Michael J. Leeser

LEARNER PROFICIENCY AND FOCUS ON FORM DURING COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE

One of the challenges in content-based instruction in second language classrooms is how to focus on form in a way that is both effective and appropriate. The use of collaborative tasks that push learners to consciously reflect on their own language use (i.e., produce ‘language-related episodes’) while conveying meaning has been proposed as one way to accomplish this goal. Studies investigating the use of collaborative tasks that encourage learners to produce language-related episodes (LREs) have been shown to affect positively L2 development. However, little is known about how the proficiency of each dyad member affects how and how much dyads produce LREs during collaborative tasks. Therefore, the study reported in this article investigated how grouping learners by their relative proficiency (high-high, high-low, or low-low) affected the amount, type (lexical or grammatical) and outcome (correct, unresolved, or incorrect) of LREs produced during a passage reconstruction task, completed by twenty-one pairs of adult L2 Spanish learners from a content-based course. The findings revealed that the proficiency of the dyad members affected how much the dyads focused on form, the types of forms they focused on as well as how successful they were at resolving the language problems they encountered.

THE EFFECTS OF TOPIC FAMILIARITY, MODE, AND PAUSING ON SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS' COMPREHENSION AND FOCUS ON FORM

Research in first language and second language (L2) comprehension has demonstrated that both learner and input variables contribute to the ease with which a message is understood. Questions remain, however, as to how these variables affect the way L2 learners process linguistic form during comprehension. This study examines how one learner variable (topic familiarity) and two input variables (mode and pausing) affect learners’ comprehension and their processing of a new morphological form (the Spanish future tense) in the input. Two hundred sixty-six participants in an accelerated beginning Spanish course either read or listened to a short narrative in Spanish on either a familiar topic or an unfamiliar one. Additionally, half of the listening groups encountered 3-second pauses between each sentence. After listening to or reading the passages, the participants performed two comprehension tasks (recall protocol and multiple-choice test) and two form-assessment tasks (form-recognition task and tense identification/translation). The results revealed that, although all three variables affected learners’ comprehension, only mode affected learners’ processing future tense morphology.

Investigating the Secondary Effects of Processing Instruction in Spanish: From Instruction on Accusative Clitics to Transfer-of-Training Effects on Dative Clitics

In this article, we examine whether the effectiveness of processing instruction (PI) is limited to forms targeted in the instructional treatment (primary effects) or whether it also extends to other forms (transfer-of-training effects). L2 Spanish learners (N = 123) received either PI or traditional instruction (TI) targeting third-person accusative clitic pronouns, and a third group received no instruction. We used a pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest design to examine the impact of instruction type on learners’ interpretation and production of accusative clitic pronouns; we used the same design to analyze the impact of instruction type on their interpretation and production of a second form, dative clitics, for which learners did not receive instruction (secondary effects). Although both PI and TI improved on the learners’ interpretation of dative clitics in object-verb-subject (OVS) sentences, TI showed a decrease in accuracy with subject-verb-object (SVO) sentences. We propose that of the two approaches, only PI is effective in prompting learners to alter the way they process primary linguistic data in the input.

The structure of corpora in SLA research

The field of Second Language Acquisition currently uses L2 error corpora to supplement its primary methodology – grammatical judgment and production tests – for investigating specific hypotheses about the development of interlanguages. This paper argues that large L2 corpora structured according to specific criteria would allow researchers to investigate with greater precision the contribution of the native language in the evolution of interlanguages as well as concepts such as overgeneralisation and end-state grammars. Furthermore, hypotheses posed about interlanguage development after native-like attainment, such as so-called U-shaped development, could be verified. The considerations for building L2 corpora of the future are illustrated by considering the validity and reliability of a multi-level corpora of errors produced by Spanish and Korean speakers learning English.