Metalinguistic Group Research Articles

Metalinguistic explanations and their impact on incidental grammar acquisition: An eye-movement study

Recent research highlights the value of metalinguistic explanations in facilitating second language (L2) grammar acquisition. Nevertheless, a notable research gap persists regarding how these explanations influence incidental grammar acquisition and their impact on overall reading processes and comprehension. Furthermore, whether the potentially positive effects of metalinguistic explanations transfer to the acquisition of subsequent constructions without explicit guidance is an unexplored domain. This study addresses these research gaps by recruiting 42 Korean undergraduate students and assigning them to the metalinguistic or baseline groups. The metalinguistic group read an English text supplemented with bottom-margin metalinguistic explanations, which elucidated the first half of the target grammar (without explanations for the second half), whereas the baseline group read the same text without explanations. This study used eye-tracking technology to register participants’ eye movements during reading, followed by an announced reading comprehension test and an unannounced error correction test. Statistical analyses using linear mixed-effects models (LMMs) and t-tests revealed that metalinguistic explanations significantly enhanced incidental grammar acquisition in L2 learners without compromising overall reading processes and comprehension. However, the benefits of metalinguistic explanations in the metalinguistic group failed to extend to the incidental learning of other unexplained constructions.

Fostering EFL Learners’ Grammar Achievement Using Recasts and Meta-linguistic Awareness Error Correction Feedbacks

The current study examines the effect of recasts and meta-linguistic error correction feedbacks and changes in EFL learners' English language grammar achievement. The participants were fifty (25 in each group) intermediate-level EFL learners at an English language institute. This quantitative experimental study was implemented on the basis of pre-test-post-test equivalent-group design. After administrating the CPT, 50 students (based on the Cambridge Assessment Criteria) who were randomly and equally assigned to recast and meta-linguistic awareness group (25students in each group) were selected as the sample of this study.The data were collected through classroom grammar test (pre- and post-tests). Both groups promoted in terms of grammar achievement, but the findings supported the superiority of grammar development in meta-linguistic group. The results revealed higher scores for explicitly corrected (meta-linguistic awareness) learners than implicitly corrected (recasts) ones. The findings lend support to the argument concerning the role of meta-linguistic awareness in language learning.

Effects of written corrective feedback and language aptitude on verb tense accuracy

Most second language researchers agree that there is a role for corrective feedback in second language writing classes. However, many unanswered questions remain concerning the linguistic features to target and the type and amount of feedback to offer. This study examined essays by 151 learners of English as a second language (ESL), in order to investigate the effect of either direct or metalinguistic written feedback on errors with the simple past tense and the present perfect tense. This inquiry also considered the extent to which learner differences in language-analytic ability (LAA), as measured by the LLAMA F, mediated the effects of these two types of explicit written corrective feedback. Learners in both feedback groups were provided with corrective feedback on two essays whereas the control group received general comments on content. Learners in all three groups then completed two additional writing tasks to determine whether or not the provision of corrective feedback led to greater gains in accuracy compared to no feedback. Both treatment groups performed better than the comparison group on new pieces of writing immediately following the treatment sessions, yet direct feedback was more durable than metalinguistic feedback for one structure, the simple past tense. Participants with greater LAA proved more likely to achieve gains in the direct feedback group than in the metalinguistic group, whereas learners with lower LAA benefited more from metalinguistic feedback.

A Comparison of Efficiency in Teacher Correction Strategies in Iranian EFL Learners’ Speaking Improvement

<p>The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect two types of corrective feedback (i.e., recast and metalinguistic) in order to find out which one is more effective on EFL learners’ speaking improvement and also to see if gender could play a role in the relative impact of the two types of corrective feedback on learners’ speaking ability. To this end, 65 EFL learners of intermediate level in one of language institutes in Shiraz, Iran were selected and divided into three groups including two experimental groups and one control. The instruments used to collect the data included IELTS test as the pre and post tests and Oxford Placement Test (OPT) in order to obtain the homogeneity in participants’ English proficiency. The collected data were codified and entered into SPSS Software (Version 22) and were analysed using descriptive statistics, t-test, and Tukey test. The results indicated that although applying these two types of corrective feedback could have made improvement in EFL learners’ speaking ability, there was not observed any significant difference between impacts of recast and metalinguistic on EFL learners’ production. The test results also indicated that there was not any significant difference regarding gender within the three groups. This homogeneity further shows that in this study, the gender variable did not have any effect on the role of corrective feedback and it can be concluded that the observed difference between metalinguistic group, recast group, and control group is just the result of the provided corrective feedback type which has acted as the intervening variable and the moderator variable such as gender did not prove to have any effect in the outcome of this study. The findings can contribute to syllabus design and teaching methodology areas.</p>

The Effects of Different Types of Oral Corrective Feedback on the Development of Explicit/Implicit L2 Knowledge of English Articles

The role of oral corrective feedback (CF) in second language (L2) learning has been extensively investigated. However, little attention has been given to the relationship between different types of CF and explicit/implicit L2 knowledge. For this reason, the present study explored the effects of recasts and metalinguistic feedback on the development of explicit and implicit knowledge of the English articles. Sixty-three university students enrolled in intermediate Communication English classes participated, and they were assigned into a metalinguistic group, a recast group, and a control group. While the students engaged in meaning-based activities (i.e., retelling stories), the feedback groups received respective CF on the errors of English articles and the control group did not receive any feedback. Untimed grammatical judgement tests were employed to measure the students’ improvement of explicit knowledge and elicitation oral imitation tests were used to examine their gains of implicit knowledge. The study found that both recasts and metalinguistic feedback equally facilitated the development of explicit knowledge over time. However, they were not as effective as in the improvement of implicit knowledge, showing a short-term effect on the development.

Effectiveness of written corrective feedback: Does type of error and type of correction matter?

Abstract The study examines the effect of form-focused corrective feedback (FFCF) on students’ ability to reduce pronoun agreement errors and lexical errors in new essays. Two experimental groups received on three assignments: direct error correction along with metalinguistic feedback, and only metalinguistic feedback, respectively; while the control group self edited their errors. All groups revised their errors before the next assignment. Students took pretest, immediate and delayed post-tests, and the two experimental groups were interviewed about the FFCF received. Results of the immediate post-test revealed a significant difference in pronoun agreement errors of the direct metalinguistic group; no significant difference appeared in lexical errors. At the delayed post-test, there was no significant difference among the groups in pronoun agreement errors, but a significant difference appeared in lexical errors of the direct metalinguistic group. Theoretical explanation and pedagogical implications are discussed.

Differential Effects of Corrective Feedback on the L2 Acquisition of Korean Demonstratives andIndirect Quotation

This study investigates the effects of two explicit types of corrective feedback techniques, explicit recasts (declarative partial recasts with the correct form) and metalinguistic clues (metalinguistic information without the correct form) on the acquisition of two Korean target forms, demonstratives and indirect quotation, which differ in the degree of the learning difficulty they pose in terms of either the meaning or form. The study employed a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design with two treatment sessions between the pretest and the posttest. The participants included 26 Korean adult learners who were randomly assigned to two experimental groups and a control group. The results show that both explicit recasts and metalinguistic clues are effective in promoting the acquisition of the demonstratives. For an indirect quotation, only the metalinguistic group significantly differed from the control group, even though the two experimental groups were not significantly different.

Effects of Corrective Feedback on the Acquisition of Chinese Directional Verb Compounds by Second Language Learners

Feedback promotes L2 (second language) development by making learners’ errors salient. Recent interest (Lyster & Saito, 2010) has focused on how the effects of different types of feedback vary as a function of the complexity of the linguistic targets. This study examined the impact of implicit feedback (recasts) and explicit feedback (metalinguistic clues) on American students’ acquisition of Chinese directional verb compounds, which express motion events in Chinese. Chinese and English frame motions events quite differently (Slobin, 2004), and recent research has focused on how L2 learners acquire the use of structures that possess significant differences from their L1s (first languages) (Chen & Ai, 2010). Fifteen intermediate-level English learners of Chinese engaged in a picture description task. One group received implicit feedback on errors of the target structure, another received explicit feedback, and the control group received no feedback. The learners took a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest. Both experimental groups improved their performances on the intermediate posttest, whereas the control group did not. Moreover, the recast group retained its improvement on the delayed posttest, whereas the metalinguistic group lost their benefits on the delayed posttest. This finding indicates that both types of feedback may have short-term positive effects. One tentative explanation for the relatively longer benefits of recast is that it potentially helps learners internalize the target forms of which learners have limited knowledge (Lyster, 2004).

The Effects of Planned Focus on Form on Iranian EFL Learners’ Oral Accuracy

One of the limitations of the meaning focused instruction in an EFL situation such as Iran is that a communicative approach helps Iranian learners to become fluent, but is insufficient to ensure comparable levels of oral accuracy. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether planned focus on form, and also what type of corrective feedback, would be useful for Iranian EFL learners’ oral accuracy. To this end, the study employed a quasi experimental design. Three intact classes were randomly selected as the control group (n=17), recast group (n=19) as experimental group 1, and delayed explicit and metalinguistic group (n=21) as the experimental group 2 respectively. All groups participated in six sessions of the task of story retelling. For all groups, learners were asked to read and summarize their own assigned story in a time limit of four minutes and retell it to the class. For the recast group, students were provided with recasts on their simple past tense errors; for the delayed explicit and metalinguistic group, the researcher corrected the learners' errors after they finished the retelling; and for the control group, there were no feedback on learners' errors. Learners’ improvement was measured by their oral accuracy during the six sessions of story retelling. One-way ANOVAs with post hoc comparisons indicated that all CF groups significantly outperformed the control group in the session six of story retelling and that the two feedback types were equally effective in promoting learners’ oral accuracy. These findings suggest that the planned focus on form can be an effective tool for the development of oral accuracy in the EFL situations. It can also be concluded that intensive recasts which are repeatedly focused on a particular structure are not different from explicit types of feedback in terms of their effectiveness.

The Effect of Focused Written Corrective Feedback and Language Aptitude on ESL Learners' Acquisition of Articles

This study examines the differential effect of two types of written corrective feedback (CF) and the extent to which language analytic ability mediates the effects of CF on the acquisition of articles by adult intermediate ESL learners of various L1 backgrounds (N = 91). Three groups were formed: a direct‐only correction group, a direct metalinguistic correction group, and a control group. The study found that both treatment groups performed much better than the control group on the immediate posttests, but the direct metalinguistic group performed better than the direct‐only correction group in the delayed posttests. It also found a significantly positive association between students' gains and their aptitude for language analysis. Moreover, language analytic ability was more strongly related to acquisition in the direct metalinguistic group than in the direct‐only group. The results showed that written CF targeting a single linguistic feature improved learners' accuracy, especially when metalinguistic feedback was provided and the learners had high language analytic ability.