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This study investigated the predictive power of working memory and task type for syntactic complexity in EFL adult learners’ academic writing. One hundred forty-eight Chinese adult students were recruited as participants. Their working memory was assessed with an operation span task, a set of digit span tasks, and a symmetry span task. The syntactic complexity of their written products from two different TOEFL iBT writing tasks, an integrated writing task and an independent writing task, was measured using a natural language processing tool. Results showed a significant positive association between operation span and coordination in the students’ written products. In addition, a significant difference was found between the integrated task and the independent task with respect to phrasal complexity, with the integrated task eliciting more complex nominals per clause than the independent task. No significant effects were identified for other components of working memory or other measures of syntactic complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates whether practice with computer-administered feedback in the absence of meaning-focused interaction can help second language learners notice the corrective intent of recasts and develop linguistic accuracy. A group of 218 beginning Anglophone learners of Spanish received 1 of 4 types of automated feedback (no feedback, utterance rejection, recasts, or enhanced recasts) in the written mode or the oral mode, in response to noun--adjective gender or number agreement errors. For both modalities, written and oral post-tests conducted up to 2 months after treatment revealed that recasts yielded more target-like production and learner repair than either no feedback or utterance rejection and that utterance rejection was in turn more effective than no feedback. Two factors were found to increase the effectiveness of computer-delivered recasts: oral, but not typographical, input enhancement (orally enhanced recasts were more beneficial than orally unenhanced and typographically enhanced recasts) and working memory (higher span learners were superior to lower span learners in all recast groups). We discuss the implications of our results for the area of error treatment as an instructional focus technique and suggest avenues for future research. (Contains 4 tables, 3 figures, and 4 notes.)

Skilled writers have at their disposal a range of rhetorical strategies for positioning themselves as competent members of a particular discourse community, including the judicious use of self-referential pronouns (e.g. "I," "she," "he") to overtly signal authorial presence. However, while researchers routinely recommend that second language (L2) writers receive instruction on the use of this rhetorical strategy, empirical studies on the effect of such instruction are rare. The present study investigates the effect of explicit instruction on the ability of non-native speakers of English (NNS) (n = 77) at two different levels of proficiency to use two signals of authorial presence (first person pronouns and self-referential third person pronouns/phrases) while writing specially constructed essay types. Using a controlled/posttest design with stimulated recall data, the study found that the instructed students significantly outperformed their non-instructed counterparts on Essay 1 (immediately after treatment), Essay 2 (one week later) and a quiz (one month later). The effect of the instruction did not depend on the proficiency of the student. Implications for L2 writing instruction are discussed. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)

Over the past decades, there have been a number of studies investigating the vocabulary strategies used by learners of Indo-European languages, especially English. However, studies of the strategies used by learners of non-Indo-European languages are rare. This classroom-based case study investigates the vocabulary learning strategies used by nine learners of Chinese as a foreign language and tests a taxonomy, based on Long's (1996) interaction hypothesis, for classifying strategies that may facilitate our understanding of strategies and their role within second language acquisition. (Contains 1 note and 2 tables.)