Authentic Processing Instruction and the Spanish Subjunctive

Twenty-nine subjects enrolled in a fourth-semester Spanish course were assigned to one of two treatments: processing instruction and meaning-based output instruction. The results show that processing instruction (PI) has an overall greater effect than meaning-based output instruction (MOI) on how learners interpret and produce the Spanish subjunctive of doubt. MOI did not have nearly the effect on interpretation as PI. MOI did have a positive impact on what learners were able to produce, but this effect was no greater than the PI influence on production. These results emphasize the important role of input in second language acquisition and the benefits of processing instruction in particular. Although Collentine (1998) stated that most uses of the subjunctive do not lend themselves to PI, this study has shown that input can be structured in such a way that the subjunctive is more easily processed by L2 learners of Spanish.