of my handwritten essay if others word process theirs? Effects on essay scores of intermingling handwritten and word‐processed essays. Journal of Educational Measurement, 31(3), 220–33.25 Schaefer, E. (2008). Rater bias patterns in an EFL writing assessment. Language Testing, 25(4), 465–93.
26 Shaw, S. D., & Falvey, P. (2008). The IELTS writing assessment revision project: Towards a revised rating scale (Web‐based Research Report I). Cambridge, England: Cambridge ESOL.
27 Shaw, S. D., & Weir, C. J. (2007). Examining writing: Research and practice in assessing second language writing. Studies in Language Testing, 26. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
28 Shermis, M. D. (2014). State‐of‐the‐art automated essay scoring: Competition, results, and future directions from a United States demonstration. Assessing Writing, 20, 53–76.
29 Shermis, M. D., & Burstein, J. (2003). Automated essay scoring: A cross disciplinary perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
30 Tedick, D. (1990). ESL writing performance: Subject‐matter knowledge and its impact on performance. English for Specific Purposes, 9, 123–43.
31 Weigle, S. C. (2002). Assessing writing. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
32 Weigle, S. C. (2013). English language learners and automated scoring of essays: Critical considerations. Assessing Writing, 18(1), 85–99.
33 White, E. (1994). Teaching and assessing writing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass.
34 Wolcott, W. (1998). An overview of writing assessment theory, research, and practice. Urbana, IL: NCTE.
Suggested Readings
1 Calfee, R., & Perfumo, P. (Eds.). (1996). Writing portfolios in the classroom: Policy and practice, promise and peril. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
2 Crusan, D. (2013). Assessing writing. In A. J. Kunnan (Ed.), The companion to language assessment. Volume 1: Abilities, contexts, learners (pp. 201–15). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley‐Blackwell.
3 Cumming, A. (2009). Research timeline: Assessing academic writing in foreign and second languages. Language Teaching, 42(1), 95–107.
4 Cumming, A., Kantor, R., Powers, D., Santos, T., & Taylor, C. (2000). TOEFL 2000 writing framework: A working paper. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.
5 Grabe, W., & Kaplan, R. B. (1996). Theory and practice of writing: An applied linguistic perspective. New York, NY: Longman.
6 Lee, I. (2017). Classroom writing assessment and feedback in L2 school contexts. New York, NY: Springer.
7 Matsuda, P. (2003). Second language writing in the twentieth century: A situated historical perspective. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Exploring the dynamics of second language writing (pp. 15–34). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
8 Purves, A. (Ed.). (1992). The IEA study of written composition: Education and performance in fourteen countries. Oxford, England: Pergamon.
9 Ruth, L., & Murphy, S. (1988). Designing writing tasks for the assessment of writing. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Attention, Noticing, and Awareness in Second Language Acquisition
RONALD P. LEOW
Introduction
The role attention plays in the learning process has almost always been assumed since the earliest studies in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). Any exposure, be it aural or written, manipulated or authentic, to the foreign or second language (L2) is arguably premised on the role of attention on the part of the learner. The SLA field up to the mid‐1990s had generally assumed that experimental conditions (instruction or exposure, be it explicit, that is, with awareness, or implicit, that is, without awareness) elicited the required attention paid to the targeted item(s) in the L2 input. This premise is evidenced in the type of research design employed in the studies, which was the classical pretest—experimental condition—posttest design, without any concurrent or online data on learners' actual attention paid to the targeted items in the input.
The early postulations of Schmidt (1990) and Robinson (1995a) in SLA, and Tomlin and Villa (1994) from the field of cognitive science, regarding the roles of attention and awareness in input processing arguably propelled several researchers to probe deeper, both methodologically and empirically, into the constructs of attention and awareness. As Schmidt (2001) pointed out, it is quite challenging to separate these two constructs given that in psychology they are commonly viewed as being intrinsically integrated. While the role attention plays is relatively noncontroversial in most research fields that include cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and SLA, whether awareness plays a role in learning remains highly debated in all these fields.
This entry presents a concise review of the important tenets of the several major theoretical approaches that have postulated roles for both the constructs of attention and awareness in L2 learning at the initial stage of language processing (e.g., Schmidt, 1990, 1993, 2001; Tomlin & Villa, 1994; Robinson, 1995a; Leow, 2015a). A report of empirical studies premised on some role for attention/noticing is presented followed by those that have isolated the construct of awareness to investigate its effects on L2 learning. Finally, studies in SLA that have empirically probed deeper into the construct of unawareness will be reported and suggestions made for future research directions.
Theoretical Approaches to the Roles of Attention and Awareness in SLA
While there are several theoretical underpinnings in the SLA field that have postulated an important role for attention at the initial stage of L2 development, only Schmidt's (1990 and elsewhere) noticing hypothesis, Tomlin and Villa's (1994) functional model of input processing in SLA, Robinson's (1995a) model of the relationship between attention and memory, and Leow's (2015a) model of the L2 learning process in instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) have directly addressed the roles of both attention and awareness. The main tenets of these four underpinnings are discussed below.
Schmidt's Noticing Hypothesis
Drawing from works in cognitive psychology and his own personal experience while learning Portuguese, Schmidt's (1990, and elsewhere) noticing hypothesis postulates that attention, which “is necessary in order to understand virtually every aspect of second language acquisition” (Schmidt, 2001, p. 3), controls access to awareness and is responsible for noticing. Noticing is “the necessary and sufficient condition for the conversion of input into intake” (Schmidt, 1990, p. 129). Intake in SLA is usually defined as a subset of the input that has been taken in by the learner but not necessarily internalized in the language system and occurs at a preliminary stage along the acquisitional process (e.g., Leow, 1993). Attention, according to Schmidt, is isomorphic with awareness and he rejects the idea of learning without awareness. In addition, Schmidt proposes a level of awareness that is higher than awareness at the level of noticing, namely, awareness at the level of understanding. Whereas awareness at the level of noticing leads to mere intake, this higher level of awareness promotes deeper learning marked by restructuring and system learning and is underscored by learners' ability to analyze, compare, and test hypotheses at this level.
Tomlin and Villa's Functional Model of Input Processing in SLA
While concurring with Schmidt's noticing hypothesis on the
