Measuring primary, secondary and cumulative effects of processing instruction in the acquisition of French

Laval, Cecile (2008) Measuring primary, secondary and cumulative effects of processing instruction in the acquisition of French. PhD thesis, University of Greenwich.

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Abstract

This thesis presents the results of a classroom experiment designed to investigate the possible transfer-of-training effects of two types of instruction on the acquisition of the past imperfective aspect, subjunctive mood, and causative constructions in French. An input-based practice, Processing Instruction is compared to an output-based practice Traditional Instruction. More specifically, this study examines primary, secondary and cumulative effects of Processing Instruction in the acquisition of three French linguistic features.

The purpose of the present thesis is to address some of the issues raised in previous Processing Instruction research, and to, not only, explore further the primary effects of Processing Instruction in the acquisition of French but also and mainly to explore for the first time the possible secondary and cumulative effects of receiving Processing Instruction.

The classroom experimental study was carried out with students learning French at the University of Greenwich. They were divided into three groups. The first group received Processing Information treatment, the second group received Traditional Instruction treatment and the third group, serving as a control group, did not receive any instruction on the three target linguistic items over the duration of the investigation. The students were tested in interpretation and production tasks in a pre-test and an immediate post-test.

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