A Comparative Study Of PI And TI On The Learning Of English Participial Adjectives

Since the roles of input and output in the second language acquisition are a main point of contention among SLA researchers, the present study is to investigate the roles of input and output by the representative teaching approaches—processing instruction and traditional instruction.Processing instruction, proposed by VanPatten(1996), is based on the essential role of comprehensible input and noticing during input processing in the second language process. It intends to promote better intake and make correct form-meaning mappings by altering learners’ processing strategies. It is input-oriented. Traditional instruction is a kind of output-oriented instruction, involving giving learners explicit information of a grammatical structure or form followed by output practice. This thesis has examined the comparative effects of processing instruction and traditional instruction on the acquisition of English participial adjectives by Chinese non-English major undergraduates in Grade Two.The subjects were non-English major from three intact classes. Two of them received processing instruction and traditional instruction respectively and another class reviewing by themselves didn’t accept any teaching grammar associated with the target methods. One week before the treatment, a pretest was administrated to the subjects in the three groups. After that, the subjects in the two experimental groups received respective treatments on the target grammar item. The treatment was implemented in two consecutive lessons within a day. At the end of it, an immediate posttest was administrated to the three classes, followed by a delayed posttest two weeks later. These tests were made up of two major parts: production task and interpretation task. After attrition, data from the 68 participants yielded from the three tests were submitted to SPSS 16.0. At the end of the study, all the participants took part in a writing interview.Through quantitative study on the three tests and qualitative study on the final interview, the results were in the following: 1) The two experimental classes outperformed the control classes obviously and two experimental classes were no significant differences in language output and language comprehension in the immediate posttest; 2) Processing instruction group was superior to the traditional instruction group on language comprehension in the delayed posttest; 3) The interview indicated that most of the participants hoped the teacher could explain grammar in the classroom and tended to accept different instructions rather than traditional instruction; many interviewees preferred to accept processing instruction.Therefore, in addition to the traditional instruction, the teacher should apply the processing instruction to optimize the learners’ internal processing mechanisms and promote the students ’ interest in learning during the foreign language teaching.