Processing Instruction is an approach to grammar instruction for second language learning. This book compares student assessment after traditional grammar instruction and after Processing Instruction to assess the positive benefits of this method of second language teaching.

Acknowledgements; Preface; Part I: Processing Instruction: Theory, Practice and Research; 1. VanPatten's Theory of Input Processing; 2. Practical Model: Processing instruction; 3. Processing instruction: experimental research; Part II: Processing Instruction and Discourse; 4. Exploring the effects of processing instruction on a discourse-level guided composition with the Spanish subjunctive after the adverb cuando (with Erin M. McNulty); 5. Exploring the effects of processing instruction on discourse-level interpretation tasks with the Japanese passive construction (with Noriko Hikima, Japan Foundation London Language Centre, UK); 6. Exploring the effects of processing instruction on discourse-level interpretation tasks with English past tense; 7. Exploring the effects of discourse-level structured input activities with French causative (with Wynne Wong, The Ohio State University, USA); 8. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

"All readers -SLA researchers, language program administrators and teachers- will find in this volume a broad-ranging treatment of Processing Instruction and VanPatten's model of Input Processing that motivates it. Processing Instruction and Discourse summarizes in a most efficient way previous research on PI and reports on a number of new, fascinating empirical studies. This timely volume extends what we know about the effectiveness of PI to an impressive number of variables, including new structures, new languages, and to discourse. Importantly, it moves PI to a new context: from college language programs to primary, middle and high-school classrooms." (Associate Professor, Cristina Sanz, Georgetown University, USA) 'The present volume addresses one aspect of processing instruction that merited further research, namely, the interplay between this type of instruction and discourse. It presents original research examining the impact of processing instruction on discourse-level interpretation and production tasks, as well the effects of presenting input to learners as connected discourse. This book is indispensable for researchers and students interested in processing instruction, but it is also an immensely useful collection of sources for those who are more broadly concerned with instructed second language acquisition.' (Professor Teresa Cadierno, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)"