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in which

INPUT

is the second or foreign language (L2), which viewed more narrowly contains the linguistic and semantic features learners need to pay atten-tion to, Intake is a subset of input that may be taken in by the learner but not necessarily processed further (it can disappear!) into the Internal system, the place where what is learned, correctly or incorrectly (often referred to as knowl-edge), and stored, and Output is the learner’s production of the L2 and is assumed to represent the L2 knowledge the learner has at that point in time in his/her internal system.

Now, let us discuss briefly the issue of your level of awareness involved in pro-cessing this coarse-grained theoretical framework. From a researcher’s perspective, I am positive we can find several levels of awareness: (1) Some of you noticed, that is, paid attention with a low level of awareness, to the fonts of

INPUT

, Intake, and Output. That is it! (2) Some noticed the fonts and thought, “Interesting, hmm, he is being fancy here,” without arriving at any connection to the purpose of the fonts or what they represented, and (3) MANY of you made the full or partial connection of INPUT as being a large amount of the L2 that our students are usu-ally exposed to, noted that only a subset, represented by a smaller font, is actuusu-ally taken in, and that output is clearly only a subset of what is premised to be stored in the developing internal system. As a researcher, I can also surmise that readers with some background knowledge of SLA would have processed this informa-tion at a deeper level and shown a higher level of awareness due to the fact that they made connections to knowledge already stored in their internal system. This process is not learning but activation of prior knowledge, a strengthening of the cognitive bonds between incoming information and existing knowledge. Read-ers with no background do have the potential to learn and would be able to hold this information in working memory, with the potential of the information being discarded or further processed by deeper processing and/or further similar information. Please note that for humanistic purposes, I have not identified the reader(s) who either paid little attention to or minimally processed or showed no awareness of the presence of these different fonts ( they were only skimming or paying peripheral attention ).

A Finer-Grained Theoretical Framework for the L2 Learning Process in SLA

The framework presented above is relatively coarse-grained, and I have proposed a more fine-grained version that takes into account not only the notion of stages through which the learning process passes but also the notion of learning to include both processes and products (cf. Leow, 2015):

Stages of the Learning Process in SLA: Of Processes

As can be seen, Input and Output are external products, whereas there are minimally five internal stages comprising three processes (input processing, intake processing, and knowledge processing) and two products (intake and L2 knowledge). Learning as a process , which occurs internally, occurs at Stages 1 (input processing), 3 (intake processing), and 5 (L2 knowledge processing), while learning as a product (what is learned) is presented internally at Stage 4 (L2 knowl-edge), and externally as representative L2 knowledge. Knowledge at this point is termed “representative” L2 knowledge, given that it is accepted in the field that learner output does not ref lect the totality of what is stored in their developing L2 grammar. Stage 2 represents intake as an initial product kept in working memory that may be retrieved via receptive tests (e.g., recognition or multiple-choice etc.), but has yet to be further processed and internalized or learned. I am going to elaborate brief ly on each process and product below. They will be further elaborated in later chapters.

Input

L2 input broadly refers to the second or foreign language learners are exposed to, be it aural or written. Input may be authentic, that is, it is used by native speakers for oral and written communication, or it may be pedagogical, that is, it has been modified for L2 learners mostly for use in the formal classroom setting.

Input Processing

Input processing usually refers to the processing of both content and linguistic data found in the input. Input processing is postulated to represent the initial stage of the learning process and is theoretically placed between the input-to-intake stage of the learning process. This initial process finds its roots in the information-processing strand of research in the cognitive psychology field in the 1970s, which viewed the human mind as a kind of processor constantly engaging in mental processes (cf. McLaughlin, 1987).

The notion of input processing in SLA, then, appears to draw from the metaphor of a limited capacity channel or processor (e.g., Broadbent, 1958;

Kahneman, 1973; Norman, 1968; Treisman, 1964), postulated by what were called capacity theories. I will elaborate more fully on these theories in Chapter 3, but what is important to note here is the general idea that (1) there is competition for attentional resources to be paid to incoming information, (2) what is paid attention to may depend on the amount of mental effort required to process the incoming information, and (3) the allocation of attentional resources to incom-ing information may come from a pool of cognitive resources. Hopefully to pique your interest, I am going to take a slightly different take on the notion of attentional resources as a central function of input processing, but you need to wait until later chapters, as this take unfolds during the chapters. If you cannot wait, you may skip to Chapter 12 .

Even though input processing in SLA is well known and discussed, it is not as straightforward as it may seem. While some theoretical perspectives view such initial processing of the L2 data as minimally dependent upon attention and some low level of cognitive effort, depth of processing, awareness or lack thereof (McLaughlin, 1987; Robinson, 2003; Schmidt, 2001; Tomlin & Villa, 1994), oth-ers appear to assign higher depths of processing during this initial stage (Gass, 1997; Gass & Selinker, 2008; Swain, 2005; VanPatten, 2007). However, what appears uncontroversial in input processing is that L2 learners need to employ selective attention minimally in order to isolate and process some content infor-mation or linguistic feature(s), with or without awareness, in the incoming input.

Intake

The earliest reference to the concept of intake was made by Corder (1967), who pointed out that there is a fundamental difference between input and intake and that not all input may be attended to by the learners, which appears to fall neatly under the metaphor of L2 learners as limited capacity processors of information (cf. Leow, 2012). As mentioned above, most major theoretical SLA frameworks have adopted this distinction between input and intake by positing at least one intermediate stage through which the input L2 learners receive and process must pass before any or all of it can be learned (or acquired). Given that intake occurs before any learning is assumed to take place, intake crucially does not represent internal L2 knowledge, which occurs further along the learning process.

However, as pointed out in Leow (2012), what constitutes intake is not clearly defined in the field. Here we go again! Faerch and Kasper (1980) proposed two types of intake: (1) Intake for communication and (2) intake for learning, which refers specifically to an eventual change in the learners’ interlanguage or cur-rent state of linguistic knowledge. Gass (1988; cf. also Gass, 1997) defined intake as a process that assimilates linguistic material and involves mental psycholin-guistic activity prior to being incorporated into the L2 learner’s interlanguage.

Chaudron (1985) viewed intake as part of a series of cognitive stages ( preliminary intake to final intake) through which input passes until it is fully incorporated

in the L2 learners’ grammar. Slobin (1985) also proposed two types of processes:

(1) Those involved in converting input into stored data that may be used for constructing language, and (2) those used to organize stored data into linguistic systems. The first type of process is what has been empirically addressed in most studies that have investigated the effects of some variable on learners’ intake. This type of intake has been defined as follows:

[T]hat part of the input that has been attended to by the second language learners while processing the input. Intake represents stored linguistic data which may be used for immediate recognition and does not imply lan-guage acquisition.

(Leow, 1993: 334) Similarly, VanPatten (2004: 7) writes that intake is

the subset of input that has been processed in working memory and made available for further processing (i.e., possible incorporation into the devel-oping system) . . . I do not use intake to refer to internalized data.

VanPatten goes on to postulate that any linguistic data perceived or noticed but not processed in terms of making the form-meaning/function connection is dropped from further processing (p. 9).

Based on the different perspectives of what constitutes the construct of intake, it appears that (1) due to L2 learners’ cognitive, attentional constraints, only a subset of input can be converted into intake, (2) not all intake is further pro-cessed, and (3) what is processed may be incorporated into the developing L2 grammar. Perhaps these three stages faithfully ref lect the differences in our stu-dents’ subsequent performances after exposure to new linguistic data. Intake, then, can be viewed from different angles, dependent upon the stage along the learning process and in association with the depth of processing involved.

Consequently, initial intake based on simple recognition is postulated to occur before any learning is assumed to take place (Leow, 2012).

Intake Processing

Given the theoretical perspective that not all intake is further processed, it is not difficult to assume that intake can be viewed and measured as a product (Stage 2) that can be either discarded from working memory or processed further (Stage 3) for potential incorporation into learners’ internal system (Gass, 1997; Slobin, 1985).

Postulated to function in this intake processing component are variables that include data-driven processing and conceptually-driven processing (Robinson, 1995), form-meaning connection (VanPatten, 2004), hypothesis formation and testing, hypoth-esis rejection, hypothhypoth-esis modification, and hypothhypoth-esis confirmation (Gass, 1997).

Internal System

This is the location where the L2 knowledge is stored in the brain. Gass (1988, 1997) and Gass and Selinker (2008) postulate that there are at least two outcomes that are derived from the intake processing stage, both of which are a form of integration (Stage 4). According to Gass, one is the development per se of a learner’s second language grammar and the other is storage of some linguistic data awaiting additional information before it becomes integrated. Integration is continuous and the integration component does not function as an indepen-dent unit, given that the model “is dynamic and interactive, with knowledge itself being accumulative and interactive” (Gass, 1997: 25). Important variables involved in integration include different levels of analysis and reanalysis from storage into the grammar and within the grammar itself. L2 knowledge, then, may be viewed and measured as a product in progress or fully integrated in the internal system.

Knowledge Processing

Knowledge processing (Stage 5), which is the final stage of the continuum of inter-nal processing, is one area that has not received much investigation (cf. Swain’s Output Hypothesis, 2005). This stage deals with learners’ manipulation of the L2 linguistic knowledge, together with other knowledge bases that govern, for example, phonological, syntactic, semantic, cultural, pragmatic, and discourse features that register aspects of the L2 language that are employed to produce the L2. Depending upon level of language proficiency, this stage may be character-ized by levels of f luency and accuracy.

Output

Output is the L2 data (product) assumed to ref lect different linguistic aspects of learners’ internal grammar system or interlanguage. It is any visual or oral mani-festation or grammatical description of the learned L2 knowledge.

Conclusion

This chapter has presented a finer-grained preliminary framework that takes into account the notion of postulated stages through which the learning process passes. It also elaborates on the process of learning as comprising both processes and products. The notion of stages permits us to be visually aware of which stage along the learning process the construct of learning is being discussed and investigated. Viewing the learning process in terms of processes and products is important to differentiate between learning as a process, that is, an event taking place, and learning as a product, that is, something learned or internalized or

produced. The framework, as will be elaborated in Chapter 12 , can be used to empirically address and report each process or product. Let us now visit theo-retical models outside the SLA field that have impacted many of the theotheo-retical underpinnings in SLA.

References

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Corder, S. (1967). The significance of learners’ errors. International Review of Applied Lin-guistics , 5 , 161–169.

Ellis, N. C. (2007). The associative-cognitive CREED. In B. VanPatten & J. Williams (Eds.), Theories in second language acquisition (pp. 77–95). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Faerch, C., & Kasper, G. (1980). Process and strategies in foreign language learning and communication. The Interlanguage Studies Bulletin—Utrech , 5 , 47–118.

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Schmidt, R. (2001). Attention. In P. Robinson (ed.), Cognition and second language instruc-tion (pp. 3–32) . New York: Cambridge University Press.

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1157–1249). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS