Le cadeau or la cadeau? The Role of Aptitude in Learner Awareness of Gender Distinctions in French

Abstract

Research has shown differences among learners in terms of their level of awareness of grammatical features in the input. Reasons for these differences have not been widely researched, despite the pedagogical importance of understanding what different learners are noticing. It has been found, however, that learners' grammatical sensitivity and memory may play a role. The present study investigated whether awareness can be predicted by five individual difference measures: attention control, working memory, phonologic memory, grammatical sensitivity, and inductive language learning ability. Forty-six anglophone adults with pre-intermediate French completed a crossword task that provided exposure to two reliable noun endings for attributing gender (cadeau/rondelle). A think-aloud protocol and two probe questions measured awareness. Participants were divided into two groups: aware and no verbal report. A regression analysis showed that only the test of inductive language learning ability could predict assignment to awareness group. Implications for aptitude, awareness, and L2 proficiency research are discussed.

‘It's vocabulary’/‘it's gender’: learner awareness and incidental learning

“…This points to a number of directions that merit further investigation. It will be important to gain a better understanding of the role of individual differences in the verbal reporting of awareness, and in predicting awareness in general (see Bell, 2009, for preliminary evidence). In addition, investigating the sensitivity of think-aloud protocols to different types of linguistic features, and the effects of task design on capturing learner awareness during think-aloud protocols can help improve our understanding of how awareness should be measured, and when it is useful.…”

“…The task was a crossword in which participants read clues to target words (16 nouns), which all ended with either eau (eight masculine nouns) or elle ( eight feminine nouns) (see Appendix for a sample item; for a full version of the task, see Bell, 2009). A version of this task, a problem-solving activity, has been used successfully in previous awareness research (Leow, 1997(Leow, , 2000.…”

“…Table 1 illustrates the order in which the tests were administered and the average time each task took. A series of individual difference measures were also administered; findings from this aspect of the study are reported elsewhere (Bell, 2009). The total testing time varied between one and a half and two hours.…”