Input for the Second Language Classroom: Some Innovations and Insights (original) (raw)

The importance of target language (TL) data in the learning environment has been increasingly recognized by instructional practitioners. One contributing factor is the surge of instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) research since the 1980s, which has resulted in a variety of input-based insights and approaches. Conceptually, Krashen's (1982, 1985) Input Hypothesis alludes to the essentialness of making input "comprehensible" enough (i+1). That is, learners' exposure to input must occur at a level just beyond their current capabilities in order for it to be beneficial for acquisition. Pedagogically, focus on form (FonF) (Long, 1991; Long & Robinson, 1998) techniques such as textual enhancement, input flood, and processing instruction (VanPatten, 1996, 2002, 2004) offer practical means for language instructors to make certain physical or formal features of input more salient to classroom learners within a communicative, meaning-focused context. Such meaning-oriented contexts include, for example, processing input for comprehension as part of a larger pedagogic task. That being the case, the past decade of ISLA research has gradually moved beyond the abovementioned focus on the surface, formal features of input to probe into the more intrinsic attributes of L2 input at the phonological, lexical, grammatical and discourse levels. Not surprisingly, teacher-talk, authentic documents, and textbooks remain by and large the main sources of native-like classroom input to date (Meunier, 2012). Traditionally, teachertalk is classified as a sub-variety of "foreigner talk"-and a defining feature of many L2 classrooms. It is also regarded as a key source of "modified input." Research has shown, for example, that teacher talking time comprises of as much as 70 percent of total class time on average (e.g., Meunier, 2012). While error correction or corrective feedback (CF) (Lyster & Ranta, 1997) is generally considered to be the predominant kind of modified input that makes up the bulk of classroom discourse, teacher-talk entails more than CF. Teacher questions, teachers' use of metalanguage and of the learners' first language (L1) in the L2 classroom also fall within the domain of L2 teacher-talk research-and have been empirically studied at least to some extent (Ellis, 2012). One probable reason why these other types of teacher-talk have been less researched than CF is that teacher-talk has been perceived as only indirectly related to L2 acquisition and the corresponding learning outcomes. Nevertheless, recent findings on the effectiveness of teacher-talk as an input source for incidental vocabulary acquisition (e.g., Horst, 2010) and formulaic language teaching (e.g., Meunier, 2012) apparently bear important pedagogical implications. Overall, teacher speech alone was found to be inefficient and insufficient for promoting the acquisition of essential vocabulary knowledge. For example, vocabulary acquisition requires repetition and recycling of previously encountered words, but many studies have shown that extremely low frequencies of recycled vocabulary occur in teacher-talk. This in turn renders teacher-talk a somewhat undependable source for building up the critical mass required for successful vocabulary acquisition. Moreover, teacher-talk is insufficient from a depth-of-processing perspective, which posits that the level of processing involved has direct implications for the acquisitional outcomes concerned. Establishing and/or mapping form-meaning links for vocabulary heard in teacher speech involve only receptive processing at best. Learners are not required to take up any greater