Towards Input Enhancement and Skills Integration -----Strategies in SM Design for Post- basic Learners By Lily Han Language & Culture Instructor FSI

SM: Challenges after Excitement A. low efficiency: time to design vs. time to use in the classroom; B. lack of clear objectives: why do we need to design, i.e. what is the pedagogical purpose behind this design? C. Hard to sustain the interests, esp. for post-basic learners

Two Possible Pedagogical Approaches (to problem b and c) A. Input enhancement, i.e. to increase learner's awareness of structures and functions of target language through SM’s multimedia design; B. Skills integration, i.e. to provide learners with integrated tasks that will use authentic video clips as linguistic input and ask learners to listen, read and then speak in response to a question

Input Enhancement: What We Know 1. to make language input salient (Sharwood Smith, 1991); 2. positive input enhancement vs. negative input enhancement; 3. computer-based or multimedia environment as one of effective ways to serve the purpose

Skills Integration: What We Know 1. consensus: how skills are involved in the real world; 2. listening–to-talk or write task has gained popularity due to the development of video technology; 3. additional analytical skills are practiced, i.e. summarizing and synthesizing

FSI Post-basic Learners: Strength and Weakness 1. everyday life vocabulary vs. professional terminologies (i.e. politics and economics and trade); 2. great exposure to news reading vs. little exposure to authentic news listening; 3. single sentences vs. smooth connections and transitions between sentences and paragraphs in a discourse

Cautions: A Balanced View 1. different learning styles: multimedia may not work effectively for certain type of learners; 2. further empirical research needed: is blank-filling the best method to do key terminology/phrases enhancement? 3. a time-consuming task to locate and retrieve the right video clips for the valuable input

Final Words  Thanks for watching my show  Please wait to see the next SM design as demonstration…