The Differential Role of Comprehension and Production Practice

This article presents a replication of experiments by VanPatten and Cadierno (1993a, 1993b), which found that input practice is better than output practice for comprehension skills and no worse than output practice for production skills in a second language (Spanish). We argue that VanPatten and Cadierno's findings are at variance with predictions of skill acquisition theory, and that their results may be due to the specific second language structures used as well as to some imperfections in their research design. Our results with 82 first‐year Spanish as a second language students indicate that the relative effectiveness of production versus comprehension practice depends on the morphosyntactic complexity of the structure in question as well as on the delay between practice and testing. The findings basically reflect the predictions of skill acquisition theory that input practice is better for comprehension skills, and output practice for production skills, but these patterns are obscured when both testing time and the morphosyntactic nature of the structure in question favor one skill or the other.