What Does Explanation Do for the Language Learner? An Experiment in Processing Instruction with Causative faire

We present the findings of a study testing the relative effects of explicit information on the processing of the faire causatif by L2 learners of French. Forty-eight participants were divided into two groups: those who received explicit information prior to a treatment involving processing (structured input) and those who did not. The main assessment was trials to criterion (how many items it took before the participants began to interpret sentences correctly). Our results clearly show an effect for explicit information.