Processing instruction produces significant gains in both sentence-level comprehension and production¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r? · q3
Currency · newest study 1993 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q3 i? Second-language learners who experienced processing instruction made significant gains on both a sentence-level interpretation (comprehension) task and a sentence-level production task. → Bill VanPatten and Teresa Cadierno 1993

Evidence¶

Bill VanPatten and Teresa Cadierno 1993¶

Bill VanPatten and Teresa Cadierno. (1993). Explicit Instruction and Input Processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Volume 15, Issue 2. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263100011979

q3 · i? · causal · r?

The article's experiment compared processing instruction with traditional form-focused instruction using pretest and posttest measures "involving both a sentence-level interpretation (comprehension) task and a sentence-level production task" submitted to an analysis of variance. The reported result is a statistically significant gain on both measures for the processing instruction group; no effect size is printed.

"Results reveal significant gains in both comprehension and production for subjects who experienced processing instruction."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

Syntax — outcome: instruction changes it

Comprehensible input alone is insufficient for acquisition of high levels of grammatical proficiency — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
Traditional form-focused instruction produces significant gains in production but not in comprehension — related
Language processing is intimately tuned to input frequency across phonology, phonotactics, reading, spelling, lexis, morphosyntax, formulaic language, comprehension, grammaticality, sentence production, and syntax — related
A 1982 bilingual-education teacher-training packet asserts, citing Krashen, that repetitive drill and grammar-focused instruction are ineffective for second language acquisition — related

Page metadata

Field	Value
`type`	`claim`
`id`	`processing-instruction-gains-comprehension-and-production`
`title`	`Processing instruction produces significant gains in both sentence-level comprehension and production`
`description`	`Processing instruction produces significant gains in both sentence-level comprehension and production`
`status`	`review`
`evidence_strength`	`moderate`
`newest_evidence`	`1993`
`generated`	by `process:wiki-ingest` on `2026-10-15`
`trust`	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
`sources`	1 — `bill-vanpatten-and-teresa-cadierno-1993`

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