Justin P. White (Boca Raton FL), Andrew DeMil (Tampa FL) and Michael H. Rice (Murfreesburo TN) p1-26
2015 Issue 1
Abstract
This study compares the effects of Processing Instruction (PI), an input-based instruc¬tional intervention, and Traditional Instruction (TI), an output-oriented instructional intervention targeting the German dative definite articles. Participants included 56 adult learners enrolled in a beginning level German language course. Learners completed a pretest, treatment, immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest (3 weeks after treatment) measuring both interpretation and production of the German dative definite articles. The results revealed significant immediate and long-term gains for PI on interpretation. Both PI and TI revealed immediate gains on production and PI maintained those gains, whereas TI did not. As such, we discuss the theoretical and methodological implications of these findings.