Pushed Output, Noticing, and Development of Past Tense Morphology in Content-Based Instruction

Abstract

This study examines the effects of learners' production (i.e., pushed output) during a multi-stage reconstruction task on learners' noticing of Spanish past tense morphology, aural text comprehension, and development of preterite/imperfect usage in writing. Participants included 47 intermediate L2 Spanish learners in a content-based course at the university level. One group of learners (+output) listened to a series of passages and engaged in text reconstruction tasks. The other group (−output) listened to the same texts but answered multiple-choice comprehension questions instead of reconstructing the texts. Learners' notes during the listening phase of the tasks served as a noticing measure, and writing tasks were used as pre- and post-treatment measures. Results reveal that the +output group (a) reported more noticing of words overall, but not of past tense forms; (b) comprehended more information from the text; and (c) showed evidence of past tense development in their writing.