Explicit Intervention and Multiple Exposure in Textual Enhancement: Effects on Chinese EFL Students’ Comprehension, Noticing and Intake

초록

This study investigates the effects of explicit intervention and multiple exposure as supplementary elements to strengthen textual enhancement in L2 learners’ noticing and intake of form, as well as their comprehension of meaning. Seventy-six Chinese high school students (Grade 10) received textual enhancement treatments on the English past perfect tense under different conditions in terms of explicit intervention and multiple exposure. The students’ noticing and intake of the target form were measured by a retrospective question and a grammar test, respectively. Their comprehension of the text was also measured by a free-recall test on the content of the passage. The results revealed that textual enhancement was facilitative in students’ noticing and intake of the form. However, supplementing textual enhancement with explicit intervention or multiple exposure did not further improve the students’ noticing or intake, although it affected their comprehension of the content. While multiple exposure to the enhanced text contributed to better comprehension, explicit intervention resulted in lower scores in the recall test, indicating a trade-off effect between form and meaning processing. The results are discussed in relation to theoretical and pedagogical implications.

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