Noticing

Noticing, as operationalized by Schmidt (1990, 2001), is the conscious registration of specific instances of language in input. It is the mechanism by which input becomes intake — the subset of input that is actually processed and made available for acquisition. Schmidt's formulation is narrower and more precise than general "attention": noticing refers to awareness of surface-level forms, not to deeper understanding of rules or patterns.

Noticing vs Understanding

Schmidt (2001) drew a critical distinction between two levels of awareness:

Level	What it involves	Example	Role
Noticing	Conscious registration of a specific form in input	"She said went, not goed"	Necessary for acquisition (strong claim) or at minimum facilitative (weak claim)
Understanding	Recognition of abstract rules, generalizations across instances	"Irregular verbs don't take -ed"	Facilitative but not required

The hypothesis operates at the level of noticing, not understanding. A learner does not need to grasp the rule to begin acquiring a form — they need to register its occurrence in input.

Noticing the Gap

A related concept, sometimes called "noticing the gap" (Schmidt & Frota, 1986), occurs when learners become aware of the mismatch between their own interlanguage output and the target language. This can happen during production (connecting to the Output Hypothesis) or when receiving corrective feedback. Gap-noticing is a powerful trigger for restructuring.

What Promotes Noticing?

Frequency in input, perceptual salience, instructional direction (e.g., input enhancement, focus on form), task demands that require attention to form, and developmental readiness all increase the likelihood that a form will be noticed. Conversely, forms that are communicatively redundant (e.g., third-person -s in English, which adds no meaning) are notoriously difficult to notice.

Relationship to Attention in SLA

Schmidt's noticing requires conscious awareness. Tomlin and Villa (1994) challenged this by arguing that detection — cognitive registration without subjective awareness — may be sufficient. The debate remains productive: at minimum, both frameworks agree that some form of selective cognitive processing of input is necessary for acquisition.

References

• Schmidt, R. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 11(2), 129–158.
• Schmidt, R. (2001). Attention. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Cognition and Second Language Instruction. Cambridge University Press.
• Schmidt, R. & Frota, S. (1986). Developing basic conversational ability in a second language. In R. Day (Ed.), Talking to Learn. Newbury House.