Sanz, C. & Grey, S. (2015). Effects of conditions on L2 development: Moving beyond accuracy. In P. Rebuschat (Ed.), Explicit and implicit pedagogical conditions (pp. 301-324). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (original) (raw)
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Educational policies that impact second language (L2) learners—a rapidlygrowing group—are often enacted without consulting relevant research. This review synthesized research regarding optimal conditions for L2 acquisition, facilitative L2 learner and teacher characteristics, and speed of L2 acquisition, from four bodies of work—foreign language education, child language research, sociocultural studies, and psycholinguistics—often overlooked by educators. Seventy-one peer-reviewed journal articles studying PK-12 L2 learners met inclusion criteria. Findings included: 1) Optimal conditions for L2 learners immersed in a majority-L2 society include strong home literacy practices, opportunities to use the L2 informally, well-implemented specially-designed L2 educational programs, and sufficient time devoted to L2 literacy instruction, whereas L2 learners with little L2 exposure require explicit instruction to master grammar; 2) L2 learners with strong L2 aptitude, motivation, and first language (L1) skills are more successful; 3) Effective L2 teachers demonstrate sufficient L2 proficiency, strong instructional skills, and proficiency in their students' L1; 4) L2 learners require 3-7 years to reach L2 proficiency, with younger learners typically taking longer but more likely to achieve close-to-native results. These findings, even those most relevant to education, are not reflected in current US policy. Additional research is needed on the characteristics of successful or unsuccessful L2 learners and L2 teachers. Such research should attend systematically to the differences between L2 learning in maximal versus minimal input settings; whereas the psycholinguistic challenges of L2 learning might be common across settings, the sociocultural and interactional challenges and opportunities differ in ways that can massively impact outcomes.
This article reports on a study exploring the differential effects of immediate and delayed corrective feedback (CF) on the acquisition of the English past tense. One hundred and forty-five seventh-grade EFL learners were assigned to four groups: Immediate CF, Delayed CF, Task Only, and Control. Each experimental group performed six focused communicative tasks, two each in three treatment sessions, eliciting the use of the English past tense. The Immediate CF group received feedback on their erroneous use of the target structure in the first session, the Delayed CF group received feedback in the final session, and the Task Only group performed the communicative tasks without receiving any feedback. The Control group only took the achievement tests. The effects of the feedback treatments were measured through an untimed grammaticality judgment test and an elicited imitation test. Mixed-effects analyses examining the influence of both fixed and random factors demonstrated that immediate CF was more facilitative of L2 development than delayed CF. The results suggest the importance of addressing linguistic errors before they are proceduralized in the interlanguage.
The impact of implicit/explicit instruction on the learning process of L2 knowledge in Spanish
Revista EPOS, 2017
This paper investigates the effects of two independent variables, (1) type of instruction, namely, "explicit" (deductive instruction in which learners are provided with rules and practice examples) and "implicit" (i.e. unintentional or incidental instruction in which learners are exposed to input containing the targeted forms), and (2) learner proficiency level, namely, higher and lower proficiency. Dependent measures include grammaticality judgment tests, both timed and untimed, with grammatical and ungrammatical items, and a "second language proficiency" task. The targeted features used are basic forms of Spanish determiners. The targeted population consists of four groups of adolescents as (L2) Spanish learners. These groups were part of two different courses at a High School level in the United States during a whole trimester. Two groups were of higher proficiency (intermediates) and the other two (beginners), of lower proficiency. Groups with the same proficiency were instructed with both, implicit and explicit methods. We focus on contrasting the results of both proficiency groups and their specific method of instruction. Participants carried out three written tasks (Timed Grammaticality Judgment Test, Untimed Grammaticality Judgment Test and L2 proficiency task) before and immediately after the implicit and explicit instruction were completed. The research results show that the higher proficiency group and the lower proficiency group obtained different scores in relation to their implicit 2 and explicit knowledge and regarding the gains after implicit and explicit instruction was given
2014
The issue of error correction remains controversial in recent years due to the different positions of interface toward implicit and explicit knowledge of ESL learners. This study looks at the impacts of implicit corrective feedback in the form of recast on implicit and explicit knowledge of adult ESL learners. In an experimental study, lower-intermediate learners first were taught the grammatical features; then they completed communicative tasks during which the experimental group received recast and the control group received no feedback when an error occurred. Acquisition was measured by means of tests designed to measure implicit and explicit knowledge. Results of ANCOVA analysis revealed higher score for the experimental group; and result of t-test revealed that recast has significant effect on implicit knowledge. In line with the weak interface position toward implicit and explicit knowledge, the findings extend empirical support for Schmidt's noticing hypothesis and function of recast in language learning.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 2006
This study investigates the effects of meaningful input-and outputbased practice on SLA. First-semester Spanish students (n = 45) were assigned to processing instruction, meaningful output-based instruction, or control groups. Experimental groups received the same input in instruction but received meaningful practice that was input or output based. Both experimental groups showed significant gains on immediate and delayed interpretation and production tasks. Repeated-measures analyses of variance showed that overall, for interpretation, both experimental groups outperformed the control group. For production, only the meaningful output-based group outperformed the control group. These results suggest that not only inputbased but also output-based instruction can lead to linguistic development.
Applied Psycholinguistics, 2019
This study examined the extent to which explicit instruction about L1 and L2 processing routines improved the accuracy, speed, and automaticity of learners' responses during sentence interpretation practice. Fifty-three English-speaking learners of L2 French were assigned to one of the following treatments: (1) a 'core' treatment consisting of L2 explicit information (EI) with L2 interpretation practice (L2-only group), (2) the same L2 core + L1 practice with L1 EI (L2+L1 group), or (3) the same L2 core + L1 practice but without L1 EI (L2+L1prac group). Findings indicated that increasing amounts of practice led to more accurate and faster performance only for learners who received L1 EI (L2+L1 group). Coefficient of Variation analyses (Segalowitz & Segalowitz, 1993) indicated knowledge restructuring early on that appeared to lead to gradual automatization over time (Solovyeva and DeKeyser, 2017; Suzuki, 2017). Our findings that EI and practice about L1 processing routines benefited the accuracy, speed, and automaticity of L2 performance have major implications for theories of L2 learning, the role of L1 EI in L2 grammar learning, and L2 pedagogy.
Applied Psycholinguistics, 2019
This study examines the effects of two cognitive abilities-language analytic ability (LAA) and working memory (WM)-on language learning under five different instructional conditions. One hundred fifty eighth-grade English as a foreign language learners underwent a 2-hr treatment session. They were divided into five groups based on whether and when they received form-focused instruction. One group received pretask instruction on the linguistic target (English passive voice) before performing two narrative tasks; a second group received within-task feedback but no pretask instruction; a third group received both pretask instruction and within-task feedback; a fourth group received feedback after completing the tasks; and the fifth group only performed the tasks. The results showed that (a) LAA was predictive of the posttest scores of the group that only performed the communicative tasks and the group who received posttask feedback, (b) WM was associated with the learning outcomes of the two groups receiving within-task feedback, and (c) neither cognitive variable was implicated in the group that received pretask instruction before performing the tasks. The results suggest that the impact of LAA is evident when there is less external assistance and that WM is involved when learners face the heavy processing burden imposed by within-task feedback. Language aptitude is a set of cognitive abilities that have been shown to strongly predict and explain the process and product of language learning. Two broad streams of aptitude research have emerged: predictive and interactional (Li, 2015a, 2016, 2017a, 2018). In the predictive approach, aptitude is viewed as a trait variable that impacts on the outcome of learning, regardless of context and instruction type. The objectives of such research are to (a) ascertain the predictive power of aptitude in itself and in comparison with other variables, (b) identify those learners who will succeed in a language program, and (c) identify individuals with learning disabilities to waive their language