Form- and Meaning-Based Input Modifications

Some of the carefully designed classroom-oriented experiments conducted in the late 80s and early 90s (Doughty, 1991; Lightbown & Spada, 1990;

Spada, 1987; Van Patten & Cadierno, 1993) authenticated what the learn-ers already seem to know, namely, focusing on form and meaning is more beneficial than focusing on either one of them.

In a study on the development of oral communicative skills, Spada (1987) investigated the relationships between instructional differences and learning outcomes in three intermediate level classes of a communicatively based ESL program. Class A received primarily form-based instruction, Class B received both form- and meaning-based instruction, and Class C re-ceived primarily meaning-based instruction. Her findings revealed that

Class B registered a significant improvement, and Classes A and C did not improve as much as Class B. She concluded that “neither form-based nor meaning-based instruction in itself is sufficient, but rather, both are quired” (p. 153). Her study reinforced her earlier finding that learners re-quire opportunities for both form-focused and function-focused practice in the development of particular skill areas, and if one or the other is lacking they do not appear to benefit as much (Spada, 1986).

In a related study, Lightbown and Spada (1990) investigated the effects of form-focused instruction and corrective feedback in communicative lan-guage teaching. Their study was part of a long-term project and the data came from more than a 1000 students in nearly 40 intensive ESL classes and from over 200 students in regular ESL programs. The instructional strategy consisted of meaning-based activities, opportunities for the negotiation of meaning in group work, and the provision of comprehensible input. The teachers who taught these classes differed from each other in terms of the total amount of time they gave to form-focused activities. The researchers analyzed the learners’ listening and reading comprehension as well as their ability to speak. They found that form-based instruction within a communi-cative context contributes to higher levels of language knowledge/ability.

Lightbown and Spada (1990) concluded that “accuracy, fluency, and over-all communicative skills are probably best developed through instruction that is primarily meaning-based but in which guidance is provided through timely form-focused activities and correction in context” (p.443).

A similar conclusion was reached by Doughty (1991), who conducted an experiment focusing on one grammatical subsystem of English (restrictive relative clauses) with intermediate level international students from seven different L1 backgrounds. They had very little knowledge of English rela-tivization as revealed through a pilot test. They were randomly assigned to one of three groups: two experimental groups (in addition to exposure to relative clauses, the group was provided with an instructional treatment aimed at improving their ability to relativize in English) and a control group (in which they were exposed to relative clauses but received no in-struction). Of the two experimental groups, one group (MOG) was given meaning-oriented instruction along with the bringing to prominence of the structural elements of relativization, and the other group (ROG) was given exclusively rule-oriented instruction. The third group was called COG (control group). The study revealed that compared to the control group, both the MOG and ROG groups were equally effective with respect to gain in relativization, but the MOG alone demonstrated substantial com-prehension of the overall input. Doughty attributes the overall superior performance of the MOG group to the successful combination of a focus on meaning and the bringing to prominence of the linguistic properties of relativization in the MOG treatment.

The findings of the three experiments just outlined lead us to an inter-esting proposition, namely, bringing linguistic properties to prominence within the purview of a meaning-focused instructional strategy may change the way language data are recognized by the learner as potential language input, thus favorably shaping intake factors and intake processes (see chap.

2). Such a proposition has been put to test by Van Patten and Cadierno (1993).

In a carefully designed study, Van Patten and Cadierno (1993) investi-gated the relationship between instructional modifications and input proc-essing, a term they use to refer to the process of converting input into in-take. Based on a pretest, they randomly selected three groups of learners studying Spanish as an L2 in the United States. The first group received

“traditional” instruction on object pronouns and word order, the second received “processing” instruction on the same, and the third received no in-struction at all on the targeted items. Traditional inin-struction involved pre-senting the learners with explicit explanations concerning the form and position of direct object pronouns within the sentence and then giving them sustained practice, which moved the learners gradually from mechan-ical drill to communicative drill. At all times, instruction focused on the production of the targeted items by the learners, in other words, on their output. In processing instruction, presentation was dominated by two types of activities that forged form-meaning connections. One type had subjects listening to or reading utterances and then demonstrating that they had correctly assigned argument structure to the targeted items. The second type of activity had subjects respond to the content of an utterance by checking “agree” or “disagree.” At no point did processing instruction in-volve the production of the targeted items by the learners. The results of the experiment showed that unlike traditional instruction, processing in-struction altered the way in which the learners recognized language input, which in turn had an effect on the developing knowledge/ability of the learners. Based on the results, Van Patten and Cadierno (1993) concluded that “instruction is more beneficial when it is directed toward how learners perceive and process input rather than when instruction is focused on hav-ing learners practice the language via output” (p. 54).

In the context of helping learners actively engage form and meaning in a principled way, Long (1991, 1996) proposed what is called focus on form (not to be confused with form-focused input already discussed for which Long uses the term focus on forms—note the plural. In order to avoid poten-tial terminological confusion, I hereafter use its abbreviated version, FonF, as suggested by Doughty & Williams, 1998). According to Long, FonF

“overtly draws students’ attention to linguistic elements as they arise inci-dentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaning or communica-tion” (Long, 1991, p. 46) and “consists of an occasional shift of attention to

linguistic code features—by the teacher and/ or one or more students—

triggered by perceived problems with comprehension or production.

(Long & Robinson, 1998, p. 23). In other words, the learner’s attention to linguistic features will be drawn explicitly if and only if it is necessitated by communicative demand.

The input modification required for FonF places emphasis on designing pedagogic tasks based on the future language needs of a particular group of learners, tasks such as attending a job interview, making an airline reser-vation, reading a restaurant menu or a journal abstract, writing a lab report, or taking a driving test. For instance, learners may be given a task the solu-tion of which requires them

to synthesize information on economic growth in Japan from two or more written sources and use it to graph trends in imports and exports over a 10-year period. Successful completions of the task involves them in reading (and rereading) brief written summaries of sales trends for different sectors of the Japanese economy, each of which uses such terms as rose, fell, grew, sank, plum-meted, increased, decreased, declined, doubled, deteriorated, and exceeded. The fre-quency of these lexical items in the input, due to their repeated use in the dif-ferent passages, and/or their being underlined or italicized, makes them more salient, and so increase the likelihood of their being noticed by stu-dents. (Long & Robinson, 1998, pp. 24–25)

A task like this, as Doughty (2003) pointed out, helps learners integrate forms and meaning, create their metalinguistic awareness, and increase their noticing capacity all of which, as we discussed in chapter 2, promote successful intake processing and ultimately language development.

An unmistakable lesson we learn from the aforementioned discussion is that language should be presented to learners in such a way that they recog-nize it as potential language input. We also learn that instruction should help learners obtain language input in its full functional range, relevant grammatical rules, and sociolinguistic norms in context along with helpful corrective feedback. In other words, both form- and meaning-based input modifications are essential for an effective L2 teaching program. Yet, just the input, however modified, is not sufficient. What is additionally required for learners to recognize and internalize form-meaning relationships is the opportunity for meaningful interaction, and hence the importance of in-teractional activities in classroom L2 learning and teaching.