The effects of re-exposure to instruction and the use of discourse-level interpretation tasks on processing instruction and the Japanese passive

This experimental study explores immediate and re-exposure effects of processing instruction on the acquisition of Japanese passive forms as measured by sentence-level and discourse-level tasks. The passive construction in Japanese is affected by learners' use of the First Noun Strategy. Participants were English native speakers and were randomly assigned to one of three groups (processing instruction, processing instruction and re-exposure, and one control group), with the aim of measuring discourse-level and re-exposure effects. Two sentence-level tasks (interpretation and production), and one discourse level task (interpretation) were used in this experiment. The main findings from the study show that L2 learners receiving processing instruction not only improved in their ability to interpret and produce the target feature at sentence level, but they can also use the target forms to interpret discourse. Learners receiving re-exposure to the processing instruction treatment further improve their performance on both sentence-level and discourse-level tasks in an immediate and delayed post-tests battery

The role of input and output tasks in grammar instruction:theoretical, empirical and pedagogical considerations

In this paper, a review of the role of input, output and instruction in second language acquisition is provided. Several pedagogical interventions in grammar instruction (e.g., processing instruction, input enhancement, structured output and collaborative output tasks) are presented and their effectiveness reviewed. A final and overall evaluation is provided at the end of the paper

Input manipulation, enhancement and processing: Theoretical views and empirical research

Researchers in the field of instructed second language acquisition have been examining the issue of how learners interact with input by conducting research measuring particular kinds of instructional interventions (input-oriented and meaning-based). These interventions include such things as input flood, textual enhancement and processing instruction. Although the findings are not completely conclusive on whether these instructional interventions have an impact on acquisition, it is clear that we have witnessed a shift in the field from the original question “Does instruction make a difference?” to the more specific question “Does manipulating input make a difference?” In this article, the key classroom-based research conducted to measure the relative effects of different types of enhancement and manipulation is reviewed. Three main research foci are considered: (a) research measuring the effects of saturating the input with the target form (input flood), (b) research measuring the effects of different types of textual enhancements to draw learners’ attention to the target form, and (c) research measuring input restructuring to improve interpretation and processing of target forms or structures (processing instruction).  

Processing instruction research, theory and practical implications for the learning and teaching of English grammar to Chinese speakers

Processing instruction is a pedagogical intervention within the teaching of grammar. Its main goal is to help learners comprehend and process grammatical features accurately and appropriately. The efects of processing instruction have been compared with other instructional interventions. Overall, the results of these studies suggest that processing instruction is a very efective approach to grammar instruction. The research database on processing instruction includes learners from a variety of first languages (Chinese, English, Italian, Korean, Japanese) and age groups (adults and school-age learners), covers diferent languages (English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, German, Arabic and Spanish) and diferent language families. The studies also addresses a variety of linguistic forms and structures (e.g. verbal and nominal morphology, passive forms, word order, etc.), thereby addressing diferent processing problems. In this paper, the results of four empirical studies on the efects of processing instruction on the acquisition of English morphology and syntactic structures by Chinese L1 speakers will be presented. Practical implications of the research for the teaching of grammar to Chinese students will be highlighted