El observador informado: La prevención de errores a través de la atención a la forma
The Informed Observer: The Prevention of Errors Paying Attention to the Form

Summary/Abstract: The usefulness of error prevention strategies in language learning has been investigated from both practical and theoretical perspectives. Different theories have successively taken into consideration the idea of the impact of the mother tongue on the number, type and seriousness of mistakes made by foreign language learners. The notion of interlanguage, with its “decriminalization” of errors, seen as mere stages in second language acquisition, put more emphasis on different psycholinguistic processes involved in language learning and approached the potential reasons for the fossilization of errors. Our paper analyses the ways in which enhanced language awareness, accompanied by explicit and systematic attention to form, can improve the students’ learning style and turn them into informed observers and motivated explorers of a foreign language.

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