a path from learning to acquisition?

Usually it is best to put these tidbits into a larger piece but I wanted to get this onto the blog before I forgot it. In Teacher’s Handbook (Shrum & Glisan) the chapter by Adair-Hauck and Donato et al. writes the following:
“Ellis (Rod) suggests that analyzed knowledge of grammar can become automatic as learners are placed into interactional situations that call for a two-way negotiation of meaning.” (p. 190)
I don’t have the source of that “suggestion” on my shelf but I’m looking through Ellis’ “Second Language Acquisition” to see if I can find something similar.
For those unacquainted with SLA terminology (what some derisively label “jargon”): ‘automatic’ equals Krashen’s ‘acquired’… sort of, and ‘analyzed knowledge’ equals Krashen’s ‘learned’ which can be applied via the ‘monitor’.

Since Krashen is such a major figure, it would pay anyone interested in SLA to go to one of this many YouTube videos and just listen to his views on SLA; most of the videos on that topic repeat the same points.
In other places on this blog and elsewhere on listservs, I have claimed over and over that this questions is the pivotal question in second language pedagogy. Ellis’ ‘analyzed knowledge’ is not necessarily obtained through verb charts and declension chants but there is a focus on grammar. Some of Bill Heller’s posts on flteach and even moretprs (!) indicated a very clear understanding of this and, having attended a presentation at ACTFL he did with the late Marilyn Barrueta, I can attest to the fact that their idea of learning grammar is not having students race to the board to fill in blanks on a conjugation chart.
So there is wide room in SLA for questioning even such a basic principle: that only acquired material can ever be available for use by a learner and learned material cannot be acquired just by applying it. That’s kind of odd b/c I see no reason why I cannot ‘learn’ the past tense of reflexive verbs in French and how it works, not being able to apply that knowledge unless I use my monitor, and still acquire at some time via comprehensible input (CI). Two different paths IMHO, but others disagree —– boy! do they.
Ellis comment is in, “Classroom Second Language Development” 1988 — I think; the reference is unclear.

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