Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the acquisition of agreement asymmetries in the grammatical system of Arabic as a second/foreign language through the lens of instructed second language acquisition (ISLA). It presents the design and results of a classroom intervention that examined the differential gains of input enrichment or flooding and the present–practice–produce technique in the acquisition of noun–adjective agreement asymmetries. The book presents the design and results of an intervention that compared the differential gains of structured input activities following the tenets of processing instruction and output-based activities following the tenets of the output hypothesis in the acquisition of subject–verb agreement asymmetry. It is directed to teachers of Arabic as a foreign/second language. The book discusses the results in terms of the debates on incidental and intentional learning in the acquisition of grammar.