STRUCTURED INPUT ON THE ACQUISITION OF ‘ED’ ENDING PAST-TENSE VERBS AMONG RURAL INDIAN YOUNG LEARNERS

Litto Mathew; Tannistha Dasgupta

doi:10.24071/llt.v28i1.9434

STRUCTURED INPUT ON THE ACQUISITION OF ‘ED’ ENDING PAST-TENSE VERBS AMONG RURAL INDIAN YOUNG LEARNERS

Litto Mathew^(1*), Tannistha Dasgupta⁽²⁾,

(1) VIT-AP University, Andhra Pradesh, India
(2) VIT-AP University, Andhra Pradesh, India
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract

The study examines how the Structured Input (SI) component of Processing Instruction facilitates the acquisition of past tense verbs ending in ‘ed’ among ESL learners, aged ten, in rural India. No studies on Processing Instruction have specifically focused on Indian ESL learners of this age group to date. Studies on Processing Instruction predominantly compared SI activities with alternative instructional methods, typically utilizing pretest-posttest comparisons for evaluation. In contrast, this study examines the impact of SI activities on a group of 24 learners through intra-activity comparison. The SI intervention comprised Referential and Affective activities. This study forgoes pretest-posttest assessments and focuses on the comparative analysis of the scores of Referential activities, that are designed as test-like worksheets comprising ten questions each. While some may observe the absence of pre-tests and post-tests as a limitation, this approach is justified by the inherently evaluative nature of the Referential activities themselves. The results of the paired t-Test and ANOVA revealed a significant enhancement in learners’ ability to interpret sentences in the simple past tense with ‘ed’ ending verbs through SI activities, which demonstrates its effectiveness in improving input processing among ESL learners.

Keywords

input processing, processing instruction, referential and affective activity, structured input

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.v28i1.9434