Introduction

Extensive Processing Instruction (EPI) approach has gained recognition in the field of Modern Foreign Language (MFL) teaching as an innovative methodology that promotes long-term retention, fluency, and communicative competence.

However, less informed language educators equates EPI with the use of sentence builders, some of them even calling EPI the ‘sentence builders method’. While Sentence Builders are a well-known component of EPI, the approach extends far beyond structured input activities. It encompasses a wide range of principles and strategies that facilitate deep processing, automatization, and meaningful interaction in language learning.

PLEASE NOTE: one could teach EPI even without using sentence builders! The only reason why their use is recommended is because they constitute a very effective way to present the target language chunks and one that, according to a recent study (Trafford, 2023), students aged 11 to 16 find very helpful.

A key aspect often overlooked in discussions about EPI is the role of grammar within the MARSEARS framework. While grammar is not the primary focus at the initial stages, it does play a crucial supporting role. Grammar in EPI is not frontloaded, but rather introduced after intensive receptive and productive practice, ensuring that learners have first internalized the target lexical chunks. In this way, grammar enhances the generative power of these chunks, allowing students to manipulate and extend their language more flexibly.

I have written this post for two main reasons. Firstly, a colleague and friend of mine, having just attended a big language conference, relayed to me how many teachers she met keep misunderstanding what EPI is about. Secondly, many colleagues have asked me over the years to provide them with the research which underpins the EPI principles and pedagogical framework. Hopefully, this post will address both issues.

In the below I outline the core components of the EPI approach, demonstrating that it is a holistic, research-driven methodology that goes beyond sentence builders and significantly enhances second-language acquisition. I also cite the key research that underpins the MARSEARS pedagogical framework.

1. Lexicogrammar and Extensive Processing

EPI integrates lexis (vocabulary) and grammar rather than treating them as separate domains. The approach encourages learners to process target structures multiple times in different contexts, ensuring deep learning and retention (Ellis, 2002; Nation, 2007). Unlike traditional grammar drills, EPI contextualizes grammatical structures within meaningful lexical chunks, fostering implicit acquisition over time (Lyster & Sato, 2013).

Grammar plays a supporting role by enabling learners to manipulate and extend these chunks once they are well embedded. In the MARSEARS sequence, grammar instruction comes after learners have had ample exposure to structured input and controlled output, allowing them to internalize patterns before explicit grammar explanations are introduced.

2. Meaningful and Repeated Input

The EPI approach relies on high-frequency, structured exposure to language through listening and reading activities. This aligns with research on the importance of comprehensible input in second-language acquisition (Krashen, 1982). Repetition is embedded within varied tasks and interactions, ensuring that learners encounter and process structures in different contexts (VanPatten, 2015). By the time grammar is explicitly addressed, students have already subconsciously acquired key structures, making grammatical explanations more meaningful and intuitive.

Repetition is obtained by applying a process-based approach, whereby the tasks within the Receptive Phase (the first R in MARSEARS) deliberately target all or most of the micro-skills of listening and reading in order to achieve two objectives. One is, of course, better retention through multimodality. The other one is enhanced reading and aural fluency.

3.Process-Based Instruction Across the Four Language Skills

One of the core principles underpinning EPI is process-based instruction, which focuses on developing learners’ ability to handle real-world communication through structured and scaffolded skill development. Instead of treating language learning as the mere accumulation of knowledge, process-based instruction emphasizes the progressive mastery of language skills through guided stages of cognitive and communicative processing. EPI applies this approach across listening, speaking, reading, and writing, ensuring that learners engage with each skill in a way that mirrors authentic language use.

4. The Role of Listening as a Foundational Skill

EPI emphasizes the importance of listening as an essential component of language processing. The methodology incorporates activities that train learners to process spoken language efficiently, reducing cognitive overload. Research suggests that listening comprehension precedes and supports language production, making it a vital step in fluency development (Field, 2008; Vandergrift & Goh, 2012). The extensive listening practice in EPI further strengthens subconscious grammar acquisition, allowing learners to absorb correct structures before grammar is formally introduced.

EPI’s approach to listening is heavily influenced by the work of John Field (2008), who critiques traditional listening instruction for treating comprehension as a passive skill rather than an active process. Instead of simply exposing students to audio and testing their comprehension, EPI adopts a process-based listening model that focuses on training learners to process spoken language efficiently and overcome decoding difficulties.

Following Field’s model, EPI listening instruction includes:

• Lexical segmentation training: Helping students recognize word boundaries in continuous speech, a skill that is particularly difficult in foreign languages.
• Lexical retrieval training: Engaging students in word-meaning recognition through listening (which is key (72%) to success at listening tasks.
• Bottom-up processing exercises: Training learners to recognize phonemes, syllables, and prosodic patterns to improve speech decoding.
• Progressive reduction of support: EPI gradually removes scaffolding, shifting learners from highly controlled, structured input to more authentic, unmodified listening materials, ensuring they become autonomous listeners.
• Top-down processing strategies: Encouraging students to use contextual clues and background knowledge to infer meaning rather than relying solely on word-for-word comprehension.

Through structured and repetitive exposure to varied listening tasks, EPI ensures that learners develop better comprehension accuracy, faster lexical retrieval, and improved phonological awareness,ultimately strengthening overall fluency in spoken interaction.

5. Fluency Development through Controlled Output

Fluency-building is a core tenet of EPI, moving learners from structured activities toward spontaneous communication. The approach follows a carefully sequenced transition from highly scaffolded tasks to freer, communicative activities (DeKeyser, 2007). Controlled output tasks, such as reconstruction exercises, oral drills and highly structured role plays and communicative tasks, help automatize language structures before learners engage in less structured speaking and writing tasks (Swain, 1995; Ortega, 2019).

Once fluency is well developed, grammar is introduced not as a set of rigid rules, but as a tool to refine and expand existing language structures. This sequence ensures that grammar instruction is not an obstacle but rather a reinforcement mechanism that enhances communicative competence.

6. Phonics and Pronunciation Training

EPI integrates phonics instruction and pronunciation training to develop phonological awareness and decoding skills in second-language learners. Phonological fluency helps students recognize patterns in spoken language, improving their reading and listening comprehension (Munro & Derwing, 1999; Kormos, 2006). By incorporating systematic phonics instruction, EPI addresses one of the most neglected areas in traditional MFL instruction.

7. Task-Based Learning and Communicative Practice

A significant aspect of EPI is Task-Based Learning (TBL), which provides learners with authentic communicative opportunities to use language in realistic situations. TBL is implemented at the end of the Structured-Production phase and/or during the final segment of the MARSEARS sequence, i.e. the Routinization and Spontaneity phases. Research shows that task-based instruction enhances fluency and interactional competence (Skehan, 1998; Long, 2015).

EPI sequences tasks in a way that gradually reduces scaffolding, ensuring that learners develop spontaneous, meaningful communication skills over time. Grammar instruction, when it appears, serves to strengthen and refine this communicative ability rather than precede it.

Conclusion

While Sentence Builders are a highly effective tool within EPI, they represent only one component of a much broader methodology. My approach integrates input processing, fluency-building, listening, pronunciation training, implicit grammar learning, metacognitive strategies, and communicative practice, making it a comprehensive, research-informed framework for language acquisition.

Crucially, grammar does have an important role within the MARSEARS framework, but it is introduced after extensive receptive and productive practice. This ensures that grammar is not a barrier to fluency but rather a supporting mechanism that enhances the generative power of lexical chunks. By balancing structured input with extensive fluency practice, EPI offers a more effective alternative to traditional grammar-heavy approaches, ensuring that learners retain, retrieve, and use language fluently in real-life contexts.

References

• Boers, F., & Lindstromberg, S. (2009). Optimizing a lexical approach to instructed second language acquisition. Palgrave Macmillan.
• DeKeyser, R. (2007). Practice in a second language: Perspectives from applied linguistics. Cambridge University Press.
• Ellis, R. (2002). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford University Press.
• Field, J. (2008). Listening in the language classroom. Cambridge University Press.
• Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Pergamon.
• Nation, P. (2007). The four strands. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1(1), 2-13.
• Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford University Press.
• Swain, M. (1995). Three functions of output in second language learning. Oxford University Press.
• VanPatten, B. (2015). Foundations of processing instruction. Routledge.
• Vandergrift, L., & Goh, C. (2012). Teaching and learning second language listening: Metacognition in action. Routledge.