Language Teaching Research

July 2015; Vol. 19, No. 4

Identifiability and accessibility in learning definite article usages: A quasi-experimental study with Japanese learners of English

Kimiko Hinenoya and Roy Lyster

Language Teaching Research  2015 19: 397-415

The present study investigated the effects of instruction on the use of the definite article the by Japanese learners of English by implementing two instructional treatments that varied in the extent to which they emphasized identifiability and accessibility. One instructional treatment, referred to as the traditional (TR) treatment, emphasized the linguistic/semantic notion of identifiability in which the serves to identify the referent. The other instructional treatment, operationalized as a mental space (MS) treatment, emphasized the cognitive notion of accessibility whereby the serves to mark an access path to the referent. The purpose of the comparison was to assess which types of metalinguistic information might be most effective for helping L2 learners of English to understand specific definite article usages.

Three computer-assisted language learning (CALL) lessons averaging from 1.5 to 2 hours each were given individually to 83 Japanese learners of English, 42 in the TR group and 41 in the MS group. Counterbalanced versions of an article test were administered as a pre-test (Time 1), an immediate post-test (Time 2), and a delayed post-test (Time 3). Both groups exhibited significant increases at Time 2, which were maintained at Time 3, while the between-group comparisons showed that the MS group significantly outperformed the TR group at both Times 2 and 3. The different treatments had differential effects depending on the article types, with the MS group performing especially well on the most difficult conceptual usages.

Effects of feedback timing on second language vocabulary learning: Does delaying feedback increase learning?

Tatsuya Nakata

Language Teaching Research 2015 19: 416-434

Feedback, or information given to learners regarding their performance, is found to facilitate second language (L2) learning. Research also suggests that the timing of feedback (whether it is provided immediately or after a delay) may affect learning. The purpose of the present study was to identify the optimal feedback timing for L2 vocabulary learning. This study differs from previous feedback timing studies in two important respects. First, unlike some previous studies, feedback timing was not confounded with lag to test (interval between the last encounter with a given item and the posttest). Second, in order to test the view that delayed feedback may be particularly effective when learners make few errors during learning, the present study manipulated the frequency of practice to influence learning phase performance. In this study, 98 Japanese college students studied 16 English–Japanese word pairs. Immediate feedback was given immediately after each response, whereas delayed feedback was withheld until all target items were practised. Learning was measured by posttests administered immediately, 1 week, and 4 weeks after the treatment. Results suggested that when lag to test is controlled, feedback timing may have little effect on L2 vocabulary learning regardless of the frequency of errors during learning.

The effect of image quality training on reading comprehension of EFL students using the keyword method

Lihui Wang, Michael J Lawson, and David D Curtis

Language Teaching Research 2015 19: 435-454

Imagery training has been shown to improve reading comprehension. Recent research has also shown that the quality of visual mental imagery used is important for reading comprehension. A review of literature shows that there has been relatively little detailed research on the quality of imagery used by learners, especially in the case of students learning English as a foreign language (EFL). This study was designed to examine the influence of image quality on reading comprehension in EFL students, comparing the effects of training in the use of a focused, constrained imagery relative to that of a more standard form of visual mental imagery training. The study also examined the impact of individual differences such as gender, ability to make images, working memory capacity, and motivational beliefs on the training outcome. The findings provide evidence that constrained imagery strategy training helped EFL learners improve reading comprehension. Female participants showed higher comprehension performance than males. Other individual difference variables did not emerge as having a significant impact on change in reading comprehension performance over time.

Effect of visual support on the processing of multiclausal sentences

Akiko Hagiwara

Language Teaching Research 2015 19: 455-472

Processing morphemic elements is one of the most difficult parts of second language acquisition (DeKeyser, 2005; Larsen-Freeman, 2010). This difficulty gains prominence when second language (L2) learners must perform under time pressure, and difficulties arise in using grammatical knowledge. To solve the problem, the current study used the tenets of multimedia learning theory (Mayer, 2005) to help L2 learners’ reconstruct multiclausal sentences. This theory assumes that limitations in cognitive capacity are reduced when information is given to learners both visually and aurally. Given this assumption, the current study examined whether pictorial information helps L2 learners process morphemic elements in multiclausal sentences presented aurally. Thirty-two learners of Japanese engaged in elicited imitation both with and without pictorial support. The results revealed that the learners performed significantly better with pictorial support, lending support to multimedia learning theory for L2 learners’ processing of morphemic elements. However, a limited effect of pictorial support was found for the processing of an element that the L2 learners had learned recently, and that was in sentence-final position, suggesting that these types of items are difficult to automatize regardless of cognitive support.

Can colors, voices, and images help learners acquire the grammatical gender of German nouns?

Victor Dias de Oliveira Santos

Language Teaching Research 2015 19: 473-498

Knowledge of lexical items is arguably the most essential aspect of being able to communicate in a foreign language (Richards, 2000). Many studies have examined effective strategies for retaining the meaning of foreign words, but studies investigating the effectiveness of different methods for the retention of essential grammatical features of those words are unfortunately fewer. This study investigates whether memorizing the gender of German nouns concomitantly to their meaning results in a decreased ability by undergraduate native speakers of English to remember noun meaning, and whether a mnemonic approach to retaining the grammatical gender of German nouns may prove effective. In possibly the largest study of its kind (n = 283), the effectiveness of several mnemonic devices (colors, voices, images, and a combination of these) is also investigated for the retention of noun gender in German. The sole use of images simultaneously coding for noun meaning and gender led to the best observed results, as indicated by scores on two post-tests. The use of images seems to be a promising mnemonic technique for helping learners remember the gender of German nouns, while at the same time not significantly compromising their ability to recall noun meaning. The results of the present study have possible implications for German materials development and teaching, and for computer assisted language learning (CALL) in general.

Recasts, field dependence/independence cognitive style, and L2 development

Ehsan Rassaei

Language Teaching Research 2015 19: 499-518

While previous research has indicated that learners with field-dependence (FD) and field-independence (FI) cognitive styles benefit differentially from different instructional modes, previous corrective feedback studies have ignored the issue of matching error correction strategies to learners’ cognitive style. To shed some light on this issue, the current study examined the hypothesis that learners with FI and FD cognitive styles benefit differently from recasts. Seventy-six intermediate level EFL learners in four intact classes constituted the experimental and control groups, which differed from each other in terms of the presence or absence of recasts for their errors during classroom interactions. The participants were also classified as FD or FI based on their scores on the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT). Thus, four groups were formed: recasts–FD, recasts–FI, control–FD, and control–FI. The results of a writing task and a picture description task administered as pretest, posttest and delayed posttest indicated that the recasts–FI group significantly outperformed the other three groups in both posttests and delayed posttests, while no statistical difference was observed among the other three groups. In other words, as the results showed, only FI learners benefited from recasts.

see more at: http://ltr.sagepub.com/content/19/4?etoc