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The role of cognitive aptitudes for explicit language learning in the relative effects of explicit and implicit feedback*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2015

YUCEL YILMAZ  and
GISELA GRANENA
YUCEL YILMAZ*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
GISELA GRANENA
Affiliation:
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
*
Address for correspondence: Yucel Yilmaz, Memorial Hall 303, Bloomington, IN 47408yyilmaz@indiana.edu
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Abstract

This study investigated the extent to which cognitive abilities that involve explicit cognitive processes (i.e., explicit language aptitude) are related to second language (L2) learning outcomes under two corrective feedback conditions. The study followed a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest experimental design. Forty-eight L2 learners of English carried out three oral production tasks, in which their errors on the indefinite article were treated according to their group assignment (i.e., explicit, implicit, and no-feedback). A set of controlled oral production tests was administered as pretest and posttest. Explicit language aptitude was measured using three subtests from the LLAMA Language Aptitude Test battery (Meara, 2005). Results showed that explicit language aptitude predicted immediate posttest performance only under the explicit feedback condition, suggesting that this type of feedback requires mental processes that are facilitated by explicit cognitive abilities and that its short-term effectiveness is not the same for learners with different aptitude levels.

Keywords

Explicit learningcorrective feedbacklanguage aptitudeindividual differencesrecastsimplicit learningEnglish articlesexplicit correction
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 147 - 161
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

We would like to thank Natasha Tokowicz, Paul Meara, and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Final responsibility for any errors remains our own.

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