Page 200 - Beyond Methods

188 Activating intuitive heuristics
glish. The process of grammaticization also involves making the con- nection between propositional content and syntactic forms within a communicative context. The episode also shows that through proper management of classroom interaction, teachers can help learners notice the gap between their current level of knowledge and the target level they wish to achieve.
Noticing the Gap
Learners’ ability to notice the gap between what they already know and what they need to know is, of course, crucial for making progress in language learning. Schmidt and Frota (1986, p. 311), who pro- posed what is called the “notice the gap principle,” categorically state that “a second language learner will begin to acquire the target-like form if and only if it is present in comprehended input and ‘noticed’ in the normal sense of the word, that is consciously.” In order to notice the gap, learners have to first recognize that there is some- thing to be learned. Susan Gass (1997, p. 4) calls this apperception— “an internal cognitive act in which a linguistic form is related to some bit of existing knowledge (or gap in knowledge).” By making the selected linguistic features noticeable or recognizable, teachers can aid learners in their cognitive act of connecting the known to the new.
Both consciousness-raising and noticing the gap activities sen- sitize learners to the way linguistic systems work. The act of con- sciousness-raising is largely external to learners, that is, teachers can create the conditions necessary for raising learners’ conscious- ness about aspects of linguistic properties. They can do that by providing sufficient linguistic data for their learners to formulate their own working hypotheses about a particular grammatical rule. They can also do that by promoting meaningful classroom interac- tion centering on the selected linguistic features. Of course, learners themselves can raise their own consciousness to some extent. The act of noticing the gap, however, is entirely internal to learners, that is, they have to make an effort to notice the gap in their developing linguistic knowledge. Thus, by making learners become aware of the need to pay attention to various aspects of language use, input enhancing activities contribute to the activation of their intuitive heuristics.