Form-focused Instruction and Teacher Education: Studies in honor of Rod Ellis: Book Review

The book is edited by Sandra Fotos and Hossein Nassaji and published by Oxford University Press in 2007.

The editors claim that the book is edited in honor of Rod Ellis, a contributor in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and teacher education. To mark the contributions of Rod whose effort has brought significant change in the SLA, form-focused instruction (FFI), task-based teaching and learning, class-room research and the role of input and interaction, this handy book can be a greater effort in the subject areas as mentioned along with the teacher education and classroom pedagogy.

To take the basic area of this book; it focuses on the current areas of research, theory and practices in FFI and teacher education, the contributions made by Rod’s colleagues and other scholars is significant input to visualize Rod’s expertise and interests.  The book covers the major aspects of the FFI and teacher development. However, this book does not directly addresses the issues of teacher education though, in a cover concept, it focuses on the broad areas of teacher development.

 If viewed, the organization of the book according to the contents, it is organized into three sections, with several chapters in each, with a loose knot. The first section serves to introduce the reader to some of the pedagogical, linguistic, and cognitive theories surrounding; moreover, it is based on theoretical issues of ‘focus on form’. The second section serves the purpose of classroom practices being based on the ‘form focus’ and the final section covers the theme of the book itself; the form and the teacher education.

Let me move with the introduction of the text. The editors are highly balanced in contextualizing the purpose of the book with the contributions made by Rod Ellis, whose foot print the colleagues and other scholars in ELT are following as ‘the book has been designed to focus on current areas of research, theory, and practice FFI and teacher education. The contributors are Rod’s colleagues and friends and those who worked with him over the years… (p. 1).’ This volume of the book explains the concept of FFI from the perspective of informing teachers through the communicative context and the traditional form of grammar. The editors have the similar perspectives on communicative context as ‘the role that formal instruction plays in communicative contexts (p.1).’ Similarly, the book is meant to ‘provide a useful tool that can guide teachers, teacher educators, and researchers in their selection and investigation of various aspects of FFI in both research and pedagogy…contribution to teaching and teacher education (p.15).’

Now, let me move along with the different sections, where I will put forth the gist ideas of each of the parts. I will focus more on the areas which strikes me and the knowledge I have about the FFI and teacher education.

The First Section

The first part of the book consists of the four different chapters by different scholars. This part mainly focuses on the theoretical considerations including overview of focus on form, consciousness, cognitive processing, explicit knowledge and socio-cultural theory, the relationship between tasks research and language teaching pedagogy, and Focus on Form as psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics phenomena.

The article entitled ‘Issues in form-focused instruction and teacher education’ by Hossein Nassaji and Sandra Fotos, initiates the section first with the emphasis made on the theoretical aspects of FoF and reviewing various types of FFI in classroom practices. The FFI taxonomies  reviewed in this section contribute to our understanding of FFI, its elements and the various ways in which it can be implemented in L2 classroom  This article also discusses on the relevancy of the FFI to the teachers and teacher education.

The second article is about the crossing point between implicit and explicit knowledge and the roles of consciousness in SLA and psychology, entitled ‘the weak interface, consciousness and form-focused instruction: mind the doors’ by Nick Ellis. Here Nick claims that explicit knowledge plays a facilitating role in SLA whereas, he assimilates the ideas of consciousness with the ideas of Rod’s weak interface. He concludes that, ‘much of the problem of SLA stems from transfer, form the automatized habits of the L1 being inappropriately applied to the L2 (p.33).’

The third article, ‘Conceptual knowledge and instructed second language learning: a socio-cultural perspective’ by James Lantolf, considers the implications of socio-cultural theory for second language instruction. His claim is that, the conceptual knowledge is likely to have a more powerful impact on grammatical development than traditional approaches which focus less on meaning and more on formal grammatical features.  He considers how explicitly and accurately grammar concepts need to be explained.

The fourth and the final article of the first part are about the ‘task’ research. The article focuses on the tasks based learning and the implications of pre-task, task and post-task activities in relation to the research and pedagogical practice. The article entitled ‘task research and language teaching: reciprocal relationship’ is written by Peter Skehan. This article seeks the most attention as the research and the pedagogical implementation are to go side by side; as there should be no interferences between them.

The Second Section

The second section entitled ‘Focus on form and classroom practices’ examines research-based FFI activities  in L2 classroom. Chapter 5 (The distributed nature of second language learning: Neil's perspective) opens the second section of the book. This research based article by Swain and Lapkin's explores the study behavior of a young learner of French. This study focuses on the distributed nature of learning. The writers say, ‘The knowledge constructed has been distributed over time and space, hundreds of minds and thousands of pages of text, discussions and lived experiences (p.73). This case study has significant findings if applicable in the situated classroom.

Chapter 6 is related to the discourse we have in the classroom which the teacher should much focus on. The meaning is generated through the discursive practices in the classroom for which the teacher has to be careful for. ‘Recontextualizing focus on form’ by Batstone, is useful for both the pre-service and in-service teachers. The writer focuses, ‘this kind of theorizing can be said to be sociocognitive , in the sense that it seeks to discover ways in which the cognitive mechanisms of attention are interdependent with matters of interpretation and meaning making in discourse (p. 99).’

In Chapter 7, (‘The prior and subsequent use of forms targeted in incidental focus on form’), Loewen explores the level of difficulties in testing if it is not preplanned.

In chapter 8, Nasaji, (‘Reactive focus on form through negotiation on learners’ written errors’), he concludes unidirectional feedback may not be very effective in promoting L2 accuracy in learner’ written work in comparison to negotiated feedback and the effectiveness of feedback increase when learner participated and become engaged in the feedback process. I partly see the conclusion in the favor of much negotiation which may spoil the children for being more demanding. In my point of view, unidirectional feedback is also important in the cases where democratic learning activities fail. The final chapter (Chapter 9) of this section is Fotos and Hinkel’s ‘Form-focused instruction and output for second language writing gains, which focuses on the insufficiency of the input alone in the language learning. There are several factors which contribute for the development of the fluency and accuracy. In this context of L2 learning, to acquire mastery over l2 writing, the FFI is important for developing writing skills.

The THIRD Section

The final section comprises of six chapters under the heading ‘Focus on form and teacher education’. Jack C. Richards’ ‘Materials development and research: towards a form-focused perspective’ (Chapter 10) opens this final section with the argument of relevancy of language and language learning research to material development is through its application to syllabus design issues as a source for instructional principles that can  inform the design of instructional materials. Teresa Pica (Chapter 11, ‘Time, teachers, and tasks in focus on form instruction’), has focused on the three factors of ‘time’ and their contributions to FoF instruction, and the role of teachers in the process. In Chapter 12 (‘Using form-focused discovery approaches’), Tomlinson promotes learner-centred approaches over teacher-centred instruction in forms. The writer claims that, form-focused multidimensional discovery approaches help learners to increase their language awareness.

‘Learning or measuring? Exploring teacher decision-making in planning for classroom-based language assessment’ by Rea-Dickins can be read in Chapter 13. The writer demonstrates a case for stronger connections  between formative languge assessment and SLA research.

(Chapter 14, ‘Learning through the looking glass: teacher response to form-focused feedback on writing’), Trica Hedge, has shown the possibility of teacher being a writer through the research practices. She further talks about the teachers’ engagement in the action research, as motivation and support for teachers’ future attempts to explore their own classroom practices.

The final chapter, (Chapter 15, ‘Explicit language knowledge and focus on form: options and obstacles for TESOL teachers trainees.’) Elder, Erlam, and Philp present the obstacles may face by both native and non-native teachers, while they present the corrective message to both. They further say that teachers have to get a thorough understanding of explicit grammar rules before we focus on the form.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, what I have seen through the book, my understanding is that, the urgency of the book is highly focused to the theoretical background, which may not directly link to the educational practitioners in the classroom situation; however, it creates a plethora of knowledge in the theory of FoF and teacher education. This book is cohesive in its contents and the work of the editors and the contributors are highly acclaimed. The contents are highly organized from theory to the practical without any redundancy in the themes and contents. 

The contents may not suit to the readers who, directly, would like to see the area of teacher education but in broader sense it deals with the concept of teacher development. I think this book is a cornerstone in the field of FoF and teacher education in broad, the honorary tasks done for the honor of Rod Ellis is credible for all the editors and the contributors.

Reference:

Fotos, S. & Nassaji, H. (Eds.). (2007). Form-focused instruction and teacher education: studies

            in honour of Rod Ellis. London: Oxford University Press.