Documentation
Rashtchi,
M & Lili, G. (2010). Noticing through
Input Enhancement: Does it Affect Learning of the Conditionals? Journal of
Language and Translation, 1(1), 19-27.
Summary
The study
aimed to investigate whether noticing through input enhancement had any impact
on the acquisition of English conditional sentences in Iranian EFL
learners. Two classes were participated,
including a total number of 52 female students.
A proficiency test was administered and showed that two classes were
homogeneous. A standardized achievement
pretest was administered to indicate that the two groups were unfamiliar with
the target structures. Among two groups,
one received enhanced texts that were underlying, bolding, italicizing, and
changing of the font; while, the other one received normal instruction. The target structures applied in the study
were five types of conditional sentences.
During the instruction, the enhanced group had communicative activities
to integrate with input enhancement, and they were required to complete certain
tasks. The unenhanced group had comprehension
questions after reading passages and did grammar exercises. Then, the posttest was administered, and a
questionnaire was given to the enhanced group to see whether they had noticed
the visual enhancement during the reading task.
The results showed that the enhanced group outperformed the unenhanced
group on the achievement posttest. About
the questionnaire, a total number of 26 students in the enhanced group reported
that they had noticed some kind of visual enhancement, and they could provide
examples of what was enhanced. In the
end, the result of this study was lined up with Schmidt’s (1995) claim that
noticing is necessary and effective in language learning. For pedagogical implication, noticing and
awareness of the target forms are suggested as learning grammatical forms.
Critique
After
reading the article, there are pros and cons, illustrated as below. For advantages, first of all, the article
provided complete information in the introduction and literature section. Second, it is good for the researcher to
double test participants’ homogeneity and unfamiliarity of the target
structures. Third, it is good to see
that the researcher compare the result of the present study to previous study
in the discussion section. Finally, it
is good to see that the researcher provided pedagogical implications in the end
of the study. For disadvantages,
firstly, the methodology section was somewhat unclear. The reader might not know what those tests
looked like and what the scoring criteria are about. Second, instructional packages for two groups
seemed to have some overlaps. Both
enhanced and unenhanced groups were required to read passages. However, the point was that no matter the
target structures were enhanced or not, they all received authentic materials
and the unenhanced even had rule explanations and explicit grammar
exercises. In the view of this, the
unenhanced group should outperform other than the enhanced group. Third, surprisingly, the results showed that
the enhanced group did better because they had noticed the enhanced texts. Then, the reader might wonder what the tests
looked like, which was mentioned in the first drawback. And, the researcher did not show us what kinds
of examples were given by the interviewees.
Forth, based on the drawback mentioned in the third point, their noticing
to the target structures did not really equal to their understanding or
knowledge of the target structures. So,
what the tests were about is the key point.
Finally, the limitations of the study should be provided.
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