L2 Spanish morphosyntactic development through collaborative writing: An analysis of mood production, text length and syntactic complexity

Abstract

This study discusses the impact of interactionist output-oriented approaches, specifically, the effects of collaborative text reconstruction on subjunctive recognition and production in the written modality by English-dominant Spanish second-language learners. It also examines whether students’ text length and text complexity increase after treatment. A total of 104 fifth-semester Spanish learners participated in the study and were assigned to three conditions: control ( n = 36), dictogloss ( n = 33) and dictogloss plus explicit instruction ( n = 35). In order to measure target form recognition and production as well as text quality, participants completed a pre-, post- and delayed-post-test that included a guided written task and a recognition task. Results indicated that participants in both treatment groups increased their production of the subjunctive mood in the written modality in expected contexts at similar rates, which was also maintained over time. Participants also increased recognition rates, irrespective of group, pointing to a lack of relationship between this type of collaborative text reconstruction and subjunctive recognition. Lastly, an effect of group and time was also observed for text length and syntactic complexity, as participants in the treatment groups produced significantly longer texts, as well as a higher number of complement clauses.

A Comparison between Collaborative and Individual Writings in Promoting Motivation and Language Acquisition

“…It is noteworthy that a significant relation has not been observed for teacher-ratings. This shows that, in contrast to the results obtained by researchers [48], differences in qualifications have not been found regardless of the method being applied.…”

“…Nevertheless, specific training by teachers is required, so as to allow the effective development and outcome of the method [46]. Among aspects which enable the improvement of the method, an increase in interaction between students [32], collaboration levels in the development of the task [47], qualifications [48], satisfaction rates [49], and motivation [50] can be found.…”