Effects of providing explicit negative evidence on students’ perception of ungrammatical sentences using –le

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of the use of explicit negative evidence in teaching on students’ perception of two types of ungrammatical Chinese sentences in which –le should not be used. Two groups of advanced learners of Chinese were pre-tested immediately before receiving instruction that included explicit negative evidence about the use of -le, and post-tested twice: once directly after the completion of the instruction, and again four weeks later, using a grammaticality judgment test. The results of the grammaticality judgment test indicated that including explicit negative evidence in teaching helps advanced English-speaking learners of Chinese identify sentences in which –le is used incorrectly. The implication is that including negative evidence in teaching can reduce errors caused by negative transfer from a student’s native language.