Teaching the verb gustar in Spanish for Brazilians: pedagogical intervention based on the processing instruction

Abstract

This article presents a research which focused on analyzing the effects of processing instruction (VANPATTEN, 2005) when Brazilian learners of the Spanish language are trying to acquire the verb gustar. This instruction is based on the psycholinguistic processes that underlie the understanding of the input, observing the natural processing strategies and their convergences and divergences with the target system of the acquisition. We had prepared activities in which the learners’ attention was manipulated during input processing to facilitate the intake and the establishment of connections between form and meaning. The research was developed with beginner learners, divided between experimental and control group. In the first part of the study, the groups performed pretests and posttests containing grammaticality judgment tasks, subject identification and the production. Those procedures were interspersed by the period of processing instruction and applied only to the experimental group. In the second part, the experimental group also received the traditional instruction (which predicts a target structure production) and performed another posttest. Although the results have not shown significant differences between the groups, they have shown that the processing instruction allied to the traditional instruction can bring benefits to the acquisition and use of the target structure, because it makes learning more effective.