Abstract:
This study investigated how awareness affected learners’ intake and production in relation to their cogni-tive styles. It is assumed that learners’ cognitive styles may affect their ability to notice particular features in the input and, consequently, their intake and production. Adult learners of English were exposed to four English structures through four sets of problem-solving tasks, followed by posttest assessment tests. The participants were asked to think aloud while performing the problem-solving tasks, and their voices were recorded. These online think-aloud protocols, along with postexposure questionnaires, were used to assess the three levels of awareness. Learners’ cognitive styles were determined using the Ehrman and Leaver Learning Styles Questionnaire. Results indicated that (1) cognitive styles did not have any signifi-cant impact on levels of awareness reported in the think-alouds; (2) cognitive styles did not significantly affect the intake of the target structures; and (3) cognitive styles were not significantly related to the pro-duction of the target structures.
Machine summary:
"The ability to notice something is constrained by such individual and instructional variables as cognitive styles (Skehan, 1998), aptitude (Robinson, 1995a) , working memory (Sawyer & Ranta, 2001), mo- tivation (Schmidt, 2010), task demands (Rosa & O’Neill, 1999), perceptual salience (Sharwood Smith, 1993), and readiness (Park, 2004).
Rational and Research Questions Given that awareness plays an important role in SLA and that learners’ ability to notice linguis- tic forms in the input is constrained by a num- ber of instructional and learner variables, the present study aimed at investigating the role of cognitive style in raising learners’ awareness of target linguistic structures and, subsequently, the intake and production of those structures.
During the pretest, participants were given the Babel English Lan- guage Placement Test, four multiple choice recognition tests (each test containing one target structure), four semi-controlled production tests (each test containing on target structure), and the E&L Learning Styles Questionnaire.
Results Learners were codified as either synoptic or ectenic based on their responses on the E&L Learning Styles Questionnaire (Ehrman & Leaver, 2002), and then compared in terms of the levels of awareness reported in the think- alouds, intake, and production.
349 The third research question, which aimed at in- vestigating the synoptic-ectenic cognitive style in relation to the written production of the four target grammatical structures, was examined using descrip- tive statistics, presented in Table 5, and an independ- ent samples t-test analysis, presented in Table 6."