Comprehensible input alone is insufficient for acquisition of high levels of grammatical proficiency¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 1991 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on an ERIC document (a report, conference paper or thesis). It is kept because 10 design pages cite it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Immersion and intensive communicative programs supplying plentiful comprehensible input produced good listening/reading skills but low grammatical competence, indicating comprehensible input is not by itself sufficient for grammatical acquisition. → Ellis 1991

Evidence¶

Ellis 1991¶

Ellis, Rod. (1991). The Interaction Hypothesis; A Critical Evaluation. ERIC Document ED 338 037. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED338037

q2 · i? · review · r2

The review reports, citing Hammerly (1987), Swain (1985), and Spada and Lightbown (1989), that communicative programs yielded fluency and confidence but low grammatical accuracy (e.g. low accuracy on plural-s). The review attributes the pattern to learners not noticing grammatical features in comprehended input.

"Hammerly (1987) reviewed six studies of French immersion,all of which showed that although the learners developed good listening and reading skills,they remained far from 'linguistically competent'."

Studies bearing on this claim¶

Is exposure to meaningful input enough for learners to acquire L2 grammar, or do some forms need explicit instruction and practice? This table gathers the studies behind this claim and the 9 narrower claims that bear on it: 12 distinct studies (3 review, 3 theoretical, 3 quant-synthesis, 2 causal, 1 qualitative), q1–q3, 0 of 12 with an effect size coded. One row per study, codes as each entry records them; no effect is averaged and no verdict is drawn. Built by scripts/synthesize_claim.py from eval/synthesis/; a row that looks wrong is fixed on the claim it comes from.

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Oral Language — outcome: instruction changes it
• Syntax — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Producing modified output involving developmentally advanced question forms in response to negative feedback is the only significant predictor of ESL question development — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it

• Explicit L2 grammar instruction leads to larger learning effects than implicit instruction, as reported in the reviewed synthesis literature — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it

• Adult ESL learners in a planned informal total-immersion program made significantly greater communication-skill progress than a control group, with structural-skill progress not significantly different — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Extensive reading improves grammatical knowledge and writing style — reports the opposite
• Grammatical skill is not the focus of Second Language Acquisition, per the study's synthesis of SLA theories and methods — reports the opposite
• There is no direct evidence that comprehensible input is necessary for L2 acquisition; the input hypothesis remains untested — related
• Dialogue journals inherently meet conditions deemed necessary for second language acquisition — related
• Successes of form-focused manipulation of input in adult L2 are illusory with respect to linguistic competence, affecting only performance — related
• Informal evidence that adults do not automatically process input to develop competence reopens the role of grammar instruction (as reported by the bibliography, citing Terrell) — related
• A 1999 conference paper reports, citing Ellis and LaPorte (1997), that instruction has little or no effect on the route of L2 acquisition — related
• In Spada's study, classes with less form-based listening practice improved listening significantly more than the class with the most — related
• A 1999 conference paper reports, citing White (1991) and Schwartz and Gubala-Ryzak (1992), that explicit negative evidence on English adverb placement produced only superficial change in French learners — related
• Research in language classes suggested cooperative learning was better than whole-class instruction for language skills and produced more student turns than teacher-centered classes — related
• Effects of linguistic comprehension instruction differ by outcome domain: small for vocabulary and grammar, moderate for narrative and listening comprehension — related
• Conversational interaction facilitates second language grammatical development in adult ESL learners — related
• Between-class accuracy differences were not correlated with performance on listening comprehension tests — related
• Substantial between-class differences exist in the accuracy with which intensive ESL students use structures such as progressive -ing and adjective–noun order in noun phrases — related
• Between-class differences in structural accuracy were attributed, with some evidence, to differences in teachers' form-focused instruction — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Language processing is intimately tuned to input frequency across phonology, phonotactics, reading, spelling, lexis, morphosyntax, formulaic language, comprehension, grammaticality, sentence production, and syntax — related
• Intensive ESL learners' oral English development was examined in four intact classes of approximately 100 French-speaking students aged 10–12 after a 5-month course — related
• Form-focused instruction on noun endings significantly increases French immersion students' ability to correctly assign grammatical gender, with gains maintained on delayed posttests — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Grammar-learning ability is preserved until about age 17.4 and then declines steadily, per the best-fitting ELSD model — related
• Attention to form via structural analysis or via highlighting structures in context promotes interlanguage grammar acquisition, but only highlighting in context comes with comprehension of input — related
• Second language instruction increases the rate of acquisition of English relativization by ESL learners — related
• A 2010 teacher guide reports, citing Postovsky (1974, 1975), that delaying oral production and emphasising aural comprehension early in EFL instruction gives better results than intensive oral practice — related
• Processing instruction produces significant gains in both sentence-level comprehension and production — related
• Syntactic rather than semantic processing of input is essential for correcting incomprehensible output — related
• Learners receiving both form- and meaning-focused instruction improved more than a form-focused group (attributed to Park, 2000) — related
• Mere exposure to the target language does not automatically lead to native-like communicative competence in adult learners — a broader claim this one bears on
• Traditional form-focused instruction produces significant gains in production but not in comprehension — related
• Low-frequency or low-salience L2 elements are hard or impossible to learn through mere exposure and require extensive practice to proceduralize form-meaning mappings — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
• Form-focused instruction can contribute to the acquisition of second language implicit knowledge, as shown in studies measuring learners' free production — related