that correlate to allow the learner to focus her attention according to her goals. It is
evident that, within a classroom context, the teacher is instrumental in helping the learner
to focus. In the absence of such a help, I became interested in the mechanisms that the
learners deploy to orient their attention in a SAC situation.
In regards to this specific group of learners, it was noticed that there are two
factors that are involved when learners focus their attention to something specific: the
source of the guidance and the degree of selectivity.
7.2.1.1 Source of guidance
The first of these is the source of the guidance the learners follow in order to
orient their attention. According to the participants, there are two main sources for this
guidance: the one provided by external factors, and the one found in internal forces. On
the one hand, in the case of the external guide, the learner working in the SAC finds that
the materials provide the guidance she needs to focus her attention:
Gl: It is good to have a textbook as a basis
In particular, this guidance is determined by the way they work with the material and
follow instructions:
K: Before starting using something I read the instructions, to see the way it
should be used.
On the other hand, there are other learners that believe in following a kind of inner guide
that tells them what to do. In the case of T, this inner guide was mainly driven by
previous experiences:
T: I think that I know what I want. I still remember some of my English
courses. How to order hamburgers and how to take the bus. They were
pathetic. I was not interested, and I am not interested now. It implies
investing time in something I am not interested in.
For Ga, the inner guide was based on her awareness of her own problems, i.e., language
gaps, mistakes, doubts, etc. This is what she reported after working for 30 minutes in the
SAC:
Ga: I had very specific ideas about what to work on, but I didn’t
find the materials. Then I try to think about my mistakes and I look for
grammar books to solve them. I didn’t find anything so I thought about
another of my problems, pronunciation. Actually , I was looking for the
difference between would and wood but this attracted my attention
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