The Effect of Input Enhancement and L1 Glosses on the Acquisition of English Phrasal Verbs

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of input enhancement (IE) and native language (L1) glossing on second language (L2) learners’ receptive knowledge of English phrasal verbs (PVs) and explore whether learners’ L1 facilitates the effect of input enhancement on learning English PVs. A within-subject design was employed to examine the effect of IE with the aid of L1 glossing on learning PVs. Three short restaurant reviews were tested: one with the target items written in red (IE treatment), one with the target items written in red and glossed in the margin (IE + L1 glossing treatment), and a control text with the target items printed in normal black color without glossing. Sixty-four ESL students practiced the same 15 target words. However, the PVs were divided into three equivalent groups (A, B, C) of 5 PVs each, and participants practiced a given group of PVs under one of the treatment conditions. Afterward, the learners’ receptive knowledge of PVs was measured by a posttest. Results from a repeated measure ANOVA test revealed that students’ scores in both experimental conditions (IE and IE + L1 glossing) were significantly higher than the scores in the control condition, while no statistically significant difference was found between the two experimental conditions. Likewise, there was a statistically significant difference in the posttest scores based on participants’ L1, with Arabic students achieving higher scores than their Spanish-speaking peers. However, this finding should be interpreted with some caution because most Spanish speakers in this study were in the lower-intermediate level while many Arabic students were higher-intermediate learners. Finally, the results revealed that native language did not moderate the effect of the three practice conditions on students’ posttest scores. The current study presents several important implications for L2 instructors, learners, and curriculum developers as well as future researchers.