Effects of Input Enhancement Cues on EFL Learners Intake of English Grammar: The Case of Connectors

The present study attested to verify the effect of two types of attention drawing techniques (choice and underlining) on intake of English connectors. The participants were 88 intermediate level students. They were both male and female. The design of the study was a pre-test, instruction, and post-test type. Participants were assigned to two experimental and a control condition. For the first experimental group the target structures in the texts to which the learners were exposed were enhanced using underlining. The forms at issue were highlighted by providing their both correct and incorrect forms in the texts the students read. Hence the students in this group had two choices to choose from. The control group however was simply exposed to baseline texts in that nothing was enhanced. Descriptive statistics and pair wised post-hoc t-tests were run on the scores obtained from the tests. Results indicated that both attention drawing techniques had positive and lasting effect on intake of the targeted forms although this effect was not the same and the underlining group outgained both the control and the choice group. The study was ended with implications for theory and practical teaching. Suggestions for further studies in this growing area of second language acquisition were given.