Gender agreement among Russian learners of Spanish in an instructed versus naturalistic learning environment

Abstract The present study examines Spanish gender agreement among beginner and non-beginner naturalistic and instructed native Russian learners of L3 Spanish. The project has two goals: first, to investigate whether the above groups differed in their target production and comprehension of gender agreement according to a series of morphological variables (gender class, type, and congruency) and secondly, to determine whether there was a relationship between accuracy and task completion times. A total of 49 native speakers of Russian learning Spanish as an L3, divided across two learner groups (24 instructed in Canada and 25 naturalistic in Mexico) and two proficiency levels (28 beginners and 21 non-beginners), along with a control group of 15 native Spanish speakers, completed several tasks. Results demonstrate that regardless of learning environment, native-like proficiency for gender agreement can be achieved at advanced levels. Differences were observed at the beginner level with the naturalistic group performing better with more difficult forms (e.g., feminine, non-canonical, and incongruent), indicating that at initial stages there is an advantage of naturalistic acquisition. Naturalistic learners had faster task completion times, though this did not correspond to higher accuracy levels. This study has important implications for the field of applied linguistics as it places importance on assessing gender acquisition across distinct learning environments.