CONSCIOUSNESS, NOTICING AND RESTRUCTURING

CONSCIOUSNESS, NOTICING AND RESTRUCTURING

CONSCIOUSNESS:

The role of consciousness is vital for second language learning. Conscious processing is a necessary condition for one step in the language learning process, and is facilitative for other aspects of learning. (Schmidt 1990)

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CLASSROOM

REFORMULATION AND RECONSTRUCTION

RESTRUCTURING

Approaches to Language in the Classroom Context. IEXPRO Anthology. Mexico, Chiapas.

Schmidt, R. and S. Frota. 1986. 'Developing basic conversational ability in a second language: a case study of an adult learner of Portuguese' in R. Day (ed.).

TYPES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

SALIENCE:

Learners can not be forced to notice features of language they are not ready add to their developing IL (Batstone 1994)

The notion of input enhancement involves drawing the learner´s atention to features of the text which have been made salient.

Learners may need to hear or see target language repeatedly before it is integrated into their developing IL.

LIMITED CAPACITY PROCESSING

NOTICING THE GAP

The presentation, practice, production (PPP) model of teaching : is an approach to grammar lessons based on the idea of giving small items of language to students, providing them with the opportunities to use it in controlled ways.

INPUT:

The language that is available to the student. (Sharwood-Smith 1993)

INTAKE :

That part of the input that the learner notice. (Schmidt 1990)

Explicit Knowledge:

Knowledge of rules and items that exist in an analysed form so that learners are able to report what they know. (Ellis 1994)

Implicit Knowledge:

Knowledge that is intuitive and tacit. It can not be directly reported. (Ellis 1994)

Consciousness as Intention

The volitional, deliberate nature of the action.

Consciousness as awareness :

Knowing something is there and paying more or less attention to it.

3 levels of awareness Perception, noticing and understanding

Consciousness as knowledge

The explicit/implicit division is best understood as a continuum rather than as two separate categories

Given the limited capacity . for processing involved in conscious attention, and that conscious processing during learning in general is serial an effortful in nature, it is doubtful that learners in the early and intermediate stages of acquisition pay conscious attention to form in the input.

One of the advantages of a conscious notice-the-gap principle is that it provides a way to include a role of correction. For correction to have effect, learners must be aware that they are being corrected. (Schmidt and Frota 1986)

Conditions for noticing :

- The item should be significant for the learner

- salient

- frequent

- require attention to processing of form

- there should be time to notice the item

Task demands are a powerful determinant of what is noticed, and provide one of the basic arguments that what is learned is what is noticed...It really does not matter whether someone intends to learn or not, what matters is how the task forces the material to be processed. (Schmidt 1990)

Since noticing is a conscious cognitive process, it is theoretically accesible to training and development. This suggests that the teacher´s role is to develop noticing strategies that the student can apply independently and autonomously.

Reformulation:

The student´s written work can be reformulated by the teacher, so that "it approximates as closely as posible to a putative target language model. It is then available for comparisonwith the student´s own draft". (Thornbury 1997)

Reconstruction:

Activities differ from reformulation activities in that the text to be reconstructed originates in the teacher. The dictogloss is one example of a reconstruction activity. In this type of exercise the students listen and make notes, these notes are then used to reconstruct the original text and the students´ version is compared with the teacher´s version.

Process by which learners reorganize their interlanguage in the light of new evidence about the target language

(Ellis 1997)

The concept of restructuring derives from Piaget´s view, "That cognitive development is an outcome of underlying structural changes in the cognitive system" and that restructuring is characterized by discontinuous or qualitative change as the child moves from stage to stage in development.

Restructuring occurs because language is a complex hierarchical system whose components interact in non-linear ways. (Lightwood 1985)