The Noticing Hypothesis
Can you learn what you never notice?
The Noticing Hypothesis is Richard Schmidt’s claim that input becomes intake, the part learners can actually learn from, only when they consciously notice the relevant features in it.
During a stay in Brazil, the applied linguist Richard Schmidt kept a diary of his own learning of Portuguese. Comparing the diary with recordings of his speech, he and Sylvia Frota reported that new forms tended to appear in his talk after he had noticed them in the input. Sometimes he also noticed the difference between what he said and what Brazilians said.
From this case and from research in psychology, Schmidt (1990) proposed the Noticing Hypothesis: input becomes intake, the part available for learning, only when it is noticed, that is, consciously registered. He separated noticing a form from understanding the rule behind it, treating noticing as necessary and understanding as helpful. Noticing the gap, a learner’s awareness of a mismatch between their own output and the input, became an influential companion idea and links the hypothesis to the output hypothesis.
The claim is contested. Tomlin and Villa (1994) proposed that detection, a registration of input that need not involve awareness, is the critical process. Truscott (1998) argued that the hypothesis has weak foundations and is best restricted to metalinguistic knowledge. In later work, Schmidt (2001) put the case in terms of attention: people learn about what they attend to, and learn little about what they ignore.
The practical lesson survives the debate. Small, easily missed forms such as third-person -s or articles slip past learners who are busy with meaning, so tasks, feedback and focus on form can help draw attention to them. Making a form visible is not enough on its own, though: a meta-analysis of visual input enhancement found only a small effect (Lee & Huang, 2008).
In actionA gap, perhaps noticed
- S
- Yesterday my sister buy a new phone.
- T
- Oh, she bought a new phone? What kind?
- S
- Bought… she bought a Samsung.
Repeating bought after the teacher’s recast suggests the learner noticed the gap. It is evidence of noticing, not proof that the form has been acquired.
In the classroom
- 1
Have learners read a text for meaning first, then hunt for every example of one target form, such as past-tense verbs, and discuss what the form is doing in each sentence.
- 2
After a speaking task, put a short transcript of learners’ talk beside a proficient speaker’s version of the same task, and ask pairs to list the differences they notice.
- 3
Keep a class noticing log: each day learners record one new phrase they heard or read outside class, where they met it, and what they think it means.
Myth and reality
If a form appears often enough in the input, learners will pick it up automatically.
Frequency helps, but small, frequent forms can go unnoticed for a long time. Whether conscious noticing is strictly necessary is still debated; that drawing learners’ attention to form can help learning is much better supported.
Reflect
Which forms do your students hear constantly yet still never use, and what might be stopping them from noticing those forms?
Worth a minute before your next lesson, or a conversation in the staffroom.
SourcesChecked against Crossref and library records
Schmidt set out the hypothesis in 1990. It drew on his diary study of learning Portuguese in Brazil with Sylvia Frota (Schmidt & Frota, 1986), the source of the idea of noticing the gap.
Schmidt, R. W. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 11(2), 129–158.
Schmidt, R. (2001). Attention. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Cognition and second language instruction (pp. 3–32). Cambridge University Press.
Schmidt’s own later, more careful statement of the role of attention and awareness, answering his critics.
Tomlin, R. S., & Villa, V. (1994). Attention in cognitive science and second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16(2), 183–203.
Splits attention into alertness, orientation and detection, and argues that detection need not involve awareness.
Truscott, J. (1998). Noticing in second language acquisition: A critical review. Second Language Research, 14(2), 103–135.
The sharpest critique: argues noticing may matter for metalinguistic knowledge but not for underlying competence.
Lee, S.-K., & Huang, H.-T. (2008). Visual input enhancement and grammar learning: A meta-analytic review. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30(3), 307–331.
A reality check for teachers: highlighting forms in texts gave only a small advantage over the same texts unenhanced.
Izumi, S. (2002). Output, input enhancement, and the noticing hypothesis: An experimental study on ESL relativization. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24(4), 541–577.
Compares producing output with visual enhancement as ways of getting learners to notice and learn a form.
ConnectionsSee it in the graph
- Comprehensible Inputnot yet writtenKrashen held that acquisition is subconscious; Schmidt put conscious noticing at the centre.
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