The Effect of Pedagogical Translanguaging, Typographic Input Enhancement, and Input Flood on the Awareness for Syntactic L1–L3 Transfer Opportunities in Dutch Learners of L3 German

Cross-linguistic interaction is a prominent issue in third language (L3) acquisition. The belief that typological similarities are the driving force behind transfer source languages has been rebutted repeatedly. For example, notwithstanding the fact that Dutch–German grammatical parallels are much stronger than those between English and German, Dutch learners of L3 German (L3G) have been found to rely heavily on their second-language (L2) English knowledge in their grammatical L3G development. An important question is how language teachers can support their learners in exploiting their pre-existing linguistic knowledge when learning a new language. This is particularly important for foreign-language teaching that builds on more implicit, usage-based forms of instruction. The present study addresses this question by examining three potential techniques to implicitly raise awareness for transfer opportunities: pedagogical translanguaging (PT), typographic input enhancement (TIE), and input flood (IF). Using a pretest-posttest design, 101 Dutch secondary school learners of L3g indicated their acceptance of correct subject-object-verb and incorrect subject-verb-object subordinate clauses in German. To determine the effects of implicit L3 instruction on the learners’ background language activation, they participated in an intervention with PT, TIE, and IF. Findings of our ecologically valid in-class study indicate that the implicit intervention resulted in a significant increase in students’ awareness of positive first language (L1)–L3 (Dutch-German) transfer opportunities for subordinate clause syntax. Our data support the use of teacher-led implicit instruction that enhances learners’ awareness of positive transfer opportunities to facilitate language learners’ exploitation of their full linguistic repertoire in their L3 development.