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DeKeyser (2007a) submits that second-language acquisition research must identify the ideal task-design features for automatizing grammatical abilities in practice. We therefore report the results of a study that used meaningful computer assisted language learning (CALL) practice to promote foreign-language learners’ proceduralization of Spanish mood-selection in relative clauses (e.g., Busco un libro que es/sea muy interesante) premised on skill acquisition theory (DeKeyser, 2007b). The results indicate that, when CALL practice is deliberate, meaningful, and entails metalinguistic feedback (Cerezo, 2010), learners process mood selection more fluently and efficiently as practice progresses. The analysis also indicates that elaborate practice activities (i.e., involving multiple features of relative clauses) are more effective at promoting grammatical proceduralization than simple activities.

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Conceptual replication within a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) environment provides an understanding of the generalizability of second language acquisition (SLA) research (Porte, 2013; Smith & Schulze, 2013). The present study replicates Collentine (1998a), a classroom-based experiment framed within a larger discussion on the relative benefits of input- and output based instruction. Collentine (1998a) compared the benefits of Processing Instruction (VanPatten, 2004) and output-based instruction, both of which elevated the Spanish subjunctive’s communicative value. The results showed that input- or output-oriented instruction informed by how learners process grammatical information can affect the acquisition of complex grammatical phenomena. This conceptual replication not only seeks to corroborate the original study’s findings in a new learning context. It also tests the finding’s generalizability to a tutorial CALL environment built on 3D simulations and emerging web-app technologies. The participants were foreign-language learners of Spanish in a classroom-based curriculum (N = 50). The results indicate that, in the classroom and in a CALL environment, both input- and output-oriented approaches can promote the acquisition of a complex grammatical structure if practice is meaningful (informed by psycholinguistic processing principles) and deliberate, and if feedback is provided.