Effectiveness of Interactional Feedback: Implicit Learning of English Contracted Forms

Abstract

The role of implicit and explicit negative feedback in language acquisition has been of major concern, especially in Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Research in SLA has demonstrated that implicit negative feedback such as recast and implicit expansion are potential triggers of language development and learning. Data from two experiments, using a pretest-posttest experimental control design, of two separate groups of Arabic-speaking learners of English, one at Georgetown University (GU), and the other at American University Cairo (AUC), provides some evidence that implicit negative feedback can facilitate the acquisition and development of a complex linguistic feature, i.e., English contracted question forms. An interlanguage analysis framework, A Psycholinguistic Interlanguage Analysis Framework was devised to investigate learner's output. Interlanguage analysis findings indicate that recast can be effective in making a learner notice the contracted wh-& yes/no questions, provided that it follows a pattern known to the learner and focuses on one point only, and that the learner is linguistically ready to learn the linguistic element.