Attention and Awareness Peter Robinson
Contents Early Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Major Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Work in Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Problems and Difficulties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Future Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cross-References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Related Articles in the Encyclopedia of Language and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Abstract
Attention and awareness are closely related concepts and can function in the environment for language learning at different levels. To begin with the concept of attention, a distinction needs to be made between two levels of attention, and the mechanisms regulating them, which will be important to the issues of language learning raised below. This distinction is between (1) perceptual attention to the numerous phenomena which we attend to automatically and involuntarily (during, for example, a conversation with a colleague), such as the room temperature or noises from the room next door, and (2) focal attention which is under some degree of voluntary executive control, such as the attention we pay to our colleague’s words and facial expressions while they are speaking and while we are trying to understand what they intend to communicate. Issues of how much, and also what quality of, attention to input is necessary for subsequent retention and learning are major topics of research in the broad field of cognitive psychology and in the content specific domain of second language acquisition (SLA). Although there have been claims in both these broad and narrower P. Robinson (*) Department of English, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan e-mail:
[email protected] # Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 J. Cenoz et al. (eds.), Language Awareness and Multilingualism, Encyclopedia of Language and Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-02325-0_8-1
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domains that nonattentional learning is possible, this almost always means learning without focal attention to the input stimuli, which selects them for further processing and encoding in memory. In such cases, simple detection of input at a stage of perceptual processing prior to selection is argued to contribute to learning. If this is so, then learning could be said to take place without awareness, since focal attention is widely argued to be a precondition for awareness (see Robinson, P. Attention and memory during SLA. In C. Doughty & M. H. Long (Eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 631–678). Oxford: Blackwell, 2003; Schmidt, R. Attention. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Cognition and second language instruction (pp. 3–32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, for review). The necessity of awareness of input for SLA (or for other learning domains) is therefore more disputed than the claim that attention to input is necessary. Like attention, awareness can also be at a number of different levels, varying from what Schmidt (Appl Linguist 11:129–158, 1990) called “noticing” of elements of the surface structure of utterances in the input to those higher levels of awareness implicated in “understanding” metalinguistic rules and regularities which the surface structure elements conform to.
Keywords
Attention • Awareness • Memory • Second language acquisition • Second language instruction
Early Developments The possibility, and extent, of learning without awareness (implicit learning) became a topic of major interest in cognitive psychology in the 1960s and 1970s. Claims about the contribution of implicit learning to SLA also led to developments in SLA theory, most notably Krashen’s monitor model (Krashen 1981) which argued there are two distinct consciously and unconsciously regulated systems involved in language learning. These developments prompted fine-grained informationprocessing accounts of the roles of attention and awareness in SLA in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Subsequently, experimental and quasi-experimental studies, in laboratory, and classroom contexts were performed to test the claims of these accounts. This review describes some of this earlier research, its historical antecedents in SLA theory, and current research which is examining the same issues with a steadily increasing range of methodologies. It also describes two more recent developments this research has led to – reconceptualizations of the role of aptitude in learning under different conditions of instructional exposure and competing claims about the structure of, and capacity limits on, the attentional resources drawn on during task-based language learning and performance. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, research and theory in cognitive psychology increasingly addressed the role of the “cognitive unconscious” in learning. This included research and theorizing about: implicit, unaware “learning” of complex
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stimulus domains (Reber 1993); the contribution of “tacit knowledge,” which could not be verbalized, to problem-solving and performance in everyday life (Polanyi 1958); and the relationship of conscious, “explicit” memory for events to “implicit” memory, which (in contrast to explicit memory) involves no deliberate conscious attempt at recall (Schacter 1987). Research showed that implicit and explicit learning, and memory, could be dissociated from each other, suggesting functionally independent learning and memory systems. Reber (1993) further argued that implicit learning and memory processes are earlier evolved in childhood, are drawn on during child first language (L1) acquisition, and that complex information can only be learned implicitly. In SLA theory, a very similar proposal to that of Reber was developed by Krashen (1982). He argued there are two separate conscious and unconscious learning systems and associated processes termed “acquisition” and “learning,” respectively. Acquisition processes resulted in a “natural” order of L2 development – so-called because it closely resembled the order in which the first language is acquired by children. Krashen also argued that the acquired system was uninfluenced by, or “noninterfaced” with, the conscious learning system. Knowledge that had been consciously learned could only be used to “edit” production initiated by the acquired system. Successful SLA was therefore largely the result of unconscious acquisition, Krashen claimed, and conscious learning contributed very little to the process. Three lines of dissent were taken, following Krashen’s proposals, which continue to the present day to stimulate research into the roles of: (1) attention; (2) skill acquisition; and (3) awareness during instructed SLA. Firstly, Sharwood Smith (1981) argued that “consciousness raising” activities could be potentially helpful for instructed L2 learners, and he distinguished four types of intervention that could be used to direct learners’ attention to language form. These ranged from provision of pedagogic rules (highly demanding of focal attention) to “brief indirect clues” to the L2 structure (much less attention demanding), such as visually enhancing, or otherwise making perceptually salient, a particular structure in the input to language learning activities. Similarly, Long (1991) argued that a “focus on form,” or brief attention to language as object during meaningful language exposure, could be beneficial to language learners. These two proposals formed the early rationale for subsequent research into the effects of different pedagogic techniques for directing learner attention to form in communicative and task-based classrooms. Research in this area has flourished in recent years (Doughty and Williams 1998) as will be described in the following section. A different response to Krashen’s proposal was to argue that SLA was essentially a process of skill acquisition (McLaughlin 1987) and that – following the then current cognitive models of automatization processes – the early phase of instructed language learning involved exclusively effortful, conscious, controlled processing. With practice, explicitly learned knowledge becomes restructured, and access becomes less effortful, and eventually automatic. Versions of this approach are also currently being explored. A third response to Krashen was to argue that consciousness was insufficiently defined in Krashen’s theory. Schmidt (1990) pointed out that “unconscious” (the defining feature of Krashen’s “acquisition”
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process) can be used in three distinct senses: to describe learning without “intention,” learning without metalinguistic “understanding,” and learning without “awareness.” While L2 learning without intention and without metalinguistic understanding are clearly possible, Schmidt argued, there can be no learning without attention, accompanied by the subjective experience of “noticing” or being aware of aspects of the “surface structure” of input. All L2 learning is conscious in this sense. Schmidt assumed that focal attention and the contents of awareness are essentially isomorphic. Robinson (1996) further argued that focal attention together with rehearsal processes in short term and working memory jointly gives rise to awareness. Consequently, differences in attentionally regulated rehearsal processes shape the contents of awareness and the extent of learning and retention it results in. However, Tomlin and Villa (1994) argued that while attention was necessary for L2 learning, awareness was not and that detection outside of focal attention was the initial, prerequisite level of processing needed for SLA. Much contemporary research continues to examine evidence for and against these three lines of reaction to Krashen’s claims.
Major Contributions SLA researchers in the 1980s and 1990s were dissatisfied not only with the theoretical position taken by Krashen, described above, but also with the methodology used in studies reported to support the claims of the acquisition/learning distinction. These were overwhelmingly method comparison studies of the effects of learning (over a semester or longer) in instructed settings which focussed on meaning (leading, Krashen claimed, to superior “acquisition”) such as content-based, or immersion classrooms, versus those which focussed on grammar instruction (and which emphasized explicit “learning”). However, it is clearly impossible to know with any certainty that learners in focus on meaning classrooms, over the course of a semester, are not also – outside of or inside classrooms – focussing their attention on grammar, with a full intention to learn it. Consequently, in attempts to relate the cognitive phenomena of interest (attention and awareness) to specific learning processes and outcomes, researchers adopted a range of methodologies for addressing the issue in the fine-grained detail needed to have certainty about causal relationships. Three such methodologies were: (1) the use of case studies of the role of awareness; (2) experimental laboratory studies of implicit, incidental, and explicit learning; and (3) quasi-experimental classroom studies of the effects of focus on form. In one of the first of these fine-grained detail studies of the effects of attention and awareness on language learning, Schmidt (Schmidt 1990; Schmidt and Frota 1986) found some evidence for his “noticing” hypothesis in a case study of his own learning of Portuguese over a 6-month period in Brazil. Schmidt kept a diary of his experiences in using and learning Portuguese, noting a variety of aspects of the language (sounds, phrases, inflections, etc.) as he became aware of them or “noticed” them in the input. He also had periodic conversations in Portuguese, with a native speaker, which were recorded and later transcribed. Looking at the diary entries and
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the transcriptions, Schmidt noted a strong tendency for those things he had noticed in the input to subsequently appear in his own production. Such learning, then, was not unconscious or implicit, Schmidt claimed, it was conscious though incidental (i.e., unintentional). Laboratory studies of the role of attention and awareness in learning have the advantage of allowing tighter control over the amount and nature of the input to learning than is possible in case studies of naturalistic learning, taking place over lengthy periods of time. In the 1990s, a number of experimental laboratory studies made use of computerized delivery of different learning conditions to examine the relative effectiveness of implicit versus explicit learning, and the synergistic effects of combining both. DeKeyser (1997) and Robinson (1996) both addressed the issue of what kinds of L2 phenomena can be learned under implicit and explicit conditions. DeKeyser found superior explicit learning of categorical rules, whose condition statements can be stated clearly, but equivalent, and poor, implicit and explicit learning of rules which are gradient and fuzzy. Related to this, Robinson found learners in an explicit condition that received instruction on rules and applied them to examples in the input outperformed those in conditions that searched for the rules in the input, or processed input for meaning alone, or simply memorized it. This was most clearly so in the case of a rule of English judged to be easy and largely so also for a rule of English judged to be hard. Ellis (1993) in a study of the acquisition of rules of Welsh found that a condition that combined implicit (memorize examples or instances) and explicit (understand a structured rule presentation) conditions outperformed those in implicit or explicit only conditions, who had the same amount of exposure. Understanding the relationship of attention and awareness to basic learning and other psychological and psycholinguistic processes is essential to understanding the cognitive underpinnings of SLA (see the edited collections by Ellis 1994; Hulstijn and Ellis 2005). However, experimental laboratory studies are open to the charge of limited ecological validity when comparing the settings in which their findings are arrived at with those of classroom instructional contexts. A third kind of study – classroom studies of the effects of briefly drawing learners’ attention to language form during meaningful language exposure – has therefore been conducted to examine the generalizability of findings about basic processes, as revealed in laboratory settings, to classroom instruction. An edited collection by Doughty and Williams (1998) illustrates both the research questions guiding, and the methodologies adopted in pursuing, this research agenda. Three basic issues that have guided much subsequent research are: which kind of focus on form technique shows the most consistently successful results; which kind of forms are most susceptible to learning via various focus on form techniques that have been proposed; and should the delivery of the technique be decided and contrived prior to sessions of instructional exposure to meaningful activities (i.e., planned off-line), or only be improvised as an on-line reaction to learner errors and production problems in situ, as they occur during communication. In line with the laboratory findings briefly described above, techniques for focus on form which are more attention demanding, such as processing-instruction, and which involves brief rule explanations have been found
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to be quite consistently successful. Less attention demanding and less communicatively intrusive techniques, such as delivering a recast of a problematic form in the speech of an L2 learner during conversational interaction, have shown more variable effects on uptake and learning of the corrected form. Recent overviews of the – now extensive – findings for the effects of attention and awareness on learning induced by both the recasting and the processing-instruction techniques for focus on form can be found in Long (2014) and VanPatten (2004), respectively.
Work in Progress The issues described above all concern the role of attention and awareness in processing input and the extent to which levels of attention and awareness are necessary for retention of input and further learning. Experimental laboratory and classroom research continues to address these issues. Recently, however, two additional areas of research have attracted an increasing amount of theoretical discussion, and empirical studies of these issues are increasing. The first of these areas concerns not simply attention to and awareness of input occurring during communicative activities but also attention to and awareness of the form of language production or output. The theoretical question of interest here is the notion of attention as “capacity.” Clearly, the human information-processing system is limited in its ability to process and respond to information in the environment, but are breakdowns in performance that occur caused by limits on attentional resources? Skehan (1998) argues for this position, claiming capacity limits on a single pool of attentional resources leads to decrements in the fluency, accuracy, and complexity of L2 speech when tasks are high in their attentional, memory, and other cognitive demands. Consequently, Skehan has shown, when planning time is allowed, which reduces task demands, then there is greater fluency and accuracy of L2 speech than when the learner has no planning time before performing a task in the L2. A contrasting position has been proposed by Robinson (2011) who argues that some dimensions of tasks are separately resourced and do not draw on a single undifferentiated pool of attention. Increasing complexity along these dimensions of tasks, such as increasing the amount of reasoning the task requires, can lead to greater accuracy and also complexity of L2 production compared to performance on simpler task versions, requiring no or little reasoning. Further, along these resource-directing dimensions, greater complexity of the task leads to greater noticing and uptake of task relevant input. This multiple resources view is motivated in part by arguments from functional linguistics that greater effort at conceptualization leads to greater complexity and grammaticization of speech. A second area of recent research concerns the contribution of individual differences in cognitive abilities to successful learning from the focus on form techniques described above. Do different techniques for focus on form draw on different sets of learner cognitive abilities: for example, delivering a recast of a problematic learner utterance in the hope that the learner will notice and use the recast form in their own production versus giving a brief metalinguistic explanation of the error or rule that
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has been broken? Research has shown that working memory capacity is related to the ability to notice and use the negative feedback provided in recasts (Mackey et al. 2002) – those with higher working memory capacity profit more from this technique and are also better able to notice and learn aspects of grammar while processing input for meaning (Robinson 2002, 2005). Findings such as these are prompting new proposals for comprehensive aptitude batteries that sample the abilities drawn on under a range of input processing conditions and in response to a range of focus on form techniques.
Problems and Difficulties Two issues which are problematic in the empirical study of the role of attention and awareness in learning are: (1) the problem of task construal and (2) the sensitivity of measures of awareness. Firstly, in studying the role of attention and awareness on learning, research in cognitive psychology, and increasingly SLA, has presented stimuli under different (experimental or classroom) task conditions. In Reber’s (1993) research into implicit versus explicit learning, learners in two training conditions are presented with the same stimuli – for example, strings of letters that follow complex rules for which combinations of letters are permissible. Implicit learners are instructed only to memorize the display, whereas explicit learners are instructed to search the stimulus display in order to identify rules. On post-training transfer tests learners in the implicit condition are often found to be sensitive to the rules, i.e., they correctly classify as grammatical those letters strings that follow the same rules as the training task stimuli and correctly reject as ungrammatical those that do not. However, learners in these conditions are argued to be unaware of these rules, as revealed by their inability to verbally report them. They just “felt” some letter strings were more acceptable, or similar to the training set stimuli, than others. The Ellis (1993), Robinson (1996), and DeKeyser (1997) studies reported above adopted very similar procedures but used either an artificial language (DeKeyser) or a natural language (Ellis and Robinson) as the stimulus to be learned, while Robinson (2010) compared the results for learning and awareness using both an artificial and a natural second language. The first problem this procedure raises is that of “task construal”: are learners in fact following the instruction to memorize only in the implicit condition, or are they adopting a more analytic approach, and in fact doing what learners in the explicit condition are instructed to do, i.e., search for rules explicitly? That is, are they construing the demands of the task in the way the researcher intends them? There is, of course, no guarantee that they will, and this raises difficulties in interpreting results of learning under one condition versus another as evidence of supposedly causal and categorical differences in the way input is processed. This caveat also applies to inferences about the causal effects of different degrees of attention to and awareness of form in classroom studies. For example, learners presented with one technique for focus on form (such as textual input-enhancement, in which various elements, such as regular past tense inflections in English, have been made
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perceptually salient via underlining) may be processing it in many different ways. This leads to the second problem for research in this area: the need for sensitive measures of awareness to examine what learners are actually doing and aware of during experimental task and classroom exposure. Verbal reports requiring rule explanation, as in Reber’s experiments, may not have been sensitive to what implicit learners actually did attend to, and were aware of, such as noticing of co-occurring “chunks” of letters in the input. If such noticing did guide judgements of grammaticality following exposure, then implicit learning can not be called “unaware” or nonconscious in Schmidt’s (1990) terms, since learners were basing their decisionmaking on what they “noticed” in the input. Consequently, research in SLA is exploring a range of methods for assessing learner awareness, both during and following treatments which aim to manipulate it. Gass and Mackey (2000) have examined the effectiveness of a method called “stimulated recall,” in which learners are videotaped during classroom activities which adopt one focus on form technique or another, and then following the treatment learners are shown the video and prompted to recall what they were thinking and aware of at certain points in the activity. This is an off-line, post-experiential means of assessing awareness, but it has the advantage of greater sensitivity to the causes and contents of awareness than post-treatment verbal responses to decontextualized questions, such as “Were you looking for rules?” or “Can you describe the rules?,” etc. An on-line technique for assessing awareness while treatments are being delivered is the use of protocols, in which learners verbalize what they are thinking, attending to, and aware of as they perform a task (see Leow and Morgan-Short 2004). This is a potentially sensitive measure of awareness, but there is the important issue of whether performing the protocol interferes in a substantial way with the nature of the processing the experimental task or classroom activity aims to induce. In an extended review of studies of this issue of “reactivity,” Bowles (2010) concludes that there is little evidence that protocols negatively interfere with the learning processes of interest in studies of the relationship between learning, attention, and awareness. Most recently, Leow and Hama (2013) have presented arguments questioning the claims made by Williams (2005) to have demonstrated learning without awareness based only on nonconcurrent, off-line measures of awareness such as verbal reports, since learners may have forgotten or not be able to verbalize what they were aware of “at the point of” learning. Paclorek and Williams (2015), in contrast, argue that their experiment demonstrates unaware learning of and sensitivity to semantic distinctions in a semiartificial language (such as living versus nonliving) which are easily reportable and unlikely to have been noticed and then forgotten.
Future Directions Future research will likely adopt increasingly sensitive measures of the contents of awareness and explore new methodologies for operationalizing these. As in recent work (Rebuschat et al. 2015) it is likely that concurrent and retrospective verbal report measures of awareness will both be used, accompanied by subjective
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measures, such as confidence ratings and feeling-of-knowing. Neurophysiological measures of physical changes in brain states (Morgan-Short et al. 2012) as well as behavioral methods such as eye-tracking (Godfroid and Winke 2015) will also be used increasingly to complement the introspective methods for studying the relationship of attention and awareness to learning. Finally, content issues that are likely to be addressed with increasing frequency include what aspects of a language can be learned with less versus more attention to and awareness of form, not simply with regard to syntax, phonology, lexis, and morphology but also with respect to semantics, pragmatics, and advanced levels of L2 discourse ability.
Cross-References ▶ Implicit and Explicit Knowledge About Language
Related Articles in the Encyclopedia of Language and Education Constant Leung: Second Language Academic Literacies. In Volume: Literacies and Language Education Rebekha Abbuhl: Second Language Acquisition Research Methods. In Volume: Research Methods in Language and Education
References Bowles, M. A. (2010). The think-aloud controversy in second language research. New York: Routledge. DeKeyser, R. M. (1997). Beyond explicit rule learning: Automatizing second language morphosyntax. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19, 196–221. Doughty, C., & Williams, J. (Eds.). (1998). Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ellis, N. C. (1993). Rules and instances in foreign language learning: Interactions of implicit and explicit knowledge. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 5, 289–319. Ellis, N. C. (Ed.). (1994). Implicit and explicit learning of languages. San Diego: Academic. Gass, S. M., & Mackey, A. (2000). Stimulated recall methodology in second language research. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum. Godfroid, A., & Winke, P. (2015). Investigating implicit and explicit processing using L2 learners’ eye-movement data. In P. Rebuschat (Ed.), Implicit and explicit learning of languages (pp. 424–448). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hulstijn, J. H., & Ellis, R. (Eds.). (2005). Theoretical and empirical issues in the study of implicit and explicit second language learning ([Special issue] Studies in second language acquisition, Vol. 27, (2)). New York: Cambridge University Press. Krashen, S. D. (1981). Second language acquisition and second language learning. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. New York: Pergamon.
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Leow, R. P., & Hama, M. (2013). Implicit learning in SLA and the issue of internal validity. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35, 545–557. Leow, R. P., & Morgan-Short, K. (2004). To think aloud or not to think aloud: The issue of reactivity in SLA research methodology. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 35–58. Long, M. H. (1991). Focus on form: A design feature in language teaching methodology. In K. de Bot, R. Ginsberg, & C. Kramsch (Eds.), Foreign language research in cross-cultural perspective (pp. 39–52). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Long, M. H. (2014). Second language acquisition and task based language teaching. Oxford: Blackwell. Mackey, A., Philp, J., Egi, T., Fujii, A., & Tatsumi, T. (2002). Individual differences in working memory, noticing of interactional feedback and L2 development. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Individual differences and instructed language learning (pp. 181–210). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. McLaughlin, B. (1987). Theories of second language acquisition. London: Edward Arnold. Morgan-Short, K., Steinhauer, K., Sanz, C., & Ullman, M. (2012). Explicit and implicit second language training differentially affect the achievement of native-like brain activation patterns. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24, 933–947. Paclorek, A., & Williams, J. N. (2015). Implicit learning of semantic preferences of verbs. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 37, 359–382. Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Reber, A. S. (1993). Implicit learning and tacit knowledge: An essay on the cognitive unconscious. New York: Oxford University Press. Rebuschat, P., Hamrick, P., Reistenberg, K., Sachs, R., & Ziegler, N. (2015). Triangulating measures of awareness – A contribution to the debate on learning without awareness. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 37, 299–334. Robinson, P. (1996). Consciousness, rules and instructed second language acquisition. New York: Peter Lang. Robinson, P. (Ed.). (2002). Individual differences and instructed language learning. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Robinson, P. (2005). Aptitude and second language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 25, 42–77. Robinson, P. (2010). Implicit artificial grammar and incidental natural second language learning: How comparable are they? Language Learning, 60, 245–264. Robinson, P. (Ed.). (2011). Second language task complexity: Researching the cognition hypothesis of language learning and performance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Schacter, D. L. (1987). Implicit memory: History and current status. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 13, 501–518. Schmidt, R. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 11, 129–158. Schmidt, R., & Frota, S. (1986). Developing basic conversational ability in a second language: A case study of an adult learner of Portuguese. In R. Day (Ed.), Talking to learn: Conversation in second language learning (pp. 237–332). Rowley: Newbury House. Sharwood Smith, M. (1981). Consciousness raising and the second language learner. Applied Linguistics, 2, 159–168. Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tomlin, R., & Villa, V. (1994). Attention in cognitive science and SLA. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16, 185–204. VanPatten, B. (Ed.). (2004). Processing instruction. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum. Williams, J. N. (2005). Learning without awareness. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 269–304.
