The Comparative Effects of Comprehensible Input, Output and Corrective Feedback on the Receptive Acquisition of L2 Vocabulary Items

Abstract

In the present study, the comparative effects of comprehensible input, output and corrective feedback on the receptive acquisition of L2 vocabulary items were investigated. Two groups of beginning EFL learners participated in the study. The control group received comprehensible input only, while the experimental group received input and was required to produce written output. They also received corrective feedback on their lexical errors if any. This could result in the production of modified output. The results of the study indicated that (a) the group which produced output and received feedback (if necessary) outperformed the group which only received input in the post-test, (b) within the experimental group, feedback played a greater role in learners’ better performance than output, (c) also a positive correlation between the amount of feedback an individual learner received, and his overall performance in the post-test; and also between the amount of feedback given for a specific word and the correct responses given to its related item in the post-test was found. The findings of this study provide evidence for the role of output production along with receiving corrective feedback in enhancing L2 processing by drawing further L2 learners’ attention to their output which in turn may result in improving their receptive acquisition of L2 words. Furthermore, as the results suggested, feedback made a more contribution to L2 development than output. Keywords : comprehensible input, output, interaction, corrective feedback, modified output, receptive vocabulary acquisition