The Effect of Positive Evidence and Negative Feedback on EFL Learners’ Acquisition of the Third Person Singular Form

Lin Jiang,Huiwen Yi

doi:10.5539/ijel.v4n6p124

Abstract

The study compared the relative effectiveness of two types of input situated in written context - positive evidence and negative feedback—on Chinese lower intermediate EFL learners' acquisition of the third person singular form. Using a pretest-posttest and control group experimental design, the effect of these two types of input was measured by an error correction test and a speeded dictation test. In addition, a retrospective interview conducted at the end of the study provided information about the use that they made of the two types of input. It was found that both treatment groups performed much better than the control group on the immediate and delayed posttests, but no significant differences were found between the two treatment groups. The results indicated that positive evidence and negative feedback facilitated L2 acquisition of the third person singular form to the same extent. These results were discussed from the perspective of cognitive psychology and suggestions for further research are put forward.

Highlights

In many approaches to second language acquisition (SLA), input is seen as being a highly important factor in acquisition
The present study aims at investigating the relative effectiveness of positive evidence and negative feedback on Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of the third person singular form, which can contribute to the SLA research on input, both theoretically and empirically
The present study was designed to compare the relative effectiveness of positive evidence and negative feedback situated in the written context on L2 acquisition of the third person singular form

Summary

Introduction

In many approaches to second language acquisition (SLA), input is seen as being a highly important factor in acquisition. According to Gass (1997), language learners have access to two types of input: positive evidence and negative evidence. In some SLA literature, positive evidence is referred to as models and viewed as the most direct means that learners have available to them from which they can form linguistic hypothesis (Gass, 2003). Negative evidence, known as “negative feedback”, provides the learner with information about the incorrectness of a second language (L2) form and is often realized through the provision of corrective feedback (CF) in response to the learner’s non-target like L2 production. The present study aims at investigating the relative effectiveness of positive evidence and negative feedback on Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of the third person singular form, which can contribute to the SLA research on input, both theoretically and empirically

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion