The Effect of Lexical-Temporal-Indicator Prompt vs. Metalinguistic Prompt on The Field-Dependent EFL Learners’ Past Tense Acquisition

Nasrin Hadidi Tamjid,Ehsan Narimani Vahedi

doi:10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n3s2p482

Abstract

This study investigated the efficacy of lexical-temporal-indicator (LTI) prompt vs. metalinguistic prompt among field-dependent (FD) learners in their acquisition of past tense. To this end, four intact classes at Iran Language Institute (ILI) with a total number of 86 teenage learners at elementary level were selected. A Group Embedded Figures Test was utilized to specify field-dependent learners. A pretest with a focus on past tense was used to ascertain that the learners were not familiar with the targeted feature. Two groups out of four classes with an equal number of FD learners (n=17, n=17) received LTI and metalinguistic prompts as their treatments respectively. The one-month treatment was administered for the first 20 minutes of eight sessions. Then, an immediate parallel post-test was administered to compare the performance of the two groups. The findings revealed that FD learners receiving LTI prompt did better than those receiving metalinguistic prompt. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that LTI prompt is more favored than metalinguistic prompt by FD learners. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n3s2p482

Highlights

Language teaching as a multidisciplinary practical field is one of the fruitful areas of research in which intuition and theory play important roles
This study was concerned with investigating whether the past tense acquisition of field dependent learners at the beginning of the study showed any difference at the end of the study
Relying on the pros and cons of the related studies discussing the extent of learner-specific and generalizability of any type of corrective feedback to individual learners according to different factors like proficiency level surveyed in Ahangari and Amirzadeh (2011), this study proposed corrective feedback type specified according to learning style and learners’ developmental order

Summary

Introduction

Language teaching as a multidisciplinary practical field is one of the fruitful areas of research in which intuition and theory play important roles. Method is defined as the theoretically grounded concept confirmed by the experts, while methodology incorporates what an individual teacher intuits uniquely in practice to meet the learners’ needs and classroom objectives (Kumaravadivelu, 2006). Attributing the term methodology to reject one-size-fits-all approach entails the inclusion of individual differences according to different factors one of which is the learning style. It varies interpersonally between individuals rather than intrapersonal like learning strategies. Many learning styles have been posed like ‘sensory preferences, analytic/gestalt, reflectivity/impulsivity, tolerance of ambiguity, and field independence/dependence’. A field dependent learner prefers to consider everything as a whole and contextualized without analyzing the formal details of language, while field independent learner inclines toward the logic of consciously analyzing the forms of language and can specify some parts out of whole (Ziahosseiny, 2009)

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