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THEORETICAL BACKGROUND without the intention of learning. Schmidt (1990) posits that incidental learning occurs only as the by-product of communication or engagement in any activity where the main goal is not language learning. Consequently, it is possible for learners to unknowingly acquire L2 forms, mainly but not only vocabulary items, through exposure to L2 input. In contrast, intentional learning occurs when a learner decides to learn the vocabulary or the grammar of an L2. In the case of the English language, extramural English activities may serve the purpose of providing learners with such input. In contrast, in a classroom context, learners usually do tasks with the intention of learning the vocabulary or the grammar of the given L2, which is called intentional learning. Incidental learning, however, is not restricted to extramural contexts, just as intentional learning is not restricted to classroom learning, either. Schmidt (1994) posited that incidental learning may occur in class, too, when learners, for instance, learn about a certain grammatical structure or do a reading comprehension task in a coursebook and their attention is centered on one phenomenon, be they vocabulary items or grammatical structures, but simultaneously, they acquire another linguistic form on which their attention was not originally focused. An example of this would be a reading comprehension text with specific vocabulary items, such as environmental protection, where the main intentional goal of the learning, or in this case reading, process is to learn related vocabulary items. Nevertheless, learners may incidentally pay attention to other vocabulary items unrelated to environmental protection and may infer the meaning of the item from the context. Furthermore, incidental learning may happen with or without consciousness, depending on the extent to which the learner’s attention is allocated to the given L2 forms (Ellis-Shintani 2014). Incidental learning, in this respect, basically does not involve consciousness, but “impromptu conscious attention to some features of the L2” may also take place (Loewen et al. 2009: 263). Ellis and Shintani (2014: 174) emphasize that even though it would be logical to assume that incidental learning, by nature, is an unconscious or subconscious process, they point out that “allocating primary attention to one feature or to comprehending the input does not preclude the possibility of peripheral attention being paid to some other linguistic feature,” which means that intentional and incidental learning both require at least a certain degree of consciousness. 2.2.2.2 The role of consciousness in SLA: implicit and explicit learning There is an ongoing debate in SLA about the possibility of learning without any consciousness at all (Ellis 2008). When taking consciousness into account, Nick Ellis (1994) distinguishes between two ways of second language learning; 25 e
