Focus on Form: Past and Present

Focus on Form: Past and Present

(Plenary Speech, September 23, 2016)

at the 35^th Second Language Research Forum

Teachers College, Columbia University

By Dr. Rod Ellis

University of Auckland and Shanghai International Studies University

Abstract

Focus-on form (FonF) was a term introduced by Michael Long to refer to an approach to teaching where learners’ attention is attracted to linguistic forms as they engage in the attempt to communicate. It contrasts with an approach that Long called “Focus-on-forms” where specific linguistic forms are taught directly and explicitly. However, there is perhaps no construct in SLA that has proved so malleable and shifted in meaning so much. I will begin by considering how Long’s original definition of it has stretched over time and then offer my own definition of the construct, arguing that the term might best be applied to specific kinds of ‘activities’ or ‘procedures’ rather than to an ‘approach’. I will then go on to present a classification of these different types of focus on form activities/procedures. I will also suggest that it is important to distinguish the psycholinguistic and discoursal dimensions of FonF. Based on this distinction, I will undertake a review of the research that has investigated different ways in which a focus on form can be realized and its effect on task-based performance and acquisition. In the final part of my paper I will consider criticisms that have been leveled against the construct. I will consider to what extent comparative studies of FonF and FonFs can help address these criticisms and examine a number of such studies. Finally, I will discuss what I see as the main problems of implementing FonF – namely, the resistance it arouses in instructional contexts where for cultural reasons FonFs has been the norm – and propose a solution.

Biography

Rod Ellis is Distinguished Professor of Applied Language Studies in the University of Auckland, and also Cheung Kong Scholar Chair Professor at Shanghai International Studies University. His published works include numerous articles and books on second language acquisition and language teaching. His most recent book is Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research (with Natsuko Shintani) published by Routledge. He has also recently been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Long (1988)

“…a focus on form is probably a key feature of second language instruction…I do not think, on the other hand, that there is any evidence that an instructional program built around a series (or even a sequence) of isolated forms is any more supportable now, either theoretically, empirically, or logically than it was when Krashen and others attacked it several years ago (p.136: italics in original).”

Long (1991)

FonF “overtly draws students’ attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaning or communication” (pp.45-46).

In contrast, FonFs involves traditional language teaching based on a structural syllabus.

FonFs	FonM	FonF
No needs analysis	Usually no needs analysis	Needs analysis of target tasks.
No realistic models of language	Cannot enable older learners to achieve high level of L2 proficiency.	Attracts attention to forms that otherwise learners might not notice.
Ignores the fact that learning is a slow and gradual process.	Learners will not acquire non-salient linguistic features.	Allows for the slow and gradual process involved in L2 acquisition.
Takes no account of constraints on the learnability of grammar.	Learners needs negative evidence to acquire some grammatical features	Respects the learner’s internal syllabus.
Tends to result in boring lessons.	FonM is inefficient because it results in only slow progress	Is under learner control – occurs in response to communication problems.
Results in more false beginners than finishers.	Can result in confidence and fluency in the use of the L2 but limited accuracy.	Assists form-function mapping and so promotes both fluency and accuracy.

Summarizing Long’s early account of “focus on form’

Focus on form:

  Ø  Arises in interaction

  Ø  Is reactive

  Ø  Is incidental

  Ø  Is brief

  Ø  Is typically implicit

  Ø  Induces ‘noticing’

  Ø  Induces form-function mapping.

  Ø  Constitutes an ‘approach’ to teaching

Subsequent development (Long, 2015)

“Focus on form involves reactive use of a wide variety of pedagogic procedures to draw learners’ attention to linguistic problems in context, as they arise during communication in TBLT, typically as students work on problem-solving tasks, thereby increasing the likelihood that attention to code features will be synchronized with the learner’s internal syllabus, developmental stage and processing ability (p.317).”

Contrasting Long’s early and late views of ‘focus on form’

Characteristic	Early	Late
Theoretical foundation – attention to form while communicating	Yes	Yes
Approach or procedures?	Both	Both
Reactive and brief?	Yes	Yes
Interactive	Yes	Yes but also non-interactive
Incidental/intentional learning?	Incidental	Both incidental and intentional
Implicit/explicit?	Implicit	Both implicit and explicit

Doughty and Williams (1998)

·      FonF and FonFs ‘are not polar opposites’

·      FonF entails a focus on formal elements of language whereas FonFs is limited to such a focus’ (p.4; italics as in original).

·      So is PPP FonF or FonFs?

·      PPP = a FonFs approach because it is based on a structural syllabus and involves the explicit instruction

·      But it can be seen as including a ‘focus on form’ in the final.

Incompatibility of definitions

But such a view is clearly incompatible with both Long’s early and later accounts of focus on form.

Long makes a fundamental distinction between a synthetic approach involving the linear teaching of discrete linguistic features and an analytical approach where attention to form only emerges out of the efforts to comprehend and produce meaningful texts in the L2.

Resolving the definitional problem

The problem lies in characterizing FonF and FonFs as approaches.

Focus on form is best understood not as an approach (i.e. as FonF) but as involving different kinds of instructional procedures that attract attention to form during communication.

Focus on forms entails various devices (such as ‘exercises’) designed to direct learners’ attention to specific forms that are to be studied and learned as objects.

Planned or unplanned?

In Long’s account ‘focus on form’ is primarily unplanned and unfocused but the focus on form that occurs in the final P of PPP is necessarily planned and also highly focused.

However, if we accept that focus on form constitutes a set of procedures (rather than an approach) we also need to accept that it can be planned as well as unplanned.

Negotiation of meaning or negotiation of form

Long initially viewed focus on form as arising when communication problems occurred but subsequently accepts that it can also occur when there is no communication problem.

So focus on form incorporates both the negotiation of meaning and the negotiation of form.

Reactive or pre-emptive?

Long also insists that focus on form occurs as a response to a problem.

But can it also be pre-emptive – as, for example, when a learner asks a question about a linguistic form during a communicative activity. Pre-emptive focus on form aims to avoid rather repair a problem. cf. Ellis, Basturkmen & Loewen (2001)

Interactive focus on form

Interactive focus on form, then, can be defined as the pre-emptive or responsive procedures that attract attention to form during an activity that is primarily meaning-focused and that address either communicative or linguistic problems.

Interactive or non-interactive?

Whereas focus on form was seen as an interactive phenomenon, it can also clearly also be non-interactive – e.g. text-enhancement procedures.

Obtrusive or non-obtrusive?

Focus on form was initially seen as involving unobtrusive procedures but is now clearly seen as also including obtrusive procedures (e.g. metalinguistic explanation).

But should the more obtrusive procedures that direct rather attract attention to form (e.g. those employed in processing instruction) be viewed as involving focus-on-forms?

Within or outside communication?

Focus on form was clearly conceived as occurring while learners were attempting to be communicative.

But as Skehan (1996) noted it can also occur before learners begin trying to communicate (e.g. through pre-task planning) or after they have completed a communicative task (e.g. through task repetition).

My definition

·        Meaning is primary

·        A set of procedures deployed by the teacher and/or learners to draw attention implicitly or explicitly and often briefly to problematic linguistic forms

·        Can be pre-planned or can arise incidentally in response to communicative or linguistic problems

·        Can be interactive or non-interactive and involve both production and reception.

·        Can be found in both explicit and implicit approaches to language teaching.

·        Can also occur before a communicative task is performed or while it is being performed.

Selective attention

In focus on form activities attention is selectively focused on meaning but may also from time to time be voluntarily or involuntarily focused on specific linguistic forms that occur in the input or that the learner needs to express a particular meaning.

Role of consciousness

Focus on form caters to incidental/implicit acquisition (i.e. it may or may not involve consciousness).

Whether noticing of form is needed may depend on the salience of the linguistic feature (cf. plural –s versus 3^rd person –s).

Are different kinds of focus on form needed to facilitate the acquisition of different linguistic features?

Cognitive comparison

Focus on form can help learners to compare the current state of their L2 knowledge with the input they are provided with.

‘Cognitive window’ (Doughty & Williams, 1998)

Timing of focus on form

Three possibilities:

      1.     Prior to starting to communicate

      2.     While communicating

      3.     Later after communicative activity is over – but is this focus on form?

Relative effectiveness

If what is important is that learners’ attention to form takes place while they are primarily engaged in meaning-making (either receptively or productively), then, focus on form prior or during communication have merit.

To date, we do not know whether delayed focus on form is effective.

Working memory

Working memory is limited in capacity and functions as a site where information can be

      1.     Temporarily stored,

      2.     Rehearsed to prolong activation 

      3.     Processed by establishing links with long-term procedural and declarative memories.

Working memory is where ‘intake’ occurs.

Some issues

      1.     Does focus on form need to be ‘general’ (as with Skehan) or specific (as with Long)?

      2.     Does focus on form facilitate the development of procedural memory (i.e. implicit knowledge) or  

            declarative memory (i.e. explicit knowledge) or both?

Revesz’s (2012) study

Revesz investigated the relationship between gains in grammatical accuracy following recasting.

·        Differences in the learners’ phonological working memories were related to accuracy in an oral description task.

·        Differences in their complex working memory were related to gains in a written test.

How the learners processed the recasts in working memory affected whether development led to procedural or declarative knowledge.

Doing focus on form

Types of focus on form:

      1.     Pre-emptive

-       Student initiated

-       Teacher initiated

       2.     Reactive

-       Conversational

-       Didactic

Research findings

1. Teachers are often not aware of the extent to which they engage in focus on form.

2. Both teachers and learners vary in the extent they engage in focus on form.

3. Both learners and teachers sometimes make effective use of the learner’s L1 to address L2 

          problems.

      4. Mainly focus on form episodes address lexical or grammatical problems rather pragmatic aspects

          of language. 

      5. The instructional context affects the frequency with which different focus on form occurs.

      6. Various factors influence whether learners notice those forms that are focused on – in particular the

          level of explicitness.

      7. While uptake-with-repair cannot be taken as evidence of learning, in some studies it has been

          found to be facilitative of learning.

      8. Both focus on form initiated by learners in learner-learner interaction and by teachers in whole

          -class interaction benefit acquisition.

      9. In interactions involving the teacher pre-emptive focus on form is more effective than reactive

          focus on form if the learner pre-empts.

    10.  A stronger effect is evident when the teacher participates in small group work than in whole-class

          interaction.

     11. Higher proficiency learners focus on form more and benefit more from it than lower proficiency 

           learners.

Focus of the investigations

      1.     Text enhancement

      2.     Corrective feedback

      3.     Pre-task planning

      4.     Task repetition

Key criticisms

      1.  FonF is based entirely on theoretical hypotheses that are themselves lacking in empirical support (Swan, 2005).

      2.  Focus on form consists only of quick feedback on learners’ errors while they are performing a communicative task (Sheen, 2003). 

      3. Advocates of FonF present it as the only theoretically-sound way of teaching an L2, rejecting FonFs entirely (Swan, 2005).

      4. There is no report of any successful long-term implementation of FonF (Sheen, 2005)

      5. There is no evidence to show that FonF resultsin superior L2 learning than FonFs (Sheen, 1994).   

      6.  FonF is ill-suited to non-Western cultures of teaching and learning (Littlewood, 2007; 2015)

Two articles

      1.  Ellis, R. (2009). Task-based language teaching: Sorting out the misunderstandings. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 19, 221- 246.

      2. Long, M. H. (2016). In defense of tasks and TBLT: Nonissues and real issues. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 36, 5-33.

Responding to the criticisms

The criticisms demonstrate 

         · A misunderstanding of focus on form

         ·  Ignorance of the research that has investigated it.

But the cultural inappropriateness of a focus on form approach is a more weighty criticism.

Two studies

·      Global vs. local studies

·      Two local studies with very different results:

1.     Sheen (2006)

2.     Shintani (2016)

·      Need for longitudinal studies.

Importance of context

Is FonF appropriate for instructional contexts where:

·      ‘Education is conceived more as a process of knowledge accumulation than as a process of using knowledge for immediate purposes’? (Littlewood; 2015: 653)

·      Teachers are not familiar with focus on form?

·      Learners view language as an object rather than as a tool for communicating?

·      Students are required to take traditional type tests to progress academically?

Focus on form as ‘procedures’

Focus on form procedures belong naturally task-based teaching but they can also be found in more traditional approaches providing there is some opportunity for free production in the L2.

We urgently need studies that compare focus on form treatment that include and exclude explicit instruction with care taken to measure the effects on the acquisition of both explicit and implicit knowledge.