The Effects of Amount and Type of Exposure on Adult Learners' L2 Development in SLA

This study investigates under a cognitive attentional framework whether amount (single vs. multiple) and type (teacher‐centered vs. learner‐centered) of exposure to the same morphological information has positive effects on first‐semester adult learners' second or foreign language (L2) development of morphological forms after 1 semester, and whether there is any differential performance due to type of postexposure task (recognition vs. production). The performances of four groups of learners receiving different amounts and types of exposure over a period of 1 semester were compared on both a recognition and written production task. Repeated measures analyses of variance, performed on the raw scores obtained on both tasks comprising a pretest and three posttests, revealed significant main effects for amount of exposure, type of exposure, task, and time. They also revealed significant interactions between time and amount of exposure and time and type of exposure. Results suggest beneficial effects of both multiple and learner‐centered exposures to morphological forms and differential performances based on type of postexposure assessment task. Implications for the classroom and future research are also discussed.