Dictogloss: the Role of Reconstruction Tasks on Noticing

Abstract

The idea that noticing captures a key role in second language acquisition, made the practitioners in the field search for ways of promoting noticing. In order to focus the learners’ attention to the form in the input, different attention gathering techniques, procedures and activities have been used. This study is an investigation of the role of dictogloss; a reconstruction activity popularized recently, as a task in promoting noticing. Two groups of Intermediate Turkish learners of English language (n=42) were given a pre-test before they were presented the same linguistic form by traditional Present-Practice-Produce method. The difference in the educational intervention was that, the experimental group was presented dictogloss activities in the Production stage of PPP. After 4 weeks of educational intervention, the groups were given the post-test, the results of which indicated the positive effect of dictogloss activity on noticing.