Application of a CALL System in the Acquisition of Adverbs in English

In the paper, we examine whether and the extent to which CALL grammar instruction contributes to improving learners' performance and confidence in positioning adverbs in an English sentence. Over a two-week period two groups of ESL learners were exposed to six hours of grammar instruction. One group had teacher-fronted instruction while the other was exposed to CALL software. Both groups completed identical tasks in terms of format, instruction, task features, content and feedback. The groups were given a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest. Results showed a significant improvement on the intuition task and a significant confidence improvement on both intuition and production tasks for the computer group. The in-class and the control group showed no significant gains. It is hypothesized that frequency of exposure and practice accounted for the difference between the in-class and the computer group. It is also recognized that students' control of learning, availability of immediate feedback, and non-existence of negative psychological effect that can follow face-to-face negative feedback also contributed to the difference that was found.