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Toward operationalizing the process of attention in SLA: Evidence for Tomlin and Villa's (1994) finegrained analysis of attention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Ronald P. Leow
Ronald P. Leow*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
*
Department.of Spanish and Portuguese, ICC 403, Georgetown University, 37th and O Streets, NW, Washington, DC 20057. Email: leowr@gusun.georgetown.edu
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Abstract

This study investigates, from a task-based approach and at a morphological level, Tomlin and Villa's (1994) fine-grained analysis of attention in second language acquisition. Four groups of beginning learners of Spanish completed one of four crossword puzzles designed to isolate the effects of alertness, orientation, and detection. Repeated-measures ANOVAs performed on the raw scores obtained on the pretest and three posttests of a recognition and written production task revealed significant main effects for type of attentional function, time, and significant interactions. The results lend strong empirical support to Tomlin and Villa's (1994) fine-grained analysis of attention while indicating short-term effects of detection.

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Articles
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Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 133 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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