Week 3 The Linguistic Environment

The theme of the week is “the linguistic environment,” focusing on the relationship between the learning environment and human cognition from a cognitive-interactionist approach. We discuss the five influential hypotheses mostly initiated in the 1980s—Acculturation Model (Schumann, 1976), Comprehensible Input Hypothesis (Krashen, 1985), Pushed Output Hypothesis (1985), Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1996), and Noticing Hypothesis (Schmidt, 1995)—with the former two hypotheses seriously challenged by the latter ones.

Firstly, Acculturation Model hypostasizes that the less a learner acculturates or assimilates into the target language group, socially and psychologically, the less likely one will acquire the target language, and vice versa. Nevertheless, this model has been refuted by Schmidt’s study on Wes’ English language development (1983). Wes is a Japanese artist immigrating to Hawaii. Enjoying a rather high socio-economic status, along with a sociable personality, Wes is expected to acquire English well based on the acculturation model. Surprisingly, with his little attention or care for grammatical accuracy, Wes has progressed very little in grammatical competence and sociolinguistic repertoires marked by grammatical forms throughout the 3-year observation period, despite the fact that he has advanced significantly in sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence. Schmidt later concludes that grammar acquisition cannot be successful without sensitivity to form.

Secondly, same as the acculturation model, the Input Hypothesis has been proven untenable in guaranteeing successful language acquisition. According to Krashen, L2 learners are believed to acquire the target language naturally like L1 learners if an abundant amount of comprehensible input (i+1) is provided. Yet, counter examples from French immersion school have proven that input is a necessary but not sufficient factor(Swain, 1985; Sato, 1990). Swain then proposes that output can raise learners’ attention to their language use, such as sentence construction (i.e. syntactic processing). Another strand of research complementing the Input Hypothesis is Long’s Interaction Hypothesis, which lays greater emphasis on modified input through interaction. According to Long, during the communication, a two-way process, learners are enabled to focus on both meaning and form.

Following Long’s work, researchers like Swain, Loschky, and Pica, try to establish the link between interaction and acquisition. Supportive and counter examples are both found. One of the possible reasons is the presence of another variable--‘the design of the task’-- in the empirical research. Seemingly, it is not easy to design a task that requires both meaning negotiation and close attention to structure for task completion. Later research on interaction addresses more specific issues related to different types of negotiations of form and the role of negative feedback during negotiation in classroom settings.

From the ample studies reviewed in the reading, one controversial issue centering our classroom discussion this week is: How can teachers adjust the degree of explicitness in form instruction in response to the change of classroom setting? It seems that in ESL setting, the trend goes from 'focusing on meaning' to 'focusing on form' whereas in EFL setting, there is a move going from focusing on ‘forms’ to focusing on ‘form.’ Given that the effectiveness of form-focused instruction has been established, the next challenge posed is: How do teachers design tasks that engage learners in both meaning and form negotiations, which are saliently enough to raise learners’ meta-linguistic awareness? This is a challenge to both SLA researchers and frontline teachers.

After this week’s discussion, one thing that really pops into my mind is the danger of adopting a hypothesis without appropriating it. When I was a teacher back home, I focused so much on implementing communicative language teaching that the grammatical points in class were not highlighted saliently enough for learners to notice or identify. (I did not know about Schmidt's Noticing Hypothesis back then.) One of the students I tutored turned out to be one neither good at fluency nor accuracy. Now, as I learn about the historical development of each hypothesis, I realize how each hypothesis has undergone a lot of revision and replaced by later research findings. Indeed, the process of second language acquisition involves so many variables that instructors need to learn how to appropriate and synthesis different research findings to suit their own teaching contexts.