Textual Enhancement Research Articles

The Effect of Textual Enhancement on Collocation Learning: The Case of Arab EFL Learners

The Effect of Textual Enhancement on Collocation Learning: The Case of Arab EFL Learners

Promoting learning and unlearning through textual enhancement in a closely related L1-L2 relationship

AbstractThis study investigates the differential effects of Textual Enhancement (TE) on the learning and unlearning of two syntactic properties of Spanish – the absence of the Pre-possessive Determiner Article (PPDA) and the presence of the Prepositional Accusative (PA) – which each pose specific acquisitional difficulties for Italian-speaking learners of Spanish (ISS) due to their asymmetrical relationships with corresponding L1 structures. 77 ISS were divided in two experimental groups: group A read 5 texts with TE on PA – the feature to be learned – and group B read the same 5 texts with TE on PPDA – the feature to be unlearned. The participants took a timed grammatical judgment task three times (before, five days after, and two months after the instructional treatment). The results are compared with those of Della Putta (2016), a symmetrical study to this, in which the same teaching intervention and experimental conditions were adopted with Spanish-speaking learners of Italian, whose task was to unlearn PA and to learn PPDA. The bidirectional comparison shows a similar, weak effect of TE, although in the present study, unlike in Della Putta (2016), unlearning did not seem to be more difficult than learning. These similarities and differences are discussed and theoretically motivated.

EXPERT APPRAISAL ON ISLAMIC TEXTUAL ENHANCEMENT GRAMMAR BOOK DESIGNED FOR GRAMMAR TEACHING AT IAIN BUKITTINGGI

The article aims at evaluating of grammar book designed by the author from some experts. Experts’ appraisals were needed to judge whether Textual Enhancement model designed for teaching grammar at IAIN Bukittinggi was valid or not. In this model, the researcher designed grammar lesson of complex sentences under the model of textual enhancement. She made salient grammar features taught by giving boldfaces and colors in every appearance of complex sentences within the texts in order to draw students’ attention to notice it. The study is mixed methods of quantitative and qualitative. Questionnaire and interview were used to collect data of expert judgments on the model developed (grammar book). There are five experts involved in this research who evaluate the book with impressionistic method which includes language, content and organization. The finding reveals that textual enhancement grammar book is valid and reliable. It can be used after being revised in the aspect of language with some grammar and spelling errors, in the aspect of content to suit with native culture, and organization, to consider the attractive sense. Keywords: expert appraisal; textual enhancement; grammar books; teaching grammar

Promoting Grammatical Development Through Textually Enhanced Captions: An Eye‐Tracking Study

AbstractThis study launched an investigation into the extent to which textual enhancement in captions can promote learner attention to and subsequent development in second language (L2) grammar. Using eye‐tracking, it also intended to extend research on the relationship between attention and L2 learning. A pretest–posttest experimental design was employed, with 3 treatment sessions. Forty‐eight Korean learners of L2 English were randomly assigned into a captions group (n = 24) and an enhanced captions group (n = 24). For the enhanced captions group, the components of pronominal anaphoric reference were boldfaced in the treatment task input. Learner attention to anaphora antecedents and personal pronouns was assessed with eye‐movement indices, and a written and an oral grammaticality judgment test were used to measure learning gains. Textual enhancement succeeded in directing learner attention to the anaphora antecedents, and led to increased gains in receptive knowledge of pronominal anaphoric reference. However, significant links between attention and L2 development were only observed for the unenhanced captions group. The findings, overall, demonstrate that textually enhanced captioning is a useful pedagogical tool to facilitate development in L2 grammatical knowledge.

Visual Aids as Response Facilitators in Dialogue Journals

Dialogue journals are useful pedagogical tools for developing communicative written fluency. While instructors often respond to student writing by modeling, questioning and providing feedback, visual aids are also sometimes used to enhance communication. In this study, findings from an examination of 12 adult English Language Learners’ dialogue journals reveal that the instructor demonstrated an understanding of visual aids, which included instructor-drawn pictures and textual enhancements. Some students responded with hand-drawn pictures of their own and noted that visuals increased their interest in writing and helped them to understand unfamiliar topics. The use of instructor-drawn pictures and textual enhancements as a part of dialogue journals facilitates communication and strengthens the rapport-building for which dialogue journals are well-known.

Handling noise in textual image resolution enhancement using online and offline learned dictionaries

The resolution enhancement of textual images poses a significant challenge mainly in the presence of noise. The inherent difficulties are twofold. First is the reconstruction of an upscaled version of the input low-resolution image without amplifying the effect of noise. Second is the achievement of an improved visual image quality and a better OCR accuracy. Classically, the issue is addressed by the application of a denoising step used as a preprocessing or a post-processing to the magnification process. Starting by a denoising process could be more promising to avoid any magnified artifacts while proceeding otherwise. However, the state of the art underlines the limitations of denoising approaches faced with the low spatial resolution of textual images. Recently, sparse coding has attracted increasing interest due to its effectiveness in different reconstruction tasks. This study proves that the application of an efficient sparse coding-based denoising process followed by the magnification process can achieve good restoration results even if the input image is highly noisy. The main specificities of the proposed sparse coding-based framework are: (1) cascading denoising and magnification of each image patch, (2) the use of sparsity stemmed from the non-local self-similarity given in textual images and (3) the use of dual dictionary learning involving both online and offline dictionaries that are selected adaptively for each local region of the input degraded image to recover its corresponding noise-free high-resolution version. Extensive experiments on synthetic and real low-resolution noisy textual images are carried out to validate visually and quantitatively the effectiveness of the proposed system. Promising results, in terms of image visual quality as well as character recognition rates, are achieved when compared it with the state-of-the-art approaches.

The Effects of Gloss Modes on Chinese EFL Learners’ Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition through Reading

Vocabulary learning plays an indispensable and important role in foreign language learning. Incidental vocabulary acquisition is one of the common ways of vocabulary learning. Based on the previous studies, the present study attempts to investigate the effects of different gloss modes on Chinese EFL learners' incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading. Two important factors, i.e. gloss position (pre-text, post-text) and textual enhancement (with textual enhancement, without textual enhancement), as well as their interaction effects are examined. The results show that different gloss positions (pre-text, post-text) and textual enhancement (with textual enhancement, without textual enhancement) do not have significantly different effects on Chinese EFL learners' incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading and that no significant interaction effects between gloss position and textual enhancement have been found. Besides, students' performances on the immediate vocabulary tests and the delayed vocabulary tests are significantly correlated and delayed vocabulary retention is significantly weaker than immediate vocabulary retention. The current study sheds some light for English teachers and English textbook publishers in China.

Textual Enhancement, Input Processing and Presentation-Practice-Production in College English Grammar Teaching in China

Based on the input processing theory and output hypothesis in Second Language Acquisition, and employing quantitative and qualitative methods, this study investigates the effects of Textual Enhancement (TE), Input Processing Instruction (PI) and Presentation-Practice-Production (3P), and tries to compare the initial learning and retention effect on the acquisition of unreal conditionals in Chinese college English classrooms. The research findings are as follows: 1) Both PI and 3P areeffective. TE is effective in initial learning but falls short for retention effect. There is significant difference between the TE, PI and 3P groups. 2) In initial learning, 3P has the best effect based on learners’ mean score, followed by PI and TE, but there is no significant difference between PI and 3P. There is significant difference between 3P and TE, PI and 3P. 3) With regard to the retention effect, 3P and PI work better than TE. And there is no significant difference between 3P and PI. The research findings indicate that explicit explanation about language structures plays an effective and necessary role in English learning in the Chinese context. English teachers are suggested to involve the learners with grammar through meaningful activities such as structured input activities.

A Cloze-styled Textual Enhancement Targeting Prepositions

Even at the highest level of bilingual competency for Korean learners of English, prepositions remain a significant challenge. Based on the classroom observation that incidental learning was not significantly improving proficiency with prepositions amongst a group of graduate school interpretation majors, a classroom exercise was executed as form of intervention. The participants in this study demonstrated very high proficiency in both English and Korean although all consider Korean to be their mother tongue. The exercise involved giving ten texts with Cloze-styled textual enhancements to 33 students to determine if their proficiency with prepositions could be improved. Students were given a pretest and a post-test before and after the assignments respectively. The results were promising showing an average increase of 5.7% from pretest to post-test. Additional examination of the data showed that students of lower proficiency on average saw a 9.6% increase in scores. Qualitative feedback from students confirmed positive educational experiences and strongly supported the idea that incidental learning is insufficient. Further study is recommended based on the findings in this study. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.16.10.2

A study on the comparative effect of feedback using models, textual input enhancement, and metalinguistic explanations on the use of the English articles

A study on the comparative effect of feedback using models, textual input enhancement, and metalinguistic explanations on the use of the English articles

Effect of Input vs. Collaborative Output Tasks on Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners’ Grammatical Accuracy and Willingness to Communicate

This study explored the effect of input vs. collaborative output tasks on Iranian EFL learners’ grammatical accuracy and their willingness to communicate (WTC). In so doing, the study utilized 3 input (i.e., textual enhancement, processing instruction, and discourse) and 3 collaborative output (i.e., dictogloss, reconstruction cloze task, and jigsaw) tasks and compared their effects on 5 English grammatical structures (used to, too, enough, wish, and past tense). To this end, 50 Iranian intermediate EFL students in 2 groups (input- and collaborative output-based) participated in this study. To collect the data, a 32-item grammar test and WTC questionnaire were used as the pretests and posttests. Results of the t tests and analyses of covariance revealed that the input- and output-based tasks had a significantly positive effect on the participants’ grammatical accuracy. Moreover, the output-based instruction enhanced the participants’ WTC more than the input-based one. Findings have implications for L2 grammar pedagogy.

The Impact of Teachers’ Aural Input Enhancement vs. Textual Enhancement in Learners’ Awareness of Ungrammatical Forms

Explicit teaching of grammar for the first time became prevalent in Grammar Translation Method. This method was mainly used for teaching the classical languages of Greek and Latin. Attention plays a fundamental role in all areas of L2 learning. This research focused on raising learners’ awareness through input enhancement. It attempted to compare the effects of visual enhancement and aural enhancement on the learning of new grammar forms. The research question was whether there was any statistically significant difference between visual and aural enhancement on the learning of new grammar points. To answer this research question, the researcher selected sixty learners from a language institute. Having been homogenized, each intact group which included thirty learners received the treatment. One group was taught through visual enhancement and another through aural input enhancement. The data collected through tests was analyzed through an independent t-test. The result indicated that visual enhancement was more useful than an aural enhancement.

Textual enhancement, grammar learning, reading comprehension, and tag questions

The present study investigates whether textual enhancement had any effects on grammar learning (tag questions) and reading comprehension, and whether the types of tag question contributed to the be...

Integration of Formal Instruction and Textual Enhancement in the Learning of English Articles

Integration of Formal Instruction and Textual Enhancement in the Learning of English Articles

Effects of textual enhancement, glossing, and English proficiency on collocation acquisition

Effects of textual enhancement, glossing, and English proficiency on collocation acquisition

Comparative Effectiveness of Input-based Instructions on L2 Grammar Knowledge: Textual Enhancement and Processing Instruction

This study investigated comparative effectiveness of Textual Enhancement (TE) and Processing Instruction (PI) on the acquisition of English simple present tense third person singular form by elementary level EFL young learners. To this end, 43 seventh grade secondary school learners were conveniently selected for the study and randomly distributed into two experimental groups: TE (n = 21), PI (n = 22). Each group received different instructions (namely TE or PI) during two consecutive regular classroom hours (80 minutes in total). The learners took a pretest one week before the instructions, an immediate posttest one day after the instructions, and finally a delayed posttest after four weeks. According to the results of an interpretation task and two production tasks, both types of instructions helped the participants to increase their performance on the interpretation task. However, the results from production tasks showed that both input groups could not improve their production scores as much as expected from the literature. Although the study was conducted with limited number of students and without a control group, its results still suggest that English language teachers can use input-based instruction to help especially young learners to comprehend notoriously difficult structures as in this study.

Comparative Effectiveness of Input-based Instructions on L2 Grammar Knowledge: Textual Enhancement and Processing Instruction

Comparative Effectiveness of Input-based Instructions on L2 Grammar Knowledge: Textual Enhancement and Processing Instruction

Effects of Textual Enhancement and Explicit Instruction on Grammar Learning and Reading Comprehension : Comparison of Differences according to Learners’ Level of Prior Knowledge of a Target Form

Effects of Textual Enhancement and Explicit Instruction on Grammar Learning and Reading Comprehension : Comparison of Differences according to Learners’ Level of Prior Knowledge of a Target Form

A Review of CALL and TE Research on Grammar Learning: Suggestions for Further Research and Pedagogical Implications

Applying various approaches for efficient grammar teaching has been the focus of abundant research among which elaborating on the effect of focus on form perspective such as computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and input enhancement on the learners’ grammar improvement can be beneficial in grammar research studies. Regarding CALL domain, different technological tools have been applied and their efficiency has been taken into account by various research papers, demonstrating the due positive impact of their utilization in the classroom, paving the way for the learners to experience peer interaction and support, while having teacher’s scaffolding, to gain mastery over grammar. To name a few CALL tools, web-based learning, power point presentation, video projector, and educational software can practically be employed at the service of teaching grammar. One of the sub-division strategies of input enhancement is textual enhancement (TE) through which target forms are bolded, underlined, italicized, colored, or highlighted. Researchers in the field of grammar learning are seeking new methodologies by examining the positive effect of TE combined with CALL approach on the second or foreign language learners’ grammar learning. Hence, the purpose of this study is to present a review of the current literature in order to investigate, to what extent, technology-based instruction can improve learners’ grammar performance. Studies concerning different types of technological tools, TE formats, and the combination of CALL and TE are accounted for in this research. Finally, suggestions for further research and pedagogical implications are provided.

Exploring the implementation of FonF tasks from learners’ perspective: a study on young learners

This study reports on the investigation of young learners’ perceptions of FonF tasks regarding enjoyment, ease, performance, and persuasion. It was attempted to explore young learners’ attitudes toward FonF tasks in two elementary English classes. The two classes consisted of 13 and 17 female learners aged 12 to 15. In particular, the present study addressed the learners’ perceptions of two selected tasks of grammar interpretation and grammaring. For this purpose, questionnaires and an interview were used to elicit their perspectives on the tasks. Based on the analysis of their responses, it was revealed that the determinant features for their preferences fall into five categories: the use of context in teaching grammar, the use of contextual support for practicing the grammatical structure, task demands, the novelty of procedures, and the saliency of linguistic structure. Findings also indicated that in spite of the learners’ positive attitudes toward four tasks, variations existed in their perceptions regarding four sources of influence: the required mental processes to do a task, opportunities for group works, textual enhancement and the learning values of the task.