Cognitive perspectives in second language (L2) acquisition research have emphasised the role of attention in learning. A plethora of empirical studies have been conducted to examine how best to facilitate learner attention so as to bring about maximum intake during input processing. Findings from such studies have, however, led to an understanding that although malleable to some extent, learner attention, by and large, takes its own course, irrespective of external intervention.

This chapter reports on part of an ongoing empirical study that investigated learner spontaneous (as opposed to instructed) attention during L2 input processing, tracing, in particular, the influence of two factors: knowledge of the target language (TL) and knowledge of the first language (L1). The chapter is organised as follows. The first section briefly provides the research background for the study. The second section presents the design of the study, followed by the third section reporting the results. Findings are then discussed in the fourth section along with research directions. The chapter concludes by highlighting the need to investigate learner spontaneous attention in second language acquisition (SLA).

Theoretical Background

Input, as Gass (1997: 1) notes, is the 'most important concept of second language acquisition'. Without it, no individual can learn a language (first, second, third, and so on). Nevertheless, it is clear to all that not all of the input to which learners are exposed is utilised for learning. Learners process only a subset of it for intake, which, all else being equal, may constitute data for the developing system (known also as 'interlanguage'; Selinker, 1972).