The Effects Of Input Enhancement And Output Task On Senior High School Students' Acquisition Of Relative Clauses

The acquisition of relative clauses has been the weak link of EFL learners.There are more and more researchers investigating the input enhancement and output on subjunctive conditional,passive voice and etc.in China,but not many on relative clauses.Based on these,three questions are raised in the study.Firstly,the study aims to investigate the acquisition of relative clauses of those who are exposed to input enhancement.Secondly,the purpose is to see whether there are effects on the acquisition of relative clauses in the group of output task? Thirdly,the study examines whether IE+O(input enhancement+output task)has a greater effect of the acquisition of relative clauses than input enhancement and output task respectively.This research was inspired by Izumi's(2002)study in effects of input enhancement and output on the second language learners' acquisition of relative clauses on the theoretical basis of Noticing Hypothesis(1990).There are 60 freshmen in a senior high school participating in the current study.All the participants are divided into four groups randomly: Input Enhancement group(which receive input enhancement treatment without output production),Output Task group(which have to do output task but no input enhancement treatment),Input Enhancement and Output Task group(which receive both input enhancement and output treatment)and control group.The experiment lasted four weeks.The four groups received different treatments within the period.For the input enhancement task group,the participants read the material twice(original material and enhanced material)and complete comprehension questions.For the output task group,the participants read the original material twice,after reading,they're required to reconstruct and discuss with each other.For the IE+O(input enhancement and output task)group,participants read the material(original material and enhanced material)twice,then reconstructed and discussed.After the analysis of the data by SPSS,the results are as follows: Firstly,input enhancement can significantly promote the acquisition of relative clauses compared to control group.Secondly,output task has greater effects on the acquisition of relative clauses.Thirdly,the combination of input enhancement and output task outperforms the two groups in isolation.