Input Enhancement Variation

Various SLA researches have made attempts to draw L2 learners’ attention to a linguistic form in the classroom in order to promote the learners’ acquisition of it. However, it remains unclear how input can be optimally treated so that maximal attention can be drawn. Thus, the current study conducted a teaching experiment to investigate the effects of different input enhancement techniques upon Chinese college students’ acquisition of English verbs with dative objects.72 2nd-year (3rd term) non-English majors, from 3 parallel English classes of the School of Chinese Language and Literature in Southwest University, participated in the teaching experiment. They were randomly assigned to 3 conditions. Group 1, called the TE (Textual Enhancement) group, received typographically enhanced input. Group 2, called the RI (Rule-based Instruction) group, was first instructed on target grammatical rules and then exposed to regular unenhanced text. Group 3 was the control group only reading regular unenhanced text. The 3 groups of subjects, aged from 18 to 20, all had English extensive reading as a compulsory course, and the same English teacher.3 tests (pretest, posttest and delayed-posttest) were designed to measure the participants’ knowledge of the English verbs with dative objects. The data were analyzed with the statistic procedures of non-orthogonal contrast analysis and paired-samples t test, using SPSS 13.0. According to the pre-test data, the 3 groups of subjects were not significantly different before the experiment, in their knowledge of those target verbs with dative objects.The results of the experiment indicated that the 2 input enhancement treatments both had a positive effect on promoting the students’ acquisition of the target linguistic form. Whereas rule-based instruction had the largest effect in the posttest, there were no significant difference between textual enhancement and rule-based instruction in the delayed posttest. Besides, the effects of the 2 enhancement treatments both decreased from the posttest to the delayed posttest.The results of the experiment hold important implications for the teaching of English as a foreign language, and for the designing, editing and presentation of teaching materials, including textbooks as well. The most important is that in teaching English to Chinese college students, the learners’ noticing and hence acquisition of the target linguistic form could be improved with input maximally enhanced in perceptual salience and cognitive processing.