Textual enhancement of two L2 Arabic forms: a classroom-based study

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Textual enhancement of two L2 Arabicforms: a classroom-based studyEun Sung Parka & Lama Nassifb

a Department of English, Sogang University, Seoul, Republic ofKoreab The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USAPublished online: 04 Jul 2013.

To cite this article: Eun Sung Park & Lama Nassif (2014) Textual enhancement of twoL2 Arabic forms: a classroom-based study, Language Awareness, 23:4, 334-352, DOI:10.1080/09658416.2013.808645

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Language Awareness, 2014Vol. 23, No. 4, 334–352, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2013.808645

Textual enhancement of two L2 Arabic forms: a classroom-based study

Eun Sung Parka∗ and Lama Nassifb

aDepartment of English, Sogang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea; bThe University of Texas atAustin, Austin, USA

(Received 6 August 2012; final version received 15 May 2013)

Research on textual enhancement (TE) has given rise to several factors that may play arole in generating learners’ noticing of target forms, one of which pertains to the natureof the target form(s). In particular, results have suggested that learners are more likelyto notice more meaning-bearing forms than less meaning-bearing forms. Motivated bysuch insight, the present study investigated the effects of TE on two Arabic structures:the comparative form (which carries substantive semantic weight), and the dual pronoun(which is mostly grammatical in its function). The results indicated that TE did not playa facilitative role in promoting learners’ noticing of the target forms, and that it actuallyinterfered with learners’ comprehension of the text when targeted at the less meaningfulform. Results are discussed with suggestions for future TE research targeting Arabic asa second language.

Keywords: focus on form; SLA; noticing; foreign language pedagogy

Introduction

Second language acquisition (SLA) research in the past three decades has witnessed aproliferation of studies examining the role of attention in learners’ second language (L2)development. Such studies, operating under the framework that attention to input is animportant aspect of SLA, have typically incorporated some type of pedagogical interventionaimed at facilitating learners’ noticing of the target forms. The pedagogical interventionemployed in such studies can roughly be subsumed under what is widely known as focuson form, which includes different types of techniques aimed at directing learners’ attentionto form with varying degrees of explicitness in a meaning-based classroom (see Doughty& Williams, 1998, for a discussion of different kinds of focus on form techniques).1 Thecurrent study is concerned with one type of focus on form technique, textual enhancement(TE).2

TE involves manipulating the presentation of written L2 input via underlining, bolding,or increasing the font in order to direct the learners’ attention to certain forms. It iscategorised as an implicit type of focus on form which can be easily incorporated in acommunicative classroom where the focus on meaning is of paramount importance. Thegeneral assumption underpinning most TE studies is, as Izumi (2002) noted, a two-steplogic: ‘First, the perceptual salience created by highlighting the input will draw the learner’sattention to the highlighted forms. Second, once the first step is successful, learning of theattended form will occur based on the premise that attention is what mediates input andintake’ (pp. 567–568). Although the L2 literature has witnessed a plethora of researchexamining the effects of TE on learners’ noticing of enhanced forms, evidence has largely

∗Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

C© 2013 Taylor & Francis

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2013.808645

Language Awareness 335

been mixed, with some reporting significant benefits of TE (e.g. Jourdenais, Ota, Stauffer,Boyson, & Doughty, 1995; Shook, 1994) while others reporting its effects to be marginal atbest (Alanen, 1995; Leow, 1997, 2001; Overstreet, 1998; Park, 2004; White, 1998). Suchconflicting findings make it hard to generalise the efficacy of TE as a viable focus on formtechnique, and a number of confounding factors surrounding the inconclusive findings havebeen discussed in two papers devoted solely to reviewing the TE research conducted thusfar (Han, Park, & Combs, 2008; Lee & Huang, 2008; also see Leow, 2009, for effects ofTE on L2 grammatical development). Several important issues that need to be teased outin further research have been identified in these papers, two of which are directly addressedin the present study: (1) TE and the nature of the target form, and (2) TE and meaningcomprehension.

TE and the nature of the target form

As widely reported in the SLA literature, not all linguistic forms are equal, and not all formsare equally susceptible to instructional interventions (e.g. Goldschneider & DeKeyser, 2001;Spada & Tomita, 2010; VanPatten, 2004; Williams & Evans, 1998). Similarly, empiricalresearch on TE has also indicated that not all forms are equally amenable to TE tech-niques (e.g. Leow, Egi, & Tsai, 2003; Park, 2004). A number of parameters have been usedto describe the structural characteristics of different linguistic forms, including the com-municative value, formal complexity, perceptual salience, and transparency of the targetform(s). Most TE studies have typically examined learners’ noticing of the target forms interms of their perceptual salience or communicative value.3 Leow et al. (2003), for example,examined the effects of TE on two L2 Spanish forms (the present perfect and the presentsubjunctive) to determine whether the salience of a linguistic item plays a role in learners’noticing of enhanced forms. The present perfect, realised by two independent words (e.g. haterminado ‘has finished’), was deemed to be more salient than the present subjunctive whichis composed of just one morpheme (e.g. termine ‘should finish’). Their results from 72 par-ticipants’ think-alouds and recognition tasks revealed more learner noticing for the presentperfect (the more salient form) than the present subjunctive (the less salient form), indicatingthat the more salient the target form, the more likely it would be noticed by learners.

Other studies have examined the salience of the target form in terms of its communica-tive value, or the contribution of the target form to the referential meaning of a sentence.This is predicated upon VanPatten’s (2002, 2004) Primacy of Meaning Principle, whichstipulates that learners are naturally inclined to channel their focal attention to elementswith more communicative value (e.g. content words) than those with less communicativevalue (e.g. grammatical morphemes). The resulting corollary to this principle entails thatprocessing of grammatical morphemes often fails to occur or occurs only after the learneris able to process the meaning-laden elements with ease. Ensuing empirical studies havemostly confirmed that learners are indeed likely to process more meaning-bearing formsthan less meaningful forms, and that TE tends to be more effective when targeted at formsthat are more meaningful, as evidenced by studies that have targeted linguistic forms withgreater semantic value, which in turn reported greater benefits of TE (e.g. Doughty, 1991;Jourdenais et al., 1995; Lee, 2007; Shook, 1994).

Doughty’s (1991) study, for example, targeted the English relative clause formation(which carries a substantive semantic weight) and reported positive effects of TE on learn-ers’ development of the target form. Similarly, Jourdenais et al. (1995) reported beneficialeffects of TE on learners’ noticing of the Spanish preterit and imperfect verb forms, both ofwhich are frequent in the input and semantically important.4 In a study targeting artificial

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336 E.S. Park and L. Nassif

Finnish, Alanen (1995) reported moderate gains in accuracy for the locative suffix, whichhas a ‘clearly definable semantic content’ (p. 269), but not for the consonant alternation,which is ‘semantically empty’ (p. 269). In another study, Shook (1994) targeted two linguis-tic forms: the present perfect and the relative pronoun in L2 Spanish. The two forms wereselected based on the fact that the use of the present perfect is determined by a meaningful,aspectual decision by the speaker, compared to the relative pronoun whose use is governedby a syntactic choice. Shook found a differential effect for the two forms with participantsscoring better on the texts embedded with the present perfect than those with the relativepronoun (que/quen[es]). Based on these findings, Shook concluded that more meaningfulitems are processed before less meaningful items, and that different types of linguistic itemscan differentially benefit from TE. Similarly, Lee’s (2007) quasi-experimental study con-ducted in an EFL environment in Korea also reported beneficial effects of TE on learners’acquisition of the English passive, which also carries substantive communicative weight.5

The aforementioned findings are in line with VanPatten’s (2004) Primacy of Meaningprinciple, which advocates that simultaneous attention to form and meaning inevitablyaffects comprehension, and that learners by default are more prone to process forms thatcarry more communicative value than forms with less communicative value (also seeBardovi-Harlig, 1995; Doughty & Williams, 1998). In addition, a number of studies haveascribed the marginal effects of TE to the lack of communicative value of the target form.For example, Leow’s (1997, 2001) studies targeting Spanish imperatives did not yield anybenefits of TE on learners’ comprehension or on the intake of the target forms which maybe attributed to the fact that the Spanish imperatives are not as meaning-bearing as thepreterit and imperfect forms typically targeted in other studies (e.g. Jourdenais et al., 1995;Shook, 1994).

Some studies have also specifically examined the effects of TE on forms with very lowor no communicative value. Wong (2003), for example, targeted the French past participleagreement in relative clause construction – a form deemed to have no communicativevalue. She chose this form based on the hypothesis that non-salient forms may reap greaterbenefits from TE. The results revealed that TE failed to play a role in learners’ acquisitionof the target form, as gauged by an error correction task.6 Similarly, a study by White (1998)which targeted the English third person determiner (a form with limited semantic value)on Francophone ESL learners, reported that TE was ineffective in drawing the learners’attention to the target forms, with many of the participants reporting that they felt uncertainabout why some of the forms were enhanced.

Taken together, empirical evidence mostly suggests that forms with more communica-tive value tend to benefit more from TE, and that forms with less communicative valueappear to be the most difficult to acquire and less amenable to TE techniques. The accu-mulated evidence, however, remains inconclusive (e.g. Jourdenais et al., 1995; Leow, 1997,2001; Leow et al., 2003), and further research is warranted.

TE and meaning comprehension

Another important issue that has been implicated in the TE literature pertains to whether ornot enhancing the same linguistic form has a differential impact on learners’ comprehensionand intake of the target form(s) (e.g. Han et al., 2008; Lee, 2007). This has emergedas an incidental byproduct of TE research which has focused on investigating learners’noticing and/or acquisition of the target forms, to the exclusion of incorporating any typeof comprehension measures (Alanen, 1995; Doughty, 1991; Izumi, 2002; Jourdenais et al.,1995; Shook, 1994; White, 1998). Only a handful of TE studies have included some type

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of comprehension measures to examine the effects of TE on learners’ comprehension,typically employing comprehension questions or free written recall tasks7 to gauge theircomprehension of the text (e.g. Doughty, 1991; Izumi, 2002; Lee, 2007; Leow, 1997; Shook,1999; Wong, 2003).

Leow’s (1997) study, for example, directly addressed how TE might impact learners’global text comprehension via comprehension questions. He targeted L2 Spanish formalimperatives on 84 English speakers and found that TE did not have an effect on learners’comprehension of the passage. In another study, Shook (1994) incorporated a written recalltask to examine the effects of TE on the learners’ comprehension of two different formsin terms of their global comprehension (gauged by the total number of idea units recalled)and local comprehension (gauged by the target idea units recalled). He found that thelearners recalled more target idea units for the text containing the present perfect (the moremeaningful form), yielding better local comprehension. On the other hand, more non-targetidea units were recalled for the text containing the relative pronoun (the less meaningfulform), indicating better global comprehension. In another study, Wong (2003) targeted theFrench past participle agreement and found that TE aided the recall of enhanced informationin the texts – i.e. local comprehension; however, she found no effects of TE on learners’global comprehension.

In a finding relevant to the present study, at least two studies (Lee, 2007; Overstreet,1998) have reported potentially detrimental effects of TE on learners’ comprehension ofthe text. Overstreet’s (1998) study targeting L2 Spanish preterit and imperfect tense founda negative effect of TE on learners’ comprehension as measured by a True/False test.Similarly, Lee (2007) also reported that although TE aided the learning of the passive formconstruction, it actually interfered with learners’ comprehension of the text. Lee speculatedthat ‘students’ attentional resources might have been depleted from having to decode theenhanced parts, resulting in poorer understanding of the meaning of the text’ (p. 109).

To summarise, evidence to date indicates that the efficacy of TE may vary dependingon the communicative value of the target form and further suggests that learners’ compre-hension may differ when gauged at the level of local vs. global comprehension (Shook,1999; Wong, 2003). And as discussed, some studies (e.g. Leow, 1997, 2001) have reportedno effects of TE on meaning comprehension, whereas some others (Lee, 2007; Overstreet,1998) have explicitly cautioned against the potentially harmful effects of TE on learners’comprehension of the enhanced texts. Such findings suggest a dissociation of meaning andform, giving rise to the possibility that TE may facilitate learners’ noticing of the targetforms, but independently from their comprehension of the text. Thus, although the generalassumption holds that TE can facilitate learners’ noticing of certain forms and subsequentintake, it remains unclear whether or not it simultaneously creates a trade-off with com-prehension (see Han et al., 2008). As Lee (2007) aptly pointed out, if the goal of TE asan implicit focus on form technique is to facilitate grammar learning while maintainingmeaning primacy, it is all the more important to investigate whether inducing the learners’attention to a linguistic form via TE compromises their comprehension.

Research questions

In view of the foregoing review, the present study examines the effects of TE on learners’comprehension and immediate production of two different forms – one with high com-municative value, and the other with low communicative value. The following researchquestions guided the current study:

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(1) What are the effects of TE on learners’ global and local comprehension of the text(a) when the target form is high in communicative value, and (b) when it is low incommunicative value?

(2) What are the effects of TE on learners’ immediate production (a) when the targetform is high in communicative value, and (b) when it is low in communicativevalue?

Method

Participants

The participants comprised 16 English-speaking students learning Arabic as a foreignlanguage at a graduate school in the United States. They were enrolled in two sectionsof the same course, Intermediate Arabic II, which was a four-credit course offered in thespring semester. All participants were required to take a placement test8 when they firstenrolled in the school, and all had completed Intermediate Arabic I course in the previoussemester. Both sections were taught by the same instructor (the second author of the study)and guided by the same syllabus, based on the textbook Al-kitaab fii ta’allum al-’arabiyya(Brustad, Al-Batal, & Al-Tonsi, 2004). The course was designed to develop the students’competence in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), focusing on all four skills. The class mettwice a week, each session lasting two hours. The profile of the participants is presented inTable 1.

Table 1. Profile of the participants.

Group Student Gender L1 Other L2s studied

Enhanced group (n = 7) S1 M English FrenchS2 M English German, LatvianS3 F English French, SpanishS4 F English Thai, FrenchS5 F English French, GermanS6 M English SpanishS7 M English Spanish

Unenhanced group (n = 9) S8 M English SpanishS9 M English Russian, SpanishS10 F English SpanishS11 F English SpanishS12 F English Spanish, ItalianS13 F English FrenchS14 F English FrenchS15 M English GermanS16 F English French, Italian

Target forms

Two target forms were selected for this study: the comparative form, which is deemed tobe meaning-bearing and semantically important, and the dual pronoun, which is mostlygrammatical in its function. These two forms were chosen based on the following criteria:(1) neither of the two forms was formally presented to the participants prior to the study;(2) both forms were scheduled to be taught in the upcoming weeks based on the course

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syllabus; and (3) contextual guessing of the target sentences was highly likely despite thedifferential communicative value of the two structures (Leow, 1997). A brief description ofthe two target forms is provided below.

The comparative form

The comparative form in Arabic is a singular, masculine, indefinite noun derived from averb by adding a prefix a to the verb root, the base form of all word derivations in Arabic.The formation and use of the comparative form are shown below:

(1)(a)

ghurfati akbar min ghurfatekMy room-SBJ bigger-PRD than your room-PP

= My room is bigger than your room(b)

narghabu bi al-intiqal ilaa ghuraf akbarWe’d like-V to move to rooms-PP bigger-ADJ

= We’d like to move to bigger rooms

As seen in Example (1), the comparative marker a is added as a prefix to the verb rootkbar to form the comparative word akbar (‘bigger’). The comparative form always followsthe noun being modified, and has a stable singular, masculine form across gender andnumber, which is a non-typical feature of Arabic adjectives. For example, the comparativeform akbar (1a) does not agree in gender with the feminine noun ghurfati (‘my room’), nordoes it agree in number with the plural noun ghuraf (‘rooms’) in 1b. The function of thecomparative form is determined by its sentential position (i.e. predicate in 1a, but adjectivein 1b).

The comparative form is deemed to be of high communicative value in that it has inherentsemantic value given its non-redundancy – i.e. its meaning is not conveyed through otherlexical elements. It is also used in colloquial Arabic, the language of speech known to havedistinct features compared to the more formal medium of reading and writing (i.e. MSA).

The dual pronoun

The dual pronoun aan is a pronoun attached to verbs as a suffix in the present tense,denoting two animate or inanimate beings involved in an action or experiencing a state.The use of the Arabic dual pronoun as opposed to the singular pronoun is displayed below.

(2)(a)

Sami yadrus fii madrasa qareebahSami-SBJ studies-V in school-PP close-ADJ

= Sami studies at a nearby school(b)

Sami wa Adam yadrusaan fii madrasa qareebahSami and Adam-SBJ both study-V in school-PP close-ADJ

= Sami and Adam both study at a nearby school

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(c)

Leila wa Rania tadrusaan fii madrasa qareebahLeila and Rania-SBJ both study-V in school-PP close-ADJ

= Leila and Rania both study at a nearby school

The dual pronoun aan in the verb yadrusaan (‘both study’) in 2b refers to two maleagents (Sami and Adam) as opposed to the singular yadrus (‘studies’) which is used with asingle agent (see 2a). In this regard, the fact that two agents (as opposed to one) performedthe action is reinforced. The same dual pronoun is added regardless of the gender of thetwo female agents, Leila and Rania (see 2c).

Contrary to the comparative form, the dual pronoun is of low communicative value andis structurally redundant since the use of the pronoun reinforces that two individuals wereinvolved in the action, a meaning conveyed through other lexical items, such as the subjector the pronoun. At the syntactic level, the dual pronoun expresses tense with the changein form across tenses, a feature embedded in the verb itself.9 This pronoun is a feature ofMSA, which is not used in colloquial Arabic.

Instruments

Reading passages

Two reading passages were used – one for each target form. The first passage, embeddedwith the comparative form (Appendix 1), was an expository text comparing two Arabcities, consisting of 188 words with nine instances of the target form. The second passagewas in the form of a letter reporting family news to a friend (Appendix 2), consisting of178 words with 10 instances of the dual pronoun. The treatment group received the textswith the target forms enhanced (via enlarging the font, bolding, and underlining), and thecomparison group received the same passage without any enhancement.

Tasks

A fill-in-the-blank pretest was administered prior to the treatment to ensure that the twogroups were comparable in terms of their knowledge of the target forms. The pretestcontained 18 items: five comparatives, five dual pronouns, and eight distractors. Verb rootswere provided, and the participants were asked to derive the correct form of the word.

Two tasks were used to assess the learners’ comprehension of the reading passage. Thefirst task was a recall task in which the participants were asked to read the passage andrecall as many details as possible without referring back to the text. They were asked towrite in English, their L1. The second task comprised eight comprehension questions: onequestion assessing the main idea of the text, followed by seven True/False questions.10 Twoadditional tasks were designed to assess the participants’ immediate production of the targetforms. The first was a fill-in-the-blank task in the form of a letter. The participants weregiven the root form and asked to fill in the blanks with the correct word derivation. Therewere nine blanks for the comparative form, and 12 for the dual pronoun. The second taskwas a free production task in which the participants were asked to write three sentenceson a topic which easily lent itself to the use of the target form. For the comparative form,the participants were asked to write three sentences comparing their hometown with theircurrent town. For the dual pronoun, they were asked to write three sentences about theirparents. It was anticipated that the participants would use the target form in constructingtheir sentences in light of the fact that the texts they had just read involved a comparison

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of two cities (for the comparative form), and a letter which detailed information about thewriter’s parents and siblings (for the dual pronoun).

Procedure

As noted, the participants were enrolled in two sections of Intermediate Arabic II course.They were deemed to be at a similar proficiency level based on (1) the general proficiencytest administered by the school when they first entered the programme, and (2) the factthat all of them had completed Intermediate Arabic I prior to taking Intermediate ArabicII. They also had comparable knowledge of the target forms as revealed by their pretestresults (see Results). One section of Intermediate Arabic II course (n = 7) was randomlyassigned to the ‘enhanced group’ (EG), and the other section (n = 9) to the ‘unenhancedgroup’ (UG).11 An overview of the study is provided in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Overview of the study design.

As shown in Figure 1, a pretest was administered halfway into the semester, and thetreatment sessions took place in Week 9 and Week 13, respectively, with the specific timingbeing mandated by the course syllabus. In both sessions, the participants read the given textwith the target forms embedded, with the EG reading the text which was embedded withenhanced target forms, and the UG reading the same text with the embedded target formsintact. The participants then completed two comprehension tasks and two production tasks.Each session took approximately an hour.

Data analyses

Two measures – a free recall task, and comprehension questions – were used to assessthe learners’ comprehension. For the recall task, all the idea units in each of the two textswere independently determined by two Arabic instructors. A total of 24 idea units wereidentified in the first text, which targeted the comparative form, and 30 idea units wereidentified in the second text, which targeted the dual pronoun. The corresponding idea unitsin English were then determined, and two Arabic-speaking raters independently analysedeach student’s recall data for accurate idea units (agreement rate = 98%). Any discrepancieswere resolved through discussions. The recall analysis resulted in two scores: one for thetotal number of recalled idea units (global comprehension), and the other for the numberof recalled idea units containing the target form (local comprehension).12 The participantswere allotted 1 point for each idea unit that accurately expressed an idea; 0.5 points if anidea unit closely, but not 100% accurately, expressed the original idea. For example, foran idea unit which depicted that both the mother and the father were retired, a recall of‘the parents were retired’ received 1 point whereas a recall of ‘her dad retired’ received a

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score of 0.5, since the student understood the idea of being retired, but reported that justthe father (as opposed to both parents) was retired. In the case of the second task (i.e.the comprehension questions), the answers were scored dichotomously, with each correctresponse receiving 1 point.

As for the two production measures, each student was allotted 1 point for each accurateanswer for the fill-in-the-blank task. For the sentence production task, each student’s attemptto use the target form was tallied, and the accurate use of the target form in the sentenceswas calculated, resulting in two scores: one for the number of attempts, and the other forthe correct use of the target form. T-tests were carried out for both comprehension tasks aswell as the fill-in-the-blank task.13

Results

As noted, a pretest was given prior to the treatment. This was a means to ensure that thetwo groups of learners were similar in terms of their Arabic knowledge, and to gauge thelearners’ knowledge (or lack thereof) of the target forms. There were 18 items in total(five comparative forms, five dual pronouns, and eight distractors). The two groups scoredsimilarly on the pretest (EG: Mean = 6.5, SD = 1.1; UG: Mean = 6.9, SD = 2.5), and theirscores on each target form revealed that the participants had comparable knowledge of thecomparative form (EG: Mean = 2; SD = .71; UG: Mean = 2; SD = 1.12), as well as thedual pronoun (EG: Mean = 0; UG: Mean = 0). The ensuing section reports the results fromthe comprehension tasks, followed by the results from the immediate production tasks.

Effects of TE on learners’ meaning comprehension

Global comprehension

The learners’ global comprehension was gauged by their scores from the comprehensionquestions and the recall task. For ease of presentation, we present the results of the com-prehension questions, followed by the recall results. For each passage, there were eightcomprehension questions, giving a maximum score of 8 (see Table 2).

Table 2. Results for the comprehension questions (all items).

EG UG

Target form Mean SD Mean SD t p d (effect size)

Comparative 4.50 1.38 5.20 2.04 −.739 .472 0.4Dual pronoun 4.29 2.63 5.56 1.13 −1.312 .211 0.64

As seen in Table 2, the UG scored better on both texts; however, the differencesfrom the t-tests were nonsignificant. In addition to the comprehension questions, the freerecall results were also analysed and counted for the total number of idea units (seeTable 3).

Table 3 shows that learners in the UG recalled more idea units for both forms, echoingthe results from the comprehension questions. Although the results for the comparativeform were nonsignificant, the results for the dual pronoun reached significance at p < 0.05(t = −2.182), indicating that enhancing a non-meaningful form significantly hindered thelearners’ global comprehension of the text. In addition, an effect size of 0.9 despite the

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Table 3. Recall of all idea units.

EG UG

Target Form Mean SD Mean SD t p d (effect size)

Comparative 6.33 3.14 7.95 2.80 −1.069 .303 0.6Dual pronoun 4.71 1.72 8.72 4.58 −2.182 .047∗ 0.9

Note: The total number of idea units for the comparative text = 24; dual pronoun text = 30.

small sample size of 16 demonstrates that the magnitude of the mean difference betweenthe two groups is quite large.

Local comprehension

The learners’ local comprehension was measured by examining the results from theTrue/False questions which contained the information conveyed by the target form, andby examining their recall of the target idea units. The results revealed no significant differ-ence for either form (see Table 4).

Table 4. Results for the comprehension questions (target items).

EG UG

Target Form Mean SD Mean SD t p d (effect size)

Comparative 2.00 0.63 2.50 1.27 −.892 .388 0.5Dual pronoun 3.00 2.24 3.77 0.97 −.942 .362 0.5

The learners’ local comprehension as gauged by their recall of the target idea unitsturned out to be more revealing (see Table 5). The UG recalled more (more than twice asmany) idea units containing the dual pronoun, the less meaningful form, suggesting thatthe group with the unenhanced text (i.e. UG) understood the content better than the groupwho read the text with the enhanced dual pronouns (i.e. EG). Although the t-test results didnot reach significance (t = −1.865; p = 0.083), the fact that we were able to find a largeeffect size (d = 0.97) despite the small sample size, is quite telling. In other words, eventhough this study lacked the power to find a lower p-value because of the small samples size(Larson-Hall, 2010), it shows that participants in the UG outperformed the EG by aboutone standard deviation unit, which implies a considerable mean difference between the twogroups.

Table 5. Recall of target idea units.

EG UG

Target form Mean SD Mean SD t p d (effect size)

Comparative 2.16 1.16 1.60 1.42 0.817 .427 0.5Dual pronoun 2.43 2.14 5.33 3.64 −1.865 .083 0.97

Note: The total number of target idea units for the comparative text = 9; dual pronoun text = 10.

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Effects of TE on learners’ immediate production

Controlled production

As seen in Table 6, the results from the fill-in-the-blank task show that the EG performedbetter for both target forms, but the differences were not significant. The results also showedconsiderable individual variations as illustrated by the large standard deviations – a pointwhich is further addressed in the Discussion.

Table 6. Results for the fill-in-the-blank task.

EG UG

Target form Mean SD Mean SD T p d (effect size)

Comparative 5.25 3.09 4.30 2.26 .690 .501 0.4Dual pronoun 4.43 4.89 2.78 4.63 .685 .506 0.35

Note: The highest possible score was 9 for the comparative form; 12 for the dual pronoun.

Free production

For this task, as aforementioned, the learners were asked to write three sentences that wouldinduce them to use the target form. As seen in Table 7, both the EG and the UG made acomparable number of attempts, 2.7 and 2.9 attempts, to use the comparative form, withsimilar accuracy rates of 88% and 84%, respectively. For the dual pronoun, both groupsmade a similar number of attempts (2.7 vs. 2.4), with the EG yielding higher accuracy rate(34%) than the UG (0%).

Table 7. Results for the sentence construction task.

EG UG

Target form Attempts Accuracy Attempts Accuracy

Comparative 2.7 88% 2.9 84%Dual pronoun 2.7 34% 2.4 0%

Discussion

TE and comprehension

The results showed no significant differences for the two target forms in terms of learners’local comprehension. The only significant result found was in terms of their global textcomprehension. Specifically, it was found that for the passage containing the dual pronoun,learners in the UG performed significantly better on their recall of the total number ofidea units. The lower performance by the learners who read the text with enhanced dualpronouns suggests that enhancing a non-meaningful form may be a source of distraction tolearners which can significantly interfere with their meaning comprehension. This finding isin line with Lee (2007) who also reported that learners who were presented with enhancedtexts recalled significantly fewer idea units than those presented with unenhanced texts.Overstreet (1998) also reported similarly harmful effects of TE on learners’ comprehen-sion of the texts with enhanced target forms – i.e. Spanish preterit and imperfect tense.Likewise, the current findings suggest that the participants may have been distracted bythe visual enhancements, especially when the target form did not contribute to meaning

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comprehension, given the learners’ limited and selective attentional capacity, consequentlyresulting in their diminished understanding of the text (Lee, 2007).

It should however be noted that the dual pronoun targeted in the current study is oflower communicative value than the passive form targeted in Lee (2007), and the L2 Spanishpreterit and imperfect tenses targeted in Overstreet (1998). In attempting to account forLee’s (2007) and Overstreet’s (1998) findings, which also revealed detrimental effects ofTE on learners’ global comprehension despite the relatively meaningful forms targetedin their research, methodological issues need to be considered. Lee’s (2007) two-weektreatment over three exposure sessions (36 tokens of the passive form, 12 in each text)provided prolonged exposure to the target form. Such exposure might have invoked aprioritisation of form over meaning, especially considering the focus on explicit grammarin the EFL participants’ language training experience and their repeated formal exposure tothe target form (compared to the current participants who had never formally encounteredthe dual pronoun previously). Overstreet (1998), on the other hand, had two verbal formsas target items (10 tokens of each item in the experimental text) enhanced in two ways:whole-word vs. verbal-morphology enhancement. It is possible that the variety of formand enhancement method could have placed more demands on the participants’ attentionalresources, distracting them away from meaning regardless of the communicative natureof the target forms. The differences in methodological procedures and the target formsnotwithstanding, the findings collectively point to the negative effects of TE on learners’global comprehension and suggest possible distractions by the visual enhancements.

It should also be noted that the results of the current study contradict with those ofWong (2003) which targeted an equally less-meaningful form – the French past partici-ple agreement in relative clause construction (que) – which revealed no effects of TE onlearners’ global comprehension. Once again, it is important to carefully compare the re-search methodology in accounting for the differential findings. While Wong also employeda free recall task, her reading texts were substantially longer (465–530 words) than thosein the current study (178–188 words), with 16 instances of the target form (compared to9–10 instances in this study). Hence, the smaller ‘target forms/total words’ ratio in Wong(2003) may have mitigated any distractions from textual enhancement. In addition, Wong’sexperimental treatment included three days of text exposure and recall, which might havefamiliarised her participants with the recall task, which in turn aided their comprehensionresults. Given the methodological diversity employed in TE studies, it is difficult to concludewhether comprehension was compromised because of the nature of the enhanced form, theratio of the enhanced form, the enhancement method, or learners’ (lack of) familiarity withregard to the assessment method employed in each study – concerns that need to be teasedout in future studies.

Although not significant, the current results also indicate that the learners’ local com-prehension, as gauged by their recall of target idea units, can yield differential outcomesdepending on the target form. The EG recalled more target idea units for the comparativeform (i.e. more meaning-bearing form; EG 2.16 vs. UG 1.60) than the UG. On the otherhand, the same group recalled fewer target idea units for the text containing the dual pro-noun (EG 2.43 vs. UG 5.33), suggesting that the enhancement of the comparative formseemed to have facilitated the learners’ local comprehension, which was not the case whenthe dual form was enhanced. Note however that this is just a speculation as the t-test results(approached but) did not reach significance. Even so, in light of the large effect size (d =0.97) despite the small sample size, we can cautiously infer that the learners’ local com-prehension seemed to have depended on the nature of the target form, yielding facilitative

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effects of TE on their local comprehension when the meaning-bearing form was enhanced,but not when the less meaningful form was enhanced. A similar trend was observed inShook’s (1999) results, in which the participants recalled more target idea units when thetarget form was the present perfect tense, but not for the relative pronoun, in which casethe learners recalled more non-target idea units. Likewise, the current results indicate thatalthough TE facilitated the comprehension of target idea units for EG for the more mean-ingful form, enhancement of the less meaningful form did not seem to have aided learners’comprehension of the target idea units.

Taken together, the results suggest that different linguistic forms may be differentiallysusceptible to TE techniques such that enhancing a linguistic form with greater semanticvalue may facilitate the learners’ local comprehension. On the other hand, enhancing aform with less semantic value may hinder not only the learner’s local comprehension,but also his/her global comprehension. This finding has important implications for L2practitioners in the light of the fact that one of the basic premises of TE, an implicit focuson form technique, is predicated on the condition that learners engage in a meaning-orientedactivity and that the focus on form technique be unobtrusive (Doughty & Williams, 1998;Wong, 2003). In this regard, it is important to clearly determine whether TE does in facthinder learners’ comprehension, and if so, to what extent it may hinder their comprehension,and which forms are more prone to compromise learners’ meaning comprehension whenincorporating TE techniques.

TE and learners’ prior knowledge of the target form

The current results revealed that both groups of learners performed slightly better onthe production tasks for the comparative form than the dual pronoun. In analysing theirproduction scores, it is useful to examine the learners’ prior knowledge of the target forms,as suggested by Izumi (2002) and others (Han et al., 2008; Jourdenais et al., 1995; Williams& Evans, 1998) who have argued that the effects of TE can be constrained by the learners’existing knowledge (or lack thereof) of the target forms.

Recall that the participants in the present study were given a pretest prior to the treatmentto assess their knowledge of the target forms. The mean score for the comparative formwas the same for both groups (Mean = 2), suggesting that all of the participants camewith some knowledge of the comparative form. For the dual pronoun, however, the meanaverage for both groups was 0, demonstrating that none of the participants was familiarwith this form. The fact that the participants in both groups scored better on the productiontasks for the comparative form may, in part, be attributed to the fact that participants inboth groups actually started out with some (albeit minimal) knowledge of the comparativeform. Previous studies have demonstrated that there is a close relationship between TE andlearners’ knowledge of the enhanced form; that TE alone is more effective for learners withsome knowledge of the target form than for those without (Alanen, 1995; Jourdenais et al.,1995; Park, 2004); and that simple enhancement can induce noticing but not understandingin learners with little prior knowledge (Shook, 1994). Han et al. (2008) also argued that‘the efficacy of TE is, in part, a function of the learner’s prior knowledge (or lack thereof)and of the nature of the linguistic element enhanced’ (p. 602), singling out learners’ priorknowledge and the nature of the linguistic form as the two major contributing factors of TE.Our results also lend support to this view as the findings show that both groups of learnershad some knowledge of the comparative form for which both groups scored higher on theproduction tasks.

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Although learners in both groups scored higher when the target form was the com-parative form, the two groups also made some improvements on the fill-in-the-blank tasktargeting the dual pronoun, which is especially noteworthy since every single participanthad scored 0 on the pretest for the dual pronoun. However, there appears to have beenconsiderable individual variations, as illustrated by the unusually large standard deviationsin the fill-in-the-blank task results (EG: Mean = 4.43, SD = 4.89; UG: Mean = 2.78;SD = 4.63; see Table 6). In fact, a closer look at the individual scores shows that 43% ofthe EG scored 0 points while 67% of the UG scored 0 points. Although six out of ninelearners in the UG scored 0 points, the fact that there were three other participants whowere able to score high points suggests that for some learners, mere exposure to the targetforms was sufficient in inducing their noticing regardless of the nature of the target formand regardless of whether or not they had any knowledge of the target form.14

Taken together, the difference between the two groups was minimal when the targetform was the comparative form, with both groups scoring similarly on the comprehensionand production tasks, suggesting that forms that are communicative by nature are likelyto be noticed by the learners regardless of whether or not they are enhanced. However,we cannot attribute these results only to the communicativeness of the target form sincethe learners also exhibited differential knowledge of the target forms, suggesting that thelearners may have been differentially ready to notice and process the target forms from theoutset of the study. Thus, the learners’ prior knowledge and the communicative value ofthe target form were confounded in this study, which constitutes a limitation that should beteased out in subsequent studies. The following section further elaborates on this limitationand addresses other weaknesses that need to be addressed in further research.

Limitations and conclusions

This section discusses some limitations of the current study. Some of the limitations stemfrom the fact that, to the best of our knowledge, this study constitutes the first TE studytargeting Arabic as an L2, with no prior research to refer to. As such, we would like toaddress some of the factors that need to be carefully considered in designing a TE study ofL2 Arabic, in hopes that these may be taken into consideration in subsequent studies.

One important issue associated with the designing phase pertains to the selection of thetarget forms. The fact that this was a classroom-based study made it particularly difficult tochoose the two forms since the choices were limited to those linguistic structures that wereincluded in the course syllabus for the target semester. Although care was taken to selectthe appropriate target forms, it turned out that there were other variables which needed tobe considered. One such variable concerned the learners’ prior knowledge via their L1; thecomparative form was present in the participants’ L1-English, but not the dual pronoun.Given that the concept of the dual pronoun was something that the English-speaking learnerswere not familiar with in their L1, the two forms were different not only in terms of thelearners’ readiness vis-a-vis the target form, but also in terms of their familiarity with thetarget structure through their L1.

Another aspect that needs to be considered in choosing the target form(s) pertains to thefact that Arabic comprises colloquial Arabic and MSA, the former being the language ofspeech, and the latter being the literary standard which is the formal variety predominantlyused in writing and highly formal speech (and also the variety taught in class). One of thetwo target forms, the comparative form, is a feature of both colloquial Arabic and MSA,whereas the dual pronoun is only a feature of MSA which is not used in colloquial Arabic.Hence, it is perhaps not entirely surprising that our participants had some knowledge of

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the comparative form but no knowledge of the dual pronoun. Although the participantswere taking classes focusing specifically on MSA and were not formally introduced toeither form prior to the study, it is possible that they had encountered the comparative formthrough informal means. Future research targeting L2 Arabic should be mindful of the twovarieties, and of the fact that the learners may have had ambient input exposure to structuresof colloquial Arabic as opposed to MSA.

Given that the present study was a classroom-based study conducted in two intactclasses, the number of participants was restricted to those enrolled in these two classes, andthe small number of participants in each class make it difficult to generalise the findings toother populations. This caveat notwithstanding, we believe that incorporating real studentsand taking into consideration the course curriculum in designing the tasks and selecting thetarget structures made the study ecologically valid and meaningful. Further, as noted, thepresent study is the first TE study targeting Arabic as an L2. According to a report releasedby the Modern Language Association (2007), the number of students studying Arabicsoared by 127% between 2002 and 2006, making it the 10th most studied language at U.S.colleges and universities. However, despite the rapidly increasing popularity of Arabic asa second or foreign language, not much research has been conducted on the acquisitionof L2 Arabic. Shedding light on aspects of Arabic will help enrich knowledge not only ofthe specific features of a language that is substantially different from the Indo-Europeanlanguages, but also of common language features which can subsequently contribute to amore comprehensive understanding of L2 learning.

AcknowledgementsThis work was supported by Sogang University Research Grant of 2012 (#201210068). An earlierversion of this study was presented at the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL) inAtlanta, Georgia in March 2010, and at the World Congress of Applied Linguistics (AILA) held atBeijing Foreign University in August 2011.

Notes1. The term focus on form originally coined by Long (1991) ‘overtly draws students’ attention to

linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaningor communication’ (pp. 45–46). This definition has since been stretched to accommodate avariety of techniques including both implicit and explicit focus on form techniques (Doughty& Williams, 1998).

2. In the L2 literature, TE is also referred to as input enhancement, visual input enhancement ortypographic enhancement.

3. Perceptual salience refers to the effect caused by concrete physical attributes of the targetstructure (Alanen, 1995), and communicative value refers to ‘the relative contribution a formmakes to the referential meaning of an utterance and is based on the presence or absence of twofeatures: inherent semantic value and redundancy within the sentence structure’ (VanPatten,1996, p. 24).

4. Note however that contradicting findings were reported in a subsequent study (Jourdenais,1998), which undermine the findings of Jourdenais et al. (1995).

5. It should be noted that the positive effects may also be attributed to a conflation of two or morefocus on form techniques. For example, Leow (2009) divides TE studies into two kinds: thosewith conflated (i.e. TE as a combination of more than one variable) vs. non conflated (i.e. withTE as the only variable) research designs and argues that the positive results from some studiessuch as Doughty (1991) and Lee (2007) may be attributed to a number of factors, one of whichis additional treatment/instruction.

6. The lack of effectiveness could very well be attributed to the nature of the task which requiredmeta-linguistic knowledge from the learners.

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7. In a written recall task, students are asked to recall as many ideas as possible from the reading,typically in their L1 lest their comprehension be masked by their limited L2 production (Chang,2006). It has the advantage of allowing the researcher to measure both the amount of totalinformation and the amount of enhanced information participants could recall on their own(Wong, 2003).

8. The test included four sections: reading, grammar, vocabulary and writing. The Reading sectionhad 20 questions; the Grammar section had 25 multiple-choice items, 18 production itemsand five identify-the-error items; the Vocabulary section had 30 items; and the Writing sectionrequired the students to write on select topics.

9. Verbs in Arabic are always inflected for tenses.10. One of the reviewers suggested providing a third option of ‘I don’t remember’ in the True/False

test. We agree that providing this option would have reduced the potential of guessing, whichwe hope to incorporate in further research.

11. As noted, we incorporated two intact classes. Therefore, it was not feasible to randomly assigneach participant to two different groups for the treatment, especially since the treatment wasintegrated as part of the regular curriculum.

12. There were nine idea units that incorporated the comparative form (the first text), and 10 ideaunits that incorporated the dual pronoun (the second text).

13. The second task was a free production task in which the learners were asked to produce threesentences using the target form. This resulted in qualitative data (with each student producing2-3 sentences with varying lengths and varying degrees of accuracy), which did not allow us torun a t-test.

14. In order to ensure that the group differences were due to the experimental treatment rather thanpre-existing group differences, we ran ANCOVA tests for different results with the pretest as acovariate. All of the ANCOVA tests confirmed the t-test results, and no correlations were foundbetween the pretest and the comprehension as well as the production tasks, confirming that therewas no bias entering into the analysis as a result of pretest differences.

Notes on contributorsEun Sung Park is an associate professor in the Department of English Literature and Linguisticsat Sogang University in Seoul, Korea where she serves as Director of General Education EnglishProgramme. Her research interests include learners’ noticing and processing of L2 input, and theinterface of theory and practice in language learning and teaching.

Lama Nassif is a PhD candidate in the foreign language education programme at the Department ofCurriculum and Instruction at University of Texas at Austin, USA. She is interested in the interfacebetween second language acquisition and second language pedagogy.

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Appendix 1. Text containing the comparative form (enhanced version)

Damascus and Cairo are two of the most beautiful and famous Arab cities. In terms of the geographicallocation, Damascus is located in the south west of the Syrian Arab Republic, whereas Cairo is in thenorth east of the Arab Republic of Egypt. The two cities attract a lot of tourists who come to see theold and famous places in them. There are also a lot of people who like to work and live in these twocities, as they have a lot of interesting things and work opportunities are more available in them thanany other cities in Syria and Egypt. However, there are a lot of differences between Damascus andCairo. At first, Damascus is older than Cairo, as it is the oldest capital and the oldest continuouslyinhabited city in the world. On the other hand, Cairo is bigger than Damascus, as it is the biggestand most highly populated Arab and African city, and housing in it is more expensive than that inDamascus, except in some regions. As for weather, Damascus is colder in winter and Cairo is hotterin the summer. In addition, a lot of people believe that nightlife in Cairo is more interesting thanDamascus, because there are a lot to do in this noisy and exciting city. Perhaps Cairo is preferred bythe people who like to live in a bigger city, whereas Damascus is preferred by those who like livingin a smaller and quieter city.

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Appendix 2. Text containing the dual pronoun (enhanced version)

Dear Maha,How’re you? Hope you and your family are fine.I’m graduating in a month, God willing. I didn’t enjoy my time a lot this year, but after this

semester I have a lot of time to do what I want.As for my family, all are well. My dad and mom are not working now. They spend the time

watching TV, reading newspapers, and visiting friends and relatives. It seems that they feel bored,and I think that they want to have a new job. My dad said that they would like to visit my uncle inTurkey.

You also know my brothers Sami and Wael, right? They are studying at university, but theyare spending a lot of time watching sports programs. I don’t know what they like more, studying orsports! Last summer, Sami traveled to Britain on a scholarship from his university, where he studiedfor a month. Now he wants to study for an MA in teaching English there.

Do you also remember my twin sisters Rasha and Rana? They work in a big company called Gap,and I think that they enjoy their work a lot. Three months ago, Rasha traveled to Italy on a businesstrip, which she enjoyed a lot. She now says that she wants to study Italian.

What about you? I’m eager to hear your news.Rania

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Documents

Textual enhancement of two L2 Arabic forms: a classroom-based study