The effects of written corrective feedback on L2 case acquisition in the German prepositional phrase mediated by working memory capacity and procedural memory. (FWOAL871)

Error correction, or corrective feedback (CF), is an important component of the second/foreign language (L2) learning experience of most people but its role and effectiveness for L2 learning have been controversial ever since antiquity. Even today the question remains whether CF really enables or facilitates SLA. Many language teachers and learners assume that CF facilitates L2 learning or is even necessary for attaining high levels of L2 proficiency. Researchers, however, are more divided, and the efficacy of CF has been questioned both on theoretical and empirical grounds. In contrast to most previous studies, the present study will investigate the effects and effectiveness of CF on both (a) the outcomes of the L2 learning process (by measuring not only the explicit but also the implicit knowledge that learners acquire) as well as on (b) the cognitive mechanisms believed to operate during the learning itself (attention allocation, awareness). Further adding to the innovativeness of this study is the combined use of both online (eye-tracking technology) and offline procedures (stimulated retrospective recall protocols) to measure the effectiveness of CF. In addition, we investigate how the effectiveness of CF is mediated by
(i) the relative complexity of the linguistic structures targeted by the CF (case in the prepositional phrase in German) and
(ii) cognitive abilities that differ from learner to learner (working memory and procedural memory).

Keywords:corrective feedback, language acquisition, German as a foreign langauge

Disciplines:Language acquisition