Textual Enhancement Research Articles

Salience in Second Language Acquisition: Physical Form, Learner Attention, and Instructional Focus.

We consider the role of physical form, prior experience, and form focused instruction (FFI) in adult language learning. (1) When presented with competing cues to interpretation, learners are more likely to attend to physically more salient cues in the input. (2) Learned attention is an associative learning phenomenon where prior-learned cues block those that are experienced later. (3) The low salience of morphosyntactic cues can be overcome by FFI, which leads learners to attend cues which might otherwise be ignored. Experiment 1 used eye-tracking to investigate how language background influences learners’ attention to morphological cues, as well as the attentional processes whereby different types of FFI overcome low cue salience, learned attention and blocking. Chinese native speakers (no L1 verb-tense morphology) viewed Latin utterances combining lexical and morphological cues to temporality under control conditions (CCs) and three types of explicit FFI: verb grammar instruction (VG), verb salience with textual enhancement (VS), and verb pretraining (VP), and their use of these cues was assessed in a subsequent comprehension test. CC participants were significantly more sensitive to the adverbs than verb morphology. Instructed participants showed greater sensitivity to the verbs. These results reveal attentional processes whereby learners’ prior linguistic experience can shape their attention toward cues in the input, and whereby FFI helps learners overcome the long-term blocking of verb-tense morphology. Experiment 2 examined the role of modality of input presentation – aural or visual – in L1 English learners’ attentional focus on morphological cues and the effectiveness of different FFI manipulations. CC participants showed greater sensitivity toward the adverb cue. FFI was effective in increasing attention to verb-tense morphology, however, the processing of morphological cues was considerably more difficult under aural presentation. From visual exposure, the FFI conditions were broadly equivalent at tuning attention to the morphology, although VP resulted in balanced attention to both cues. The effectiveness of morphological salience-raising varied across modality: VS was effective under visual exposure, but not under aural exposure. From aural exposure, only VG was effective. These results demonstrate how salience in physical form, learner attention, and instructional focus all variously affect the success of L2 acquisition.

A Comparative Study of Effects of Input-Based, Meaning-Based Output, and Traditional Instructions on EFL Learners’ Grammar Learning

This quasi-experimental study examined the effects of input-based, meaning-based output (MO) and traditional instruction (TI) on EFL learners’ grammar learning. To this end, 120 junior high school students were selected from 4 intact classes. Each class was assigned to an instructional condition, that is, textual enhancement (TE), input flood (IF), MO, and TI. Before the treatment, a multiple-choice grammar test (MCGT) and a written production test (WPT) were administered to assess the participants’ knowledge of the L2 structures (i.e., past simple and future simple tense). One week after the last treatment session, the MCGT and WPT were administered again. Scores were analyzed through one-way ANCOVA and Fisher’s LSD post-hoc tests. Results revealed that the participants in the input-based instruction groups (TE and IF) outperformed those in the MO and TI groups. Implications arising from these findings are also explained.

Processing and learning of enhanced English collocations: An eye movement study

Research to date suggests that textual enhancement may positively affect the learning of multiword combinations known as collocations, but may impair recall of unenhanced text. However, the attentional mechanisms underlying such effects remain unclear. In this study, 38 undergraduate students were divided into two groups: one read a text containing typographically enhanced collocations (ET group) and the other read the same text with unenhanced collocations (the baseline text, or BT group). While reading, participants’ eye movements were recorded with an eye-tracker. Results showed that the ET group spent significantly longer time processing target collocations, and performed better than the BT group in a post-reading collocation test. However, apart from the enhanced collocations, the ET group recalled significantly less unenhanced text than the BT group. Further investigation of eye fixation data showed that the ET group spent substantially longer time processing collocations which, according to a pretest, they were not familiar with than did the BT group, whereas the two groups did not differ significantly in their processing of familiar collocations. Collectively, the results suggest that the trade-off between collocation learning and recall of unenhanced text is due to additional cognitive resources being allocated to enhanced collocations that are new to the reader.

The Effect of Textual Enhancement Technique on Incidental Learning of Idiomatic Expressions of Iranian Intermediate Students

One of the techniques affecting incidental learning is using textual enhancement. This study was conducted in order to see whether textual enhancement positively affects incidental learning of idiomatic expressions. To do so, a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest control group design was carried out. The participants were 40 Iranian intermediate learners selected via convenient sampling and were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups, 20 participants in each. Before the treatment, Idiom Knowledge Scale (IKS) test, taken from Wesche and Paribakht's (1996) was administered to both groups, as pretest. Then the experimental group was exposed to idioms presented with four different textual enhancement techniques (color-coded, bolded, Italic and sticky papers). After the treatment, IKS, was again administered to the groups, as posttest. The results of data analysis through ANCOVA indicated that the experimental group outperformed the control group and that the implementation of textual techniques could enhance the incidental idiom learning.

Input manipulation, enhancement and processing: Theoretical views and empirical research

Researchers in the field of instructed second language acquisition have been examining the issue of how learners interact with input by conducting research measuring particular kinds of instructional interventions (input-oriented and meaning-based). These interventions include such things as input flood, textual enhancement and processing instruction. Although the findings are not completely conclusive on whether these instructional interventions have an impact on acquisition, it is clear that we have witnessed a shift in the field from the original question “Does instruction make a difference?” to the more specific question “Does manipulating input make a difference?” In this article, the key classroom-based research conducted to measure the relative effects of different types of enhancement and manipulation is reviewed. Three main research foci are considered: (a) research measuring the effects of saturating the input with the target form (input flood), (b) research measuring the effects of different types of textual enhancements to draw learners’ attention to the target form, and (c) research measuring input restructuring to improve interpretation and processing of target forms or structures (processing instruction).

THE EFFECTS OF TEXTUAL ENHANCEMENT ON THE ACQUISITION OF TWO NONPARALLEL GRAMMATICAL FEATURES BY SPANISH-SPEAKING LEARNERS OF ITALIAN

This article investigates the learning of two syntactic structures in Italian—Pre-possessive Determiner Article (PPDA) and Differential Object Marking—that each pose specific learning difficulties for Spanish-speaking learners of Italian (SSLI), resulting from the asymmetrical relationship with corresponding structures in the learners’ L1 (Spanish). The article also examines to what extent these difficulties can be alleviated by means of a relatively implicit type of form-focused instruction (Textual Enhancement, or TE). SSLI tend to omit the article before the possessive determiner (e.g., *mia macchina) and overuse the Prepositional Accusative (PA, the Romance languages’ instance of Differential Object Marking) in canonical SVO sentences (e.g., *conosco a Marco). Although both structures pose learning difficulties to SSLI, the learning path that leads SSLI to acquire these two features is different: SSLI have to learn to add PPDA to their interlanguage and they have to unlearn PA, a property of their L1. Sixty-eight instructed SSLI were divided in two groups. Group A read five texts where the absence of PA was textually enhanced; group B read the same texts where the presence of PPDA was enhanced. The participants took a timed grammatical judgment test before, shortly after, and two months after the instructional treatment. The results show that the effects of the TE are different for PA and PPDA, which indicates that features to be unlearned are more difficult and require more explicit instructional intervention.

2. Efectos del realce textual y la forma gramatical sobre la comprensión y el procesamiento

El presente estudio exploró los efectos del realce textual en la modalidad de letras mayúsculas y el tipo de forma gramatical (forma pasiva y presente perfecto) sobre la comprensión y el procesamiento en ochenta estudiantes universitarios de Inglés como Lengua Extranjera (ILE) del nivel I pertenecientes a dos instituciones universitarias distintas: Universidad del Zulia y Universidad Pedagógica Experimental Libertador, Instituto Pedagógico de Barquisimeto “Luis Beltrán Prieto Figueroa”. Un Análisis Factorial Múltiple de Varianza (MANOVA) reveló que el realce textual no tuvo un impacto significativo en la comprensión y/o el procesamiento de los participantes, caso contrario a la forma gramatical. Los resultados conllevaron a elaborar un Análisis Factorial de Varianza (ANOVA) para la comprensión y el procesamiento. Los análisis mostraron que la forma pasiva resultó más beneficiosa en términos de comprensión, mientras que el presente perfecto mostró ser más efectivo para el procesamiento. Se concluye que los profesores de inglés deben diseñar actividades de clase y tareas que se adapten al grado de dificultad de tales formas gramaticales para promover su procesamiento más efectivamente.

The Role Of Textual Enhancement In Minimising Errors In Paragraph Writing

L’objectif de cet article est de montrer le role de la Mise en Evidence Textuelle (MET), introduite a des passages de lecture, dans la minimisation des erreurs dans les paragraphes. L’etude concerne 126paragraphes ecrits par neuf etudiants choisis par un echantillonnage stratifie. Durant les 14semaines de la periode de 1' experimentation,les participants ont ete exposes a des textes comprenant des indices typographiques lies soit au contenu ou a la langue du paragraphe. Les resultats demontrent une legere baisse dans l’apparition des erreurs dans les productions des participants qui n’est pas associee aux niveaux des etudiants a la nature de l’erreur. L'implication de ces resultats est que la MET peut faciliter l'apprentissage de certains aspects de l'ecriture lies en particulier aux aspects regis par des regles. Mot cles: Ecriture de paragraphe, Mise en evidence de l’input, Relation entre lecture et ecriture, Perception, Traitement des erreurs,

Effect of textual enhancement on idioms

The present study aimed at investigating the impact of textual enhancement on the comprehension of transparent and opaque English idioms among Spanish lower-intermediate students studying English as a foreign language. Two short texts including visually enhanced idioms (i.e., they were underlined) were designed for the Experimental Group, and the Control Group received an unenhanced version of the texts. The results reveal that textual enhancement made transparent idioms salient enough for them to have an impact on comprehension; however, underlining had a poorer effect on comprehension as far as opaque idioms are concerned. In addition, we aimed at examining the effect of textual enhancement on the noticing of idioms. Findings show that it did not have a positive effect on recognition of idioms, since the Control Group outperformed the Experimental Group in the multiple-choice task.

EXPLORING THE INTERFACE

Eye-tracking was used to investigate the attentional processes whereby different types of focus on form (FonF) instruction assist learners in overcoming learned attention and blocking effects in their online processing of second language input. English native speakers viewed Latin utterances combining lexical and morphological cues to temporality under control conditions and three types of explicit FonF: verb grammar instruction, verb salience with textual enhancement, and verb pretraining. Chinese native speakers were also tested on control and verb grammar conditions. All groups participated in three phases: exposure, comprehension test, and production test. Verb grammar participants viewed a short lesson on Latin tense morphology prior to exposure. Verb salience participants saw the verb inflections highlighted in bold and red during exposure. Verb pretraining participants took part in an additional introductory phase in which they were presented with solitary verb forms and were trained on their English translations. Instructed participants showed greater sensitivity to morphological cues in comprehension and production. Eye-tracking revealed how FonF affects learners’ attention during online processing and thus modulates long-term blocking of verb morphology.

The Impact of Textual Enhancement vs. Oral Enhancement on Learning English Language Grammar

Among features of second language learning, grammar has been given a prominent role. Learning grammar is important and it can affect other aspects of language learning. Learning grammar cannot occur without noticing for EFL learners. Learners should become aware of the rules and internalize those rules. Also, learning grammar should happen in a meaningful context. There are two techniques which may provide the desired conditions. Those two techniques are Textual Enhancement and Oral Enhancement. The purpose of this study was to compare the results of applying these two techniques. As the study followed a non-probability sampling, 92 students were considered as the research subjects. After administering a test of homogeneity, the number reduced to 70. There were two experimental groups in the study. Participants in one group were exposed to textual enhancement, and the participants in another were exposed to oral enhancement. There was a test which became standardized through piloting. And it was administrated to the two groups. Detailed statistical analyses were conducted to analyze the obtained data. The results indicated that there was a statistical significant difference between the oral and textual enhancement groups (t = -6.81, p < 0.05) regarding their performance on grammar achievement test. In other words, subjects in oral enhancement group outperformed the subjects in textual enhancement group.

The Effects of Implicit and Explicit Instruction on Foreign Language Learners’ Working Memory Capacity and L2 Grammatical Knowledge

This study investigated the role of implicit and explicit grammar instruction on expanding working memory capacity (WMC) and improving L2 grammatical knowledge. The participants were 30 L2 learners equally divided into two experimental classes. Before the treatment, a grammar pretest was used to measure their grammatical knowledge, and three tests (Forward Digit Span Test, Paired Associates Test, Operation Span Test) were used to measure their WMC. During the treatment, the explicit group studied grammar using the guided discovery, text-based teaching, and explicit feedback techniques, and the implicit group did so using textual enhancement, input flood, and implicit feedback techniques. At the end of the experiment, the same grammar test and WMC tests were used as posttests to check the effects of the treatments. The results showed that the implicit group had significantly outperformed the explicit group on WMC tests, while no such difference was observed between their grammar posttest scores.

An Investigation of the Role of Explicit and Implicit Instruction in Second Language Acquisition: A Case of English Embedded Question

The present study examined the facilitative effects of three types of input-based (explicit and implicit) instruction on the intake and acquisition of the English embedded questions. The participants were 105 Iranian EFL learners from four intact classes who were randomly assigned to three treatment groups of processing instruction (PI), consciousness-raising tasks (C-R), textual input enhancement (TE), and one control group (CO). A quasi-experimental design with a pretest-treatment-posttest (immediate and delayed) sequence was used. Assessment consisted of a grammar knowledge test which included interpretation and production tasks at sentence level and a timed grammaticality judgment test. The results of data analysis indicated that all treatment groups performed significantly better than the control group on the interpretation tests over time and the treatments were also effective in improving the intake of the target structure measured through grammaticality judgment test. Moreover, all types of instruction were effective in improving the learners’ production tests except the TE. Since PI was superior to other groups in all of the tests one reasonable pedagogical implication is that explicit instruction is a more effective technique in helping EFL learners to acquire target grammatical forms.

The effects of textual enhancement type on L2 form recognition and reading comprehension in Spanish

Previous research investigating the effectiveness of textual enhancement as a tool to draw adult second language (L2) learners’ attention to the targeted linguistic form has consistently produced mixed results. This article examines how L2 form recognition and reading comprehension are affected by different types of textual enhancement. Participants ( n = 109) in the experimental group read a passage that contained one type of textual enhancement (underline, bold, italics, change in font size, use of capital letters or change of font) on the target structure (Spanish present and preterit tense) morphemes. A control group ( n = 16) read the same passage without any type of enhancement. To measure L2 form recognition, all groups completed pre- and post-tests consisting of an L2 to first language (L1) translation task. To assess the effects of enhancement type on L2 reading comprehension, the participants completed a 40 item multiple choice test with questions focusing on form or meaning from the reading. Results for the present study revealed that one type of textual enhancement was better than others with regard to facilitating L2 form recognition, and that comprehension was not hindered by enhancement, regardless of enhancement type.

The Impact of Textual Input Enhancement on Iranian Elementary EFL learners’ Vocabulary Intake

Nowadays, there has been a lot of emphasis on L2 vocabulary learning in the language teaching curriculum. Dueto the emergence and prevalence of growing methods in the area of second language teaching, lots of researchershave tried to take advantage of these methods in enhancing L2 learning vocabulary. Thus, the present studyinvestigated the effect of textual input enhancement as a focus on form method on Iranian EFL learners’vocabulary intake from reading. Ninety one elementary EFL learners in Tabriz Azad University participated in astudy for eight sessions. A quasi-experimental design with a randomized control and an experimental group wasused. Both groups were given five reading texts and comprehension questions to complete. While theparticipants in experimental group read the textually enhanced input through bolding, the participants in thecontrol group read the same texts without input manipulation. Multiple-choice recognition tests were used tomeasure the intake of vocabulary. The results showed a significant difference between control and experimentalgroup. The study concluded with some pedagogical implications.

Effects of Textual Enhancement and Input Enrichment on L2 Development

Research on second language (L2) acquisition has recently sought to include formal instruction into second and foreign language classrooms in a more unobtrusive and implicit manner. Textual enhancement and input enrichment are two techniques which are aimed at drawing learners' attention to specific linguistic features in input and at the same time keeping the activity meaning focused. Whereas previous studies conflated the effects of these two attention-drawing techniques on L2 development, the goal of the current study was to investigate the differential effects of these two techniques on the development of English articles by Persian EFL learners. To this end, 95 EFL learners received textually enhanced and enriched input in experimental groups and were compared with a control group. The results of data analysis indicate that enhancing the saliency of input was more effective than enriching the input with extra tokens of target forms. A number of theoretical and practical implications are discussed in the article.

Textual Enhancement and Input Processing Effects on the Intake of Present and Past Simple Tenses

The present study was conducted to measure the effects of Textual Enhancement (TE) and Input Processing (IP) as two types of treatment versus Traditional Instruction (TI) as a controlling context for fulfilling the objectives of focus on form to teach present and past simple tenses. To this end, six junior high-school classes with 139 Iranian male students were chosen using cluster sampling. Sixty six of them were studying in grade 2 and the other 73 were studying in grade 3 in three different junior high-school in Ardakan, Yazd, Iran. In each grade, 3 classes were assigned into 2 experimental groups of TE and IP in contrast to TI as the control group. The subjects of the study received 20 sessions of treatment on different types of instruction. Three sets of tests (Pre-test, Immediate post-test and Delayed post-test) were prepared to determine the effects of the different types of treatment on the subjects in different groups. Paired-sample T-Test and one-way ANOVA were employed as the statistical tests to analyze the data. The findings of the study revealed differences between the performances of three groups in each grade in terms of the subjects’ accurate use of the selected grammatical points. The results demonstrated that although both treatments (TE & IP) were more effective than Traditional Instruction, TE and IP were not meaningfully different.The implications of the study for teaching could clearly be for the teachers who wanted to help their students to improve their level of grammatical accuracy, through these different ways of grammar instruction.

Effects of textual enhancement on English as a foreign language learners' anaphor resolution performance and reading comprehension in Taiwan

Successful anaphor comprehension in reading is related to the explicitness of the antecedent–anaphor relation. It mirrors one of the purposes of textual enhancement (TE), which is that it raises learners' awareness of linguistic forms by enhancing the salience of input. Therefore, learners notice the enhanced form and discover the rule or relationship after they have become relatively explicit. This study investigates the effects of TE on second language learners' anaphor resolution performance and reading comprehension, to reveal the interaction among learners' comprehension, anaphor performance and noticing. Sixty EFL learners in Taiwan were divided into the control and TE groups. Participants' posttest responses were compared with respect to their anaphor resolution performance and their reading comprehension degree. The results showed that the TE group had better anaphor resolution performance, and participants' form processing did not impede their reading comprehension. These findings are discussed with both theoretical and pedagogical implications.

The effectiveness of advance organizers versus textual enhancement on learning inchoatives and unaccusatives

This study was an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of advance organizers and textual Enhancement (TE) on the acquisition of inchoative and unaccusative verbs by EFL learners. A hundred EFL Persian-speaking learners in four intact classes constituted the groups. One of the experimental groups was exposed to Intralingual advance organizers (Intra-AOs). The second group received Interlingual advance organizers (Inter-AOs), and the third one was presented with textually enhanced material. The results of the study indicated that with unaccusative verbs, the TE and Intra-AO groups outperformed the Inter-AO group, with a statistically significant difference. With inchoative verbs, on the other hand, all the experimental groups performed similarly well with no significant difference between and among them. The implications of the results for theory and practice are discussed.

A Closer Look at the Output Hypothesis: The Effect of Pushed Output on Noticing and Inductive Learning of the Spanish Future Tense

AbstractThis study empirically tested the noticing function of the output hypothesis (Swain, 1993, 1995, 1998) and explored the relationship between noticing and learning by comparing the effects of the production of output to exposure to textually enhanced input. The present study is a conceptual replication of Izumi (2002); however, Izumi examined a complex grammatical form (relativization in English) while the present study investigated a more salient form (the Spanish future tense) among 55 first‐semester students of Spanish. The results supported the noticing function of the output hypothesis and revealed that pushed output followed by exposure to future tense forms in subsequent input enabled students to learn the targeted form inductively. However, exposure to textual enhancement did not produce similar learning gains. These findings have implications for the instruction of second language grammar.