Effects Of Noticing Intensification On L2 Learning Of The Subjunctive Mood In The Continuation Task

Grammar,as one of the indispensable elements of English learning,has been considered both complex and difficult for English-as-a-Second-Language(ESL)learners to acquire.In English grammar learning,the subjunctive mood has always been a difficult point for English learners,and even many English majors have little knowledge of the usage of the subjunctive mood,so they often try not to use them whenever possible.The difficulty of the subjunctive mood largely lies in the separation of its meaning and form,which requires learners' tremendous efforts to master the use of different verbs in different sentence patterns(Celce-muria and Larsen-freeman 1999).Although a host of research has explored the subjunctive mood,there is still no consensus on the classifications of the subjunctive mood in previous studies.This study will adopt He's(1997)classifications and examine the major three forms of the subjunctive mood,i.e.,the present form,the perfective form and the original form.Regarding effective grammar-teaching methods,in recent years,the continuation task as a reading-writing integrated task has its effectiveness in developing L2 learners' writing competence(e.g.,Wang 2012,Wang and Wang 2015,Jiang and Chen 2015,Wang and Wang 2019),which received increasing interest of researchers in the field of Second Language Acquisition(SLA).To date,there are some studies investigating the efficacy of the continuation task on promoting ESL grammar learning and the relation between noticing and alignment.For instance,Wang and Wang(2014)used English and Chinese reading materials in two groups respectively,and found that the alignment did not exist in the group of ?reading in Chinese and writing in English?,because learners had no chance to notice the language forms in the given Chinese text,let alone to align with them.Inspired by the previous research,the present study intends to examine the efficacy of the continuation task in promoting L2 learning of subjunctive mood and to explore whether intensifying learners' noticing via the intensified continuation task can improve their learning effectiveness as well.In this end,the current study employed a quasi-experimental research design with a pretest-treatment-posttest structure,involving a total of 66 non-English major freshmen participated in this study.The participants completed the pretest for evaluating their current proficiency in the knowledge of subjunctive mood,and then carried out a writing task,followed by the posttest the next day.Based on the types of writing task the participants received,they were accordingly assigned to three groups(i.e.,CG,EG1 and EG2): CG is the control group that accomplished the topic writing;EG1 and EG2 are the experimental groups,performing the continuation task and the intensified continuation task,respectively.Although EG1 and EG2 provided the same reading material,the material in EG2 had been processed with the underlined and boldfaced subjunctive mood sentences and there was a clear instruction beside the text.By combining task instructions and textual enhancement to intensify learners' noticing in the intensified continuation task,the following research questions will be addressed:(1)Does the continuation task have an effect on L2 learning of the subjunctive mood?(2)In the intensified continuation task,does intensifying learners' noticing through textual enhancement and task instructions improve their subjunctive mood learning effectiveness?(3)Does the intensified continuation task have differential effects on L2 learning of different types of subjunctive mood(i.e.,the present,the perfective and the original forms)?The results of the current study showed that:(1)the continuation task is effective in promoting L2 learners' subjunctive mood learning,(2)intensifying learners' noticing on the subjunctive mood does improve their learning effectiveness and(3)the intensified continuation task has differential effects on different types of subjunctive mood learning.Specifically,students in the intensified continuation task group had a better performance in the original form,followed by the present form and the perfective form.On the basis of foregoing findings,it is thereby suggested that practitioners apply the intensified continuation task into their grammar teaching practices and design appropriate tasks accordingly,so as to attract learners' noticing on a certain language form during the grammar teaching process.