INTRODUCTIONThe purpose of this paper is to examine focus on form in cognitive processing terms by postulating plausible, psychologically real, cognitive correlates for a range of L2 learning processes that have become prevalent in the instructed second language acquisition (SLA) literature. Progress in adult SLA is thought often to depend crucially upon cognitive processes such as paying attention to features of target input' noticing interlocutor reactions to interlanguage output' and making insightful comparisons involving differences between input and output utterance details-To be effective' these cognitive comparisons must be carried out under certain conditions of processing meaning, forms, and function, i.e., conditions which promoteprocessingfor language leurning. Whereas pedagogically oriented discussions of issues-such as noticing the gap and L2 processing-abound, psycholinguistically motivated rationales for pedagogical recommendations are still rare' Focus on form is proposed as an instructional expedient for addressing pervasive' systematic, remediable or persistent L2 learning problems (Long, 1991); for instance' penasiveness and systematicity as evidenced in emerged L2 developmental elrors, persistence as evidenced in the less-than-targetlike production of advanced immersion learners (Doughty & williams, 1998b;Long, 1991;Long & Robinson, 1998), and remediability in the sense of not already fundamentally determined by immutable acquisition processes (Long, l99l;Pienemann, 1989). Such pedagogical intervention is claimed to be more effective and efficient than would be leaving leairners to their own clevices to solve these L2 problems (Doughty & Williams, 1998c). Although, in general, these focus-on-form recommendations make pedagogical sense and hre consistent overall with findings of second language acquisition research, I believe thatlparticular focus-onform constructs, as expressed in pedagogical terms, are in need of greater scrutiny in cognitive processing terms in order to ascertain the validity of the intuitive lV..rsion, of this paJrr ur,re lnersrnted in the Cognitim and Sc'con

This article reports the findings of the latest of a series of studies conducted to determine the effects of task type and participation pattern on language classroom interaction. The results of this study are compared to those of an earlier investigation (Pica & Doughty, 1985a) in regard to optional and required information exchange tasks across teacher‐directed, small‐group, and dyad interactional patterns. The evidence suggests that a task with a requirement for information exchange is crucial to the generation of conversational modification of classroom interaction. This finding is significant in light of current theory, which argues that conversational modification occurring during interaction is instrumental in second language acquisition. Furthermore, the finding that group and dyad interaction patterns produced more modification than did the teacher‐fronted situation suggests that participation pattern as well as task type have an effect on the conversational modification of interaction.

Few adult second language (L2) learners successfully attain high‐level proficiency. Although decades of research on beginning to intermediate stages of L2 learning have identified a number of predictors of the rate of acquisition, little research has examined factors relevant to predicting very high levels of L2 proficiency. The current study, conducted in the United States, was designed to examine potential cognitive predictors of successful learning to advanced proficiency levels. Participants were adults with varying degrees of success in L2 learning, including a critical group with high proficiency as indicated by standardized language proficiency tests and on‐the‐job language use. Results from a series of group discrimination analyses indicate that high‐level attainment was related to working memory (including phonological short‐term memory and task set switching), associative learning, and implicit learning. We consider the implications for the construct of high‐level language aptitude and identify future directions for aptitude research.

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