ABSTRACT
The Processing Instruction (PI) research program and the Input Processing (IP) model that underlies it have stimulated considerable interest in the applied SLA literature, a valuable discussion to which I take the opportunity to contribute briefly in my commentary on the chapters in this section.1Two major points of contention are whether the limited capacity memory model invoked in the IP model is valid, and whether various studies have operationalized PI in ways that are true to the original model and/or in ways that allow a valid comparison between PI and traditional instruction (TI) (Dekeyser, et al., 2002). While these issues have generated important debate concerning the nature of L2 processing, the former concerns large cognitive processing issues that will likely take many years to resolve, and the latter I think, in part, is a red herring. Therefore, I concentrate my discussion on the operationalization of PI, making three specific points concerning L2 learner attention, explicit L2 instruction, and measuring the effects of instruction on SLA.
