ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a theoretical model of input and interaction in second language acquisition and a research protocol-the FlatLand protocol, employed to provide some empirical grounding to this model. The development of an Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning (ICALL) tutor is not in any simple way merely an applied engineering problem or a simple extension of human factors studies. It requires that we develop a deep understanding of how one-on-one tutorial interaction transpires. The FlatLand protocol was designed to collect observational data on human-to-human tutorial interactions. It permits the consistent collection of comparable discourse data from a variety of learner-tutor pairs. It provides a means, congruent with task-based, communicative language teaching theory, of examining the earliest development of listening comprehension abilities. A particular action schema is composed of some set of actions that are automatically and fully executed when certain precipitating conditions are encountered in the environment.
