I'll read the links later when I'm not actually procrastinating on studying for the exams next week -
- but I just wanted to add, one way of focusing on form I do is to guess what somebody is going to say before they say it.
I usually do that during slow-paced movies and in boring lectures and speeches (not in conversations I take part in, I'm not that impolite.) For me it's always been a way to focus on content I find less than intellectually stimulating, but it also helps when you want to pay more attention to details - and the 'testing' aspect of it makes it easier to remember said details.
Focus on form
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Re: Focus on form
Focus on Form: A Critical Review
‘Focus-on form’ (FonF) is a central construct in task-based language teaching. The term was first introduced by Long (1988; 1991) to refer to an approach where learners’ attention is attracted to linguistic forms as they engage in the performance of tasks. It contrasts with a structure-based approach - ‘Focus-on-forms’ (FonFs) - where specific linguistic forms are taught directly and explicitly. However, there is perhaps no construct in SLA that has proved so malleable and shifted in meaning so much...
Focus on form’ was first used by Michael Long but has been borrowed (and extended) by countless scholars and researchers since. A good starting point, however, is to examine how Long’s own use of this term has changed over time. To the best of my knowledge, Long first used the term in 1988 in a review of research of instructed interlanguage development. He concluded this article as follows: …a focus on form is probably a key feature of second language instruction because of the salience it brings to targeted features in classroom input, and also in input outside the classroom, where this is available. I do not think, on the other hand, that there is any evidence that an instructional program built around a series (or even a sequence) of isolated forms is any more supportable now, either theoretically, empirically, or logically than it was when Krashen and others attacked it several years ago...
Here Long views FonF and FonFs as ‘programs’ or ‘approaches’. In a later article ("Focus on form: A design feature in language teaching methodology"), Long (1991) elaborated on the differences between these two approaches. FonF ‘overtly draws students’ attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaning or communication’ (pp. 45-46). In contrast, FonFs involves traditional language teaching consisting of the presentation and practice of items drawn from a structural syllabus. Later
Long (1997) also sought to distinguish ‘FonF’ from ‘focus on meaning’ (FonM) – an approach to teaching that emphasized incidental and implicit language learning through content-based instruction or immersion programmes where the learners’ focus was more or less entirely on meaning...
Long’s views about FonF can be characterized as entailing a focus on form that:
arises in interaction involving the L2 learner
is reactive (i.e. occurs in response to a communication problem)
is incidental (i.e. it is not pre-planned)
is brief (i.e. it does not interfere with the primary focus on meaning)
is typically implicit (e.g. it does not involve any metalinguistic explanation)
induces ‘noticing’ (i.e. conscious attention to target linguistic forms)
induces form-function mapping.
constitutes an ‘approach’ to teaching (i.e. FonF) that contrasts with a traditional formcentred
approach (i.e. FonFs).
For Long, then, the negotiation of meaning was the primary means for achieving a focus on form. As we will see in the next section, as other researchers and teacher educators have seized on the importance of incorporating attention to form in a communicative curriculum, the scope of the term ‘focus on form’ has expanded considerably. This is reflected in part in Long’s latest definition taken from his 2015 book Second Language Acquisition and Task-based Language Teaching:
Focus on form involves reactive use of a wide variety of pedagogic procedures to draw learners’ attention to linguistic problems in context, as they arise during communication in TBLT, typically as students work on problem-solving tasks, thereby increasing the likelihood that attention to code features will be synchronized with the learner’s internal syllabus, developmental stage and processing ability...
The essential theoretical foundation remains intact –attention to linguistic form needs to occur in ways that are compatible with how an L2 is acquired by learners. So too is Long’s insistence that the focus must be reactive and brief. But it would seem that ‘focus on form’ is no longer seen as an ‘approach’ (i.e. FonF) but as a set of procedures. Nor is it just an interactive phenomenon. Also – and in this respect there is major shift – focus on form need not be implicit. Long acknowledges that it can even include provision of an explicit grammar rule as long as this is provided in response to a problem that arises during a communicative exchange. Nor does Long see focus on form as catering just to incidental learning; rather ‘intentional learning is brought to the aid of incidental learning, thereby improving the likelihood that a new form-meaning association will be perceived or perceived more quickly’ (p. 317). Clearly, focus on form now involves much more than the negotiation of meaning...
This account of the how ‘focus on form’ has been construed in Long’s work is not intended as a critique of Long. The development I have described is quite natural, reflecting Long’s response to continuing research and theory development. It does, however, serve as a warning
to readers. The term has a long life and lives on but the construct it refers to has changed in quite major ways. In the following section I will attempt my own definition of this construct. Defining pedagogic focus on form
‘Form’ is often misunderstood as referring solely to grammatical form. In fact, ‘form’ can refer to lexical (both phonological and orthographic), grammatical, and pragmalinguistic features. Also the term ‘focus on form’ is somewhat misleading as the desired focus is not just on form but on form-meaning mapping (e.g. the use of the –ed morpheme to denote past time or the pronunciation of a word like ‘alibi’ so that its meaning can be understand by listeners) as Long made clear.
We have seen that Long defined FonFs as involving the explicit teaching of linguistic forms based on a structural syllabus. The problem here is that explicit language teaching can also include activities designed to focus learners’ attention on form in communicative activities...
There is a fundamental difference between a synthetic approach involving the linear teaching of discrete linguistic features and an analytical approach where attention to form only emerges out of the efforts to comprehend and produce meaningful texts in the L2.
The problem here lies in trying to characterize FonF and FonFs as approaches. As I have argued elsewhere (Ellis 2015), focus on form is best understood not as an approach (i.e. as FonF) but as involving different kinds of instructional procedures. That is, focus on form
entails various techniques designed to attract learners’ attention to form while they are using the L2 as a tool for communicating. In contrast, focus on forms entails various devices (such as ‘exercises’) designed to direct learners’ attention to specific forms that are to be studied and learned as objects.
Focus on form – both interactive and non-interactive – can vary in how obtrusive it is (i.e. how much it interferes with communication). Doughty and Williams (1998c), for example, offer a taxonomy of focus-on-form techniques that vary in terms of the extent to which they
interrupt the flow of communication. For example, ‘input flood’ is viewed as minimally obtrusive, corrective recasts as more obtrusive while ‘input processing’ involving structured input (VanPatten, 1996) is very clearly obtrusive. The more obtrusive techniques, however, might be better classified as focus-on-forms techniques as arguably they direct rather than attract attention to form. Perhaps, though, focus on form and focus on forms activities should be seen as placed on a continuum depending on the extent to which they cater to explicit or implicit attention to form...
I propose the following: Focus on form occurs in activities where meaning is primary but attempts are made to attract attention to form. Thus it is not an approach but rather a set of techniques deployed in a communicative context by the teacher and/ or the learners to draw attention implicitly or explicitly and often briefly to linguistic forms that are problematic for the learners. The focus on form may be pre-planned and thus address a pre-determined linguistic feature(s) or it can be incidental as a response to whatever communicative or linguistic problems arise while learners are primarily focused on meaning. Focus on form activities can be interactive or non-interactive and involve both production and reception. They can be found in both explicit and implicit approaches to language teaching. They can also occur before a communicative task is performed or while it is being performed...
https://espace.curtin.edu.au/bitstream/ ... sequence=2
‘Focus-on form’ (FonF) is a central construct in task-based language teaching. The term was first introduced by Long (1988; 1991) to refer to an approach where learners’ attention is attracted to linguistic forms as they engage in the performance of tasks. It contrasts with a structure-based approach - ‘Focus-on-forms’ (FonFs) - where specific linguistic forms are taught directly and explicitly. However, there is perhaps no construct in SLA that has proved so malleable and shifted in meaning so much...
Focus on form’ was first used by Michael Long but has been borrowed (and extended) by countless scholars and researchers since. A good starting point, however, is to examine how Long’s own use of this term has changed over time. To the best of my knowledge, Long first used the term in 1988 in a review of research of instructed interlanguage development. He concluded this article as follows: …a focus on form is probably a key feature of second language instruction because of the salience it brings to targeted features in classroom input, and also in input outside the classroom, where this is available. I do not think, on the other hand, that there is any evidence that an instructional program built around a series (or even a sequence) of isolated forms is any more supportable now, either theoretically, empirically, or logically than it was when Krashen and others attacked it several years ago...
Here Long views FonF and FonFs as ‘programs’ or ‘approaches’. In a later article ("Focus on form: A design feature in language teaching methodology"), Long (1991) elaborated on the differences between these two approaches. FonF ‘overtly draws students’ attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaning or communication’ (pp. 45-46). In contrast, FonFs involves traditional language teaching consisting of the presentation and practice of items drawn from a structural syllabus. Later
Long (1997) also sought to distinguish ‘FonF’ from ‘focus on meaning’ (FonM) – an approach to teaching that emphasized incidental and implicit language learning through content-based instruction or immersion programmes where the learners’ focus was more or less entirely on meaning...
Long’s views about FonF can be characterized as entailing a focus on form that:
arises in interaction involving the L2 learner
is reactive (i.e. occurs in response to a communication problem)
is incidental (i.e. it is not pre-planned)
is brief (i.e. it does not interfere with the primary focus on meaning)
is typically implicit (e.g. it does not involve any metalinguistic explanation)
induces ‘noticing’ (i.e. conscious attention to target linguistic forms)
induces form-function mapping.
constitutes an ‘approach’ to teaching (i.e. FonF) that contrasts with a traditional formcentred
approach (i.e. FonFs).
For Long, then, the negotiation of meaning was the primary means for achieving a focus on form. As we will see in the next section, as other researchers and teacher educators have seized on the importance of incorporating attention to form in a communicative curriculum, the scope of the term ‘focus on form’ has expanded considerably. This is reflected in part in Long’s latest definition taken from his 2015 book Second Language Acquisition and Task-based Language Teaching:
Focus on form involves reactive use of a wide variety of pedagogic procedures to draw learners’ attention to linguistic problems in context, as they arise during communication in TBLT, typically as students work on problem-solving tasks, thereby increasing the likelihood that attention to code features will be synchronized with the learner’s internal syllabus, developmental stage and processing ability...
The essential theoretical foundation remains intact –attention to linguistic form needs to occur in ways that are compatible with how an L2 is acquired by learners. So too is Long’s insistence that the focus must be reactive and brief. But it would seem that ‘focus on form’ is no longer seen as an ‘approach’ (i.e. FonF) but as a set of procedures. Nor is it just an interactive phenomenon. Also – and in this respect there is major shift – focus on form need not be implicit. Long acknowledges that it can even include provision of an explicit grammar rule as long as this is provided in response to a problem that arises during a communicative exchange. Nor does Long see focus on form as catering just to incidental learning; rather ‘intentional learning is brought to the aid of incidental learning, thereby improving the likelihood that a new form-meaning association will be perceived or perceived more quickly’ (p. 317). Clearly, focus on form now involves much more than the negotiation of meaning...
This account of the how ‘focus on form’ has been construed in Long’s work is not intended as a critique of Long. The development I have described is quite natural, reflecting Long’s response to continuing research and theory development. It does, however, serve as a warning
to readers. The term has a long life and lives on but the construct it refers to has changed in quite major ways. In the following section I will attempt my own definition of this construct. Defining pedagogic focus on form
‘Form’ is often misunderstood as referring solely to grammatical form. In fact, ‘form’ can refer to lexical (both phonological and orthographic), grammatical, and pragmalinguistic features. Also the term ‘focus on form’ is somewhat misleading as the desired focus is not just on form but on form-meaning mapping (e.g. the use of the –ed morpheme to denote past time or the pronunciation of a word like ‘alibi’ so that its meaning can be understand by listeners) as Long made clear.
We have seen that Long defined FonFs as involving the explicit teaching of linguistic forms based on a structural syllabus. The problem here is that explicit language teaching can also include activities designed to focus learners’ attention on form in communicative activities...
There is a fundamental difference between a synthetic approach involving the linear teaching of discrete linguistic features and an analytical approach where attention to form only emerges out of the efforts to comprehend and produce meaningful texts in the L2.
The problem here lies in trying to characterize FonF and FonFs as approaches. As I have argued elsewhere (Ellis 2015), focus on form is best understood not as an approach (i.e. as FonF) but as involving different kinds of instructional procedures. That is, focus on form
entails various techniques designed to attract learners’ attention to form while they are using the L2 as a tool for communicating. In contrast, focus on forms entails various devices (such as ‘exercises’) designed to direct learners’ attention to specific forms that are to be studied and learned as objects.
Focus on form – both interactive and non-interactive – can vary in how obtrusive it is (i.e. how much it interferes with communication). Doughty and Williams (1998c), for example, offer a taxonomy of focus-on-form techniques that vary in terms of the extent to which they
interrupt the flow of communication. For example, ‘input flood’ is viewed as minimally obtrusive, corrective recasts as more obtrusive while ‘input processing’ involving structured input (VanPatten, 1996) is very clearly obtrusive. The more obtrusive techniques, however, might be better classified as focus-on-forms techniques as arguably they direct rather than attract attention to form. Perhaps, though, focus on form and focus on forms activities should be seen as placed on a continuum depending on the extent to which they cater to explicit or implicit attention to form...
I propose the following: Focus on form occurs in activities where meaning is primary but attempts are made to attract attention to form. Thus it is not an approach but rather a set of techniques deployed in a communicative context by the teacher and/ or the learners to draw attention implicitly or explicitly and often briefly to linguistic forms that are problematic for the learners. The focus on form may be pre-planned and thus address a pre-determined linguistic feature(s) or it can be incidental as a response to whatever communicative or linguistic problems arise while learners are primarily focused on meaning. Focus on form activities can be interactive or non-interactive and involve both production and reception. They can be found in both explicit and implicit approaches to language teaching. They can also occur before a communicative task is performed or while it is being performed...
https://espace.curtin.edu.au/bitstream/ ... sequence=2
6 x
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Elexi
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Re: Focus on form
Form focused instruction is one of the growing areas of SLA research - in part because of the work of Patsy Lightbown and Nina Spada and the empirical results it has had:
Here are some of the materials I have looked at recently - the first Youtube interview with Professor Spada is relevant to a good deal of the debates that we have here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6q5vH7F8Eg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qoUFmNtGUI
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... L_learning
https://www.academia.edu/824758/Focusin ... nstruction
Here are some of the materials I have looked at recently - the first Youtube interview with Professor Spada is relevant to a good deal of the debates that we have here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6q5vH7F8Eg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qoUFmNtGUI
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... L_learning
https://www.academia.edu/824758/Focusin ... nstruction
0 x
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Uncle Roger
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Re: Focus on form
Those with poor form might be just as sloppy in their native language. Your second language will nearly always be below your first one. If you are below average in your native one, you'll likely be below average among the non-native speakers of your second language too.
Realistically, not everyone was born and/or nurtured to be a top speaker or writer.
Realistically, not everyone was born and/or nurtured to be a top speaker or writer.
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kulaputra
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Re: Focus on form
Uncle Roger wrote:Those with poor form might be just as sloppy in their native language. Your second language will nearly always be below your first one. If you are below average in your native one, you'll likely be below average among the non-native speakers of your second language too.
Realistically, not everyone was born and/or nurtured to be a top speaker or writer.
The concept of speaking "below average" in a native language is basically meaningless. All human beings* are equally proficient in the use of their native language.
*excepting certain disorders, etc.
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Re: Focus on form
kulaputra wrote:Uncle Roger wrote:Those with poor form might be just as sloppy in their native language. Your second language will nearly always be below your first one. If you are below average in your native one, you'll likely be below average among the non-native speakers of your second language too.
Realistically, not everyone was born and/or nurtured to be a top speaker or writer.
The concept of speaking "below average" in a native language is basically meaningless. All human beings* are equally proficient in the use of their native language.
*excepting certain disorders, etc.
I think I would have to contest that statement. Many people read at a level of about 9th grade which is the average, but others read at a university level. Similarly many people have a much larger vocabulary than others. This is in a mono-lingual population, so in fact there are degrees of language ability even among natives.
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Random Review
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Re: Focus on form
rdearman wrote:kulaputra wrote:Uncle Roger wrote:Those with poor form might be just as sloppy in their native language. Your second language will nearly always be below your first one. If you are below average in your native one, you'll likely be below average among the non-native speakers of your second language too.
Realistically, not everyone was born and/or nurtured to be a top speaker or writer.
The concept of speaking "below average" in a native language is basically meaningless. All human beings* are equally proficient in the use of their native language.
*excepting certain disorders, etc.
I think I would have to contest that statement. Many people read at a level of about 9th grade which is the average, but others read at a university level. Similarly many people have a much larger vocabulary than others. This is in a mono-lingual population, so in fact there are degrees of language ability even among natives.
Fair points, mate; but I would recast his assertion and say that IMO it is approximately true for a given level of access to education and apart from people who use their L1 at a very high level as a tool of their trade (writers, poets, serious journalists, etc). I honestly think that's a valid position (albeit one that many would disagree with).
I don't think the idea that the idea above of some people having "below average ability" in their native language is useful. Personally (with the exception of certain unfortunate people who have suffered damage to their brains), I don't think it is true either.
I think it is more helpful to look at learning a language as a domain specific skill that can be developed (or not). I am better at learning languages than I was 10 years ago. Much better. And yet in most ways my brain worked much better then, sadly.
Last edited by Random Review on Thu Jun 14, 2018 3:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Focus on form
If there is an average then there is a data set above and below that point. In the UK nearly 23.8 million people, or three quarters of the adult working population, do not possess literacy and numeracy skills to gain C grade in GCSE English and Maths an elementary level. In addition there are people who are illiterate in their native language. The Government's own figures show that 5.2 million workers in Britain today are "functionally illiterate", and 6.8 million are "functionally innumerate". "Functional illiteracy" is not the same as the blank inability to read anything – but the bar for competence is not set very high. If you can't read the stories in The Sun, or the signs in a station indicating from which platform your train departs, you are functionally illiterate. Similarly, "functional innumeracy" involves such things as being unable to calculate the change you are owed, or how much you spend every month on regular purchases.
So these are people who've been to school and yet cannot function in their native language. I have read a number of times about Football players in the USA who graduated university without the ability to read. So access to education doesn't actually mean anything.
So again I disagree, and firmly believe that a blanket statement that you cannot be below average in your native language is false.
So these are people who've been to school and yet cannot function in their native language. I have read a number of times about Football players in the USA who graduated university without the ability to read. So access to education doesn't actually mean anything.
So again I disagree, and firmly believe that a blanket statement that you cannot be below average in your native language is false.
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Random Review
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Re: Focus on form
rdearman wrote:If there is an average then there is a data set above and below that point. In the UK nearly 23.8 million people, or three quarters of the adult working population, do not possess literacy and numeracy skills to gain C grade in GCSE English and Maths an elementary level. In addition there are people who are illiterate in their native language. The Government's own figures show that 5.2 million workers in Britain today are "functionally illiterate", and 6.8 million are "functionally innumerate". "Functional illiteracy" is not the same as the blank inability to read anything – but the bar for competence is not set very high. If you can't read the stories in The Sun, or the signs in a station indicating from which platform your train departs, you are functionally illiterate. Similarly, "functional innumeracy" involves such things as being unable to calculate the change you are owed, or how much you spend every month on regular purchases.
So these are people who've been to school and yet cannot function in their native language. I have read a number of times about Football players in the USA who graduated university without the ability to read. So access to education doesn't actually mean anything.
So again I disagree, and firmly believe that a blanket statement that you cannot be below average in your native language is false.
I don't think coming from a family with no books in the home and a family culture of not reading and being able to go to an overstretched underresourced state school is necessarily access to education, though. With functional illiteracy, it's too easy to blame the victim.
Yes, statistically for a given measure there will be people below and above average; but it is worth pointing out two nuances. The first (and more contentious) is that people who are above average on one measure of skill with L1 might not be the ones above it for another. Personally I flat don't trust the science here*, the ideology is too palpable.
Secondly (and I think less contentious), the skill level of almost everyone's L1 is lightyears ahead of the skill level of all but a tiny elite in L2. Apart from a few outliers, these deviations from the average are tiny in comparison with the enormous range of competencies we see in L2. I genuinely don't think it is a useful line of thinking to try to look for a link between the two. Unless some good reason can be given for connecting the two (and I haven't seen one yet) for me the whole line of thinking smacks too much of the old lie that some people are smarter than others in a general sense (as opposed to having developed more intelligence in specific domains, which is common).
* I'm not anti-science: my major was a in science discipline and my dearest (unfulfilled) wish was always to be a research scientist. I love science.
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Re: Focus on form
rdearman wrote:I think I would have to contest that statement. Many people read at a level of about 9th grade which is the average, but others read at a university level. Similarly many people have a much larger vocabulary than others. This is in a mono-lingual population, so in fact there are degrees of language ability even among natives.
Reading and writing are not language. Language is a natural human faculty, as innate to us as flying is to (most) birds. On the other hand, writing is an artifice that has only existed for less then 2% of the time we have been on this planet as H. Sapiens. The vast majority of people to have ever existed were perfectly illiterate and also perfectly competent in their L1.
Of course in today's world it's great not to be illiterate, but it isn't the same thing as language incompetence, which is the mark of infants and L2 learners.
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Iha śāriputra: rūpaṃ śūnyatā śūnyataiva rūpaṃ; rūpān na pṛthak śūnyatā śunyatāyā na pṛthag rūpaṃ; yad rūpaṃ sā śūnyatā; ya śūnyatā tad rūpaṃ.
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Please correct any of my non-native languages, if needed!
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