The Case of Instructional Intervention in Learning the Simple Forms of Spanish as Explicit Knowledge

ABSTRACT: In this study, we examine the benefits of instructional intervention in learning third person accusative clitics, simple forms, as explicit knowledge by analyzing the performance of participants in two tests: Metalinguistic Knowledge Test (MKT) and Written Production Test (WPT). Such instruments were part of pre-testing, immediate testing, and later testing. Thirteen students at a Languages course at a private university were the subjects of this study. Shapiro-Wilk test, Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test, and Wilcoxon comparison test were carried out as statistical treatment. The instructional intervention counted on several pedagogical strategies, namely: inductive and deductive explicit instruction, of isolated nature, controlled practices, and contrastive analysis between Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish concerning the options for retrieving the complement syntagma in both languages. Results showed instructional intervention brought benefits in learning simple forms as explicit knowledge. Moreover, after instructional intervention the learners showed improved performance at both WPT and MKT.