Judy Diamondstone wrote: > > What I want to know, Bob, is why you think my last > message or the Gee article I cited had anything to > do with L2. I AM talking about L1. We are talking > across lots of very different assumptions -- which > is interesting! but hard to do. I find the discussion change interesting, but here is part of the note you wrote. > And Bob responded: > > > >My reading of that research indicates that without some explicit focus > >on grammatical form by the L2 learner that "fluent, automatic" and > >target-like use of the target language is impossible. The implications > >of Klein and Perdue's work on the Basic Variety and Mike Long's "The > >least a second language acquisition theory needs to explain" (TESOL > >Quarterly, 4, 1990) are that there must be some attention to form. > > Jim Gee has a nice article on this controversy over explicit/implicit > instruction, which many of you must know: > > "First language acquisition as a guide for > theories of learning and pedagogy" in _Linguistics & Education > 6_ (331-354) 1994 > > Vygotsky is also very useful for conceptualizing the role of language > in learning & development. You quote part of my message about L2 learning and then say "Jim Gee has a nice article on this controversy." There is a controversy about the value of focusing on form in L2 research. I don't think my interpretation that you are referring to my statements about L2 research is that bizarre. Bob Yates