Attention to verbal morphology in L2 Arabic reading: An eye‐movement study

Abstract

AbstractAttention is believed to help facilitate learning. Godfroid and Uggen found that attention to irregular verb morphology motivated the learning of novel second language (L2) German forms. The current study explored the generalizability of these findings to geminate and sound verbs in Arabic, a typologically different language with a novel writing system. Eleven fourth‐semester learners of Arabic participated in the experiment. Participants completed a language learning background survey, took a fill‐in‐the blank pretest, read 20 sentence pairs while an Eyelink 1000 recorded their eye movements, and answered true/false comprehension questions that appeared on‐screen following each sentence. A posttest, identical to the pretest, and a prior vocabulary knowledge scale task were then conducted. Learners' reflections were recorded in a subsequent recall task and a follow‐up semistructured interview. Descriptive analyses of the eye‐tracking metrics reveal generally equivalent reading times between verb types, although participants made more direct visual comparisons between geminate‐ than between sound‐verb conjugations. Participants did not report awareness of geminate verbs, but noticed other aspects of input, and, on average, improved their written productive knowledge by 2% after only one exposure. Pedagogical implications are discussed in terms of input enhancement in a communicative L2 classroom.