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First posted May 7 2004
Last update June 6 2004

Synopsis and Critique
Timothy M. Nall
Copyright © Tim Nall 2004.
All Rights reserved.
Do not copy without permission.

Articles:

Ellis, Rod. 1997. SLA Research and language teaching. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 47-75.

Terrell, Tracy David. 1991. The role of grammar instruction in a communicative approach. The Modern Language Journal, 75: 52-63.

Williams, Jessica. 1995. Focus on form in Communicative Language Teaching: Research findings and the classroom teacher. TESOL Journal, 4(4), 12-16.

For a gentle stroll through related issues, see:
Instruction and Acquisition: Grammar in the Communicative Language Classroom, which includes brief talks by Michael H. Long, University of Hawaii and Diane Musumeci, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

What has been the role of form-focused instruction in COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT), and what role is it playing today? What does current Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research tell us about the effects of form-focused instruction in language learning? Using these questions as a springboard, this paper will present a synopsis and critique of ideas presented and discussed in three relevant articles. Three different methods of focus on form (that is, explicit grammar instruction, or EGI ) are considered in this discussion: the planned presentation of grammatical principles, the incidental correction of students’ grammatical errors, and creating increased exposure to a point of pedagogical interest (or INPUT FLOODING).

As Pienemann (1984. As cited in Terrell 1991) asks, “Can the processes of natural acquisition [of language, via communication] be influenced by formal instruction?”. The proponents of CLT answer this question with the belief, to a greater or lesser degree, that “communicating in the second language [provides] sufficient basis for grammatical competency” (Ellis 1997). This belief has clear pedagogical ramifications. CLT disfavors or even disallows form-focused instruction. Jessica Williams (1995) describes CLT instruction as having “minimal focus on form”, adding that “…[i]n some classrooms, there may be some focus on form, but… it is highly inconsistent.” Indeed, some classes “do not focus on form at all.” This latter is in line with what Ellis (1997) refers to as ‘the zero option’: the idea that “… grammar instruction should be abandoned in favor of creating opportunities for natural language use.” The zero option is perhaps most commonly associated with the writings of Krashen and Prabhu. Williams expands the discussion by describing four pedagogical outgrowths of the CLT approach which involve issues of grammaticality. The first is an “insistence on absolute authenticity”, which assumedly precludes the use of input flooding and other input modifications aimed at raising students’ consciousness of grammatical points. The other areas are an “exclusive focus on communication” which ignores or at best downplays issues of accuracy; a “lack of focus on form in input and instruction” which is counterproductive because students often need help noticing grammatical points; and finally, a “lack of emphasis on form-based feedback” resulting from error correction that is vague, or only occurs when errors somehow damage the truth-value of the statement. Ellis (1997) adds to the description of the role (or lack thereof) that form-focused instruction plays in CLT, faulting the approach because of the “difficulty of creating acquisition-rich environment in the classroom”. He cites research concluding CLT classrooms do not motivate learners to advance beyond the level of proficiency that is needed for successful communication, do not provide adequate sociolinguistic guidance, do not stop learners from resorting to L1, and encourage fossilization because much of what the learner hears is uncorrected and erroneous forms of interlanguage produced by classmates.

Williams (1995) comes down squarely in favor of providing some means of focus on form within a CLT framework, noting that CLT classroom in Canada (immersion programs) have had little success in fostering grammatical proficiency. In this light, she examines at some length research regarding the efficacy each of the three methods of EGI has in improving accuracy. She finds value in all three, with the slight caveat that input flooding alone does not seem sufficient for helping learners eliminate erroneous forms. She then suggests that some grammatical structures are more susceptible to EGI than others, for reasons of LEARNABILITY. She cites Harley’s (1993) list of characteristics of forms that are “likely candidates” for EGI: they are either “likely to be misanalyzed or misunderstood by learners,” or are not salient because they are rare, communicatively redundant, or at best subtly different from L1 forms. She also states that teachers need to be conscious of learner variables (age, proficiency, etc.) and of the importance of continued recycling and reinforcement of grammatical points for ultimate retention.

Terrell (1991) is decidedly more subdued in his support for form-focused instruction. For example, Terrell agrees with Krashen that there is an ACQUISITION ORDER for some grammatical forms (especially morphological ones), and EGI does not alter that order. He also states that ”…preliminary findings do not support a direct link between EGI and the ability to use grammatical structures accurately in meaningful and spontaneous speech” (pages 55-56). Having said that, he suggests three ways in which EGI can “indirectly support the normal acquisition process”. The first is that that EGI can function as an ADVANCE ORGANIZER of information, lowering learners’ anxiety and reducing the computational load that the task of organizing all the grammatical features of the linguistic input places on the learner. Terrell secondly suggests EGI can play the role of a “meaning-form focuser for complex morphology,” which seems in practice to be what others describe as consciousness raising via flooding the learners’ input with selected grammatical forms. In this way, EGI facilitates the binding of form to meaning. He finally invokes Krashen’s “monitor” hypothesis, albeit in a slightly modified form, as providing a vehicle for EGI to assist acquisition of form. That is true, he believes, to the degree that students use their own monitored output as input. In stark contrast with Williams, any discussion of error correction is conspicuously absent from Terrell’s discussion of EGI.

Ellis (1997) cites much research to conclude that “[t]here is sufficient evidence to show that form-focused instruction can result in definite gains in accuracy.” He believes that the effects of EGI are durable, assuming that learners are provided with repeated opportunities to use the acquired forms communicatively. He echoes the same issues regarding learnability that Williams raises, expanding her list to include several new items. These first of these is the distinction between RESILIENT and FRAGILE features. The former are those which occur across all-levels of communication; the second seem to be those which only occur at in forms used in higher levels of proficiency. The SCOPE and RELIABILITY of a rule refer to the number of forms affected by a rule, and the number of exceptions to the rule. He also addresses the somewhat vague issues of MARKEDNESS and LINGUISTIC COMPLEXITY of forms. He finally discusses order of acquisition at some length, noting that addressing DEVELOPMENTAL (i.e., acquired in sequence) forms may be fruitless unless the learners are psycholinguistically ready. This constraint does not apply to forms that are non-developmental (or VARIATIONAL). (www.oocities.org/twocentseltcafe)

Examining these articles critically, the evidence all three of them cited in favor of the developmental nature of some grammatical forms is intriguing to me. My interest was particularly piqued by Ellis statement that “…some structures are hierarchically linked so that learners are able to generalize knowledge of marked features to unmarked features.” As I have mentioned in class, this would seem to me to have very significant pedagogical implications, certainly at least for instruction aimed at the more basic levels of proficiency. I would be very interested in reading more about this phenomenon.

I find myself agreeing with (or adopting) many of Williams’ and Ellis’ points. In my opinion, they argued persuasively that all three methods of focus on form examined are beneficial to the learner, and furthermore that in general the more explicit the focus on form is, the more helpful it is to learners. A conundrum I had not noticed before, however, is that if communicative approach is enriched by focus on form, how does one address the problem of learners acquiring incorrect forms from their classmates, given the misgivings (e.g. Celce-Murcia and Hilles 1988:28) some have about error correction given during communicative practice? To my mind this is solved during pair or possibly small group work, with the teacher walking around the classroom monitoring and correcting production in an affable manner. There is less stress and potential for loss of face for students in this scenario, since they can see many others being corrected, and the general commotion of a classroom of conversation hides the nature of their mistakes from all but those nearest them. They also should be aware that these errors will not impact their grades. Facework becomes more relevant in cases where only one or two learners are speaking and others are silent, but then again, their errors become more salient to their classmates in that scenario as well. This is an issue that deserves much reflection.

Finally, perhaps I missed something, but I didn’t feel that Terrell had a lot to bring to the discussion. His form/meaning framework seemed like a repackaged discussion of Ausubel’s MEANINGFUL LEARNING paradigm, and one of his three main points (advance organization) was in fact simply another idea of Ausubel’s. In general, he seems to take Krashen’s positions as his starting point and then recalibrate them very modestly in the direction of “…a more meaningful role for [EGI]”. Perhaps the very modesty of his conclusions was in fact his main point, voicing support for Krashen indirectly by attempting to show that whatever errors Krashen may have made are not fundamental ones. The only thing Terrell brings to the table is the fact that it is his name atop the article ptaiiising (albeit relative mildly) the inclusion of explicit grammar instruction in a communicative approach.

References

Celce-Murcia, Marianne, and Sharon Hilles. 1988. Techniques and Resources in Teaching Grammar. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Ellis, Rod. 1997. SLA Research and language teaching. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 47-75.

Harley, B. 1993. Instructional strategies and SLA in early French immersion. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 15,2:245-259.

Pienemann, Manfred (1989): Is language teachable? Psycholinguistic experiments and hypotheses. Applied Linguistics, 10, 1: 52-79

Pica, Hilton. 2001. Este informe de los conceptos lingüísticos robados del café del elt de dos centavos. Peculation (English Edition),17,2:159-164

Terrell, Tracy David. 1991. The role of grammar instruction in a communicative approach. The Modern Language Journal, 75: 52-63.

Williams, Jessica. 1995. Focus on form in Communicative Language Teaching: Research findings and the classroom teacher. TESOL Journal, 4(4), 12-16.