The Noticing Hypothesis

The Noticing Hypothesis

1. Background

   • Richard Schmidt
     • “In the 1980s, the dominant theories of language and of SLA… emphasized the unconscious processes of learning.”
       • Case studies that Professor Schmidt carried out in those years led him to question that assumption.

2. "Wes" case

   • “Wes” Japanese artist learning English. Wes was a remarkably good learner of English in many ways. His pronunciation was good from the beginning, and he developed quickly along the dimensions of fluency, lexical development, listening comprehension, conversational ability, pragmatic appropriateness, and especially strategic competence. His development in the area of grammar —morphology and syntax— was very limited.
     • One possible explanation may be that he didn’t care much for the small grammatical details of language.”
       • At least in the case of adult learning of grammar, unconscious learning of a language is probably not possible. Because adults do seem to have lost the still mysterious ability of children to acquire the grammatical forms of language while apparently not paying attention to them, some level of conscious attention to form is required.

3. The hypothesis says

   • That learner must attend to and notice linguistic features of the input that they are exposed to if those forms are to become intake for learning.”
     • The claim that “noticing” but not “understanding” is required for learning.
       • Learners cannot learn the grammatical features of a language unless they notice them

4. Strategies for students

   • The Noticing Hypothesis can help students to learn a language with strategies that include their interests so they can notice and pay attention to all the details of the language.
     • Learning through music
       • Learning through movies
         • Learning through Literature
           • The Noticing Hypothesis help teachers to motivate language learning outside the classroom because students continue listening to music, watching TV or reading after class. In this way the learning process does not end.

5. Supported by

   • Krashen “Monitor Model”
     • is based on the principle that language acquisition occurs when one is exposed to language almost all of which is comprehensible. Learners learn a new language when they receive input that is just a little more difficult than what they can easily understand.

6. Help by methods and approaches

   • grammar-translation method
     • communicative language teaching (CLT)