Does practice make perfect?: on the effect of exercises on second/foreign language acquisition

• Autores: A. G. Sciarone, P. J. Meijer
• Localización: ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics, ISSN 0019-0810, ISSN-e 1783-1490, Nº. 107-108, 1995, págs. 35-57
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • A number of recent studies have argued that for languages exercises to be effective, they should be meaningful and contextualized. This article presents the findings of a series of experiments involving fill-in-the-blank exercises that satisfied those requiriments. The research question addressed is whether exercises of this type support the language acquisition process for beginning adult learners of Dutch as a second language, taking into account such factors as feedback given and students' style of working. No significant difference was found between the scores on an overall language proficiency test obtained by students who did these exercises and those obtained by students whi did not. Together with observations based on close examination of students' actual performance on these exercises as monitored by a CALL system, the experiments suggest that prevailing assumptions about students' use of feedback and about the effectiveness of a widely used varitey of language exercise may have to be revised.