The Effects of Textually Enhanced Captions on Written Elicited Imitation in L2 Grammar

As second language (L2) research adapts to the dynamics of multimodal instruction, researchers are exploring role captioning and textual enhancement (TE) on learner development. The present experiment assesses differential effects textually enhanced captions learners’ elicited imitation L2 Spanish grammar. Twenty-eight English-speaking intermediate learners saw 3 videos that focused gustar-type verbs, preterite–imperfect contrast, or subjunctive. Each video included conditions: sentences without (NC); with target verbs highlighted entirely (TE1); highlighting inflectional morphemes (TE2). Using a novel written task, we uncovered consistent positive both TE conditions compared NC, an added advantage TE2 for findings demonstrate (a) contributes increased accuracy, (b) some grammatical structures is more conducive than others, (c) there space future investigation into factors mediate effectiveness interventions.