Textual Enhancement and the Acquisition of the Spanish Present Subjunctive Form

Abstract

Previous empirical research has yielded inconclusive findings on the effectiveness of textual enhancement in drawing learners’ attention to target forms and in facilitating their acquisition. The present study focuses on the role of textual enhancement in the recognition, comprehension, and production of Spanish L2 verb forms that differ in their perceptual saliency (communicative value). Spanish students read an enhanced or an unenhanced text containing regular and irregular present indicative and present subjunctive forms. Reading was immediately followed by recognition, comprehension, and production tasks. The resulting data were statistically analyzed in order to ascertain whether they supported or refuted three research hypotheses. Results showed no effect of TE in the three treatments employed.