation).
  • Levels of awareness (Schmidt): perception → detection → \textbf{noticing} → understanding; instruction mainly promotes noticing.
  • Resultant knowledge types:
    • Implicit vs. Explicit.
    • Declarative (‘knowing that’) vs. Procedural (‘knowing how’).
    • Further sub-types: Analysed explicit knowledge, Metalinguistic knowledge.
    • Possible combinations: e.g. \text{procedural implicit}, \text{declarative explicit}, etc.

2. Mediating Factors ("How–What–Who")

a) Learner Variables

  • Age, cognitive maturity, aptitude, analytic ability, motivation, personality, current proficiency.

b) Instruction Type

  • Broad split: Communication-Focused Instruction (CFI) vs. Form-Focused Instruction (FFI).
    • CFI: meaning negotiation, comprehensible input/output (Krashen, Swain).
    • FFI: draws attention to form; ranges from implicit (recasts, input enhancement) to explicit (rule explanation, controlled drills).
    • Common taxonomy:
    • Focus-on-Form (FonF): brief, incidental attention to form during meaning-oriented activity.
    • Focus-on-Forms (FonFs): pre-selected forms taught in isolation.
  • Additional dimensions: deductive vs. inductive; input-oriented vs. output-oriented.

c) Target Feature Characteristics

  • Linguistic domain (phonology, lexis, morphology, syntax, discourse, pragmatics).
  • Perceptual salience, semantic transparency, communicative load.
  • Relative markedness, typological or cognitive complexity.
  • Complexity of rule description (simple vs. elaborated explanations).

Empirical Findings on Instruction’s Role

  • Early descriptive studies: instruction accelerates rate and may raise ultimate proficiency but usually does not change developmental route.
  • Teachability Hypothesis (Pienemann): instruction cannot override processing constraints but can help with variational features.
  • Markedness-based research: teaching more marked forms can trigger learning of less-marked forms (implicational hierarchies).
  • Meta-analyses (Norris & Ortega 2000; Ellis 2001): instructional effectiveness is multifaceted; must specify type of instruction, feature, and outcome measures.

Key Issues Synthesised

  1. Map effects of instruction onto dimensions/components/processes/knowledge types.
  2. Model how learner, instruction, and linguistic variables jointly condition effectiveness.
  3. Pursue interdisciplinary approaches (linguistics, psycholinguistics, psychology, education).

Organisation of the Edited Volume (2005)

  • Purpose: Theoretical contribution via empirical studies; classroom as research lab.
  • Four thematic sections:
    1. \textbf{Cognitive & Processing Mechanisms}
    • Temple: fluency gains & implicit/explicit knowledge in L2 French verb vs. noun phrases.
    • Menzel: German gender assignment; frequency effects (Competition vs. Network Models).
    • Ranta: analytic ability, accuracy vs. fluency in intensive ESL.
    • Gor & Chernigovskaya: Russian verbal morphology, rule teaching, native-like processing.
    1. \textbf{Form-Focused Instruction}
    • Ammar & Lightbown: teaching marked relative clauses (Implication Generalization Hypothesis).
    • Spada, Lightbown & White: possessive determiners vs. questions; role of form-meaning mapping.
    • Housen, Pierrard & Van Daele: explicit teaching of complex (passive) vs. simple (negation) forms in L2 French.
    • Sheen: FonFs vs. FonF efficacy on English interrogatives & adverb placement; critique of current trends.
    • Laufer: vocabulary acquisition; challenges Default Hypothesis, advocates Planned Lexical Instruction.
    1. \textbf{Interaction & Communication-Focused Instruction}
    • Lochtman: corrective feedback types in analytic vs. experiential classrooms.
    • Kuiken & Vedder: dictogloss, noticing passives, metacognitive talk.
    • García Mayo: repair & collaborative discourse; limits of pure communicative teaching.
    • Griggs: metalinguistic activity during tasks predicts accuracy gains.
    • Järvinen: CLIL, implicit learning of English relativisation.
    • Kida: socio-psychological aspects, discourse patterns in adult immigrant class.
    1. \textbf{Comparing Learning Contexts}
    • Howard: Irish learners of French, study-abroad vs. at-home instruction, past-time morphology.
    • Dewaele: sociopragmatic competence (swearing) across instructed, naturalistic, mixed contexts; role of age and exposure.

Ethical, Philosophical & Practical Implications

  • Instructional design should match learner profiles and linguistic targets.
  • Reject one-size-fits-all claims (e.g., pure naturalistic exposure or pure formal drills).
  • Balance meaning-oriented interaction with strategic attention to form to foster both fluency and accuracy.
  • Recognise statistical properties of classroom input; frequencies shape mental representations.
  • Promote early and rich exposure (finding: younger onset correlates with higher sociopragmatic competence).

Connections to Foundational Principles

  • Relates to Krashen’s Monitor Model, but provides empirical challenges.
  • Builds on information-processing theories (Levelt, Anderson), implicit/explicit learning research (Reber), Teachability & Processability (Pienemann).
  • Engages with cognitive psychology concepts: attention, working memory, automatisation.

Numerical & Statistical Highlights

  • Meta-analysis (Norris & Ortega) aggregated

40 primary studies; overall effect size of explicit instruction ≈ 0.74 (medium-large).

  • Temple study: 11 English L1 students; significant fluency gains within one semester.
  • Ammar & Lightbown: 3 experimental groups + 1 control; markedness hierarchy validated.
  • Lochtman: analytic classrooms delivered >50\% more negative feedback than experiential settings, yet >50\% of feedback instances resulted in no successful uptake.
  • Dewaele survey: \sim1000 multilingual respondents via web questionnaire.

Concluding Insights by Housen & Pierrard

  • ISLA research is productive yet necessarily pluralistic.
  • Core agenda: empirically chart instruction’s effects and integrate findings into broader SLA theory.
  • Effective pedagogy must be research-led and theoretically informed; eclecticism without theory risks repeating past failures.

Terminology Notes

  • ‘Acquisition’ vs. ‘Learning’ treated synonymously unless specified.
  • ‘Consciousness’ ≅ awareness; not identical to intentionality (incidental learning is possible).

Representative Reference Clusters (for further study)

  • Input/Output Hypotheses: Krashen 1985; Swain 1985.
  • Attention & Noticing: Schmidt 1990,1995,2001; Robinson 1996.
  • Teachability/Processability: Pienemann 1984,1987.
  • Focus-on-Form(s): Long 1991; Doughty & Williams 1998.
  • Meta-analyses: Norris & Ortega 2000; Ellis 2001,2002.