Successes of form-focused manipulation of input in adult L2 are illusory with respect to linguistic competence, affecting only performance¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 1999 · 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 2 design pages cite it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Form-focused manipulation of input in adult second language acquisition produces temporary, superficial performance changes rather than reorganization of the learner's grammar. → Young-Scholten 1999

Evidence¶

Young-Scholten 1999¶

Young-Scholten, M. (1999). Focus on Form and Linguistic Competence: Why Krashen Is Still Right about Acquisition. Paper presented at AAAL, Stamford. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED432919

q2 · i? · review · r1

The author's review of studies on input manipulation in adult second language acquisition concludes that "successes in the form-focused manipulation of input are illusory in terms of affecting linguistic competence", listing temporary improvement, mastery of simple items, and superficial changes with no grammar reorganization.

"It seems that successes in the form-focused manipulation of input are illusory in terms of affecting linguistic competence;we find that: (4)performance is affected in some manner"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• 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
• 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 — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• A 1982 bilingual-education teacher-training packet asserts, citing Krashen, that repetitive drill and grammar-focused instruction are ineffective for second language acquisition — a broader claim this one bears on
• Comprehensible input alone is insufficient for acquisition of high levels of grammatical proficiency — related
• A 1999 conference paper reports, citing Ellis and LaPorte (1997), that instruction has little or no effect on the route of L2 acquisition — a broader claim this one bears on
• 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) — reports the opposite
• Grammar instruction and skill drills show little carryover to composition success — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Effects of linguistic comprehension instruction differ by outcome domain: small for vocabulary and grammar, moderate for narrative and listening comprehension — related
• A controlled experiment tested whether various types of negative feedback affect adult second-language learners' acquisition of abstract constraints on an overgeneralized rule (the English dative alternation). — 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 — reports the opposite
• Mental representation is not amenable to direct explicit instruction because UG and parsers operate only on input data — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
• A 2010 narrative review reports that processing-instruction studies show structured input without explicit information can change learner knowledge — reports the opposite