This thesis investigated possible effects of explicit and implicit focus on form (FonF) instruction on the acquisition of Spanish future of probability (SFP) by Anglophone and Francophone students at a Canadian bilingual university. We also analyzed a possible L1 transfer from French to L2 Spanish in the acquisition of SFP, due to the typological similarity of this linguistic feature in the two languages. Twenty seven B1/B2 Spanish level students including L1 English and L1 French learners of L2 Spanish were divided into three groups according to the instruction type: explicit focus on form instruction group, implicit focus on form instruction group and control group, which received no additional instruction. All the participants were tested before the lesson (pretest), immediately after (posttest) and four weeks later (delayed posttest). The battery of tests included Untimed Grammaticality Judgment (UGJT), Written Production (WPT) and Oral Production (OPT) tasks. They aimed to test our four hypotheses which focused on both short-term and long-term effects of the two types of instruction on grammaticality judgment, written and oral production of SFP, respectively. The results demonstrated a positive effect of explicit and implicit FonF instruction on grammaticality judgment, oral and written production of SFP compared to the control group. In particular, both instructional groups distinguished grammatical and ungrammatical uses of SFP with state and activity verbs immediately after the treatment. After four weeks, both groups retained the acquired knowledge equally well. In the implicit FonF group we found an advantage of the L1 French over the L1 English students, possibly due to the similarity of the future tense morphology in Spanish and French, as well as the fact that French uses future morphology for present time probability, although in very limited contexts (a subset of state verbs). The results of the WPT suggest an advantage of the explicit FonF group in both immediate and long-term results and showed no difference between the L1s in either of the instructional groups. We also noticed an overgeneralization of the use of SFP with telic verbs in both instructional groups after the treatment, which is considered ungrammatical. Therefore, our participants did not distinguish the written use of telic and atelic verbs in epistemic conditions after the two types of treatment provided. The OPT results demonstrated that similarly to the previous two tasks both experimental groups performed better than the Control group. However, there was no significant difference between the two instructional groups. L1 had no significant effect on the oral production of SFP either. Similarly to the WPT, we found an overgeneralization of the use of SFP in telic verb conditions. Overall, Anglophone and Francophone students appear to have similar opportunities for successful acquisition of SFP and both explicit and implicit FonF instruction, activities and feedback may lead to positive results in the acquisition of SFP. To conclude this thesis, we discuss some challenges of this study and possible directions of future research.

In this thesis, repair and positioning are examined with respect to second language learners. The data employed in this analysis consists of oral examinations taken by students of German. These data comprise 22 tape recordings averaging 10 minutes in length. The students’ level of German language proficiency is understood to be intermediate. Conversation analysis is the methodology used to analyse the recorded spoken data. The data is first discussed within the context of research on focus on form, including research on learner uptake. To provide new insights in this discussion, the analysis goes further to include the perspective of positioning theory, in particular the aspect of different storylines. Taking interactional repair as the focus of discussion, my analysis shows that form cannot always be strictly separated from meaning when it comes to repair; it also proves that positioning theory plays a considerable role in relation to both repair initiation by teachers and students as well as their reactions to it. Thus, the participants’ positioning has a significant effect on why some repair moves are likely to occur while others are not.

In this thesis, repair and positioning are examined with respect to second language learners. The data employed in this analysis consists of oral examinations taken by students of German. These data comprise 22 tape recordings averaging 10 minutes in length. The students’ level of German language proficiency is understood to be intermediate. Conversation analysis is the methodology used to analyse the recorded spoken data. The data is first discussed within the context of research on focus on form, including research on learner uptake. To provide new insights in this discussion, the analysis goes further to include the perspective of positioning theory, in particular the aspect of different storylines. Taking interactional repair as the focus of discussion, my analysis shows that form cannot always be strictly separated from meaning when it comes to repair; it also proves that positioning theory plays a considerable role in relation to both repair initiation by teachers and students as well as their reactions to it. Thus, the participants’ positioning has a significant effect on why some repair moves are likely to occur while others are not.

A primary goal of foreign language instruction today is to increase opportunities for authentic communication among students. One way to accomplish this is through synchronous computer-mediated classroom discussion (CMCD). While this electronic medium is highly interactive and beneficial for second language acquisition (SLA) on many levels, studies have noted that learner output in CMCD is often inaccurate. In order to heighten students' attention to features of the target language (TL), SLA research suggests integrating a focus on form (FonF) within meaning-based activities. In the CMCD literature, however, FonF has not been widely treated. The current study addresses this gap by documenting the linguistic and interactional features present in intermediate, university-level French students' synchronous discussions. Furthermore, students' perceptions of their general experience with CMCD are qualitatively examined.In this study, students participated in CMCD once a week, for 16 weeks. Discussion prompts encouraged them to use their French meaningfully to communicate with each other while paying attention to accuracy. To make form salient, students set pre-chat language goals; their transcripts were graded on both content and accuracy; they received whole-class and personalized feedback on their transcripts; and they corrected a percentage of their errors. Results show that balancing the concurrent pressures of form and content was challenging for the students. Likely determined by their proficiency level as well as the medium of CMCD itself, students produced mainly short and simple messages in the present tense; used an average range of vocabulary; and wrote with variable grammatical accuracy. As for being accountable for their language usage, students responded very well. Most importantly, focusing on form was not found to be incompatible with students' ability to engage in rich, meaningful, and enjoyable communication. While focusing on accuracy, students shared their opinions and aspects of their personal lives while remaining in the TL. Moreover, they used French for a range of social, strategic and interactional functions. Students also reported the overall experience as highly motivating and rewarding. These findings point to CMCD as a valuable means of increasing authentic classroom communication and indicate that attention to form need not be sacrificed in the process.

Previous studies have shown that learners' individual differences have dissimilar impacts on their improvement in accuracy in the target language (DeKeyser, 1993; Mackey, Adams, Stafford, & Winke, 2010; Mackey & Sachs, 2012; Sheen, 2007). The present study focused on a learner variable (i.e. extraversion) and examined whether more extraverted learners engaged in a greater number of focus-on-form episodes in class and whether this involvement could further lead to immediate improvement in accuracy of a target language. A total of 28 English-as-a-second-language students in an advanced and an upper-intermediate class participated in the study. They filled out a personality questionnaire, and each class was observed for four class sessions for a total of eight sessions. Out of a total of 16 hours of observation, only 12 hours from three obseravtion sessions from each of the classes were analyzed due to the focus of the present study. Based on the three class observation sessions from both classes, individualized post-tests were created, and the participants completed the tests six to ten days after the final classroom observation. The data were then analyzed using statistical methods including Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient and Spearman's rank-order correlation coefficient depending on the normality of the data. The results revealed that in the advanced class, more extraverted learners were more likely to engage in interaction where learner attention was directed to linguistic elements. On the other hand, more introverted learners were found to produce more successful uptake in the upper-intermediate class. The findings partially support the role of extraversion in learners' participation in focus-on-form episodes as well as immediate L2 development. However, the findings did not suggest that the learners' self-reports and the teacher's perception of his learners' levels of extraversion were significantly correlated. / Graduate / 0282

This study contributes to the debate about the importance of focus on form to adult second language acquisition with an investigation of a Portuguese-speaking adult's acquisition of English present perfect from a historical, correlational, and qualitative viewpoint. Using a husband-wife interaction in the L1, it investigates whether explicit grammar instruction and error correction can lead to automatic production. The focus of the study, the distinction between L1 present simple and L2 present perfect, is contrasted with a control distinction: L1 stative and L2 progressive. The importance of these distinctions is that both are semantically challenging for the L2 acquirer; therefore, they might require focus on form. This study argues against claims based on Krashen's input hypothesis that only comprehensible input can promote acquisition and that explicit data and negative evidence only affect performance. The results confirm the importance of noticing (Schmidt and Frota, 1986) as an essential aspect of adult second language acquisition. With a thorough look at the semantics of the present perfect, the study shows that focus on form is highly recommended for the acquisition of complex structures.

The present study focuses on students at two Swedish secondary schools and the pronunciation errors that are the most prominent during reception and production of specific speech sounds. The primary focus of this degree paper is to establish whether or not certain speech sounds such as e.g. the /tʃ/ sound, which do not occur in the Swedish language in initial position are difficult or not and whether or not they act as an obstacle for Swedish students learning English as their L2. The aim was to establish which specific pronunciation errors that occurred in the L2 language classroom. Since this was the aim, primarily quantitative studies were carried out at two secondary schools in southern Sweden. The results from the four different tests show that the tested Swedish L2 students seem to have a greater difficulty with speech sounds placed in initial position than in final position of a specific word. According to this degree paper this is due to the fact that the Swedish language does not have an equivalent to the difficult speech sound in initial position, therefore making it difficult and often resulting in negative transfer from the L1. Furthermore, the English sounds that posed the biggest problems for the students were ones that sometimes can be found in the Swedish language. These sounds were very similar to native sounds creating a challenge for the Swedish students when perceiving and producing the English sounds. However, it was shown that when these sounds were presented in a context, they proved to be less challenging for the students to receive and produce. Moreover, although the syllabus only mentions that communication should be functional, there still needs to be an element of focus on form in order to become a proficient language user.

Este projeto de tese analisa como o método do ciclo de counterbalance, articulado por Lyster (2007), pode influenciar no aumento da precisão da língua dos alunos nos programas de imersão. O objetivo do projeto foi descobrir como tal modelo de lições e atividades pode vir a afetar a precisão dos alunos no uso da língua portuguesa, focando principalmente na concordância nominal e verbal. O projeto foi implementado para duas turmas de imersão de português da 4a série em um programa de imersão no estado de Utah. As descobertas revelam diferenças significativamente relevantes entre a avaliação previa e final no desempenho dos alunos e trazem implicações pedagógicas em relação ao método aplicado, embora, na ausência de um grupo de controle, os resultados devem ser interpretados com cautela.

The role of input and output in the acquisition of language has been a source of controversy in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research. This present study aimed to investigate the relative effects of processing instruction (PI) as a type of input-based instruction and traditional instruction (TI) as a type of output-based instruction. Specifically, this experiment examined whether PI and TI bring about any improvement in comprehension and production of the Arabic subjunctive by beginner-level learners of Arabic. The PI instructional technique was based on the principles of input processing suggested by VanPatten (1993, 2002, 2004). It has three main elements: (a) an explicit explanation of grammar, (b) information on processing strategies, and (c) structured input activities. The study involved second semester students of Arabic and it aimed at assessing the impact of PI and traditional output instruction on the interpretation and production of the Arabic subjunctive on immediate and delayed posttests. One instructional package was developed for the PI group and another package was developed for the TI group. To assess the effects of instruction, a pretest/posttest/delayed posttest procedure with three tests was used. Each test included: 1) interpretation task with sixteen multiple choice items and 2) production task with sixteen sentence-completion items. The results from this study showed that participants who received PI outperformed participants from the TI as measured by Interpretation tasks of the subjunctive. However, the performance of both groups were statistically similar as was measured by the production tasks of the subjunctive. These results supported those of previous research that had compared PI with TI (Benati, 2001, 2005; Cadierno, 1995; VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993a, 1993b; VanPatten & Wong, 2004).

Orientador : Linda Gentry El-Dash / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T01:07:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Elizi_CesarEduardoDuarte_M.pdf: 195109 bytes, checksum: 20ae879bedc5d26fdf03f2805bcd97c7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004 / Resumo: Essa dissertação visa avaliar a utilização de atividades de Foco na Forma na aquisição, por alunos brasileiros, do tempo verbal Present Perfect através de uma comparação com a Abordagem Comunicativa tradicional. Tal abordagem apresenta, apesar de diversas vantagens, uma limitação na competência gramatical final atingida por alunos de línguas estrangeiras. Uma possível causa dessa limitação, além de outras, é a insuficiência do insumo em fornecer ao aprendiz evidência negativa, i.e. informação sobre a agramaticalidade de frases para as quais L2 é um subconjunto de L1. O que vem sendo chamado de Foco na Forma (FonF, do inglês Focus on Form) funciona como uma intervenção em que se direciona a atenção do aprendiz para aspectos de L2 em meio a uma atividade que privilegia a troca de significados. Desta forma, ao contrário do que ocorre com o Foco nas FormaS (seguindo a nomenclatura de Michael Long ), o FonF não interrompe o ato comunicativo para o estudo e prática de itens gramaticais de maneira isolada, mas busca produzir um desvio temporário de atenção, por parte do aprendiz, enquanto este está empenhado em realizar uma tarefa de compreensão ou produção. Descrevemos o Present Perfect como uma estrutura de difícil análise por parte do aluno brasileiro. Isto se deve, em parte, à má qualidade da maioria dos materiais didáticos disponíveis em relação a essa estrutura. O experimento realizado comparou dez salas de aula de quinto estágio de inglês com relação ao desempenho em pré e pós testes que avaliavam a habilidade dos alunos em (a) reconhecer a forma verbal correta para frases em meio a distratores, (b) identificar frases contendo a estrutura alvo como gramaticais ou não e (c) reproduzir por escrito um texto lido pelo professor contendo quatro ocorrências da estrutura alvo. Entre os dois testes utilizou-se três tipos de tratamento : (1) baseado em compreensão de textos; (2) baseado na reprodução escrita de textos e (3) sem Foco na Forma. Os resultados obtidos se mostram favoráveis ao uso de FonF para o Present Perfect e sugerem que atividades de compreensão de texto são mais benéficas que as de reprodução. Uma pergunta de conscientização ( o que você aprendeu?) feita à parte dos grupos dos tratamentos (1) e (2) resultou em uma melhoria de desempenho ainda maior para o grupo de compreensão de textos. Isto nos leva à hipótese de que convidar o aluno a refletir sobre sua aprendizagem auxilia na percepção de elementos novos, possivelmente por ativar processos cognitivos apenas disponíveis (sobretudo no tocante à filtragem de estímulos presentes no insumo) quando o objeto de estudo desperta no aluno um elemento de relevância pessoal / Abstract: The objective of this dissertation is to evaluate the use of Focus on Form in the acquisition of the verb tense Present Perfect by Brazilian students through a comparison with the traditional Communicative approach. This approach presents, despite several advantages, a limitation in the final grammatical competence attained by students. A possible reason for such limitation, among others, is the insufficiency of input alone in providing negative evidence, i.e. information about the agrammaticality of phrases for which L2 is a subset of L1. What has been labeled as Focus on Form, or FonF for short, is an intervention in which we direct students¿ attention to aspects of L2 during an activity aimed at the exchange of meaning. In this way, unlike what happens with Focus on FormS ( following Michael Long¿s terminology), FonF does not interrupt a communicative act in exchange for the isolated study and practice of grammar structures, but tries to divert students¿ attention momentarily, while they are engaged in a meaningful comprehension or production task. The Present Perfect is a structure which presents several difficulties to the Brazilian learner. This is partly due to the misleading explanations presented by most textbooks available. The experiment compared ten groups at level 5 in terms of their performance in pre and post tests. These tests evaluated the students¿ ability to (a) select the correct verb forms for incomplete sentences among distractors; (b) classify sentences containing the target-structure as either grammatically correct or not and (c) reconstruct in writing a text read aloud by the teacher which contained four instances of the target structure. Three different treatments were used : (1) with FonF tasks based on reading comprehension; (2) with FonF tasks based on text reconstruction and (3) without FonF. The results are in favour of the use of FonF activities for the Present Perfect and suggest that reading comprehension tasks are more beneficial than the text reconstruction ones. An awareness-raising question (what did you learn?) which was asked to some of the groups (1) and (2) resulted in an even better performance by the groups working with reading comprehension tasks. This has led to the hypothesis that asking the students to reflect upon their learning facilitates the noticing of new elements, possibly by activating cognitive processes only available ( particularly in what concerns the filtering of stimuli present in the input) when the object of study triggers an element of personal relevance in the student / Mestrado / Mestre em Linguística Aplicada