with a counsellor was negative. It can also happen that the focus-oriented help that the
counsellor provides is dependent on sociocultural factors. The support provided to make her
focus according to her own goals has been successful because the way the SAC is organised
suits her very well.
In a horizontal perspective, the external factors of each element may also affect the
internal ones. Thus, for instance, a nice, comfortable atmosphere (good social relationships
in the SAC) will add to her motivation to learn. In regards to orientation, it is obvious that an
effective help on the part of the counsellor results in better focusing.
But the most important aspect of these relationships is the fact that learning to Ieam
is located in the external side of both elements. It does not matter how good and complete
the leaming-to-leam programme is, it only covers the left side of the diagram. This is
important because it makes the counsellors realise their actual role and that of the learner. In
this sense, it is impossible to say that a leaming-to-leam programme changes the attitudes of
the learners. A counsellor, or a leaming-to-leam programme, cannot change internal factors
of alertness and orientation. The only possible way to explain it is saying that the Ieaming-
to-leam programme made the learner change her attitudes, which is very different. Here, the
actor is the learner and not the counsellor or the procedures. Two helpful words to label the
process of getting ready and focused, either in the external or internal areas, are
predisposition and facilitation.
So far, I have dealt with the first part of the learning process, in which, through the
different attentional functions, input is detected (or noticed) and becomes intake. However,
noticing does not mean that the learner has internalised the specific underlying rule. For this
to take place, the learner needs to undergo another important process that is called
Stmcturing, which consists of "manipulat(ing) forms, changing them and recombining them
in order to discover more about how grammar works (Batstone; 1994,51). Most researchers
refer to the interaction of noticing and Stmcturing as the generic term of understanding (van
Lier, 1996, 41, Entwistle; 1996, 102). In most of the cases, the first Stmcturing is not very
successful. Therefore, the learner goes back and renotices something in order to restmcture it
89