ABSTRACT
A point of debate among SLA researchers and practitioners is the extent to which explicit information (EI) is beneficial in promoting form-meaning connections within instructed SLA. The results of some studies (Scott, 1989; Alanen, 1995; de Graaff, 1997; among others) seem to indicate that it is beneficial and perhaps necessary with some instruction types; others such as DeKeyser (1998) and Sharwood-Smith (1985) argue that EI is beneficial in that it focuses learner attention more quickly on the targeted feature and allows it to be processed sooner. In contrast, the results of VanPatten and Oikennon (1996) suggest that explicit information provides no added beneficial effects for classroom L2 learners when the instruction type involved is processing instruction (PI). In that study, the group that received structured input alone performed as well or better than all other treatments. However, it has not yet been determined whether or not the results of VanPatten and Oikkenon are generalizable to other structures with arguably different (read “more difficult”) processing and production problems. The Spanish subjunctive, the targeted grammatical structure for the present study, is one such structure, (See Farley, this volume, chap. 7, for an overview of the particular use of the Spanish subjunctive targeted for this study as well as a discussion of why it may be considered more difficult than the structure used in VanPatten & Oikkenon’s study.) If the results of the present study are similar to those of VanPatten and Oikkenon, then we will have important evidence regarding the role of explicit information in instructed SLA; namely, that explicit information may appear to be useful, perhaps even necessary, in some kinds of instruction (e.g., that used in Scott, Alanen, and other studies) but not in PI. If the results are not similar, then we may be seeing some limitations on the conclusions about PI offered by VanPatten (e.g., VanPatten, 2002) and others.
