1 Introduction
1.1 The Background of the Study
The researchers, who are in the field of second language acquisition and teaching,increasingly focus on how to arouse the noticing of learners on the grammatical forms of thetarget language in the input materials in order to promote their acquisition of the grammaticalforms of the target language in recent years. The recent researches show that textualenhancement input and output can increase the noticing of the language learners on thefeatures of the target language in the second language classroom. Izumi (2002) argues that thetwo methods are to promote the conscious noticing of learners on the features and problemsof the language, which need to be addressed in the input material and such conscious attentioncould improve the subsequent acquisition of the learners. Specifically, textual enhancementinput, which highlights the features of the target language in the input materials through theprinted means, attracts the attention of the learners from the outside, and the output makes thelearners consciously use the forms of the target language from the inside by requiring thelearners to complete a specified output task. The learners could notice the correspondinglanguage problems in the process of output and therefore they will give attention to the inputmaterial provided. Textual written reconstruction, as an output task, arouses the interest of theresearchers in recent years. Textual written reconstruction means the original material(content and form) is restated according to the clues, and then the output is compared with theoriginal one and finally the original material is restated again in order to achieve the bestforms of the interlanguage. Textual written reconstruction enables learners to devote moreattention to the forms or structures of the language through helping learners reduce thepressure on memorizing the content in order to promote the acquisition of the secondlanguage.
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1.2 The Purpose of the Study
This study aims to prove whether the isolation or combination of textual enhancementinput and textual written reconstruction, the means of drawing learners’ attention from theexternal and the internal, could facilitate noticing and acquisition of English present perfectby Middle school students. The core question in this study is:Could textual enhancement input and textual written reconstruction in isolation or incombination improve noticing and acquisition of English present perfect by Middle schoolstudents?The theoretical and pedagogical significance of this thesis are shown in the followingpart. Theoretically speaking, the current studies about the isolation or combination of textualenhancement input and textual written reconstruction are very few at home and abroadthrough access to information. Middle school students were regarded as the subjects andEnglish present perfect was used as the target form in this thesis, however, mostly collegestudents as subjects and subjunctive or passive voice as the target language in the previousresearch on textual enhancement input and textual written reconstruction .Therefore, theauthor hopes that this study could enrich empirical research of textual enhancement input andtextual written reconstruction.
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2 Literature Review
2.1 Noticing
The theoretical basis for noticing was centered on the relationship between two types ofhuman knowledge, namely explicit and implicit knowledge (Bialystok, 1981). Fotos (1993)stated explicit knowledge as “knowledge about something, for example, grammatical rules,and is the type of knowledge which is developed through formal instruction”, but implicitknowledge as “knowledge of how to do something; for example, how to communicate in atarget language” (Fotos, 1993:385).It is a more important problem in the second language acquisition whether there is thetransformation between implicit and explicit knowledge than the distinction between them.Different experts presented their own views about this problem. “The non-interface position”was advanced by Krashen (1981). He held that there was no conversion between explicitknowledge and implicit knowledge because the two kinds of knowledge were in differentlocations in the brain. He also pointed out it was not necessary for the second languageacquisition to teach grammar.
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2.2 Textual Enhancement Input and Noticing
The roles of the language input and input enhancement in the second languageacquisition are briefly reviewed before discussing textual enhancement input and its effect onnoticing of the learners. The definition of input in the second language acquisition is that the learners encounterthe language fragment in the context or setting of communication. Researchers (e.g. Schwartz,1993) regarded this kind of meaning-bearing input as primary linguistic data. Schwartzconsidered that “Input or primary linguistic data is the language that contains instances orexemplars of various grammatical forms and other linguistic information in the languageenvironment of the language acquirer” (Schwartz, 1993:147-163).In summary, three different views of the effect of input on the acquisition exist in thesecond language acquisition. There are behaviorist view, nativist view and interactionist view.The behaviorist view emphasizes the importance of the external linguistic environmentand neglects the effect of learners’ internal processing mechanisms on the second languageacquisition. In this model, input is regarded as determining factor of the second languageacquisition. The nativist view decreases the importance of input to the second languageacquisition and contributes the development and learning of language to the internalprocessing mechanisms of the learners. In this model, input is merely considered to be atrigger of the second language acquisition. The last one is interactionist view, which embracestwo different theories, namely, cognitive interactionist theory and social interactionist theory.Cognitive interactionist theory emphasizes that both the language input and innate processingmechanism of the learners are the necessary conditions of the second language acquisition.Social interactionist theory does the research on the relation between language input and thesecond language acquisition from the perspective of sociolinguistics. It states that languageinput, especially language interaction, is very important for the second language acquisition.In addition to three views above, some other views on the input and the role of input inthe second language acquisition will be stated in the following part.
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3 Design of Research.... 37
3.1 Research Questions and Hypotheses........ 37
3.2 The Design of the Experiment ..... 39
3.3 The Research of Variance ...... 42
3.4 The Procedure of the Experiment....... 43
3.5 The Methodology of the Experiment ....... 44
4 Results and Discussion.... 57
4.1 Results of the Effects of Textual Written Reconstruction on Noticing and......... 57
4.2 Results of the Effects of Textual Enhancement Input on Noticing ....... 59
4.3 Results of the Effects of the Combination of Textual Enhancement ........ 64
4.3.1 The Results of Noticing..... 65
4.3.2 The Results of Acquisition...... 67
4.4 Discussion ...... 68
5 Conclusion and Implications....... 76
5.1 Main Findings of the Study.... 76
5.2 Implications of the Study ....... 77
5.3 Limitations of the Present Study and Suggestions for the Future Study........ 77
4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Results of the Effects of Textual Written Reconstruction on Noticing and Acquisition of Present Perfect Tense
Research Question One: Could the accomplishment of the output task (textual writtenreconstruction) have a positive impact on the learners’ noticing and acquisition of the Englishpresent perfect in comparison with the accomplishment of the non-output task (readingcomprehension)?This research question focuses on the subjects’ noticing and acquisition. Therefore, thedata concerning the noticing and acquisition in this current experiment were collected andanalyzed. Firstly, the data referring to the noticing were collected from the subjects’note-taking in the process of the experiment so that the comparison between the subjects inthe output groups and the subjects in the non-output groups on the note-taking was made inorder to investigate the noticing aspect in the Research Question One. And then the datarelated to the acquisition were collected from the subjects’ scores in the three tests so that thecomparison between the subjects in the output groups and the subjects in the non-outputgroups on the scores in the three tests was made in order to investigate the acquisition aspectin the Research Question One.
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Conclusion
On the basis of the experiment of Izumi (2002), the current study examined whether thetwo methods of textual enhancement input and textual written reconstruction in isolation or incombination could promote the noticing and acquisition of the English present perfect by theJunior Middle School students. The main findings of the research are presented as follows:
1) The output (textual written reconstruction) could have a positive impact on thelearners’ noticing of the forms of the target language while it could not be confirmed that thenoticing generated by the output (textual written reconstruction) could facilitate the learners’acquisition of the target forms. This finding indicated that the learners’ noticing andimmediate production of the forms of the target language could not directly facilitate theiracquisition of the target forms.
2) The textual enhancement input could play a positive role in the learners’ noticing ofthe forms of the target language. However, it could not be confirmed that the noticingattracted by textual enhancement input could have a positive effect on the learners’subsequent production and acquisition of the target forms. Therefore, the individualutilization of the method of highlighting the target forms could not help the learners convertthe detection of the forms to the noticing of the forms. In order to facilitate the Junior MiddleSchool students’ acquisition of the relatively complicated target forms (e.g. the Englishpresent perfect), the other additional teaching assistance is needed to stimulate the students tomake the deeper cognitive processing of the target forms.
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