Topic Familiarity and Input Enhancement: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

Over the past 15 years, SLA practitioners have devoted a sizable amount of research to investigating the effectiveness of various pedagogical interventions on L2 learners’ processing of input and their subsequent performance. Textual input enhancement (Sharwood Smith, 1993) and topic familiarity (Lesser, 2004) are two such approaches that researchers have investigated in this domain. The current quasi-experimental study, which involves 36 adult ESL learners, attempts to measure the impact of these two approaches upon the participants’ acquisition of form. In the study, the researcher incorporates grammatical structures—vis-à-vis textual input enhancement—in a meaning-oriented ESL reading class to observe the impact on the learners. The researcher also examines the role topic familiarity plays in acquisition of form.