Form-focused instructional options can be grouped into four main categories, though these overlap (see section 2.3): input-based, interactional and output-based, explicit instructional and corrective feedback options. In this section, the exploitation of these options in the series studied will be discussed in order to find out which options were used to accelerate a learner’s interlanguage development and how this was done.
Input-based options. All the series have acknowledged the role of input being important in language acquisition by using input-based options in several ways;
there are attempts to support a learner to process the input for meaning, attend to linguistic forms, notice the target structures and thus register them in
memory. However, none of the series employs interpretation tasks or processing instruction to the point that learners would be given an opportunity to notice the gap between their own use of the structure and the way it is used in the input.
First, all the series use input flooding, that is, have specially contrived data that is enriched with a number of instances of the target grammar point in different forms. The intention is to make learners notice the new structures that occur frequently in the text by including the affirmative, negative and interrogative forms of the present perfect in the data. Furthermore, repeating the same verb phrases such as har ringt several times in different forms lets a learner to concentrate on the form and memorise the one phrase, once they have learned the meaning.
Second, all the series provide text comprehension activities during which learners process data (the main texts) for meaning. These activities complement exposure-based instruction and they implicitly guide a learner to attend to linguistic items; the target structure is not explicitly mentioned or explained but several of the activities include sentences with the target grammar point.
Typically these consciousness-raising activities engage learners to find phrases in the text, correct sentences that have errors and translate phrases from English into Finnish. Many of these are pair activities which encourage learners to take turns or cooperate to complete the activity.
In addition to the text comprehension activities, Top and På gång also have reception activities that explicitly guide a learner to identify and comprehend the meaning of a new structure without having to produce the form. These activities include matching verb phrases in English and Finnish or making True/False judgements. These two types of activities, the ones for text
comprehension and the reception ones focusing on the target grammar points complement each other since they involve a learner in using both top-down and bottom-up processes; the former in understanding what is said and the latter in attending to particular structures.
Spotlight employs more implicit activities for consciousness-raising. During the oral grammar activities a leaner attends to the target structures while parroting and reading aloud phrases. These activities also exploit a third input-based option, namely, textual enhancement to highlight the forms and thus draw a learner’s attention to them. Other series also use colours, bold text type and symbols such as an exclamation mark in the explicit descriptions to make the forms more salient to a learner.
Explicit instructional options. All the series use explicit instructional options directly but also indirect ones have been considered. The direct options consist of explicit explanation of the form of the target structures and rules to compose it giving thus a learner metalinguistic knowledge about the language. The form, meaning and use of the target grammar point are illustrated with contrived, discrete example sentences which are out of context. Spotlight recycles some of the phrases from the main text in explicit grammar instruction thus providing a learner a possibility to examine the example in the context too. As an indirect option, På gång exploits an inductive approach and lets learners to analyse verb phrases and discover on their own how the structure is formed. Top also uses this approach but in a more mechanical way.
None of the series uses corpus data or authentic texts for grammar instruction, but a learner is exposed to a number of examples of the target structure in contrived main texts which somewhat resemble authentic texts and real-life discourse. This is done by using contracted forms in the dialogues and by employing several times verb phrases has/have been, had, given and taken which are the most common verbs to appear in the present perfect (Biber et al. 2002:
159-160), thus exposing a learner to frequent encounters of a common structure.
Furthermore, some characteristics of conversation, such as contextual cues, discourse markers and fragmentary components have been added to the dialogs in each series. The dialogues in På gång manifest even more features of spoken grammar: the clauses are short and they avoid elaboration, they include lexical bundles and other elements that are typical of spoken language, such as
interjections, hesitations, incomplete and interrupted utterances, vocatives and
colloquial expressions. På gång and Premiär also have enriched both
conversation and narrative texts, thus providing a learner an opportunity to explore the target structures in two genres.
Interaction- and output-based options. After several activities for comprehending the meaning and an explicit description of the grammar point, every series contains several production activities to practise the target structures. Only few of the activities have aural input but most of them a learner is supposed to complete in writing by him/herself. The approach to free production activities differs between series; Top has no free production activities while the others have one or two. In Workbook Spotlight 7 a learner is asked to complete discrete sentences with first words given whereas in Övningar På Gång 8 he/she is asked to write a postcard from Stockholm and tell what he/she has seen and done during his/her trip. The difference in approach is significant since a learner has been studying English for four years and Swedish only for one year before this activity.
All these activities provide learners with declarative, explicit knowledge and skills to form the target structures. Activities which would require learners to use their implicit knowledge of the language, such as interaction-based tasks where learners work collaboratively to solve a problem in a form-focused task, do not exist. Some of the activities include speaking with a partner, but mainly in a fairly controlled manner, such as reading aloud sentences or translating a dialog, which leaves scarcely room for authentic communication in L2. None of the series have authentic activities apart from questions-and-answers activities in which learners may give genuine answers based on their own life and
experience. Not even the games are designed to create cooperation or authentic communication. In some activities, however, a mini-context is created with a picture or a sentence explaining the situation and thus they have more communicative value.
Corrective feedback options. Corrective feedback is most likely to occur during the lessons initiated by the teacher. In the series studied, very few activities are designed to provide a learner with corrective feedback, most often from peers.
One such example is a series of activities in På gång 8: first, a learner is asked to fix jumbled sentences, then to listen and repeat them and finally, to ask them from his/her partner. In this series of activities, the second phase, parroting the correct sentences, works as a recast, and asking the question from a partner gives a final opportunity to get conversational feedback in the form of a
clarification request or even an explicit correction if negotiation of form is still needed. This particular series of activities also helps the learner to notice the gap between his/her own production and the correct target structure.
The other series have also some activities that could provide a learner with peer feedback but in these cases it is up to the partner’s linguistic skills. For example, sometimes learners are first asked to complete a fill-in-the-gap or a translation activity on their own and then read it to a partner, but since no correct model is given, the feedback is fully dependent on the partner’s observation and skills.
Activities that would provide learners with conversational feedback in situations where negotiation of meaning is needed do not exist.
In conclusion, the series studied have a skills based approach to grammar instruction; L2 learning is considered a cognitive skill which is developed through a systematic study and practice. Input-based, explicit instructional and output-based options are used in all series but interaction-based and corrective feedback options are not in frequent use. They take into account that learners are not able to focus on meaning and form simultaneously and therefore first
provide text comprehension and only after that form-focused grammar description and production activities. Some of the series also attempt to offer activities with continuous text or mini-context, instead of only ones with
sentence-level drills, to resemble authentic discourse which gives learners some opportunities to increase their pragmatic competence.