Output, Noticing, Noticing Enhancement: The Productive Skill D evelopment in EFL

Output, Noticing, Noticing Enhancement: The Productive Skill D evelopment in EFL

  The present study investigates the roles of output on EFL productive skill development. It addressed the research questions as follows: a) do EFL learners exposed to both input and output instruction gain higher levels of written productive knowledge in English than those exposed to only input instruction? If it is, b) what function of output might be relevant to this result? and c) what kind of learning condition could promote such a function of output? This study assumed that 1) the output-based tasks could affect EFL learners on developing productive knowledge more effectively than the input-based tasks, due to the noticing function of output, and 2) the noticing function of output might be further enhanced by the output prior to input task sequence (OI) than by the reverse order - the order of input prior to output (IO). To investigate the research questions and hypotheses, sixty-three (N=63) high school students in South Korea participated in the experimental study for two months. The results of ANOVA analyses showed that the participants engaged in both the input and output tasks outperformed those engaged in only input tasks, on both the immediate and delayed written production tests. This result supports the effectiveness of output-based instruction on developing EFL learners’ productive skills. In terms of the effect of the different task sequences, the mean scores of the OI group in both written tests were higher than those of the IO group, but there were no statistically significant differences between the OI and IO groups. Limitations and directions for further research are discussed.