depth of processing

Vocabulary knowledge has a significant role in communication. Therefore, a plethora of research has investigated the effect of various factors on the acquisition of L2 vocabulary. This empirical study aimed to examine the predictions of Laufer and Hulstijn’s (2001) involvement load hypothesis (ILH) by considering the impact of task type and involvement index on Iranian EFL learners’ incidental vocabulary learning. The ILH predicts that tasks with the same involvement load should lead to equal vocabulary gains. To this end, forty-five upper-intermediate learners were given one of four different tasks with the same involvement index (i.e., reading comprehension plus dictionary use, cloze-exercise plus dictionary use, inferencing, and sentence writing plus meanings of target words in L1 + L2). Participants’ receptive and productive knowledge of target words were tested immediately after fulfilling the tasks and three weeks later. Mixed-plot ANOVAs were run to compare the performance of the participants on the tasks. The results revealed that, contrary to the theory’s predictions, the performance of the learners on the four tasks was significantly different although the tasks had the same involvement indices. The results suggest that depth of processing and involvement are important factors in vocabulary learning. However, it also seems that the relative importance of the components of involvement might require reconsideration.

Writing is thought as the most complicated skill in second language acquisition; therefore, L2 researchers have always been in pursuit of discovering an effective approach to improve it. One of the most debated ways is feedback which has a key role in improving the quality of writing. Much of the previous research on feedback has focused on analyzing different types of feedback and their effect on the learners’ writings and few studies have examined the effectiveness of computer feedback. Therefore, the present study was conducted to 1) determine what aspects of students’ writings receive computer feedback, 2) examine the difference in the effect of computer-generatedfeedback (CBF) and Teacher-based feedback (TBF) on improving the students’ writing quality and 3) compare the differences in Depth of Processing (DOP) in processing computer and teacher feedback. The results indicated that content, style and organization of their essays received feedback from the teacher and the computer. Teacher feedback was more effective in terms of its impact on improving the quality of the writing of the students than computer-generatedfeedback and it resulted in deeper processing of lexical items, whereas computer-generated feedback invoked medium processing on grammar.

The idea of encouraging awareness in classrooms is not new, but research into awareness is beginning to encourage those involved in language teaching to think more systematically about how language presentation facilitate language awareness. Awareness can be promoted through focus on form activities as it triggers important cognitive processes in L2 acquisition. The effectiveness of various input- and output-based focus on form instructions on the acquisition of different grammatical structures and the role of awareness in each type is a matter for debate. The present study qualitatively investigated the effects of Processing instruction, Textual enhancement, and Text editing on L2 learners’ cognitive processes and the relationship between the learners’ level of awareness and their abilities to interpret English inversion structures. To do this, learners’ think-aloud verbalizations during instruction were recorded, transcribed, and coded. Criteria to decide which level of awareness they would fall into were slightly adapted from Leow, Hsieh, and Moreno (2008) to fit with the type of tasks employed in the study. Pretest-posttests design was also employed to measure learners’ interpretive abilities. The findings indicated that each instructional technique promoted different levels of awareness and depth of processing. The findings also provided explanations for the non-significant differences in performances between the Processing instruction and Text editing groups on an immediate posttest and outperformance of the Processing instruction group on a delayed posttest. Given the benefits that Processing instruction and Text editing brought about in the present study, both might be incorporated into a curriculum and serve as complementary tools for language teachers.