Developmentally-moderated instruction with advanced L2 Italian learners: a pilot study within the framework of Processability Theory

This paper studies the effects of a developmentally-moderated instructional programme which focuses on two difficult Italian structures. According to Processability Theory (Pienemann 1998), a psycholinguistic theory of hierarchically-staged grammatical development, L2 instruction, in order to be effective, must focus on structures for which learners are developmentally ready. On this basis, a study was conducted using three immigrant girls residing in Northern Italy, who were intensively taught object topicalisation and exceptional verbs. Previous analyses showed that the learners were developmentally ready far these two structures. However, the pre-test showed that these structures had not yet been acquired spontaneously, despite subjects' full immersion in an L2 environment. Research design included a task-based pre-test, a 5-hour form-focused instructional treatment, an immediate post-test and a delayed post-test. Results showed that object topicalisation improved substantially in all three girls' production, and their improvement seemed to be confirmed by the delayed post-test. With exceptional verbs, results were mixed. One of the learners made good improvement between Time 1 and 2 (T1 and T2), but did not confirm it at Time 3 (T3). The other two learners regressed at T2, but then scored better at T3 than at T1. Although the experiment is restricted and results are mixed, the instructional treatment proved to be altogether effective. This confirms the importance of teaching complex L2 structures which may not be noticed in the input, provided that instruction respects the learners' developmental readiness.