The Roles of Explicit Information and Grammatical Sensitivity in Processing Instruction: Nominative‐Accusative Case Marking and Word Order in German L2

Abstract

AbstractIn this study, we examine explicit information and aptitude within processing instruction. Forty‐six learners of German in their third semester of study were divided into two groups: those who received explicit information prior to treatment (+EI) and those who did not (−EI). Participants also took the grammatical sensitivity portion of the Modern Language Aptitude Test. Treatment consisted of structured input activities in which learners heard a sentence and indicated comprehension by selecting between two drawings. The processing problem was the First‐Noun Principle, and the target structure was nominative‐accusative case marking on masculine nouns in object‐verb‐subject and subject‐verb‐object sentences. Treatment was delivered via computer (SuperLab 4.0). The measurement taken was trials to criterion: how long it took participants to begin processing sentences correctly. Results revealed that the +EI group began processing sentences correctly before the −EI group. As for aptitude, grammatical sensitivity correlated weakly with the scores in the +EI group, but not in the −EI group.