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STRUCTURED INPUT: GRAMMAR INSTRUCTION FOR THE ACQUISITION-ORIENTED CLASSROOM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2006

Pat Byrd
Pat Byrd
Affiliation:
Georgia State University
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STRUCTURED INPUT: GRAMMAR INSTRUCTION FOR THE ACQUISITION-ORIENTED CLASSROOM. Andrew P. Farley. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Pp. vii + 123. $51.56 paper.

This volume for second language teachers builds on two principles of structured input (SI; VanPatten, 2004): the primacy of meaning principle and the first noun principle. After an overview of SI, Farley provides chapter-length explanations of teaching activities based on the two SI principles and concludes with a chapter on recent SI research. The three core SI activity-preparation chapters are organized around (a) an introduction to the SI principle focused on in the chapter, (b) a research review, (c) examples from various languages, (d) “principles in practice” to guide teachers in writing SI activities, (e) sample studies, and (f) suggested readings. The technique recommended for activities involves the creation of controlled tasks that limit information available to students so that only one grammatical point is salient. For example, an activity on English subject-verb agreement requires the learner to select the correct present tense verb for a given subject; one singular subject (“Sarah McLachlan”) and one plural subject (“Bono and the Edge”) are followed by only two choices: one with a verb in the singular (“travels all over the world”) and one with a verb in the plural (“play the guitar”). The logic of this activity is that language learners look to meaning first and, therefore, often overlook form, so activities can force focus on form by limiting content and restricting grammatical choice. (My own experience of this type of grammar drill is that students have a 50% chance of getting the correct answer without having to think about either meaning or form.)

Type
BOOK REVIEWS
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , December 2006 , pp. 635 - 636
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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References

REFERENCES

Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1995). A narrative perspective on the development of the tense/aspect system in second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17, 263–291.Google Scholar
Byrd, P. (1998). Grammar FROM context. In P. Byrd & J. Reid (Eds.), Grammar in the composition classroom: Essays on teaching ESL for college-bound students (pp. 54–68). Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
Doughty, C.J. & Varela, E. (1998). Communicative focus on form. In C. J. Doughty & J. Williams (Eds.), Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition (pp. 114–138). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1994). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
Sinclair, J. (2003). Reading concordances. London: Pearson.
VanPatten, B. (2004). Processing instruction: Theory, research, and commentary. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.