EFFECTS OF INPUT ENHANCEMENT AND VISUAL PROMPTS IN CHILDREN'S L2 ACQUISITION OF SPANISH VERBAL MORPHOLOGY

In the pedagogical arena of second language (L2) acquisition, much of the input enhancement research (Sharwood Smith, 1993) has focused on adult L2 acquisition. However, the impact of this pedagogical technique in child L2 acquisition is an area of investigation that still deserves more attention. The present study analyzes the effect of input enhancement techniques supported by visual prompts in the acquisition of Spanish verbal morphology by child L2 learners. Over a fourteen-week period, meeting once a week, two experimental groups of L2 Spanish child learners, ages seven to nine, were exposed to a variety of input enhancement techniques applied to Spanish verbal morphology. At the end of the study, their performance on five different tasks (reading, fill in the blanks, writing, structured oral interview and oral translation) was assessed and compared with a control group. The results of the present study show that using input enhancement techniques supported by visual aids help L2 child learners to notice and retain the Spanish verbal morphology studied facilitating its intake.