O n f e r e n c e

Ulf Schuetze*, Detmar Meurers**, Adriane Boyd** 
*University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada 
**University of Tübingen, Germany 
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail] 
Exploring the Effectiveness of Web-Based Input Enhancement in 
an Online Exchange at the Intermediate German Level 
Bio data 
Dr. 
Ulf Schuetze
is an Associate Professor of Second Language Acquisition at the 
University of Victoria. His research interest is in computer-assisted language learning, 
computer-mediated communication, and the sustainability of technology in second 
language acquisition.
Dr. 
Detmar Meurers
is a Professor of Computational Linguistics at the University of 
Tübingen. His research includes intelligent computer-assisted language learning, the use 
of learner corpora in second language acquisition research, and the interface of 
computational linguistics and empirical educational science. 
Dr. 
Adriane Boyd
is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tübingen. She has 
co-developed the VIEW input enhancement tool and works on the EU LLP project MERLIN 
“Multilingual Platform for the European Reference Levels: Interlanguage Exploration in 
Context”. 
Abstract 
A significant body of research into the effectiveness of meaning-focused communicative 
approaches to foreign language teaching has shown that input alone is not sufficient to 
acquire a foreign language (cf., e.g., Lightbown & Spada, 1999; Long, 1996) and it has 
been argued that they benefit from a so-called focus on form to overcome incomplete or 
incorrect knowledge of specific forms or regularities (Long, 1991). New media in form of 
input enhancement (Sharwood Smith, 1993) highlighting the salience of language 
categories and forms can assist in that process as it has been shown in terms of fluency 
and accuracy of speech but not in regards to complex language forms (Heift, 2004; Heift 
& Schulze, 2007). 
Building on this foundational research in second language acquisition (SLA) and foreign 
language teaching (FLT), we have created a system supporting automatic visual input 
enhancement of web pages freely selected by language learners. In our approach, 
learners can choose any web page they like, either by using a search-engine interface or 
by entering the URL of the page they want to enhance.
This presentation reports findings of an original research project that was carried out in 
the German department of a Canadian research university. The project investigated 
whether intermediate learners of German benefit from input enhancement of the 
grammatical forms of the complex language form of the subjunctive II in order to master 
it.
The students participated in an online dialogue with native speakers of German and used 
the visual input enhancem
ent system we created to analyze the native speaker’s 
texts/posts before replying to them. Results showed that this type of enhancement and 

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2014 CALL Conference 
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be 
feedback the system provides improved the leaner’s usage of the subjunctive II.