Input, Interaction, and Second Language Acquisition

This chapter mainly deals with the role of linguistic environment in SLA through mentioning
many studies related to input and interaction. Input is considered as foreigner talk which
concerns with interactional adjustments. Besides, interaction is considered as discourse. In
natural setting, foreigner talk is considered the focused approach because it may encourage
the effectiveness of communication. Foreigner talk, moreover, is believed to influence on the
negotiating meaning and the processes of simplification and clarification. Discourse,
similarly, also shows a negotiation of meaning in L2 learning. In classroom setting, three
important factors which are in need of considered are interaction analysis, teacher talk and
discourse analysis. This section shows the connection between teacher and students in
learning and teaching process. It, furthermore, promotes the negotiation meaning in the
classroom. However, there still exist doubt about such negotiation in classroom because of
the occurence of IRF abbreviated for initiating, responding, and feedback. Last but not least,
there is a comparison between natural setting and classroom setting by mentioning ways of
doing investigation on the route and on the rate of SLA. For the route of SLA, there is little
evidence showing the influence of input and interaction on SLA. For the rate of SLA,
although it shows the mixed effects on the L2 learning, further researches should be
conducted in order to have more empirical evidence for the result collected.
Having learned this chapter, I do not completely agree with the study of three-phase discourse
interaction including initiate, response, and feedback which seems teacher-centered. While
teacher is in charge of deciding the content and class mangement, he may create various
activities in reality in order to produce a considerable result in promoting communication. As
my observation, students have a tendency of exposing themselves in class but it depends on
the characteristics of each student. It is hard to say that this type just applies only in
classroom where students need input for their learning but not for real communication. On
the contrary, I completely agree with Elliss finding that it is up to the goals of students.
Depending on the targets of students, they will have a choice on their learning even when
they acquire L2 with IRF for interactional purposes or not.