Chapter published in:
Expanding Individual Difference Research in the Interaction Approach: Investigating learners, instructors, and other interlocutors
Edited by Laura Gurzynski-Weiss
[AILA Applied Linguistics Series 16] 2017
► pp. 71–97

Chapter 4
The role of language analytic ability in the effectiveness of different feedback timing conditions

This chapter describes an empirical study that investigated the role of language analytic ability (LAA) in the effectiveness of feedback under two timing conditions, and whether the timing conditions were differentially effective after controlling for LAA. Forty-five Spanish learners were randomly assigned to three groups: immediate feedback, delayed feedback, and control. All learners completed an information-gap task with a native speaker of Spanish through synchronous computer-mediated communication. Learners’ errors on Spanish noun-adjective gender agreement were treated according to their group assignment. Learners’ knowledge of the linguistic target was assessed by means of oral production and grammaticality judgment tests. Language analytic ability was measured with LLAMA F, a subtest of the LLAMA Language Aptitude Tests (Meara, 2005). Results revealed that LAA did not play any role in the effectiveness of either feedback timing condition, and immediate feedback was more effective than delayed feedback after controlling for LAA.
Keywords: aptitude, computer-mediated communication, cognitive individual differences, feedback timing, language analytic ability, negative feedback, recasts
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Background
    • Reformulations
    • Feedback timing
    • Language analytic ability and negative feedback
    • Present study
  • Method
    • Participants
    • Linguistic target
    • Treatment task
    • Feedback treatment
    • Language measures
    • LLAMA F
    • Procedure
  • Results
    • OPT results
    • GJT results
  • Discussion and conclusion
  • References
Published online: 12 December 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.16.04arr
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