The Language Teacher

At the outset, though, I must narrow the scope of this review. SLA research is a field of study that has already contributed much to our understanding of learning processes in a range of learning populations. One important classification of learners is adults versus children, and this classification is the only one adopted below, for reasons of space. However, within these populations there is also important research into SLA in populations with physical impairments such as blindness and deafness, or neurological impairments such as memory and attentional deficits relative to a majority or normal population. Such physical and neurological impairments can be congenital, or the result of catastrophic and sudden injury or illness. The following can be consulted for research into SLA in physically and neurologically affected learners (Berent, 1996; Curtiss, 1988; Hyltenstam & Obler, 1989; Strong, 1988).

Second language acquisition theory and research: Ten current issues

The following ten issues have been the focus of much SLA research over the last thirty years. I will briefly summarize each issue, and, where possible, accepted findings and conclusions, and provide references to recent papers. The issues are of course, interrelated, and are listed in no particular order.

1. Consciousness. Is SLA unconscious in the way first language (L1) acquisition seems to be? Krashen (1982, 1985, 1994) proposed that it was. He argued that adult learners (see issue 3 below) have access back to the unconscious processes that guide L1 "acquisition," and that conscious "learning" was minimally influential on the ability to learn and use an L2 in communication. Recent researchers have almost unanimously criticized Krashen's theory (R. Ellis, 1994; Gregg, 1984; Larsen Freeman & Long, 1991). In particular, Schmidt (1990, 1995, 1997) has argued that the critical notion of "unconscious" is inadequately described in Krashen's work, and can be used to describe three different things; a) learning without intention (unconscious learning is possible in this sense, since we can learn without intending to); b) learning without explicit metalinguistic knowledge (unconscious learning is possible in this sense, since nobody has metalinguistic knowledge of all the rules of their L2); and c) learning without awareness (it is here that learning must be conscious, Schmidt argues, since we must pay attention to input and have the momentary subjective experience of "noticing" it, if we are to subsequently learn). It is difficult to measure noticing, but Schmidt's claim is the focus of much recent theoretical discussion, and classroom and experimental research into the effect of awareness on instructed learning, some appearing to support his position (DeKeyser, 1995; Doughty, 1991; N. Ellis, 1993; Fotos, 1993; Jourdenais, Ota, Stauffer, Boyson & Doughty, 1995; Roberts, 1995; Robinson, 1995b, 1996a, 1996b, 1997a, 1997b) and some disputing or modifying it (Long, 1996; Schacter, Rounds, Wright & Smith, 1996; Tomlin & Villa, 1994; VanPatten, 1990; VanPatten & Oikennon, 1996; Zobl, 1995).

2. Learning conditions and attentional allocation. Related to issue 1 is the following question. If conscious attention to the form of input, possibly accompanied by noticing, is necessary for SLA, how is this most effectively brought about? Should learners only process the L2 input for meaning, and in the process unintentionally attend to and learn vocabulary or grammatical and pragmatic features of the L2 (incidental learning)? Or is it more effective to instruct learners in targeted features first, following a rule explanation, or metalinguistic summary (instructed learning)? Or is it better to combine these two learning conditions, by giving learners instructions to process for meaning (for example, to read a news article in preparation for a debate) while drawing their attention, through underlining or highlighting, to targeted forms in the text (enhanced learning)? This research is concerned to match the difficulty or complexity of the targeted instructional form to the best learning condition (incidental, instructed, or enhanced) and to investigate differences in learning rate under the various conditions. A summary of recent findings is that instructed conditions can have rate advantages on simple grammatical rules, and pragmatic or lexical explanations, but more complex L2 information may be learned best in enhanced conditions, where attention is guided to form while processing for meaning. Unguided intentional rule-search has been found to be ineffective for most learners on most aspects of the L2. This research is recent, important to the SLA/SLT interface, and the findings are only just emerging (Alanen, 1995; DeGraaff, 1997; DeKeyser, 1995; Doughty, 1991; Doughty & Williams, 1997; Hulstijn, 1989, 1995; Hulstijn & DeGraaff, 1994; Fotos, 1996; Leeman, Arteagoitia, Fridman & Doughty, 1995; Lightbown & Spada, 1990; Long & Robinson, 1997; Muranoi, 1996; Newton, 1995; Robinson, 1996a, 1996b, 1997b; Sharwood Smith, 1993; Shook, 1994; White, Spada, Lightbown & Ranta, 1991).

3. Age. How does age of onset of SLA affect the rate, route, and level of ultimate attainment in the L2? An important issue in this research is whether there is a difference between child (L1 and L2) learning, and adult SLA, and if there is, at what age this difference becomes apparent. Some have argued that there is a critical period, beginning as early as six years, and ending around puberty, during which the neurological mechanisms for language acquisition undergo qualitative changes (Curtiss, 1988; Long, 1990; Schumann, 1997; Scovel, 1988), making adult SLA fundamentally different from child L1 and L2 acquisition (Bley-Vroman, 1989). Others argue that such changes do not qualitatively affect SLA, so adults can still learn in the way precritical period children do (Martohardjono & Gair, 1993; Schwartz, 1993). Some evidence suggests that adults initially learn faster than children (Snow & Hoefnagel-Hoehle, 1978), but that levels of ultimate L2 attainment are much lower in adults, especially in phonology and areas of complex syntax (Johnson & Newport, 1989). Supporting this is evidence of fossilization, a permanent halt in language learning progress (Schumann, 1978; Selinker, 1972, 1992), or language attrition and loss (Hansen, in press; Hyltenstam & Obler, 1989), that occurs in adults, but not in children with access to the same quantities and quality of L2 input.

4. Modules and mechanisms. What are the cognitive mechanisms that act to move a learner from one state of knowledge to another? Are some of these mechanisms dependent on innately specified modules of knowledge specific to the task of language learning? Some researchers, following Chomsky, argue that they are, and that these modules consist of knowledge of Universal Grammar (UG) which remain active and either fully or partially available to adult learners (see Eubank, 1991; Otsu, 1994; Schwartz & Sprouse, 1994; Towell & Hawkins, 1994; Wakabayashi, 1996; White, 1989, 1996). Others argue that the mechanisms are domain independent and non modular (N. Ellis, 1996, 1997; Harrington, 1997; McLaughlin, 1990; Wolfe Quintero, 1996). As Gregg (1996) has pointed out, these questions are critical to an explanation, and therefore a valid theory of SLA, and have occupied much previous and recent SLA research. This issue is less transparently relevant to a theory of effective SLT pedagogy, however, than others discussed here, as Gregg and others have also pointed out.

5. Interaction and the environment. A major focus for SLA research in the 1980s (Day, 1985; Hatch, 1978; Long, 1983; Sato, 1988) which has continued into the 1990s (Long, 1996; Pica, 1992) is the contribution of the environment, in the form of conversational interaction, to language learning. The earlier research was largely concerned with quantitative issues, such as the amount of negotiation for meaning that occurred between native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs), and between NNSs of different levels of ability (Gass & Varonis, 1985; Long & Porter, 1985; Pica, Holliday, Lewis & Morgenthaler, 1989; Yule & MacDonald, 1990) or genders (Pica, Holliday, Lewis, Berducci & Newman, 1991). This research was based on the assumption that more negotiation of meaning is to be encouraged since it provides a means for making input comprehensible (a necessary but not sufficient condition for SLA to occur). Recently, interest in the role of interaction has focused on more qualitative issues, such as the effects of different forms of feedback about grammaticality and semantic acceptability on learner production. This research has shown that "implicit" feedback (where a teacher recasts and repeats a learner utterance containing a mistake, or targets a recast at problematic forms absent in learner speech), while maintaining a focus on meaningful conversation, can result in substantial incorporation and subsequent retention of the recast forms in learner speech. Research continues on how effective implicit feedback is when targeted at different forms, and when compared to explicit metalinguistic feedback about correctness (which has the major disadvantage of disrupting the topic continuity and so meaningfulness of the conversational interaction) (Carroll & Swain, 1993; Long, Inakagi & Ortega, 1997; Mackey, 1995; Mackey & Philp, 1997; Oliver, 1995, 1997; Polio & Gass, 1997).

Another influence on this line of research is renewed interest in the effects of pushing learners to produce difficult, developmentally late-acquired or rare interlanguage forms (pushed output) (Swain, 1995; Swain & Lapkin, 1995). This research assumes that one function of "pushing" output will be to force learners to notice mismatches between their own and an interlocutor's production (R. Ellis, 1994; Schmidt, 1990; Schmidt & Frota, 1985), and that this noticing may then lead to learning (Aline, in press). In line with this thinking, research has examined the effect of different types of tasks on production (Pica, Kanagy & Falodun, 1993), such as planned versus unplanned (Crookes, 1989; Foster & Skehan, 1996; Ting, 1996), or open tasks (many solutions) versus closed tasks (one solution) (Mannheimer, 1993; Rahimpour, 1997; Rankin, 1990), and recent research is now examining the effects of increasing the cognitive complexity of L2 tasks on pushed output, noticing, and learning (Rahimpour, 1997; Robinson, 1995a, 1997c; Robinson, Ting & Urwin, 1995; Skehan, 1996; Skehan & Foster, 1997).

6. Automaticity and control. There have been surprisingly few data-based studies of the development of automaticity in L2 use, though this is likely to be a growth area for research in the future (DeKeyser, 1996, 1997a, 1997b; Johnson, 1996). A number of conceptual models of SLA processes relate control and automaticity to other concepts, such as implicit and explicit knowledge (R. Ellis, 1994), analyzed and unanalyzed knowledge (Bialystok, 1994), or memory representations (Robinson & Ha, 1993), but most empirical studies of automaticity have been in the area of word recognition and reading (McLeod & McLaughlin, 1986; Segalowitz & Segalowitz, 1993). Some recent experimental studies have examined automaticity in grammatical rule learning and application (DeKeyser, 1997b; Robinson, 1997b; Robinson & Ha, 1993), and there is a need to extend these to include studies of automaticity in speech production and listening comprehension, and to examine the effects of task practice on oral fluency (Gatbonton & Segalowitz, 1988; Lennon, 1990; Schmidt, 1992) and speech rate (Griffiths, 1990a).

7. Literacy and skill development. How are reading and writing abilities in the L2 related to an individual's abilities in their L1? This a rapidly developing area of research, and one where research into the reading and writing processes of Japanese learners of English has received considerable attention (Horiba, 1996; Koda, 1988, 1989; Sasaki & Hirose, 1996). L2 reading and writing abilities are both clearly negatively affected when there are differences in the orthographic systems of the L1 and L2. In addition, levels of reading and writing ability in the L1 have been found to affect L2 performance (Jones & Tetroe, 1987; Kim, 1997; Raimes, 1985; Uzawa & Cumming, 1989). It is generally recognized that L1 and L2 writers display basically similar patterns in composing, employing a recursive composing process during which they plan, write, rehearse, rescan, and revise again (Cumming, 1989; Eldesky, 1982; Jones & Tetroe, 1987; Raimes, 1987; Silva, 1993). Thus composition strategies, if developed in the L1, should be transferable to the L2 (Sasaki & Hirose, 1996). Commonly recognized facts about unskilled L1 and L2 writing include the fact that writers tend to take less time to plan, and their plans are less flexible. They also rehearse less than skilled writers do, and they tend to revise surface level mistakes rather than content. Similarly, effective L1 and L2 readers use the same strategies. However, word recognition and reading rate is much slower in the L2 than the L1, and learners transfer word recognition strategies based on L1 orthographic systems to L2 reading tasks (Chikamatsu, 1996). Although using the same higher and lower level text processing strategies in L1 and L2, L2 learners are initially heavily reliant on lower level strategies, resulting in failure to make causal inferences they would normally make when reading in their L1 (Horiba, 1996).

8. Individual differences and cognitive variables. How do individual differences in cognitive abilities measured by aptitude and intelligence tests affect the development of L2 knowledge and skill? Again, there is recent research on the role of aptitude for Japanese learners of English (Robinson, 1997a; Sasaki, 1993; Sawyer, 1992, 1997) suggesting that traditional measures of aptitude, such as the Modern Language Aptitude Test (Carroll & Sapon, 1959) do predict differential L2 learning success. However, this instrument is in need of revision, both to accommodate recent findings from psycholinguistic research on the nature of attention, memory, and learning (Sawyer, 1997), and to adapt it more specifically to the Japanese population of learners (Sasaki, 1993). This promises to be a theoretically interesting, and practically useful line of research, since there is the possibility of tailoring instruction to suit the particular cognitive strengths and learning style preferences of groups of learners once these are identified by aptitude tests (Ehrman & Oxford, 1991; Skehan, 1989). Intelligence has also undergone some reconceptualisation in recent years, and while previous studies have shown existing unitary measures of academic intelligence to broadly predict differences in language learning success (Genesee, 1976; Sasaki, 1993), it is now accepted that multiple intelligences underlie expertise and ability in a variety of domains (Gardner, 1993). The physical and social context of task performance also affects the type of intelligence drawn on (Sternberg & Wagner, 1994). These new perspectives on intelligence and cognition will again likely have consequences for our knowledge of how individual differences in learners affect SLA.

9. Motivation, anxiety, personality and affective variables. How do differences in affective and personality variables contribute to differential L2 learning success? While aptitude and intelligence are to a large extent fixed cognitive attributes of the learner, motivation and anxiety can be changed and shaped through teacher intervention in learning. Gardner's model of motivation (1985), distinguishing between intrinsic motivation (for the activity or subject itself) and extrinsic motivation (to learn or complete the task for some external reward) is currently being expanded, incorporating new concepts from psychology and learning theory (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991; Tremblay & Gardner, 1995). Recent research in motivation and anxiety has begun to look at the effects of specific classroom variables, such as task type (Hinton, 1996; Holthouse, 1996) and grouping factors (Oxford & Shearin, 1994) on motivation and anxiety. Personality factors, such as risk-taking and extroversion have generally been shown to contribute to learners' ability to engage in and maintain negotiation, and so develop pragmatic abilities and fluency. However, like other categories in commonly used models for distinguishing personalities, for example, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (Ehrman, 1996), extroversion versus introversion is a culturally relative notion, reflecting Western (Jungian) values and beliefs. Though personality assessed through such instruments has been shown to discriminate among non Western populations (Carrell, Prince & Astika, 1996), and to relate to differences in L2 learning outcomes, there is a need to develop personality measures appropriate to Japanese learners (Griffiths, 1990b) and this, like aptitude research, is an important area of current work.

10. Interlanguage pragmatics. How do L2 learners from different cultures learn norms of conversational interaction, and how to produce appropriate speech acts like refusing and persuading in an L2? There is a considerable amount of research into problems Japanese learners face in understanding and producing appropriate speech acts, such as apologies and requests (Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper, 1989) and refusals (Beebe, Takahashi & Uliss-Weltz, 1990). Early research in interlanguage pragmatics in the 80s investigated whether learners have access to proposed universals of pragmatic behavior regulating politeness (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Ide, 1982; Kasper, 1990: LoCastro, 1996), and whether factors such as level of L2 proficiency affect transfer of pragmatic ability from the L1 to the L2 (Kasper, 1992; Takahashi, 1996). Recent pragmatics research is increasingly concerned with learning and psycholinguistic issues. These include the role of attention and awareness in developing conversational management and speech act production abilities (Schmidt, 1995) and the nature of the psycholinguistic processes involved in understanding speech acts (Takahashi & Roitblat, 1994), and gestural behavior (Jungheim, 1995). Research is also beginning on the identification of developmental sequences in the acquisition of pragmatic abilities (Kasper & Schmidt, 1996), such as those that have been identified for word order rules in English and German (R. Ellis, 1989; Pienemann, 1989; Pienemann, Johnston & Brindley, 1988); the acquisition of verb morphology across languages (Andersen & Shirai, 1996); the acquisition of morphemes in Japanese (Kanagy, 1994), and English (Larsen Freeman, 1975); and the acquisition of some aspects of English vocabulary (Laufer, 1990; Meara, 1984, 1997; Nation, 1990; Robinson, 1989, 1993; Schmitt & Meara, 1997; Schmitt & McCarthy, 1997).

SLA research and SLT pedagogy: Issues at the interface

Many of the important issues at the interface of SLA research and SLT pedagogy should be apparent from this overview. These include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Attention and learning conditions. What features of the L2 (syntax, vocabulary, phonology, pragmatics) can be learned incidentally, or via enhancement, and which require explicit instruction (see issues 1 and 2)?

2. Focus on form. Where teacher intervention is needed to draw learners' attention to forms, how is this to be managed effectively? How effective is input enhancement of written texts, via techniques such as underlining and highlighting of grammar and vocabulary? How effective are the various techniques for giving corrective feedback during oral interaction (see issues 2 and 5)?

3. Age and bilingual education. What is the optimum age to begin L2 instruction, and what are the consequences for older learners? What does research in this area imply about the development of bilingual education programs, and the second language education of children (see issue 3)?

4. Task design and interaction. How do we design communication tasks that "push" learners to produce language? How do we distinguish tasks of different levels of complexity so we can make decisions about sequencing them for learners (see issue 5)?

5. Aptitude, motivation, and personality. How can we match learners with different levels of aptitude to appropriate learning conditions and environments? How do we assess personality differences among learners and use this information in, for example, decisions about grouping arrangements to facilitate optimum levels of negotiation and interaction? How do we measure the effects of classroom variables like tasks, materials and techniques, on levels of motivation-and the effects of these on learning (see issues 8 and 9).

6. Reading, writing, speaking and listening skill development. What is the relationship between skill level in the L1 and L2 learning? How is automaticity measured, and how is it achieved in these areas of skill development? What are the particular learning difficulties that arise for Japanese learners faced with the English orthographic system? What pragmatic problems do learners face in these areas of skill activity? What are the sets of abilities that contribute to successful L2 reading and writing (see issues 6, 7 and 10)?

Impilications for pedagogy: Applying SLA theory to SLT practice

Given the non linear nature of much syntactic, lexical and pragmatics learning, as revealed by research into SL development (see issue 10), syllabuses adopting tasks as units of organization are generally acknowledged to be preferable to structural, or lexical, language focused syllabuses (see Long & Robinson, 1997; White & Robinson, 1995). Tasks provide exposure to meaningful language use during which a focus on form can be facilitated, speeding rate of development, and acquisition of communicatively redundant language features which may never otherwise be needed, noticed, and so learned (see issue 1). Focus on form can be facilitated by: a) increasing the communicative and cognitive demands of tasks themselves (forcing increasing attention to input and pushing of learner output); b) by enhancing features of the language input to tasks at a pretask stage; and c) through teacher intervention on task to give corrective feedback via meaning focused recasts and models of non target like learner production (see Doughty & Williams, 1997; Swain & Lapkin, 1995, and issues 2 and 5).

Much recent SLA/SLT research has aimed at identifying a planned series of tasks increasing in the complexity of their communicative and cognitive demands. This research suggests features such as the amount of planning time allowed to learners, the prior knowledge they bring to tasks, the number of task components competing for attention, and the amount of context support on task all directly affect the complexity of the task, resulting in measurable changes in learners' task performance (Foster & Skehan, 1996; Skehan & Foster, 1997; Robinson, 1995a; Robinson, Ting & Urwin, 1995). Focus on form research has shown implicit feedback about learner production using recasts and models of preferred forms can lead to substantial incorporation of the recast forms in subsequent learner output (Mackey, 1995; Muranoi, 1996). This approach to SL pedagogy (using progressivly complex tasks to push learner output, and teacher feedback to facilitate noticing and interlanguage change) represents an extension of early SLA informed approaches to communicative teaching, not a radical change of direction. In addition, meaning focused, task based instruction seems particularly appropriate for elementary school learners. Establishing a body of task based materials and syllabuses for such learners, and continuity between these and the format of high school and university level language education, will likely occupy the agendas of many SLA researchers and SL teachers in Japan over the coming years.

Conclusion

In line with the state of the art nature of this brief review I have provided many, hopefully useful, references to the recent and current research into the ten issues I have described. All of these issues, and others, will be the focus of symposia, and papers presented in open sessions, at the forthcoming PacSLRF conference (at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, March 26th-29th, 1998). Approximately one third of the researchers cited in this paper will be speaking at the conference, and will be available to participants at various events, and present during presentations of other papers (including, perhaps, your own). I hope you will be there at this interface of research, theory and practice yourself, to contribute to its development in Japan, and to the development of professionally and theoretically informed answers to some of the questions about SLA and SLT raised in this review.

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