The Relative Effectiveness of Production and Comprehension Practice in Second Language Acquisition

Abstract

The present study concerns the relative effectiveness of computer-assisted production (output) practice and comprehension (input) practice in second language acquisition. An earlier study (Nagata, 1998) indicates that, given the same grammatical instruction, output-focused practice is more effective than input-focused practice for the production of Japanese honorifics and is equally effective for the comprehension of those structures. Japanese honorifics are fairly complicated structures. The present study addresses the question whether the advantage of production practice over comprehension practice still obtains when the target structures are relatively simple. Two computer programs were developed: (1) an input-focused program which provides students with explicit grammatical instruction and comprehension exercises and (2) an output-focused program which provides the same grammatical instruction together with production exercises. The results of the study are consistent with those in the previous study: the output-focused group developed more grammatical skill than the input-focused group, suggesting that the production practice required more syntactic processing on the part of the learner than the comprehension practice.