This study investigates the effects of input and interaction activities on the acquisition of French reflexive verbs. In this research project, I address the following two research questions: 1) Will acquisition and production of French reflexive verbs vary according to instructional treatment? 2) Will acquisition and production of French reflexive verbs vary according to the proficiency level of the participants? The findings will be discussed within the input-interaction framework of second language acquisition. All data collection takes place within the university classroom environment. Intact university classes from first semester French (N=62), second semester French (N=54), and third semester French (N=64) participated in this study based upon communicative classroom activities. Proficiency level was divided into three groups that received the following forms of instruction: input (N=68), interaction (N=74), and no instruction/control (N=38). The interaction groups were further divided into "high" and "low" learners according to each individual's teacher rankings. The target forms chosen for this experiment were French reflexive verbs. Comprehension, acquisition, and production of the target forms were measured three times during a pretest, immediate post-test, and a 7-day delayed post-test using two tasks: a composition of daily routines and a translation of typical daily routines. Two tasks were evaluated: 1) a composition task that was evaluated according to attempted target forms and correct target forms; and 2) a translation task that was evaluated by correct target forms. The results for attempts on the composition task revealed that input and interaction groups significantly increased their production of French reflexive verb attempts from pretest to post-test; overall the first semester students did better than the advanced students. The results for the correct target forms on the composition task revealed that overall input and interaction groups performed significantly better than the control groups and first semester performed better than the advanced students. For the translation task, the results indicated that each class performed relatively the same on this task at each point in time; significant results were found for time and its interactions with class and activity. As before, the input and interaction groups performed significantly better than the control groups from pretest to post-test. The results suggest that indeed production and accuracy does vary according to treatment type. The results also suggest that proficiency has an effect on production and accuracy as well. However, as we will see, the results are counter-intuitive because the lower proficiency groups performed higher than the more proficient groups. Implications for evaluating the data using a qualitative analysis will be discussed as well. / A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2006. / March 22, 2006. / Qualitative, Proficiency, LRE, Dyad, SLA / Includes bibliographical references. / Gretchen Sunderman, Professor Directing Thesis; Michael Leeser, Committee Member; William Cloonan, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_180580 |
| Contributors | Osborn, Virginia Hudson (authoraut), Sunderman, Gretchen (professor directing thesis), Leeser, Michael (committee member), Cloonan, William (committee member), Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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