The Effect of Typographical Input Enhancement on Iranian EFL Learners’Accuracy in Oral Production of Narratives

Researchers suggest that language learners taught with the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach tend to have trouble acquiring semantically less salient grammatical forms. This study describes an experiment in input enhancement in general, and specifically Typographical input enhancement which is one of the three main types of input enhancement and it attempts to find out which two sets of materials are better in helping students to use the past tense form of English more accurately: unenhanced texts, or enhanced materials in the form of short stories. The framework of the study was the incorporation of focused comprehension tasks. 40 female students at the age range of 18-28 participated in the study and test results indicated that the participants in the Experimental group (which received enhanced input) increased significantly in their ability to use the simple past tense verbs accurately in oral narratives on the posttest. However, inter-groups differences were not statistically significant. It was concluded that typographically enhanced input can be a valuable addition to the CLT curriculum in order to improve learners’ accuracy in their speaking skill through increasing noticing by the means of enhancing input typographically.