This dissertation investigates the effects and value of instructional activities for improving
second language use of English articles. After reviewing a number of issues concerning
pedagogical, linguistic, psycholinguistic, and internal validity, this study presents the results of
eight longitudinal time-series case studies of adult Japanese learners of English residing in
Vancouver, Canada, four of whom received grammatical explanations, input processing activities,
and output practice activities regarding English article use. Learner development was assessed on
three different narrative retelling tasks (spoken, written, and cloze) and the production was
analysed with reference to specific contexts of use, indicating the form-function mappings that
comprised the learners' interlanguage knowledge. The results indicated that the learners'
interlanguage production exhibited (a) the anticipated task variation, with greater suppliance of the
on tasks that allowed greater attention to form, and (b) the anticipated discoursal variation, with the
supplied more consistently when it was primed as a redundant element on the written task and with
the supplied less consistently when it was efficiently deleted as a redundant element on the spoken
task. The results also indicated the variable nature of individual development and the value of
assessing development longitudinally on different tasks. Importantly, the results indicated that the
learners improved or continued improving after instruction, and strongly suggested that instruction
can cause automatization of interlanguage knowledge. This finding suggests that form-focused
instruction may be valuable for second language learning, and that pedagogical positions opposing
form-focused instruction may need to be revised or abandoned.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/6117 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Mellow, John Dean |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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