Acquisition Of L2 Grammar Research Articles

The Influence of Second Language Subtitled Audio-visual Input on Second Language Grammar Acquisition Performance: An Integrative Review

Previous studies have proven the value of subtitles for vocabulary and comprehension learning in second languages. However, L2 subtitled audio-visual inputs influence on grammar development, a second tricky part of L2 acquisition, has received little attention. This article offers an integrative overview of prior research on the use of subtitled audio-visual input to facilitate L2 grammar learning. Evidence shows that L2 grammar acquisition performance is facilitated by audio-visual input with subtitles in the language, but only for some of the grammatical structures. Grammar learning through L2 Subtitled audio-visual input is substantially less significant than vocabulary learning. Textual enhancement (TE), types of subtitles, learners age, and prior knowledge of the language may also affect grammar acquisition performance. Further research is needed to investigate whether L2 learners grasp of recently learned or previously learned grammar can be improved through L2 subtitled audio-visual input. Additionally, a research gap exists in implementing L2 subtitled audio-visual input in authentic second language classrooms.

The effects of different types of form-focused instruction on the acquisition of grammatical gender by second language learners of French

The present study investigated the effects of different types of form-focused instruction (FFI) on the acquisition of French grammatical gender attribution. A quasi-experimental study was conducted with 140 participants in six intact French as a second language (L2) classes. The classes received six 80-minute instructional sessions consisting of FFI on only sublexical cues, FFI on both sublexical cues and pronunciation, or the control condition (two classes per condition). To measure the effects of the instructional conditions, a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest were administered. Results showed that the participants receiving FFI on only sublexical cues showed significant improvement in binary-choice, text-completion, and listening tasks, but not in an oral picture-description task. In contrast, those receiving FFI on both sublexical cues and pronunciation showed significantly higher scores on all tasks after the instructional sessions. The present study highlights the importance of pronunciation instruction in L2 grammar acquisition and its interdependence with lexical and morphological domains.

A Meta-analysis: Shape of Age Effects and Second Language Grammar Acquisition

This study reports findings of a meta-analysis on the effects of the age of first exposure, known as the age of onset (AO), on the acquisition of morphosyntax in a second language (L2). Several studies report restrictive effects of AO on L2 grammar acquisition (Abrahamsson, 2012; DeKeyser et al., 2010; Qureshi, 2016); however, there is a disagreement about the way sensitivity to second language acquisition declines (Birdsong, 2009; Long, 2013). Researchers disagree about the nature of the decline and argue whether the decrease that occurs in learners’ ultimate proficiency in the second language is gradual and continuous or gradual but followed by a plateau, without further decline. To explore the nature of AO, 29 samples from 14 studies were analyzed. The results revealed a large effect size1 (d = 1.13, SD = .06) for the impact of AO on ultimate proficiency in L2 morphosyntax. However, for the disaggregated data (i.e., when earlier & late learners are separated), a linear decline was observed for the 6 to 16 age-group (21 samples), while a flattening of the regression line was detected for the 17 to 24 age-group (8 samples). More importantly, the findings revealed two different shapes of decline based on participants’ first language and the target L2. Overall, the findings support a bounded critical period for second language acquisition and indicate the typological distance between the two languages as a major influencing factor.

The Effect of Dynamic Assessment on L2 Grammar Acquisition by Iranian EFL Learners

This study investigated the effect of dynamic Assessment (DA) on the acquisition of L2 grammar by EFL learners. The focus was on teaching Conditional Type II, or Unreal Conditional, which is a difficult structure for language learners to acquire. To this end, two intact classes of intermediate EFL learners, each consisting of 23 male students were assigned to control and experimental groups. They were pre-tested and post-tested (immediately and delayed post-test) using a written grammaticality judgment task. Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was run to analyze the data. The results revealed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group (p<0.05) on both immediate and delayed post-tests. The findings point to the advantage of implementation of DA in L2 grammar instruction in classroom contexts.

Beyond instructed L2 grammar acquisition: Theoretical insights and pedagogical considerations about the role of prior language knowledge

The prior language knowledge of learners for whom the target language is not the first foreign language poses a different starting learning situation that should merit pedagogical attention. The present paper seeks to contribute to the question of which pedagogical considerations can be made in regard to the role of prior language knowledge beyond instructed L2 grammar acquisition. Moreover, it fills a significant gap expanding the limited existing pedagogical options that instructors have at their disposal when it comes to teaching in classrooms where one foreign language is simultaneously chronologically first to some and second to others. Starting with (combinations of) existing theoretical accounts and associated pedagogical aspects (such as explicit information, negative evidence, metalinguistic explanations, grammar consciousness raising, and input enhancement), a recently developed method (Hahn & Angelovska, 2017) is discussed. The method acknowledges equally the three phases of input, practice and output and is applicable in instructed L2 grammar acquisition and beyond.

Effects of Teaching Vocabulary through Focus on Forms and Focus on Form Instruction on the Incidental Acquisition of L2 Grammar

Effects of Teaching Vocabulary through Focus on Forms and Focus on Form Instruction on the Incidental Acquisition of L2 Grammar

Developmental stages in receptive grammar acquisition: A Processability Theory account

This study takes a new look at the topic of developmental stages in the second language (L2) acquisition of morphosyntax by analysing receptive learner data, a language mode that has hitherto received very little attention within this strand of research (for a recent and rare study, see Spinner, 2013). Looking at both the receptive and productive side of grammar acquisition, however, is necessary for a better understanding of developmental systematicity and of the relationship between receptive and productive grammar acquisition more widely, as well as for the construction of a comprehensive theory of second language acquisition (SLA). In the present exploratory study, the receptive acquisition of L2 English grammar knowledge is studied cross-sectionally within a Processability Theory (PT) framework (Pienemann, 1998, 2005b), a theory of L2 grammar acquisition which makes explicit predictions about the order in which L2 learners learn to productively process different morphosyntactic phenomena. Participants are 72 francophone beginning child L2 learners (age 6–9) acquiring English in an immersion program. The learners’ ability to process six morphosyntactic phenomena situated at extreme ends of the developmental hierarchy proposed by PT was tested by means of the ELIAS Grammar Test, a picture selection task. Overall, the developmental orders obtained through implicational scaling for the six target phenomena agreed with PT’s predictions, suggesting that similar mechanisms underlie the acquisition of receptive and productive L2 grammar processing skills.

The Effectiveness of Processing Instruction in L2 Grammar Acquisition: A Narrative Review

The past two decades have seen ample debate about processing instruction (PI) and its various components. In this article, we first describe what PI consists of and then address three questions: about the role of explicit information (EI) in PI, the difference between PI and teaching that incorporates production-based (PB) practice, and various factors that may moderate the impact of these treatments. Our review shows that while many studies find little difference between PI with and without EI and between PI and PB, the results vary depending on whether the comprehension practice (structured input; SI) is task-essential or not and whether the PB is communicative or not. Furthermore, PI tends to favor comprehension abilities and PB production abilities. This review also shows that almost all PI research so far has been very short-term and limited to a narrow range of structures and populations, typically American college students learning a foreign language. Therefore the implications that some have drawn from the PI literature, namely, that neither EI nor production practice help beyond SI, are still far from generalizable.

The Effectiveness of Processing Instruction and Production-based Instruction on L2 Grammar Acquisition: A Meta-Analysis

This article reports a meta-analysis of 42 experiments in 33 published studies involving processing instruction (PI) and production-based instruction (PB) used in the PI studies. The comparative effectiveness of PI and PB showed that although PI was more effective than PB for developing receptive knowledge, PB was just as effective as PI for productive knowledge. Furthermore, the PB proved superior to the PI for productive knowledge when both groups received the same explicit information. The moderator analyses showed that: (i) the long term effects of PI and PB differed; (ii) PI was more effective for adults than for adolescent learners while PB was equally effective for both age groups; (iii) the effectiveness of PI was not influenced by the provision of explicit explanation and strategy training; (iv) the effectiveness of PB for receptive knowledge was influenced by strategy training; and (v) both PI and PB proved more effective in the production tests when the instruction focused on the meaning primacy principle than the first noun principle while no differences were found in the receptive tests.

A processing investigation of the accessibility of the uninterpretable gender feature in L2 French and L2 Spanish adjective agreement

Lardiere (2009) hypothesizes that second-language (L2) grammar development involves the reassembly of features in the constraints of Universal Grammar. Feature reassembly assumes the domain-specific Agree operation, in which an (interpretable) feature on a probing node values an uninterpretable counterpart feature on a goal node, and spell-out computations, providing morphological expression to these nodes. Because features express class membership (e.g., feminine expressions), Hawkins and Casillas (2008) proposed that agreement in non-advanced L2 acquisition may involve co-occurrence between expressions, computed presumably according to feature compatibility (e.g., Shieber, 1986). These two types of agreement computations predict distinct processing profiles and grammar-processing relations. Results from a self-paced moving-window experiment targeting overt adjective agreement in superlative constructions revealed that L1-English L2-French/Spanish learners’ profiles appear more consistent with feature valuation. Form sensitivity lagged behind computational ability in low-proficiency learners, suggesting that L2 grammar acquisition is subserved by a universal parsing mechanism (e.g., Dekydtspotter, 2001; Schwartz, 1999).

Comparative Effects of Recast and Metalinguistic Corrective Feedback in Processing Instruction versus Meaningful Output-based Instruction on the Acquisition of Comparative and Superlative Adjectives

The present study intended to investigate the possible effects of two different types of implicit and explicit corrective feedback (recast and metalinguistic corrective feedback) and two types of grammar instruction, that is Processing Instruction (PI) as an input- based approach and Meaningful Output- Based Instruction (MOBI) with output orientation on learners' acquisition of comparative and superlative adjectives. To this end, 120 participants selected out of 140 Iranian freshman EFL learners, who had taken the pre-university English course, took part in the study. They were assigned into two main instructional groups (PI/ MOBI), each divided into two subgroups, one exposed to metalinguistc corrective feedback and the other to recast one. First, a pretest was administered to determine whether the possible effects gained at the end of the experiment resulted from the treatment itself or was partly due to some prior knowledge of learners. Two weeks after administering the pretest, the treatment started out and the study groups received the instruction of the target structures. At the end of the treatment, the students were given a posttest. The gathered data were analyzed through three independent samples t- tests. The results revealed that learners receiving recast in PI group outperformed their counterparts receiving metalinguistic feedback in the same group. Conversely, learners receiving metalinguistic feedback in MOBI group showed higher grammatical gains than those who received recast. Concerning the general effectiveness of two instructional models, no statistically significant difference was found, though PI group performed better than MOBI one. In sum, this study confirmed the view that providing the opportunity for giving feedback in juxtaposition with the instructional approach triggers noticing the gap between interlanguage and the target forms, which in turn improve the acquisition of L2 grammar.

Language learning

Language learning

THE EXPERANTO EXPERIMENT

Theories on the role of consciousness and the enhancement of noticing (Schmidt, 1990, 1994; Sharwood Smith, 1993) predict a facilitative effect of explicit knowledge, as built up by explicit instruction, on the acquisition of implicit second language (L2) knowledge. This study investigates the interaction between the presence or absence of explicit instruction and the variables complexity and morphology/syntax in the acquisition of four L2 structures. Two groups of 27 university students, differing in the exposure to explicit instruction, followed a computer-controlled self-study course in an artificial language. Results from computer-controlled posttests confirm the general hypothesis that explicit instruction facilitates the acquisition of L2 grammar. However, no evidence could be reported for the hypotheses predicting a differential effect of explicit instruction depending on the variables complexity and morphology/syntax.

Language background and item difficulty: The development of a computer-adaptive test of Japanese

The use of new statistical procedures such as Item Response Theory has greatly facilitated the development of computer-adaptive tests, where the adaptiveness is based on measures of item difficulty resulting from the performance of trial candidates. However, studies into the acquisition of L2 grammar by learners with different Lls indicate that the learners' L1 strongly influences their acquisition of grammar in the L2 [Lado, R. (1957) Linguistics Across Cultures: Applied Linguistics for Language Teachers; Rutherford, W. and Sharwood-Smith, M. (1985) Applied Linguistics, 6(3), 274–282; Zobl, H. (1980) Language Learning, 30, 33–57; Zobl, H. (1982) TESOL Quarterly, 16(2), 169–183]. Thus, it would be expected that grammar test items would present different levels of difficulty to candidates from different language backgrounds. Where a computer-adaptive grammar test is to be used with such candidates it is, therefore, questionable whether set item difficulty measures can validly be used for all types of candidate. The study investigates the performance of students from different language backgrounds, using data from a computer-adaptive Japanese grammar test developed as a placement tool. The trial pen-and-paper test consisted of 225 multiple choice items. Fourteen hundred students in Australia, China and Japan (all of whom had studied Japanese for 150–500 hrs) each completed 50 items. In this study, data is presented from native speakers of English and Chinese. Item difficulties were found to be quite different for the three groups of candidates. This has implications for the validity of use of computer-adaptive tests, in that where actual candidates are from a different background from that of the trial population not only does the test fail to measure such candidates efficiently, but their measures of ability are also affected.