This study applies audio-assisted reading (AAR), a technique that provides multimedia input, to encourage incidental learning of the present perfect tense. The decision to choose this tense was informed by previous studies, which have shown that its multifunctional nature presents EFL learners with considerable challenges. Thirty-four Iranian EFL…

The ability to detect non-adjacent dependencies (i.e. between "a" and "b" in "aXb") in spoken input may support the acquisition of morpho-syntactic dependencies (e.g. "The princess 'is' kiss'ing' the frog"). Functional morphemes in morpho-syntactic dependencies are often marked by perceptual cues that render…

Incidental grammar acquisition involves learners "picking up" a grammatical feature while their primary focus is on some other aspect of language--either message content or another language feature that is taught directly. This article reports a study of children's incidental grammar acquisition of two grammatical features--plural…

Recent years have witnessed a strong and increasing interest in the incidental learning of second language grammar. While much of this research has focused on the acquisition of second language word order or noun-determiner systems, relatively fewer studies have examined the learning of second language morphology. Results of studies that have…

Focus on form instruction is a kind of instruction that draws students, attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in meaning based instruction. There are different types of focus on form instruction. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of incidental focus on form on grammatical accuracy among Iranian L2…

The present study utilizes traditional silent reading and a think-aloud procedure to investigate the role of lexical cues to meaning in the incidental acquisition of the Spanish future tense. A total of 161 beginning-level university students of Spanish participated in the study. Two versions of a reading passage that contained 13 target items…