Interlanguage Development of English Articles through Textual Enhancement

Abstract

The current study explores the conditions under which textual enhancement is effective for second language learners to better notice and learn particular grammatical features. The study employs the grammatical judgment test for collecting data rather than using production data, which has been commonly used in SLA research on interlanguage development of English articles. This is because learners in low levels of proficiency are found to frequently omit articles in production data while they have to actively choose one in multiple-choice cloze tests. The findings suggest that textual enhancement is useful for more advanced learners of English articles. Also, it is shown that, contrary to previous studies, the deletion of articles is more prevalent among more advanced students. In the grammatical judgment test, zero articles should not be considered the result of negligence, so it can also appear rather frequently in the performance of advanced learners of English. Based on this finding, more deletions and less overuse of a(n) can possibly be the indicator of acquisition. As a pedagogical implication, textual enhancement should be employed in a foreign language classroom, according to students' current proficiency in target features.