The effects of output task types on noticing and learning of the English past counterfactual conditional

Drawing on the psycholinguistic rationale and empirical research on output (e.g., [Izumi, S., 2002. Output, input enhancement, and the noticing hypothesis: An experimental study on ESL relativization. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 24, 541–577; Izumi, S., Bigelow, M., 2000. Does output promote noticing and second language acquisition? TESOL Quarterly 34, 239–278; Izumi, S., Bigelow, M., Fujiwara, M., Fearnow, S., 1999. Testing the output hypothesis: Effects of output on noticing and second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 21, 421–452]), the present study investigated the role of output and the relative efficacy of two different types of output tasks (reconstruction task and picture-cued writing task) in noticing and learning of the English past counterfactual conditional. Fifty-two adult Korean EFL learners participated in the experiment. In terms of the noticing function of output, results indicated that more noticing occurred overall for learners who had the opportunity to produce output compared to those who did not, although none of the tasks led to greater noticing of the target form in the second input than in the first input. In terms of acquisition, results showed that the participants who received output opportunities during the treatments performed significantly better than those in the non-output condition on the production post-test, but no difference was found in the relative efficacy of the two output tasks.