EXPLICIT WRITTEN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK AND LANGUAGE APTITUDE IN SLA: IMPLICATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT OF LINGUISTIC ACCURACY

Most second language researchers agree that there is a role for corrective feedback in second language writing classes. However, many unanswered questions remain concerning which linguistic features to target and the type and amount of feedback to offer. This study examined two new pieces of writing by 151 learners of English as a Second Language (ESL), in order to investigate the effect of direct and metalinguistic written feedback on errors with the simple past tense, the present perfect tense, dropped pronouns, and pronominal duplication. This inquiry also considered the extent to which learner differences in language-analytic ability (LAA), as measured by the LLAMA F, mediated the effects of these two types of explicit written corrective feedback. Learners in the feedback groups were provided with corrective feedback on two essays, after which learners in all three groups completed two additional writing tasks to determine whether or not the provision of corrective feedback led to greater gains in accuracy compared to no feedback. Both treatment groups, direct and metalinguistic, performed better than the comparison group on new pieces of writing immediately following the treatment sessions, yet direct feedback was more durable than metalinguistic feedback for one structure, the simple past tense. Participants with greater LAA proved more likely to achieve gains in the direct feedback group than in the metalinguistic group, whereas learners with lower LAA benefited more from metalinguistic feedback. Overall, the findings of the present study confirm the results of prior studies that have found a positive role for written corrective feedback in instructed second language acquisition.

The Validity and Comparison of Two Affiliation Tasks in Schizophrenia

Negative symptoms are related to worse psychosocial functioning in schizophrenia. The current study evaluates two behavioral affiliation tasks—the video-based Social Affiliation Interaction Task (SAIT) and the in-vivo Conversation Task (CT)—and explores whether behavioral ratings of social affiliation are associated with negative symptoms and community functioning. Participants, 20 with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder (SZ) and 35 healthy controls (HC), completed both tasks and measures of negative symptoms and functioning. SZ evidenced lower behavioral affiliation on the SAIT compared to HC. There were no group differences in behavioral affiliation on the CT. Within groups, behavioral affiliation was not correlated between tasks or with symptoms and functioning. Across groups, behavioral affiliation from the SAIT was correlated with symptoms and functioning. Post hoc analyses revealed higher ratings of positive facial expression and valence in the CT for HC compared to SZ. Results suggest that the method of assessing behavioral affiliaton may influence research findings.