Instruction and L2 acquisition Chapter 9 Ellis 2003, pp. 79 - 88 Here we are: Sekar Katon W (2201410125) Ryan Rahman H (2201410146) Mulyoko (2201410151)

Introduction One of the goal of SLA is to improve language teaching. To this end some researchers have studied what impact teaching has on L2 learning.

In this chapter we will consider three branches of this research In this chapter we will consider three branches of this research. They are: The first concerns whether teaching learners grammar has any effect on their language development. Do learners learn the structures they are taught? The second draws on the research into individual learners differences. Do learners learn better if the kind of instruction they receive matches their preferred ways of learning an L2? The third branch looks at strategy training. Does it help to teach learners how to use the learning strategies employed by ‘good language learners’?

Form-focused instruction What does form-focused instruction? Language pedagogy has emphasized the need to provide learners with real communicative experiences. And it is all about Communicative Language Teaching.

Does form-focused instruction work? One way to investigate whether formal instruction has any effect on interlanguage is to compare the development of untutored and tutored learners.

How significant are actually the effects of the instruction?

Another way of testing the effectiveness of using form-based instruction is by designing instructional experiments to see if teaching a particular structure results in its acquisition The experiment done by Manfred Pinemann reports in detail on only two children and the results are highly suggestive . The first learner acquired the inversion rule, and the other learner failed to acquire inversion.

Teachability hypothesis Teachability hypothesis predicts that instruction can only promote language acquisition if the interlanguage is close to the point when the structure to be taught is acquired in natural development, so that sufficient processing requirements are developed. Teachability hypothesis suggest that instruction does not subvert the natural sequence, but rather to speed up learner’s passage through it.

How Durable Are The Effects Of Form-focused Instruction? The early research showed that form-focused instruction caused learners to increase their use of some grammatical rules in their communicative speech, often incorrectly, but the effect was short-lived. Another research showed that instruction can have effects that are both beneficial and long-lasting when the set of materials for teaching are designed carefully. There is a lot of evidence that the acquisition can permanently influenced by instruction.

Why Some Structures Seem To Be Permanently And The Others Are Not? There are some possibilities related to this issue: The nature of the instruction The nature of the target structure The learners’ subsequent opportunities to hear and use the target structure in communication

What, Though, If Teaching Learners One Grammatical Structure Triggers Acquisition of One or More Other Structures? This is a distinct possibility given that some grammatical structure seem to be implicated to each other. For example, according to the accessibility hierarchy, the existence of a marked relative pronoun function in a language implicates the existence of other less marked function. An intriguing possibility, therefore, is that if learners can discover that the target language permits a marked function they will able to generalize the knowledge into the unmarked function.

The Effect of Instruction Instruction have an effect on learner’s ability to manipulate structures consciously and quite another for it to affect their ability to use structures with ease and accuracy in fluent communication.

Form-focused instruction that works best The issues:   A question of pedagogical efficiency A considerable theoretical significance for SLA

A number of options in for-focused instruction:  Concerns the distinction between: a. Input-based b. Production based

Input Intake L2 knowledge Output (A) (B) Input-based Production-based instruction instruction

Concerns consciousness-raising the existence of specific linguistic features in the target language.

Learner-instruction matching The same instructional option is not equally effective for all L2 learners. Learners vary in the particular types of ability they are strong in. Taking individual differences into account when investigating the effects of instruction is important.

Strategy Learning What is ‘Strategy learning’. involve different ways of making association involving target words’. The idea of strategy training is attractive.

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