English Language Teaching in its Social Context
English Language Teaching in its Social Context
English Language Teaching in its Social Context
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184 MICHAEL H. LONGdcvelopmcnt now completed, not one shows either tutored or naturalistic learnersdevelop<strong>in</strong>g proficiency one l<strong>in</strong>guistic item at a time. On the contrary, all reveal complex,gradual and <strong>in</strong>ter-related developmental paths for grammatical subsystems, such as auxiliaryand negation <strong>in</strong> ESL (Stauble 1981 ; Kelley 1983), and copula and word ordcr <strong>in</strong> GSL(Meisel, Clahsen and Pienemann 1981). Moreover, development is not unidirectional;omission/suppliance of forms fluctuates, as does accuracy of suppliance.Although most syllabi and methods assume the opposite, learncrs do not move fromignorance of a form to mastery of it <strong>in</strong> one step, as is attested by the very existence ofdevelopmental scqucnces like that for ESL negation. Typically, when a form first appears <strong>in</strong>a learner’s IL, it is used <strong>in</strong> a non-target-like manner, and only gradually improves <strong>in</strong> accuracyof use. It sometimes shifts <strong>in</strong> function over time as other new (target-like and non-targetlike)forms enter (Huebner 1983). It quite often decl<strong>in</strong>es <strong>in</strong> accuracy or even temporarilydisappears altogether due to a change elsewhere <strong>in</strong> the IL (see, e.g. Meisel, Clahsen andPienemann 1981 ; Huebner 1983; Lightbown 1983; Neumann 1977), a phenomenonsometimes describable as U-shaped behavior (Kellcrman 1985). Further, attempts to teachisolated items one at a timc fail unless the structure happens to be one the learner can processand so is psychol<strong>in</strong>guistically ready to acquire. In Pienemann’s (1984) term<strong>in</strong>ology,learnability determ<strong>in</strong>es teachability. F<strong>in</strong>ally, as language teachers, employers and learnersalike will attest, there is a great difference between structural knowledge of a language,when that is achieved, and ability to usc that knowledge to communicative effect.As noted earlier, facts about IL development like these have led some to advocate thatteachers abandon not just a focus onforms, but a focus onform, i.e. any attention to languageas object, as well. Flaws <strong>in</strong> this reason<strong>in</strong>g are obvious. Further, reviews of studies of the effectsof <strong>in</strong>struction on IL dcvclopment (Harley 1988; Long 1988) f<strong>in</strong>d clear evidence of somebeneficial effects of a focus onform, and suggestive evidence of others. Briefly, while it is truethat <strong>in</strong>struction does not seem capable of altcr<strong>in</strong>g sequences of developmcnt, it does appcarto offer three other advantages over either naturalistic SLA or classroom <strong>in</strong>struction with nofocus on form. (1) It speeds up the rate of learn<strong>in</strong>g (for review, see Long 1983). (2) It affectsacquisition processes <strong>in</strong> ways possibly beneficial to long-term accuracy (Lightbown 1983; Pica1983). And most crucially, on the basis of prelim<strong>in</strong>ary data, (3) it appears to raise the ultimatelevel ofatta<strong>in</strong>ment. Further, as White (1987, 1989) has argued, <strong>in</strong>comprehensible <strong>in</strong>put anddraw<strong>in</strong>g learners’ attention to <strong>in</strong>admissable constructions <strong>in</strong> thc L2 (two k<strong>in</strong>ds of negativeevidence) may be necessary when learn<strong>in</strong>g from positive evidence alone will be <strong>in</strong>adequate.To illustrate, an L1 may allow placement of adverbs of manner more flexibly than an L2. “Hedr<strong>in</strong>ks every day coffee” and “He dr<strong>in</strong>ks coffee every day” arc both acceptable <strong>in</strong> French, forexample, but not <strong>in</strong> <strong>English</strong>. Both will be communicatively effective <strong>in</strong> <strong>English</strong>, however,with the result that the French learner of <strong>English</strong> (hut not the <strong>English</strong> learner of French) willneed negative <strong>in</strong>put (e.g. error correction) on this po<strong>in</strong>t.Whereas the content of lessons with a focus onforms is theforms themselves, a syllabuswith a focus onform teaches someth<strong>in</strong>g else ~ biology, mathematics, workshop practice,automobile repair, the geography of a country where the foreign language is spoken, thecultures of <strong>its</strong> speakers, and so on ~ and overtly draws students’ attention to l<strong>in</strong>guisticelements as they arise <strong>in</strong>cidentally <strong>in</strong> lessons whose overrid<strong>in</strong>g focus is on mean<strong>in</strong>g, orcommunication. Views about how to achieve this vary. One proposal is for lessons to bebriefly “<strong>in</strong>terrupted” by teachers when they notice students mak<strong>in</strong>g errors which are (1)systematic, (2) pervasive and (3) remediable. The l<strong>in</strong>guistic feature is brought to learners’attention <strong>in</strong> any way appropriate to the students’ age, proficiency level, etc. before the classreturns to whatever pedagogic task they were work<strong>in</strong>g on when the <strong>in</strong>terruption occurred.(For details and a rationalc, see Crookes and Long 1987; Long, <strong>in</strong> press).