This section talks about what form would be an ideal candidate for FonF instruction; that is, what kind of linguistic forms can be learned more effectively in FonF instruction. For this purpose, features of such forms will be discussed, followed by the rationale regarding why lexical items are considered as an ideal candidate for the FonF intervention in this study.
2.2.1 Features of forms as candidates for FonF intervention
The features that may determine whether a form is an ideal candidate for FonF intervention are as follows: 1) Salience of a form, or the degree that learners can notice the form in communication (Harley, 1993); 2) transparency of a form, or lack of formal or functional complexity; and 3) length of a form and nature of its rule. All of them will be further elaborated individually.
Salience of a form
Learners may find a form more salient when they have already had partial mastery of the form (Williams & Evans, 1998), under which circumstance learners’
attention can be more effectively directed to the form. Compared to externally-created salience, generated by teachers or FonF teaching methods, internally-created salience, as made possible through learners’ cognitive readiness for a target form, contributes more to learning of a certain form (Park, 2005).
Park (2005) clearly indicated the vital role played by learners’ cognitive readiness in learning a target form. In her study, when the participants had produced the target form in the pretest, which was a sign of learners’ partial knowledge before
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the intervention, they tended to produce the target form more in the posttest. This result was observed in both the experimental group and the control group. Learners’
readiness of a target form seemed to be able to predict the learning effects of the form.
It is thus advised that target forms which match learner readiness be selected for FonF instruction (Han, Park, & Combs, 2008). To include more salient forms in FonF intervention, teachers need to take learners’ developmental readiness into consideration
Transparency of a form
A transparent form is lacking in formal or functional complexity. It might be part of Universal Grammar, and its contrast with learners’ L1 is so unapparent that little negative evidence, such as error corrections, is required (DeKeyser, 1998).
To help explain transparency of forms, VanPatten (2005) introduced
“communicative value,” which is determined by two factors: inherent semantic value and redundancy. More transparent linguistic forms are those with higher communicative value, or according to VanPatten, high in inherent semantic value but not redundant; that is, the information conveyed by the forms are essential for communication but cannot be retrieved elsewhere except from the form itself. For example, the use of progressive form of a verb denotes an action that is happening, but other than the suffix “-ing,” few linguistic items provide similar clues. In this case, the progressive form, with high inherent semantic value but low redundancy, has high communicative value.
Learners are more likely to proactively notice transparent forms with high communicative value, which explains why such forms may be great candidates for FonF instruction. Transparent forms are likely to enable learners to notice the gap between the target forms and relevant formal knowledge registered in their interlanguage system, and thus to better able to attend to the form to overcome
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communication breakdown. When learners are initiators of production of certain forms, their acceptance of the form instruction becomes higher than in a learning context where they are passively presented with the forms (Lightbown, 1998).
Length of a form and nature of its rule
The length of a form and nature of its rules are also worth considering for their importance in attracting learners’ attention and facilitating learning of the form. Park (2005) investigated learners’ acquisition of backshifting of reported speech and suggested that target forms should be shorter in length, especially when presented in enhanced input, so as to attract learners’ attention and avoid increasing cognitive load.
Also, after analyzing the rules of backshifting of reported speech, she pointed out that backshifting of reported speech would not be a perfect target form to include in FonF instruction because of its numerous exceptions in actual use. Therefore, if FonF intervention is to maximize its effects on learning forms, teachers or researchers need to be careful when choosing target forms that are appropriate in length and simple in rules so that learners would be able to notice them and work out the forms themselves.
2.2.2 Rationale for using FonF intervention to familiarize learners with forms of unfamiliar vocabulary
Forms of unfamiliar vocabulary can be involved in FonF intervention. Such possibility has been raised by Doughty and Williams (1998), who suggested that
“form” includes “all the levels and components of the complex system that is language” (p. 212).
It can be argued that lexical items are also one ideal candidate for FonF instruction, based on the review of features of ideal forms for FonF intervention in the previous section. The arguments are presented below. First, as lexical items are meaning units in communication, they are salient for learners, often easily noticed by them. Second, lexical items have high “communicative value” (VanPatten, 2005);
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forms of lexical items are high in inherent semantic value but low in redundancy. Also, as single words or phrases, lexical items are often short enough to easily catch learners’ attention.
When forms of words can be regarded as one candidate for FonF intervention, whether they can be learned effectively is largely determined by whether FonF intervention brings optimal learning environment. To explore this issue, the next section includes theoretical premises concerning how learners’ attention can be successfully directed to forms as well as discussions on methodological problems about implementation of FonF intervention.