The effects of incidental focus on form

Communicative focus on form (Doughy, Varela, 1998)

There is general agreement that accuracy is an important classroom language goal, but against the explicit rule explanation, fluency has been the major advancement of communicative approaches and ‘focus on form’ appear to fulfill both requirements and reach the middle ground between accuracy and fluency.

Before reading this article, I was a bit doubtful about the Focus on Form. Naturally drawing attention to the form without distracting original communicative intent? How to arise the target form incidentally, but also naturally and contextually? This technique sounded very appealing to me, but at the same time, ‘too ideal’ at first.

As the outset of FonF study, ESL science content-based class was conducted for 2 weeks in order to determine the effectiveness of incidental focus on form in the context. The instructional tasks were designed to elicit spontaneous and planned production of all aspects of the past tense, both orally and in writing. The negative evidence was provided by repeating to draw attention followed by RECASTS. The teacher repeated a phrase containing an incorrect past verb, putting the error in focus with different stress and intonation to induce students’ noticing. Also, the teacher required students to answer spontaneous questions during the discussion in class. When she found some errors from a student, the teacher had the whole class repeat the correct form at times. Lastly, the teacher videotaped students’ presentation about their labs and in the following class, the teacher asked the students to repeat the errors of the past tense while they were watching the tape together. Also, on students’ writing, the teacher gave both negative evidence in the form of a recast and content-based comments.

Effectiveness ?
Since it was the science class, there was evident awareness on the past tense among students and they began to self-correct before the teacher recasted and some of students even peer-corrected each other. Therefore, the use of past tense was natural and accordingly, it was incidental for teacher to provide the focus on form. However, the recasts was to adjust to be immediate and brief and not to be an object of the lesson. As the result, the FonF(the treatment group) showed significant and large gains in the past tense on both the written and the oral measures, compared to the control group. This article mentioned that the FonF technique in content-based class demonstrated both the feasibility and effectiveness. While reading this article, it fulfilled most my curiosity and interest about the effectiveness of the focus of form. The FonF class sounds so effective that I want to take this class and it is refreshing that the FonF overcomes the problems that the current communicative language class has.

Feasibility ?
It should be, and must be a loooot of work to do for teachers. First, the teacher must keep track of what students are saying throughout the class. The teachers should literally focus on forms, content, and manage the classroom at the same time. It must involve a great deal of requirements, like providing recast, asking spontaneous questions, having the whole class repeating someone’s errors and giving feedback on writing as well, apart from videotaping student’s presentation. Plus, the teacher should be able to adjust the amount of corrections- not too many corrections but they should be brief and immediate. It sounds that the teacher should be trained, experienced and very skillful.

In Korea?
I wonder the 'FonF in content-based' can be applied to Korean students. For example, is it possible to teach middle and high school students with the FonF techniques in content-based class? First of all, where to find the decent teachers who can teach their subjects in English?
One of my friends gives tutoring as a part time job. She majored in Math and Business and had lived in the states for about 9 years. She teaches math in English and makes good money. It is because it is hard to find someone who is good at both English and other subjects. In some of international schools in Korea, students take all classes in English, of course all of students can speak English fluently. What about the students in regular schools? Some of students might get interested and show significant improvement in English and gain the knowledge of specific subjects, but most of them might rather lose their interest both in English and the content. I believe that focus on form in content-based lesson works as long as the students have reached the certain level in their English proficiency, not to mention, teachers should be able to conduct their subjects in English first of all.

How to select input?

Learner Spontaneous Attention in L2 Input Processing(Park & Han, 2007)

Why only on forms??

Learning about output hypothesis last time, I wondered why it focused on only forms. Thinking of my noticing the gap, I do not focus on forms, but mainly on meaningful CHUNKS (not a single grammatical unit). For example, when native speakers get on the bus, I prick my ears and listen to how they produce native-like sentences and how differently use vocabulary in different contexts.
I learned English grammar for years and years at middle and high school, so it is not too difficult to to make grammatically correct sentences, but they do not sound ‘right’ in some way. Therefore, it is not grammar but, the meaningful chunks that native speakers actually use, which makes me and native speakers have a huge gap, which I try to fill in by awareness. Similarly, when I struggle to say something, (noticing the hole?), it is due to the choice of vocabulary rather than grammar. How come I do not focus on forms while researchers are mainly talking about forms in learners’ noticing the gap, producing output and giving feedback?


– “Noticing(Ellis, 2002) is basically the idea that if learners pay attention to both the form and meaning of certain language structures in input, this will contribute to the internalization of the grammatical rules”.
- ‘Focus on form (Doughty&Williams, 1998a) whose central mission is about manipulating learner attention in order to facilitate learner noticing, and hence intake, of certain aspects of the TL.
-Noticing of target L2 form and has an effect on learners’ subsequent output (Jourdenais et al.1995)



Because of Learner-centered attention!!

This article (Park & Han, 2007), simply put, scratched my itchy spot, giving a clear answer to what I was confused. What input is converted into intake depends on so-called default processing. Learners’ attention is driven by their own perceptions about what is worth attending to, irrespective of the external intervention(Park & Han, 2007). This LEARNER-GENERATED ATTENTION and its awareness correlate, noticing (Schmidt, 1990), which perfectly makes sense to me. I was wondering why the gap should be on forms, but I realized that noticing the gap depends on learners’ current IL. It also explains that why I concentrate on the meaningful chunks while listening to native speakers. I do not find grammar difficult but I struggle with appropriate expressions, most of time.

- Lightbown(2000) ‘Even when forms are frequently present in classroom input, learners may filter them out because of characteristics of their L1 or their current interlanguage’
- Philp (2003) ‘Learners are biased to the input by their current interlanguage knowledge as well as by their natural orientation for meaning’

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Because of Salience and Knowledge of TL!!

As for input, the more I hear, the more I want to know. By the time I’ve heard more than three times, I get really curious and usually look up the dictionary. This refers to ‘salience’ in input. Focus-on-form researchers (Ellis, Swain?) seek to make the target features in the input salient (called ‘external salience’, generated by a teacher or researcher), and I, as a learner, seek to meaningful expressions in the input salient(called ‘internal salience’), according to ‘default processing’.

Furthermore, I was surprised and pleased when I was reading the lines from the article (Park and Han, 2007) - “Learners who have acquired some knowledge of the target language will adopt a meaning-based approach to input processing.” Again, it explained why I focus on meaning, not forms. After 20 years learning English, I put priority on meaning over forms. Overall, these two things (Learner-generated attention and TL knowledge-based interest to input) gave me a very clear answer.
But... I still have a question. According to Swain in Output hypothesis, output helps learners progress from SEMANTIC to SYNTACTIC processing over time -focusing on form, instead of meaning. Why is that opposite?

Typological distance between L1 and L2

The study(Park& Han, 2007) was conducted with two groups–30 native speakers of Japanese and 30 native speakers of English. Two experimental conditions were set up: Condition 1- with the zero-knowledge state to a Korean text and Condition 2–after exposure six words. The result shows that under condition1, both groups adopted a form-oriented approach to input processing, however, under condition 2, they differed in terms of the additional items they noticed according to typological distance. It confirms that L1 does affect L2 input processing, particularly in the early stage of learning. The L1-English group asked more questions on form and the L1-Japanese group asked more on the meaning.
Looking back my early stage of learning English, I remember that I had a hard time recognizing the grammatical class of word. It was hard to tell which word was noun, adjective, verb, etc. I took the vocabulary test and had to circle the correct world class. I just memorized every single word without understanding. It would have been a lot easier if I had known suffix.
Also, I remember that I giggled that I was able to call my parents, teachers by ‘you’ in English, because it sounded very rude to me. It took some time to adjust calling the older people that way. If the Koreans didn’t have respectful forms, I would have had no problem calling 'you' to older people.

Output focusing on form

I considered speaking and writing as output while listening and reading as input. For example, babies get surrounded by enormous input as soon as they get born. When the input is ready to be pushed out, babies are able to talk and the last stage(final product) to be reached is writing. This is why writing has been regarded as the most important and difficult task. That was my understanding of output and didn’t know that the act of producing language(speaking or writing) could be a part of the process.

Also, it conflicts Krashen’s Input hypothesis that output has no functions in acquiring the target language. Compared to Krashen, Swain believes comprehensible input is not sufficient and requires comprehensible output as well. One of the reasons is that students can fake comprehension but not production.

Output enables learners to test hypotheses and receive feedback. Learners say or write the rules or vocabulary (interlanguage), “I goed to the supermarket yesterday” for example, and the teacher can implicitly or explicitly reformulates the students’ errors. Feedback helps learners move from declarative to procedural knowledge. Error feedback is very effective; however, feedback on grammar comprises such a large proportion since grammar plays a large role in teaching English in Korea. Rather than just pointing out the wrong grammar, the feedback should connect to the meaning in context in some way. Grammar rules without context might be meaningless and not memorable in the long run.

According to Output hypothesis, output helps students progress from semantic to syntactic processing (focusing on form, instead of meaning). However, focusing on form is already a big problem for Korean students when they produce English. Focusing on form is one of the biggest obstacles to make them reluctant to speak out because they are afraid to make mistakes. The monitored form with extra caution cannot fully reflect the learner’s interlanguage. Output hypothesis sounds very plausible because output enables learners to produce language and gain feedback, but it seems to mainly focus on rules. According to output hypothesis, learners’ awareness on form facilitates their output and the output provides learners with opportunities to test hypothesis about language. They can apply a rule to their utterance to see if native speakers can understand what they say and they reflect on their own output. It sounds to me “focusing on form leads to a successful learner”. Rather, I believe that focusing too much attention to forms inhibits learners’ fluency. Their (most of Korean learners, including myself) primary focus is on grammar, but it should be on meaning and communication, using grammar as a tool, not the object.

Psycholinguistic Approaches

1. Learning Turns Into Acquisition?

In Krashen’s view, acquisition is “picking up” a language and learning is “knowing about” a language, known to most people as “grammar” or “rules”. The knowledge acquired through acquisition or learning, remains internalized differently. Knowledge learned through one mean (e.g., learning) cannot be internalized as knowledge of the other kind (e.g., acquisition). This is because the acquired system is used focus on meaning, not on form while the learned system supervises and checks the correctness.

Krashen makes a very clear distinction between acquisition and learning, however, I can’t fully agree with it. I don’t see why acquisition is one thing and learning is the other. Rather, it seems to me more like ‘switchable’. For example, I consciously studied the verb forms in Past and Past participle. My teacher explained two different tenses and I practiced them with mostly ‘fill in the blanks’ exercises at first. I also took spelling test on past and perfect tense.
It’s been 20 years and since then, I have spoken, seen, read the past tense countlessly. The past tense started off from ‘learned system’ in the first place, but switched to ‘acquired system’ although I felt difficulty in Perfect tense and ended up using Past tense most of time (Avoidance). Perfect tense remains in learned system while Past tense switched learned system to acquired system over time. Similarly, Gass and Selinker viewed language as a continuum because it is easier to conceptualize explicit knowledge becoming implicit through practice, exposure, drill, etc.
For Krashen, the starting point counts (either learning or acquiring), but the ultimate point (internalized into which system at the end) makes more sense to me.

2. Constant, intentional awareness

There are a number of approaches to awareness in learning. American Heritage Dictionary refers ‘attention’ to “the concentration of the mental powers upon an object” and Gass’s (1980a) points “apperceived input” and similarly Tomlin and Villa proposed the stage of attention (detection -registration of stimulus). Schmidt (2001) claims that it “appears necessary for understanding nearly every aspect of SLA” and claims the noticing-the-gap hypothesis.
As for now, awareness plays such an important role in my learning and I intentionally try to aware the gap. I used to focus on memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules, but now I concentrate on how native speakers actually use the words and rules in contexts. Noticing the gap was not necessarily required to memorize words and forms, but I have to consciously keep noticing how native speakers make up the sentence, how native speakers pronounce words differently, how they utilize the same words in different contexts, what kind of expressions are native-like and what expressions are broken English. While overhearing a native speaker’s utterances on the bus, listening to radio, TV or lectures, reading books, I sometimes find myself focusing more on the usages, rather than meaning as paying too much attention to the differences (gaps).
I would say, realizing how differently native speakers and I produce on the SAME meaning is the one I want to know the most. I like getting feedback (either positive or negative) and asking questions when I study, but I have no one to ask :( To fill in the gaps, self-awareness is the most important factor to find the answer as long as high motivation sustains and constant input are provided, of course.

3. Why is the Monitor Limited To the Form?

I sensed that Monitor and Awareness were similar in terms of observing the process of learning and consisting of learned knowledge. However, according to Krashen, they are different in that the Monitor can only be used in production and the only function of learned knowledge is to edit utterances. Krashen claimed that there are three conditions for Monitor use (Time, Focus on form, Know the rule) and Learners will be most likely to use the Monitor in formal exam situations, where their attention has been drawn to linguistic form, and where they have enough time.

One thing I don’t understand is why Krashen limited the Monitor only to the form. Why can't the Monitor be stretched the meaning to the awareness? If so, the Monitor can be applied to the comprehension as well as production. As for me, I not only monitor MY production but also, monitor OTHER production while listening to native speakers, to pick up useful expressions and notice the gap between their utterance and my utterance.

Psychological facotrs and Krashen's hypotheses

Intelligence
Howard Gardner (1993) proposed that individuals have ‘multiple intelligences’ (e.g., abilities in the areas of music, interpersonal relations, athletics or the verbal intelligence) unlike traditional IQ tests that have assessed only a limited range of abilities. However, I believe that IQ may reflect multiple intelligences and affect to language learning as well.
For example, my brother has higher IQ than me. He got the highest IQ at school every time he took the IQ test. His life has been always smoother and easier, but I have to put ten times more effort in everything. He didn’t study English at all since graduated from high school and hardly used English while majoring in electro- technology for his bachelor’s and master’s. I thought I was better than him at least in English because he said he didn't like English.
Last year, he and I took TOEIC test together. It was his first time and I had taken TOEIC test several times. Then… a month later, we got our scores. He got the almost perfect score and I got a loooot lower score. I was proud of my brother, but at the same time I was embarrassed and frustrated. Looking at my brother who always outperforms me, I think IQ reflects multiple intelligences and stretches to learning various subjects.
Intelligence may be distinctive from other variables (Aptitude, Learning style, Personality, Motivation, Attitudes, Learner beliefs, Age factors, etc.) in that it could be the base of learning languages. Based on the given intelligence, other factors could accelerate or decelerate in language learning.

Aptitude
I thought aptitude was more like, how much a learner was into the language at first, however, it is the ability to analyzing languages (analytic ability). Then, it may be co-related to intelligence in some way. I wonder if people were born with certain aptitude like intelligence, or aptitude could be developed with effort. Paul(2005a) viewed that aptitude has several components (1)identify and memorize new sounds, (2)understand the function of particular words in sentences, (3) figure out grammatical rules from language samples.
I think these abilities are subject to change unlike intelligence because learners will improve those analytic abilities to recognize sounds, words, grammar over time.
The savant, Christopher, he must have high aptitude with possibly low IQ. This example shows that an aptitude is independent of cognitive, social, and personality characteristics. But this is such an exceptional case and cannot apply to everyone. In some way, intelligence and aptitude could correlate. When we think of the students who always got the first grade in class, they were good at most of subjects and there were not much in scores although they didn’t like some of subjects.

Personality + Krashen's FIVE Hypotheses
It is often argued that an extroverted person is well suited to language learning. An extroverted person with high-esteem may be not reluctant to make mistakes while talking. In other words, the learner is less likely to closely monitor his/her performance. Relatively, an introverted or reserved learner is more cautious about what she/he is talking and monitoring can be an effective learning strategy. Of course, over-use of the Monitor is counter-productive, but attention to language form or awareness of the learning process could lead to the successful learning (Stephen Krashen’s Monitor Hypothesis).However, Krashen regarded Monitor as a post-learning process and a tool for use of language in certain restrained conditions such as formal exam situations, but I think monitoring works widely from casual mundane conversation to formal test environment as long as it is not over-used enough to prevent communication.
As Krashen’s another hypothesis (The Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis) shows, SLA is the process of paying attention to the second language, which is called ‘learning’ and it enables learners to develop a ‘Monitor’ especially for adult-learners. The acquisition in SLA goes through a series of stages(The Natural Order Hypothesis),similar to developmental sequences (grammatical morphemes order) in FLA and the predictable order is not necessarily same as apparent simplicity to complexity. Selinker points out that the majority of adult learners never achieve full fluency in L2 and almost all of them fossilize at some point or other. And one of the reasons for fossilization is the input way beyond the learner’s present interlanguage. Krashen states the learner needs to be provided with sufficient input that is just a little beyond the present capacity(i+1 input) and this is the only way to learn (The Input Hypothesis). However, input alone is not sufficient. It should be provided under low anxiety and high motivation environment (The Affective Filter Hypothesis).