This chapter discusses about processing instruction (PI). Maybe you think PI is an approach, but approach is an overall framework that includes rules of language but PI is a focus on form and pedagogical intervention.

1. Processing
Instruction
Bill VanPatten
Chapter 10
Course Instructor
Dr. Mohammad Hasanzadeh
Presenter
Seyed Mojtaba Jafari

3. Background
This chapter discusses about processing instruction
(PI). Maybe you think PI is an approach, but
approach is an overall framework that includes
rules of language but PI is a focus on form and
pedagogical intervention.

4. Language
Language is a complex, abstract, and implicit mental representation that cannot
be captured with the simple rules. So sentences are simple surface structures
that contain more complex structures and interaction between features, syntactic
operations, the lexicon, and other components of language.
So the first point to understand PI is not like other interventions but learners
acquire complex and implicit rules of language. Language and communication
are two distinct things which are different from each other. Language is
representation but communication is the skill of using language. PI’s aim is not
affect communication but its goal is mental representation.

5. The Basic Nature of Acquisition
According to PI, acquisition consists of three main components:
1.input
2. universal grammar (UG) and internal mental structure.
3.processing mechanisms that mediate between two above components.
Input: input is a language that we hear or communicate with not the mechanism
of learning a structure. practicing a particular feature is something explicit but
input is data that the internal mechanisms use to create and recreate language.
Universal Grammar provides the language specific constraints so that the mental
representation conforms to a human language.

6. . Under Minimalist Theory, these constraints include:
(1): a preset inventory of possible features (e.g., Tense, Case,
Number) from which languages may select;
(2): primitives or lexical and functional categories such as N(oun),
V(erb), P(reposition) and etc.
Universal Grammar and the internal mechanisms do not operate
directly on input data. but, there is some kind of processing of
input data that converts it into something usable by UG and the
internal mechanisms that can also filter input data leading to
intake.

7. Input Processing
Input Processing is necessary to understand PI that regards to what gets
processed and basic principles that guide input processing.
Based on our premises, there are no rules to internalize and then we may ask
that how learners acquire input??
VanPatten and Rothman (2014) said that:
Learners do not acquire rules from the input, they process surface
morphophonological units (e.g. lexical form, morphological form) and
internalize these units along with underlying features or specifications.

8. And so:
What learners acquire from the input are lexical and lexical-like pieces of
language (e.g., words and morphological properties of words).
The main concept of Meaning Principle says that learners’ comprehension is
driven by focus on meaning not form. That means learners do not
consciously approach with intent of finding particular parts but their aim is to
represent what they see or hear.
In this regard we can also see other principles like lexical preference that
process morphological information.
Another basic principle of input processing is the First-Noun Principle,
which states that learners tend to process the first noun (or pronoun) they
encounter as the subject/agent of a sentence.

9. All of these principles have some theories on how they function and interact
each other. What is important here is the meaning of process that how learners
connect form with meaning during the act of comprehension. This definition
is important because input processing cannot be equated with something like
“noticing,” which underlies other pedagogical interventions,
(e.g., text enhancement & recasts).
Therefore the reader’s attention is: the focus of PI is to process morpho-
phonological units to enrich the intake provided to the internal mechanisms
responsible for the creation of a mental representation.

10. To underscore something critical here, the reader’s attention is drawn
to this distinction: the focus of PI is not helping learners uncover rules
or paradigms in the input; instead, the focus of PI is helping learners
correctly process morpho-phonological units to enrich the intake
provided to the internal mechanisms responsible for the creation of a
mental representation of language.

11. Pedagogical Implications
Teachers explain rules or forms (or learners read about them), and then
learners practice them in controlled production activities.
The central idea discussed in this chapter is that for a pedagogical intervention
to be useful in the creation of a mental representation of language, it must:
• delineate what it believes the learner is acquiring (i.e., what will wind up in
the mind/brain);
• clearly lay out the components and mechanisms including in language
acquisition.
• Have some firm description of nature of learners’ processors deal with
input data.

12. processing-oriented pedagogical interventions—or
POPIs .
Such interventions claim that the first step (but not the only) in developing a
representation of language involves the processing of input data from the
environment.
In PI, activities manipulate input so that the learners are forced to abandon the
strategies embodied in the various principles of the model of input processing
sketched previously. This manipulated input is referred to as structured input.
PI can also be illustrated with morphological inflections that say learners use
lexical items to make reference assignments during comprehension.

13. A basic referential activity might involve hearing
adverbial-less sentences with a mixture of temporal
references (e.g., John attends class , Mary talked on
the phone) and then selecting words that match the
sentence (e.g., yesterday vs. everyday vs. tomorrow ).

14. Key Concepts
Intake: This term refers to the subset of input data that the learner actually processes.
Processing: This term refers to learners linking form and meaning during real-time
comprehension.
Mental Representation: This construct relates to the linguistic system in the mind/brain. It
is an
abstract, implicit, and complex system.
Principles of Input Processing: These principles are a broad set of four major principles
with corollaries that describe how the linking of form and meaning is constrained or filtered
by L2 learners.
Referential Activities: These activities are found in PI and have right or wrong answers and
they begin as an intervention.
Affective Activities: These are PI activities that typically follow referential activities. They
do not
have right or wrong answers and help learners to continue making form.

15. Empirical Evidence
PI is a topic which is widely researched with many languages with a variety of
intersections of processing problems and target forms.
In continue, you can see a list of researches done in this area:
• The role of explicit information and explicit feedback. Fernández (2008), Henry, Culman,
and VanPatten (2009), Sanz and Morgan-Short (2004), VanPatten et al. (2013),
• The use of different assessment measures/transfer of training. Henry (2015), Sanz and
Morgan-Short (2004), VanPatten and Sanz (1995), VanPatten and Uludag (2011), and J. White and DeMil
(2014).
The role of aptitude/individual differences. Lee and Benati (2013) and VanPatten et al.(2013).
• PI and discourse level effects. Benati and Lee (2012).
• Secondary effects. Benati and Lee (2008) and J. White and DeMil (2013).
• Long-term effects. VanPatten and Fernández (2004).
• Comparisons with other interventions. Benati (2001, 2005),

16. Teaching Tips
• Pay attention to differences between representation and skill. PI is not an
approach but it is intervention.
• Have clear expectations. keep in mind that the process of language learning
is slow and interventions like PI aren’t magic but just aid.
• Guidelines. We should ensure from the development of PI activities and
keep in mind that intervention must keep the processing strategies in mind;
that is, the intervention must be constructed such that processing is actually
altered.

17. Current Issues and Future Directions
One should not expect a role for aptitude in PI because aptitude is about rule
learning but PI is about processing morpho-phonological units in the input. The
field is ripe, then, for looking into new formulations of aptitude unrelated to
rule learning.
Although other research area that we can study is that different kinds of
morpho-phonological units in the input ultimately respond favorably to a PI
treatment and there are some differences about how explicit information
interacts with processing of form. In this regard many languages like Spanish
and Russian have been examined and compared.

18. Conclusion
In this chapter some main points about PI have been made that I
refer to some of them shortly:
1: PI is not an approach or method, but a pedagogical intervention
2: PI focus on processing nor rules.
3: There is a rich and robust research agenda on PI that its impact on
acquisition has been examined.
4: New directions in PI research include new ways of individual
performance.
By: Seyed Mojtaba Jafari
Email: SM_Jafari@atu.ac.ir