Processing Instruction and Discourse

Description

Processing Instruction is an approach to grammar instruction for second language learning, contrasting with traditional grammar instruction in its focus on structured input rather than learners' output. This book compares student assessment after traditional grammar instruction and after Processing Instruction to assess the positive benefits of this method of second language teaching. Rather than examining sentence-level tasks, the study looks at the relative effectiveness of Processing Instruction on discourse-level linguistic ability. Case studies using empirical data from second language learners of Japanese, Italian and English are used to highlight the benefits to the learner of this method of enhanced input. This monograph will be of interest to postgraduates and academics researching second language acquisition and applied linguistics.

Alessandro Benati is Professor and Director of CAES, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. He is internationally known for his research in second language acquisition and second language teaching. He has published ground-breaking research on the pedagogical framework called Processing Instruction. Alessandro's research reflects his long-term commitment to making theory and research accessible to non-specialists. James F. Lee is Deputy Head of School in the School of Humanities and Languages in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Australia, where he teaches courses in language, linguistics and SLA. His research focuses on second language input processing.

"All readers -SLA researchers, language program administrators and teachers- will find in this volume a broad-ranging treatment of Processing Instruction and VanPatten's model of Input Processing that motivates it. Processing Instruction and Discourse summarizes in a most efficient way previous research on PI and reports on a number of new, fascinating empirical studies. This timely volume extends what we know about the effectiveness of PI to an impressive number of variables, including new structures, new languages, and to discourse. Importantly, it moves PI to a new context: from college language programs to primary, middle and high-school classrooms." - Associate Professor, Cristina Sanz, Georgetown University, USA 'The present volume addresses one aspect of processing instruction that merited further research, namely, the interplay between this type of instruction and discourse. It presents original research examining the impact of processing instruction on discourse-level interpretation and production tasks, as well the effects of presenting input to learners as connected discourse. This book is indispensable for researchers and students interested in processing instruction, but it is also an immensely useful collection of sources for those who are more broadly concerned with instructed second language acquisition.' - Professor Teresa Cadierno, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark