Towards Ecological Validity in Research into Input-based Practice: Form Spotting Can Be as Beneficial as Form-meaning Practice

Abstract

This study extends previous input-based grammar instruction research (for reviews, DeKeyser and Prieto Botana 2015; Shintani 2015) by comparing two types of input-based practice, each with the same explicit information, for learning L2 German definite article case-marking cues (der, den). Participants (N=138, aged nine to 11) received explicit information followed by either task-essential practice in making form-meaning connections (referential activities from Processing Instruction) OR task-essential practice in spotting the form (noticing activities). Both interventions yielded equivalent durable gains across six ecologically valid tests of comprehension and production (written and oral modalities), compared to negligible gains in a Control group. The findings revealed that, following explicit information, input practice requiring noticing of the target feature (as proposed by Svalberg 2012) was equally effective as task-essential form-meaning connection practice, shedding important light on previous claims in the research agenda on task-essential input practice (e.g. Marsden 2006; Marsden and Chen 2011). Responding to calls for ecologically valid effect-ofinstruction research (Mitchell 2000; Spada 2015), this classroom study demonstrates the efficacy of grammar practice for young learners within input-poor foreign language classrooms. 1 1 Note and Acknowledgements All intervention and test materials are freely available at www.iris-database.org. We are very grateful to the teachers and pupils who took D O ' A Capinska. The project was funded by an ESRC PhD studentship. Rowena Kasprowicz completed her PhD in Education at the University of York (under her maiden name, Hanan) and is now a post-doctoral research associate in the Digital Creativity Labs at the University of York.

Multisite Replication in Second Language Acquisition Research: Attention to Form During Listening and Reading Comprehension

“…We should also note a potential lack of ecological validity in using an activity that resulted in such low levels of comprehension. However, of interest are findings from Marsden and colleagues’ studies, where word‐ and sentence‐level tasks that are more ecologically valid to L2 pedagogy were processed in such a way that participants (a) successfully attended to the form of an article and the meaning of a sentence (Kasprowicz & Marsden, ) and (b) showed their ability to learn the meaning of a word even while their attention was oriented to the meaning of a form (Marsden et al., , Experiment 3). Thus, there seem to be conditions where learners can successfully attend to both L2 form and meaning, and perhaps one of the roles of L2 instruction is to create these conditions.…”

Investigating Distribution of Practice Effects for the Learning of Foreign Language Verb Morphology in the Young Learner Classroom

“…Relatedly, it is also possible that, for (at least some of) the young learners in the present study, the intervention may have been too brief, as explicit learning by young learners is slower than for more cognitively mature, older learners (Lichtman, ). Indeed, Kasprowicz and Marsden () observed substantial learning gains following form–meaning mapping practice for 9‐ to 11‐year olds, but after a longer (250 minutes) intervention over 5 weeks, which focussed on one grammatical function (subject or object assignment via German definite articles).…”

“…Learners ( n = 22) of equivalent age and language experience to the main study participants piloted the tests to check the comprehensibility of the instructions, test format, and picture stimuli. Similar tests have been utilized in previous studies with participants of a similar age (e.g., sentence–picture matching task test, Kasprowicz & Marsden, ; AJT, Marsden & Chen, ).…”

The Role of Prosody and Explicit Instruction in Processing Instruction

“…We suggest that PI training may need to be reinforced through longer treatments or repeated training. This is especially true in classroom settings, where learners’ input generally lacks OVS sentences, an issue that is likely exacerbated when overall exposure to the target language is more limited (see Kasprowicz & Marsden, , for further discussion).…”