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Finally, Norris and Ortega (2000) reviewed over 40 published studies on the effects of instruction, conducting a meta-analysis of the research to date. Their conclusion was that overall, instruction seems to make a difference, no matter what kind of instruction is in question. They do, however, caution the reader to consider that not all assessment tasks and research designs used in the research are created equal, and thus the claim that any and all instruction would be equally useful or actually result in acquisition is not valid.

Our reason for this conclusion is that we are primarily concerned with competence, that is, the linguistic system that winds up in the learner’s head. Our understanding is that competence is not just information about what is possible in a language, stuff that can be articulated by lots of pedagogical rules and thus learned explicitly (although, many observable things about language are almost impossible to describe, and thus can’t be learned explicitly as rules). Competence is also about what is impossible in a language.

NNS: base NS: a base? NNS: a base. NS: Oh, a vase. NNS: vase. (Mackey, Gass, & McDonough, 2000) In this exchange, we see that communication is hampered by the non-native’s use of basen. The native speaker attempts to clarify the intent of the nonnative, and through negotiation we see that the native comes to understand that vase was the intended word. In the final line, the non-native realizes the problem and uses the correct word with the correct pronunciation. In this case, interaction seemed to assist in lexical acquisition and pronunciation.