In 1997 Language Teaching published an article I had written entitled ‘Form-focused instruction and second language acquisition: A review of classroom and laboratory research’. It was organized around seven research questions and my goal was to review the results of studies that had investigated the questions to determine if we had any firm answers to them. The research questions were:
1. Does second language instruction make a difference?
2. Does type of instruction make a difference?
3. Is form-focused instruction beneficial to second language acquisition (SLA)?
4. Are particular types of form-focused instruction more beneficial than others?
5. Is there an optimal time to provide form-focused instruction?
6. Are particular language features more affected by form-focused instruction than others?
7. Do particular learners benefit more from form-focused instruction?
