Focus on Grammar through

Textual Enhancement
Objectives:
In this topic 90% of the students will be able to;
Understand the Input Enhancement

Know the Types of Input Enhancement

Determined the Textual Enhancement as an

External Input Enhancement Technique

Differentiate the Forms of Textual Enhancement

Introduction:
• Textual enhancement aims to achieve this by
highlighting certain aspects of input by means of
various typographic devices, such as bolding,
underlining, and italicizing in written input, or
acoustic devices such as added stress or repetition
in oral input.
• The assumption is that such visual or
phonological modifications of input make
grammatical forms more noticeable and
subsequently learnable
Theoretical Background

• Input – crucial source of learning for L2 learners.

• Input vs. Intake (SLA researchers)

• Input – sample of the target language that learners are exposed

to
• Intake –what is registered in the learner’s mind (can be further
processed and become part of the learner’s developing language
system).

• The fact that the learner is exposed to input does not necessarily
guarantee that the input will become intake.
• Central question in theories of L2 acquisition: How
input turns into intake and how it will eventually
lead to the development of L2 competence?

• Many SLA researchers have examined the role of

attentional processes in SLA and have found that
intake does not take place until learners recognize
what is in the input (Schmidt, 1990, 1993; Tomlin &
Villa, 1994).
• Noticing – initial stage in learning (Schmidt, 1990)

• (Schmidt) intake –“the part of the input that the

learner notices”

• (Gass and Selinker) – “what is noticed… interacts

with a parsing mechanism which attempts to
segment the stream of speech into meaningful units
for the learner”
• The notion of noticing and attention is complex and,
therefore, although there is agreement on its
importance, disagreement exists on its exact
definition and operationalization.

• Schmidt (1990) - learners’ conscious awareness of

linguistic forms is necessary for language learning.

• Tomlin and Villa (1994) - conscious attention is not

necessarily needed and that learners are able to
acquire linguistic forms with minimum levels of, or
even without, attention.
• (Tomlin & Villa)

• 3 attentional processes: alertness, orientation and detection.

• Alertness – readiness to receive the incoming stimuli.

• Orientation –directing attentional resources to a particular

input.

• Detection –selection and registration of sensory stimuli to

in memory (essential for learning).

• can take place without any conscious awareness.

• (Schimdt)
• “SLA does not take place without conscious
attention”
• separated noticing and conscious awareness.
• Noticing - “awareness at a very low level of
abstraction”
• - Very close to Tomlin & Villa’s detection
• Noticing vs. Understanding

• Noticing – simple mental registration of an event

• Understanding –deeper level of awareness, recognition

• In conclusion, many SLA researchers agree that some level of

attention is required for successfullearning of linguistic
forms.Even for Tomlin and Villa, attention to input is a
necessary process in SLA, even though they have ascribed less
importance to awareness.
 
Input Enhancement
• Input Enhancement is the process through
which the salience of input is enhanced. The
term input enhancement was first
introduced by Sharwood Smith (1991).
Sharwood Smith (1981) and Rutherford and
Sharwood Smith (1985) originally used the
term consciousness-raising rather than
input enhancement.
• Consciousness-raising is to refer to the
activities that help learners to understand a
particular grammatical form and how it
works.
Types of Input Enhancement
• Explicitness - concerns the degree of
directness in how attention is drawn to form

• Elaboration - has to do with the duration or

intensity with which enhancement
procedures takes place.
Textual Enhancement as an External Input
Enhancement Technique

• Textual enhancement is an external form of

input enhancement, by which learners’
attention is drawn to linguistic forms
through physically manipulating certain
aspects of the text to make them easily
noticed. Since the technique highlights the
correct form in the input, it is a positive
form of input enhancement.
• Textual enhancement is also an implicit
form of input enhancement as it attempts to
draw learners’ attention to form while focus
remains on meaning. In the previous
chapter, we discussed processing
instruction, which can also be considered a
form of input enhancement.
• However, textual enhancement is different
from processing instruction in that textual
enhancement attempts to make forms
salient in the input, whereas processing
instruction tries “to provide opportunities
for consistent form-meaning mappings in
activities” (VanPatten, 1996, p. 84).
Processing instruction is usually combined
with direct instruction, thus providing an
explicit form of input enhancement.
• However, textual enhancement does not
involve any explicit instruction. Thus, learners’
attention is drawn to form simplicitly and
unobtrusively. Also, since textual enhancement
involves high-lighting forms in meaning-
bearing texts, it meets the requirement of a
focus on form approach, which maintains
• maintains “meaning and use must already
be evident to the learner at the time that
attention is drawn to the linguistic
apparatus needed to get the meaning
across”(Doughty and Williams, 1998, p. 4).
 Different Forms of Textual Enhancement

• Textual Enhancement in Written Text

• Textual Enhancement can be used with both written
and oral texts.
• In written text - accomplished by typographically
highlighting certain target words embedded in the
text by means of textual modifications (underlining,
boldfacing, italicizing, CAPITALIZING, color
coding or a combination of these.)
• Ex. Grammatical forms that the teacher identifies
as problematic are highlighted.
• Learners should read the text for meaning.
• It is essential that the teacher use strategies
that can keep learners’ attention on
message. This can be achieved by using
various forms of post-reading activities.
• Ex. Teacher can ask learners to read the
text and then discuss its content with their
peers, answer questions about the
information in the text, or even complete a
table or a chart based on the information in
the text.
• Steps for designing textually enhanced
texts:
• Select a particular grammar point that you
think your students need to attend to.
• Highlight that feature in the text using one
of the textual enhancement techniques or
their combination.
• Make sure that you do not highlight many
different forms as it may distract learners’
attention from meaning.
• Use strategies to keep learners’ attention on
meaning.
• Do not provide any additional metalinguistic
explanation
 Textual Enhancement in Oral Texts

• Textual enhancement can also be used with

oral texts. Oral input can be made more
noticeable through various into national and
phonological manipulations, such as added
stress, intonation, or repetitions of the targeted
form, or even through gestures, body
movement, or facial expressions.
• Example #1: STUDENT: And she catched
her. TEACHER: She CAUGHT her?
[Enhanced with added stress] STUDENT:
Yeah, caught her.
• Example #2: JOSÉ: I think that the worm
will go under the soil. TEACHER: I think
that the worm will go under the soil?
[Enhanced with repetition] JOSÉ: (no
response) TEACHER: I thought that the
worm would go under the soil. JOSÉ: I
thought that the worm would go under the
soil.