ISSN : 1017-7108(Print)
ISSN : (Online)
ISSN : (Online)
English Teaching Vol.70 No.2 pp.133-154
DOI : https://doi.org/10.15858/engtea.70.2.201506.133
DOI : https://doi.org/10.15858/engtea.70.2.201506.133
Effects of syntactic priming and types of input distribution on grammar learning
Abstract
This study investigates the effects of syntactic priming on the learning of the ditransitive construction by 49 Korean elementary school English learners. In this study the effects of syntactic priming were scrutinized more in detail by implementing it in three different input frequency conditions: Skewed-first distribution, balanced distribution, and the control. Results indicated that syntactic priming overall had facilitative effects on the oral production performance of the participants. When it comes to the participants’ comprehension of the target construction, however, it was only in the skewed-first distribution that priming had a substantial learning effect. It is concluded that priming combined with the skewed-first type of input distribution would have generalizable and durable learning effects.