almost something insider forum

Robert McCarren, Reuben Lorch-Miller, Nick Normal, Jayeon Kwon

It's a basic attitude of semi-essentialism that the 'real stuff' is right there. Of course, this is nothing new in art. Works of art have long served to show us things or bring attention to phenomena that might otherwise have been missed. Or they show us things in a new way. Works of semi-essentialism are unique perhaps in the simple fact that they nestle so closely among the things that are already there. At the same time, a certain amount of work is required. It isn't the point, contra Fluxus, that art and life are simply one. It's that art can peek out from all kinds of places. One needs to cultivate, therefore, a knack for noticing things.

From a paper co-authored by McCarren, Lorch-Miller, Normal, and Kwon. As of yet unpublished

"It can be seen that there are various views regarding the role of conscious and unconscious processes in L2 acquisition. An important contribution to this debate has been Schmidt's "noticing hypothesis" and its claims about how input becomes intake. This hypothesis has been advocated by a growing number of researchers (Truscott, 1998). However, the assertion that noticing is necessary for L2 acquisition and the notion of "noticing the gap" appear to be based on intuition and assumption that is not supported by appropriate and exhaustive empirical research. This in turn raises the question of whether teachers/teaching materials should indeed attempt to cater to noticing. Truscott's insightful weaker view of (conscious) noticing being tied to the acquisition of metalinguistic knowledge but not to the development of communicative competence offers what appears to be an acceptable alternative that still recognizes a role for teachers/teaching materials with regard to noticing. What is needed then, is a shift in focus on empirical research in order to provide evidence that supports or falsifies Truscott's weaker version of the noticing hypothesis. One area of worthwhile research that has received minimal attention is the effect of learner training on the learners' ability to notice linguistic forms and, if Truscott's adaptation of the noticing hypothesis is accepted, its strong implications for the rate of development of metalinguistic knowledge. This research may help to clarify what role noticing plays in second language learning, provide valuable information relating to the relationship between learner training and the acquisition of metalinguistic knowledge, and facilitate the understanding of how these processes contribute to learners' communicative competence."