Emma Marsden
University of York em502@york.ac.uk

• Input processing in L2 learning
• In the L2 classroom: Processing
Instruction
• Part 1: A classroom experiment to investigate the effects of PI
• Part 2: A laboratory study to investigate whether attentional orientation affects what learners process from the input

• To learn a form, you must ‘detect’ it in the input you hear and read i.e. connect the form to a meaning or function
• BUT L2 learners don’t always do this reliably
VanPatten suggests learners: process content words in the input before anything else e.g. Il a mangé au restaurant
(The Primacy of Content Words Principle) will tend to rely on lexical items as opposed to grammatical form to get meaning when both encode the same semantic information. e.g.
Hier, il a mangé au restaurant
( The Lexical Preference Principle)

• A language feature (could be phonological, morphological, syntactic, even paralinguistic feature) which is not the only way used to communicate a specific ‘meaning’
• VanPatten claims learners are less likely to try to get any meaning from redundant forms
• And therefore less likely to learn them
• Instead, he claims learners get the same meaning from
‘lexical items’
• This hypothesis assumes that the systems involved with processing input (working memory, selective attention) have a limited capacity

• Nick Ellis’s “Attentional Blocking” theory
– Ellis (2008), Ellis & Sagarra (a & b in press).
• Reliance on cues learnt late in L1 acquisition, leads to lack of attention to particular cues in L2 acquisition
• E.g. As infants we learn temporal cognition after verb morphology – we use “talked” reliably and accurately before “yesterday”
• As L2 learners, this blocks our attention to inflectional cues
• Other variables too: salience, WM constrains longer distance dependencies in L1 learning, different learning mechanisms in L1 and L2 (phonological sensitivities, implicit)

• Production data
• Eye-tracking data
(Bernhardt, 1987)
• Reading comprehension data
(Jiang, 2004)
• Think aloud data
(VanPatten 1996, & 2002 for review)
• Learners match subjects and verbs according to likely semantics rather than morphosyntax:
1) Victoria Beckham a) chantons et dansons
2) Nous
(sing+1 st pl. and dance+1 b) étudie l’anglais st pl.)
(We) (study+sing. English)
(Marsden, 2006)

• Learners engaged in input activities (listening & reading) only
• Based on principle that learners
‘ use
’ lexical items more than bound inflections when processing input
– and that this can be altered by manipulating the input
• PI has been researched for many target features
(morphosyntax, e.g. subjunctive, clitic object pronouns), mainly Romance languages and English.

1) Explicit information (1 minute basic explanation; NOT used in this study)
When we talk about something that happened in the past, we add ‘ed’ to the end of the verb
Remember to notice that; not words like “yesterday”.
2) Referential activities
When did this happen?
1) I walked to town Last week / Usually
2) I wash the car Last week / Usually
No other cues given
3) Affective activities
Do you think your teacher is telling the truth?
1.
I talked to the Queen True / False
2.
I marked some homework True / False

Some of Delia
’ s diary entries have got smudged. Decide whether Delia has written about an event that happened in her previous summer holidays or if she is referring to something she usually does in the summer holidays.
1. I learn Spanish.
a. last summer b. usually does
2. My family visited Paris.
a. last summer b. usually does
3. I play tennis with my friends.
a. last summer b. usually does

Delia has written a diary entry about her family
’ s last summer holidays. What do you think about her activities?
1. My family visited Paris. a. interesting b. boring
2. I learned Japanese.
a. interesting b. boring
3. My family painted the wall.
a. interesting b. boring

The cause of PI
‘ s effectiveness is the
Structured Input Activities = referential
+ affective activities i.e. explicit information provided does not seem to affect results.
Problem 1: Studies so far have treated referential and affective activities as
ONE (
“ structured input
”
)
BUT they are very different

• PI leads to learning gains
• Compared to ‘ rule & output practice
’
(traditional grammar teaching)
• Similar gains to meaning-based output practice (PI useful because oral and written production gains even though they don
’ t practice this! Time efficient!)
• Better than input flood style activities with explicit information
(Marsden 2006)
• On ‘ controlled
’ measures
• written production, word level oral production, listening and reading tests.
• Problem 2: These measures do not show any evidence of language competence / implicit knowledge.

Emma Marsden (em502@york.ac.uk)
Hsin-Ying Chen (hc138@york.ac.uk)

Claimed: affective activities “reinforce formmeaning connections” made during referential activities (VanPatten
1996,2004, Wong 2004, p.44)
– affective activities contribute to learning gains
Or…

• Perhaps the affective activities don’t contribute to grammar learning in instructed SLA
• Perhaps only referential activities lead to learning gains
– Perhaps the affective activities do something else e.g. improve vocabulary, or fluency?
(not presented today…)

• Claim: PI alters “implicit knowledge” and “underlying competence”
• Or…is the knowledge gained explicit?
“Even though learners in [the PI] group were never given the rules, they were constantly given yes/no feedback, which must have led them to figure out the system” (DeKeyser et al. 2002 p. 813).
• Why bother to find out what kind of knowledge PI leads to?
– Implicit thought to be less prone to corruption over time, and less context- and task-sensitive, so possibly more useful knowledge than explicit.
– But explicit knowledge probably leads to quicker learning (useful in time-limited classroom foreign language learning!)

1. Do affective activities, either alone or following referential activities, have any impact on learning the -ed past tense inflection?
2. Does any learning observed tend to have characteristics of explicit or implicit knowledge at test?

Pretest
↓
Participants randomly assigned to 3 groups based on pre-test scores
↓ ↓ ↓
Ref + Aff Referential only
Affective only
Instruction : 4 x 40 mins
(twice a week in two consecutive weeks) immediate posttest
1 month delayed posttest

class 1 class 2 class 3 control group
R A RA R A RA R A RA
Control group chosen at random;
Four classes from same school.

‘
Explicit knowledge
’
= accessed when no time constraint, no/little communicative pressure
– Written gap-fill test
‘
Implicit knowledge
’
= time pressure and/or communicative pressure
1. Grammaticality Judgment Test with a time constraint
(Ellis, 2005)
+ self-report
2. Oral tests: a) picture-based narration b) semi-structured conversation
+ self-report

GROUP
Ref + Aff
Referential
Affective
Control
N
31
Mean
Pre test
(total possible
= 40)
Mean post test
11 22
29
30
11
12
21
14
30 12 13
Mean delayed post test
23
20
14
13

GROUP N Mean pre test
(out of 8)
Mean post test
Mean delayed post test
31 0.0
2.3
2.7
Referential
+
Affective
Referential 29 0.0
1.9
2.1
Affective
Control
30
30
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.3
0.0

n pretest posttest Delayed post test
Ref + Aff
Referential
Affective
Control
10 0.8
9 0.7
9 0.3
9 0.3
1.5
1.1
0.1
0.7
2.0
0.1
0.1
0.8

Semi-structured conversation
Mean suppliance in obligatory contexts (%) n pretest posttest Delayed post test
Ref + Aff 10 10.0
10.0
13.4
Referential 9 10.0
3.7
0.0
Affective 9 5.6
0.0
3.7
Control 9 1.9
5.3
0.0

• No gains in oral production (=no gains in knowledge accessible under time and communicative pressure)
• But gains in timed GJT (often seen as evidence of underlying language competence)

• When you were doing the test, did you think about any rules? (yes)
• Did you use that rule in the test? (yesx2)
• What was the rule? (give example or describe it)

• Rule-users consistently out-performed the non-rule users.
• Non-rule users did not improve much more than the control group or the affective group
• So, the gains observed in the GJT amongst the learners who had done referential activities, were likely due to explicit knowledge.

Problem 1: Affective activities, alone, or with Ref activities, did not help learning
“
-ed
”
.
 Referential activities (not
“
Structured
Input
”
) were cause of learning in previous
Processing Instruction studies?
Problem 2: Learning gains tended to show characteristics of explicit knowledge
Self-report (a conservative estimate)

• might a different way of observing
‘learning’ provide some evidence that learners pay attention to verb inflections when they are asked to focus on the meaning of the sentence?
• Perhaps our measures were not sensitive enough to ‘implicit’ processes that occur when learners hear or read input…

Calls for implicit techniques to research constraints during input processing
“To investigate whether morphological knowledge is automatically activated in spontaneous communication, one needs a research method that allows us to examine
L2 learners’ performance under a condition in which their use of explicit, nonautomatic knowledge is minimized.”
Jiang (2004: 608).
“measures such as those adopted in implicit memory studies … may be more sensitive measures than those requiring on- or off-line production and verbalisation of the contents of awareness”
Robinson (2003: 639).
“finely grained cognitive and perceptual measures”
Segalowitz (2006: 137)

Emma Marsden, Gerry Altmann, Michelle St.
Clair em502@york.ac.uk
Funded by the University of York & Economic and
Social Research Council PTA-026-27-0252

• … a memory phenomenon that increases the efficiency of and/or changes the nature of processing repeated or related stimuli.
• Priming effects have been seen as window into long term memory and learning processes (Bock & Griffin, 2000), particularly implicit processes.

• The effect that exposure to feature X has on:
– Subsequent speed of responding to X (or related stimuli)
– And / or subsequent accuracy, use, preference, opinion about X (or related stimuli)
• This “response” and “speed” data are compared to responses to items without prior exposure
• Initial exposure = the prime = “study phase”
• Subsequent exposure = the target = “Test”

Reviews: McDonough & Trofimovich (2009), Marsden (2009)
• Semantic priming, stimuli & target related
– bilingual lexicon
– cross- and within-language
• Repetition priming, stimuli & target the same
– Within language
– Syntactic priming in oral interaction
– (Kim & McDonough 2008, McDonough, 2006; McDonough & Mackey 2008)
– Acoustic word priming
– (Trofimovich 2005 & 2008, Trofimovich & Gatbanton, 2006)
– Role of orientation to the form or meaning of words at exposure
– Links to pedagogical agendas (focus on form, explicit/implicit)

• NO effect on priming in L1 learners or adults
(Church & Schacter 1994; Church & Fisher 1998)
• In an L2: a semantic orientation to the input did interfere with priming
• For those with relatively lower pronunciation accuracy
• When exposure and test were in different voices
• L2 research to date:
– with intermediates & advanced bilinguals
– focus on isolated lexical items
– orientation tasks: rate word pleasantness (=meaning) and rate word clarity (=perceptual, form)
– outcome measurements: reaction times for repeating words

RQ: Can we observe priming of French verb inflections amongst beginner L2 learners? a) are such priming effects influenced by whether learners are oriented to the form or sentence meaning? b) are such priming effects observed both in reaction times and the nature of the responses?
Hypothesis:
Priming effects after ‘focus on form’, no priming after ‘focus on sentence meaning’

Participants
• 51 beginner learners of French as a foreign language
• Aged 12-13
• L1 English
• Approx. 100-200 hours exposure to classroom instruction
• From 5 local schools
Design
• Individuals randomly assigned to one of two exposure conditions;
• All then did a lexical decision to test for priming effects
• Individual basis, using EPrime.

Exposure phase
Focus on Form condition
• Attention to form essential
• Similarities with referential activities in
Processing Instruction
(VanPatten 2004)
– Is the speaker talking about something they do with other people? Press ‘with other people’ or
‘not’
Remember, in French we use ‘ons’ at the end of the verb if the speaker is talking about something they do with other people.
• 30 ‘ons’ inflections
• 10 nontargets
• First 6 items only, ‘correct / incorrect’ feedback

Exposure phase
Focus on Sentence Meaning condition
• Illogicality judgements
(Daneman & Carpenter 1980; Walters, 2004)
Do these sentences make sense or are they a bit weird? Press ‘normal’ or ‘odd’.
15 logical,
15 nonsense
30 ‘ons’ inflections
Focus on semantics of verb + complement
Activation of representation of the subject and the inflection would be incidental to task

• All did same lexical decision test
• “Real word or made-up?”
• All verb stems were made-up, but legal
• Random presentation order
• 10 verbs with target (=‘heard’) inflections (-ons )
• 10 verbs with same verb stems but with nontarget
(=‘unheard’) inflections (all different)
Hypothesis: Focus on Form participants faster and prefer ‘-ons ’ compared to unheard inflections
Focus on Sentence Meaning participants no difference between ‘–ons’ and unheard inflections

(accurate attention on the inflection?)
Inflection mean correct
Above chance score (50%)?
-ons 69% YES p<0.01
other 64% YES p<0.05

• At test, no difference between the FF and
FSM groups’ responses to +unheard inflections
– Speed of responses
– responding “real word”, t=.481, p=.633
– responding “nonword”, t=.361, p=.719
– Nature of the responses
– t=.461, p=.647

Test item target
(‘heard’) inflections
Response given
FF
(mean ms.) n=22
‘Real word’ 832
‘Non word’ 813 nontarget
(‘unheard’) inflections
‘Real word’ 932
‘Non word’ 959
FSM
(mean ms.) n=28
1102
1031
986
1002

Test item Response given:
FF
(mean out of 10)
‘Real word’ 5.7
Target
(heard) inflections ‘Nonword’ 4.3
FSM
(mean out of 10)
4.7
5.3
Nontarget
(unheard) inflections
‘Real word’ 4.8
‘Nonword’ 5.2
5.0
5.0

• Of theoretical interest:
– French verb inflections can be primed, at least amongst early learners
• In line with decompositional morphology models (Marslen-
Wilson, 2007) & evidence that derivational morphology can be primed (Marslen-Wilson et al.
1996)
– Inflections were not primed when learners trying to understand sentence meaning
• In line with Trofimovich’s (2006 & 2008) findings that semantic orientation interferes with priming for some learners
• Contra studies with L1 adult and learners, & contra
Trofimovich’s (2005) L2ers
– Orienting beginners’ attention to a verb inflection did prime it
• Compatible with “attention necessary in early stages of SLA” perspectives

• Of methodological interest
– Priming techniques useful for researching focal attention during input processing as a function of task type.
– Differences were observed in both reaction times and actual responses (parity of measures??)
• Of applied interest
– Informed us about priming under conditions broadly comparable with classroom learning environments:
• beginner learners
• language which was not necessarily familiar
• input tasks which were broadly based on instructional events

1.
Awareness of the inflections in the ‘sentence meaning’ condition
– But any such awareness didn’t produce priming effects!
2.
Referential activities conflate ‘attention to form’ with ‘redundancy’
– FonF: no overt subject ( nous ), so inflection non-redundant
– FSM: with co-indexed subject, so inflection redundant
Could be that less activation of inflection in FSM because of overt subject
– But FSM task focused on verb + complement
– Presence or absence of subject not essential for decision about illogicality, so wouldn’t change our results??
3.
Does proficiency influence priming?
• Do roles of attention and redundancy change with proficiency?
• Proficiency influences nature of what can be processed, and amount of explicitness needed
(Carroll 2001; VanPatten 2004; Ellis 2002; Robinson 1995; Schmidt 1990 & 2001)
• Lexicon & morphosyntax relationship
(Bates & Goodman 1997, Thordardottir et al. 2002)

• Orientation of attention and priming
• Experiment using an artificial language in collaboration with John Williams:
– identical stimuli in 3 conditions: form focus (count the syllables); inflection focus (referential activities); meaning of stem focus
• A classroom experiment, to see whether just focussing learners on the form of an inflection is enough, or whether form AND meaning leads to same results

Bates, E., and J. Goodman. 1997. On the inseparability of grammar and the lexicon: Evidence from acquisition, aphasia, and realtime processing. Language and Cognitive Processes 12: 507–584.
Bock, K. and Z. Griffin. 2000. 'The persistence of structural priming: Transient activation or implicit learning?,' Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General 129: 177-192.
Carroll, S. 2001. Input and Evidence: the raw material of second language acquisition . Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Church, B. and C. Fisher. 1998. 'Long-term auditory word priming in preschoolers: Implicit memory support for language acquisition,' Journal of Memory and Language, 39: 523–542.
Church, B. and D. Schacter. 1994. 'Perceptual specificity of auditory priming: Implicit memory for voice information and fundamental frequency', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,
Memory, and Cognition 20: 521–533.
Daneman, M. and P. Carpenter. 1980. 'Individual differences in working memory and reading,' Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal
Behaviour 19: 450-466.
DeKeyser, R., Salaberry, R., Robinson, P., & Harrington, M. (2002) What Gets Processed in Processing Instruction? A Commentary on Bill
VanPatten¡’s Processing Instruction: An Update¨. Language Learning , 52, 4, 805-823.
Ellis, N. 2002. 'Frequency effects in language processing: A review with implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition,'
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 24: 143–188.
Ellis, N. (2008) Temporal cognition and temporal language the first and second times around. Commentary on McCormack and Hoerl.
Language Learning 58, Supplement 1, 115 –121.
Ellis, N., & Sagarra, N. (under review a). The bounds of adult language acquisition: Blocking and learned attention. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition .
Ellis, N., & Sagarra, N. (under review b). Learned attention effects in L2 acquisition of temporal reference in Latin and Spanish: The first hour and the next eight semesters. Language Learning.
Ellis, R. (2005) Measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of a second language: A Psychometric study. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition , 27, 2, 141-172.
Kim, Y. and K. McDonough. 2008 'Learners’ production of passives during syntactic priming activities', Applied Linguistics 29: 149–154.
Jiang, N. 2004. 'Morphological insensitivity in second language processing', Applied Psycholinguistics 25: 603-634.
Marsden, E. 2006. 'Exploring input processing in the classroom: An experimental comparison of processing instruction and enriched input,'
Language Learning 56: 507-566.
Marsden, E. 2009. 'What is 'priming', and what might priming techniques be able to tell us about L2 learning and proficiency?' in Benati, A.
(ed.): Issues in Second Language Proficiency . London: Continuum. pp. 9-23.
Marsden, E. & Chen, H.-Y. (in press). Examining the roles of the two types of structured input activities in Processing Instruction and the kinds of knowledge they promote. Language Learning.
Marsden, E. (2010). Priming French verb inflections, and the role of orientation of attention. In Trofimovich, P. & McDonough, K.
(Eds.) Priming and second language learning and teaching . John Benjamins.
Marslen-Wilson, W. 2007. 'Morphological processes in language comprehension' in G. Gaskell (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of
Psycholinguistics . Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 175-193.

Marslen-Wilson, W., M. Ford, L. Older, & X. Zhou. 1996. The combinatorial lexicon: priming derivational affixes in G.
Cottrell (ed.): Proceedings of the 18th annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, pp. 223–227.
McDonough, K. 2006. 'Interaction and syntactic priming: English L2 speakers' production of dative constructions,' Studies in
Second Language Acquisition, 28: 179-207.
McDonough, K. & Mackey, A. 2008. 'Syntactic priming and ESL question development,' Studies in Second Language
Acquisition 30: 31-47 .
McDonough, K., & Trofimovich, P. 2009. Using Priming Methods in Second Language Research . Routledge/Taylor and
Francis Publishing Group.
Robinson, P. 1995. 'Attention, memory, and the "Noticing Hypothesis",' Language Learning, 45: 283-331.
Robinson, P. 2003. 'Attention and memory in SLA,' in C. Doughty and M. Long (eds.): Handbook of Second Language
Acquisition . Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 631-678.
Schmidt, R. 1990. 'The role of consciousness in second language learning'. Applied Linguistics 11: 129–158.
Schmidt, R. 2001. 'Attention,' in P. Robinson (ed.): Cognition and Second Language Instruction . Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 3-32.
Segalowitz, N. 2006. 'Review of 'Processing instruction: Theory, research and commentary'', Studies in Second Language
Acquisition 28: 135-137.
Sorace, A. (1996) The use of acceptability judgments in second language acquisition research. In W.C. Ritchie and T.K.
Bhatia (eds) Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 375-409). San Diego: Academic Press.
Thordardottir, E., S. Weismer & J. Evans. 2002. 'Continuity in lexical and morphological development in Icelandic and English speaking 2-years-olds,' First Language 22: 3–28.
Trofimovich, P. 2005. 'Spoken-word processing in native and second languages: An investigation of auditory word priming,'
Applied Psycholinguistics 26: 479–504.
Trofimovich, P. 2008. 'What do second language listeners know about spoken words? Effects of experience and attention in spoken word processing,' Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 37: 309–329.
Trofimovich, P., and E. Gatbonton. 2006. 'Repetition and focus on form in L2 Spanish word processing: Implications for pronunciation instruction,' The Modern Language Journal 90: 519-535.
VanPatten, B. 2004. Processing Instruction: Theory, Research, and Commentary . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
VanPatten, B. (Ed.) (2004) Processing Instruction: Theory, Research, and Commentary, Lawrence Erlbaum
Walter, C. 2004. 'Transfer of reading comprehension skills to L2 is linked to mental representations of text and to L2 working memory,' Applied Linguistics 25: 315-339.

• With intermediates and natives
• Inflection -ions :
Focus on Sentence Meaning: “nous mangions la table”: weird? versus
Focus on Form: “mangions la table”: speaker + others?
• We might expect priming in FonF for 3 reasons:
– the grammatical anomaly (increases activation)
– the orientation of attention (increases activation)
– the absence of co-indexed subject (non-redundant = more activation).
• And yet NO priming was found: no differences in reaction times or preferences between the two conditions
• SO – at higher proficiency, perhaps the inflection was activated even when focusing on sentence meaning & inflection redundant (compatible with
VanPatten) BUT:
– Reaction times were long (1500ms) and so perhaps priming effects were masked by a task artefact
– If there was activation, we’d expect priming of heard versus unheard inflection in
FSM too
– not found.
– Could be difficult to elicit priming verb inflections amongst higher proficiencies?
– Perhaps holistic storage?