Abstract
AbstractMuch research exists on the role of textual enhancement in instructed second language (L2) development, yet little is known about how its effectiveness is influenced by multiple exposures, whether it can facilitate the acquisition of L2 derivational morphology, and how it may affect child language learning. To fill these gaps, this study employed a six‐week multiple‐exposure design to investigate the extent which to textual enhancement can benefit children’s knowledge of L2 derivational morphemes. The study employed a pretest‐posttest design, with six treatment sessions. Participants were 91 L2 learners of English in two primary school EFL contexts (Romania, Sweden). In each context, participants were randomly assigned to two groups: the +highlight group received textually enhanced texts, whereas the –highlight group read unenhanced texts during the treatment. The children read the texts through a digital reader application during their English lessons. The target constructions were the –ion and –ment morphemes. The pretest and posttest included a non‐word derivational suffix choice and a nonword derivational suffix decomposition task. Results of linear mixed effects models found a small advantage of textual enhancement for the acquisition of the –ion morpheme by Swedish learners on the suffix choice task, but Romanian learners showed no benefits from highlighting.
Highlights
In second language (L2) acquisition research, comprehensible input is regarded as a necessary condition for acquisition to occur
This study aimed to explore the effects of textual enhancement over multiple exposures on development in the ability to recognize derivational morphology by child L2 learners
The current study aimed to investigate the effects of textual enhancement in the form of highlighting using the Amigo Reader application
Summary
In second language (L2) acquisition research, comprehensible input is regarded as a necessary condition for acquisition to occur. Sharwood Smith attempted to help resolve a fundamental question in SLA, that is, why L2 learners often continue to use non-target like interlanguage forms despite being exposed to a massive amount of input providing plentiful samples of target-like use In his view, one reason underlying this phenomenon is learners’ lack of ability to notice grammatical properties of the L2 in the input due to L1 processing biases or developmental issues. One reason underlying this phenomenon is learners’ lack of ability to notice grammatical properties of the L2 in the input due to L1 processing biases or developmental issues Another contributing factor, Sharwood Smith holds, is the low perceptual salience of certain linguistic features, making it unlikely that they are attended to and learned (see Han et al, 2008). Applying this to textual enhancement, the technique is only expected to be effective if the enhanced linguistic targets become internally salient to learners
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