The acquisition of accent marks in L2 French : The effects of keyboarding and text format

L'acquisition des accents en français langue seconde: l'effet du clavier et du format du texte

Purdue University, Stanley Coulter Hall, 640 Oval Dr., West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA

Contact : jsturm@purdue.edu

Abstract

Sturm and Golato (in press) and Sturm (2006) found a wide range of variance on recall tests within groups of university students who practiced a list of accent-bearing target words one of three ways: handwriting, typing using preprogrammed function keys, or typing using ALT+ numeric codes. These results contradict the results of Gascoigne (2000, 2006a, 2006b), who found that students who typed a paragraph recalled accents better than those who wrote the paragraph by hand. The present study seeks to explore the difference between Sturm and Golato (in press) and Sturm (2006) and Gascoigne-Lally (2000): format of presentation of the target items; paragraph or word list. Results suggest that typing does lead to increased recall, but only when participants practice items in paragraph form.