SSLA, 11, 385-395. Printed in the United States of America.

FEEDBACK FOR LANGUAGE

TRANSFER ERRORS

The Garden Path Technique

Michael Tomasello
Carol Herron
Emory University

In this study we compared two methods for correcting language

transfer errors in the foreign language classroom. Thirty-two
English-speaking college students enrolled in two sections of an
introductory French course served as subjects. Eight commonly
encountered English-to-French transfer errors were identified and
randomly assigned to one of two teaching conditions for one class
section; each error was assigned to the opposite condition for the other
section. In both teaching conditions students began by translating
English sentences into French. The sentences were such that an L1
(first language) transfer strategy produced correct translations (e.g.,
using savoir for some uses of "to know"). A sentence for which the
transfer would not produce an adequate translation (e.g., a sentence
requiring connaftre) was then introduced in one of two ways. In one
condition—what we have termed the Garden Path condition—students
were given the new sentence and asked to translate as before. Their
inevitable transfer error was then immediately corrected by the teacher.
In the control condition students were simply given the correct French
form and told that it differed from the English pattern (they were not
given the opportunity to commit a transfer error). Student learning of the
non-transferable form was assessed three times throughout the course
of the semester, and at all time points performance was better in the
Garden Path condition. We interpreted this finding as support for a
cognitive comparison model of second language acquisition.

Portions of this research were supported by a grant from the National Foreign Language Center. Thanks to two
anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions on a previous version of the manuscript.

© 1989 Cambridge University Press 0272-2631/89 $5.00 + .00 385

386 Michael Tomasello and Carol Herron

Some of the errors that students make when learning a foreign language result from
the "transfer" of a structure from their native language. For example, many native
English-speaking students learning French initially say * Je suis un professeur instead
of the correct Je suis professeur. The incorrect structure is presumably created on
analogy with the parallel English construction ("I am a professor") in which the
indefinite article is required. Behavioristic approaches to L2 (second language) acqui-
sition have traditionally interpreted such errors as resulting from LI "interference"
(e.g., Lado, 1957). More recently, cognitively oriented approaches have conceptual-
ized transfer in a more neutral way from within a general theory of hypothesis-testing
(e.g., Corder, 1981, 1983). In this view, all hypotheses—whether based on data from
within L2 or on analogy with an LI structure—are tested in the same way, that is, in
terms of their communicative efficacy. If LI and L2 have parallel structures in some
domain, transfer may actually facilitate communication and thus be a useful acquisi-
tion strategy (Schachter, 1983).
Despite the single framework within which all hypotheses are tested, LI and L2
hypotheses are generated in different ways, and this may have important conse-
quences for L2 acquisition. Of special importance is the fact that learners rely on LI
hypotheses most often when they are "ignorant" in a particular L2 domain; that is to
say, learners "borrow" from LI when they do not have adequate data to produce a
hypothesis from within L2 itself (Newmark, 1966; Taylor, 1975). For some researchers
this implies that LI hypotheses are merely temporary communicative strategies that
are not a part of the learner's interianguage, and thus they are of little importance for
L2 acquisition (Krashen, 1983). Cognitive theorists agree that LI hypotheses often are
generated as temporary strategies. But they also argue that, like L2 hypotheses, LI
hypotheses—even when they are incorrect from the native speaker point of view-
will be incorporated into the learner's interianguage if and only if they receive
appropriate feedback from the communicative environment (Corder, 1983).
Given the importance of feedback in hypothesis-testing theories, it is surprising
how little L2 research has been devoted to it. Although many studies have been
concerned with classifying and quantifying learner errors and a few have been
devoted to the ways that classroom teachers provide feedback (see Herron, 1981, for
a review), surprisingly little research has been devoted to the relationship between
feedback and L2 learning (Chaudron, 1988; Kasper, 1985). This neglect is especially
egregious given that recent research in first language acquisition has demonstrated a
variety of ways in which feedback from the language learning environment may
facilitate the child's elimination of errors and acquisition of new structures (Mannle &
Tomasello, 1987; Nelson, 1981; see Nelson, 1987, for a review).
Only three L2 studies of which we are aware provide data on both feedback and
resultant learner outcome. First, Chaudron (1977) found that, in the immediate con-
versational context, teacher feedback that helped to localize an error for students
(e.g., repetition with emphasis as in Je suis un professeur?) helped them to correct the
error in that same conversational context (cf. also Ramirez & Stromquist, 1979).
Second, Herron and Tomasello (1988) found that when students' earliest experiences
with grammatical structures were centered around their own errorful attempts and
teacher feedback (prompts that helped to localize and identify errors), they learned
Garden Path Technique 387

better than in situations in which they simply received a series of correct exemplars
of the new structure.
The third study is by Tomasello and Herron (1988). In that study, we constructed a
learning situation in which students would actually be induced to make errors so that
they could then be corrected in a systematic fashion (cf. Tomasello, Mannle, &
Werdenschlag, 1989, for a similar procedure with first language learners). Thirty-nine
college students learning French as a foreign language were induced to make com-
monly committed errors of L2 overgeneralization; these errors were then immediate-
ly corrected by the teacher. For example, students were given a series of exemplars of
French adjectives converted to comparative adjectives, such as grand to plus grand.
When the teacher gave them bon to convert, they of course produced the canonical
*plus bon. The teacher immediately corrected this mistake and supplied the correct
form meilleur. Because students were actually induced to make an error, we termed
this the Garden Path condition. In a control condition, students were taught grammat-
ical exceptions in a more conventional way: they were simply taught the exception as
an exception without their ever having made an overgeneralization error. Using a
counterbalanced design with two classrooms (so that each structure was taught in
each condition), we found that the Garden Path technique produced superior student
learning and that this advantage lasted throughout a semester-long course.
The effectiveness of this teaching technique may have important implications for
theories of L2 acquisition. In our view, the cognitive mechanism underlying the
effectiveness of the Garden Path technique is Nelson's (1981,1987) process of "cogni-
tive comparison." In this theory (originally designed for first language acquisition),
the most important language learning experiences are those in which it is possible for
learners to compare and note discrepancies between their own language structures
and those of mature speakers. This is opposed to learning situations involving only
"raw input" that does not conflict with the learner's current system (see Chaudron,
1985, for difficulties with the concept of input). In our study, it was only in the Garden
Path condition that a discrepancy was created between the students' own productive
hypothesis (the error they just produced) and the mature system as modeled through
the teacher correction (see Bley-Vroman, 1986, on the importance of "negative
evidence"). While language structures may be learned in many ways, we hypothe-
sized that learning situations that facilitate cognitive comparisons will facilitate learn-
ing.
The Tomasello and Herron study concerned errors based on hypotheses from
within L2 itself. In the current study, we extended the evaluation of the Garden Path
technique by exploring whether it is equally effective in correcting the other type of
overgeneralization error—LI transfer errors. This is an important extension because
differences in the two types of error may mean that cognitive comparison does not
work the same way in the two cases. Most obviously, L2 overgeneralization errors
result from hypotheses from within a single linguistic system, and thus the cognitive
comparison involves elements of the same type. LI transfer errors, at least when they
are first made, emanate from hypotheses generated from outside the L2 system, and
so the cognitive comparison is between elements of different types. In particular, it is
possible that the "temporary" nature of some LI hypotheses—their use as a stopgap
388 Michael Tomasello and Carol Herron

measure for communication in the immediate context only—makes the process of

cognitive comparison difficult or impossible since they are not a part of the interlan-
guage when first proposed. It is thus important to establish whether cognitive com-
parison works in the same way for both types of error.

METHOD

Subjects
Subjects for the study were 32 students (10 males, 22 females) enrolled in two
sections of a semester-long, beginning-level French course at Emory University. One
section (20 students) was taught in the fall of 1987, and the other (12 students) in the
spring of 1988. Of these students, 15 were freshmen, 10 were sophomores, 2 were
juniors, and 5 were seniors; 14 students reported having had no prior exposure to
French either formally or informally, while the remaining 18 students had studied
French for 2 years or less several years prior to the current course. The fall and spring
sections were composed in the usual way by the university registrar. They were
roughly equivalent for the three demographic variables of gender, age, and French
experience. All students were native speakers of English.
The course was taught primarily in French, and Parole el pensee by Yvone Lenard
served as the text. Classroom activities consisted of oral question/answer sessions;
contextualized grammar drills; rule explications; communicative, open-ended activi-
ties such as role-playing or presenting original dialogues; and the reading of narra-
tives that recombined grammar points for review. Homework was assigned nightly
and took students 20 to 30 minutes to complete. Students spent approximately 1 hour
per week in the language laboratory. The teacher for both sections (the second
author) was a non-native French speaker with 14 years of experience teaching begin-
ning-level French.

Target Structures
Eight structures in French that deviate from the pattern in English (and for which
beginning students often make transfer overgeneralization errors) were chosen from
the student's text. In the order they appear in the text (also the order in which they
were taught), these were:
(1) The elimination of the article before a profession in French.
French: Je suis actrice.
English: I am an actress.
(2) The use of a direct object after the verb ecouter ("to listen") in French.
French: J'ecoute la radio.
English: I listen to the radio.
(3) The use of the verb avoir ("to have") to express age in French.
French: J'ai 20 ans.
English: I am 20 years old.
(4) The use of the verb aller ("to go") and not the verb voyager ("to travel") when destination is
mentioned.
French: Je vais a Paris chaque ete.
English: I travel to Paris every summer.
Garden Path Technique 389

(5) French has three verbs to say "to take."

French: Je prends un taxi.
J'emporte mon passeport quandje voyage.
J'emmene un ami quandje voyage.
English: I take a taxi.
I take my passport when I travel.
I take a friend when I travel.
(6) French has two verbs to say "to visit."
French: Je visite Paris.
Je rends visite a mes amis parisiens.
English: I visit Paris.
1 visit my Parisian friends.
(7) French has two verbs to say "to know."
French: Je sais la date de la mort deJ.F. Kennedy.
Je connais Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
English: I know the date of J. F. Kennedy's death.
I know Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
(8) The use of the verb alter ("to go") and not conduire ("to drive") when destination is
mentioned.
French: Je vais a New York en voiture.
English: I drive to New York.

Teaching Procedure
The structures were randomly assigned to conditions for the fall section. This resulted
in numbers (1), (4), (6), and (7) being assigned to the Garden Path condition, and
numbers (2), (3), (5), and (8) being assigned to the Control condition. For the spring
section, each structure was then assigned to the opposite teaching condition, thus
counterbalancing the design. For both sections, structures were taught approximately
1 week apart, in the order they appeared in the text.
For all structures in both conditions, the teacher began the lesson by teaching a
French expression (e.g., some uses of the verb savoir). The teacher then directed the
students' attention to four English sentences on the blackboard. She asked the class
to translate these sentences one by one into French. Students were asked to respond
chorally as a group. The first three sentences exemplified a parallel construction
between English and French, for example:
I know the date of Kennedy's death. (Response: Je sais la date de la mort de
Kennedy.)
I know where he died. (Response: Je sais oil il est mort.)
I know that he was respected. (Response: Je sais qu 'il etait respecte.)
The difference in the two teaching conditions came at the point at which the
fourth sentence (the deviation from the English pattern) was introduced, for example:
I know Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
In the control condition, the teacher pointed to the English sentence on the black-
board and in French explained to the students that they should be very careful when
translating this sentence into French. She then illustrated the correct form (Je connais
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) both orally and in writing on the board and explained
390 Michael Tomasello and Carol Herron

briefly. In the Garden Path condition, the teacher simply proceeded to this final
sentence as before. She asked the students to translate just as they had for the
previous three sentences. She wrote their incorrect answer (they were always incor-
rect) on the blackboard as they gave it (e.g., Je sais Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis). She
then corrected the error by crossing out the students' incorrect translation on the
board and wrote the correct form on the board above it. As in the Control condition,
she also recited the correct form orally and briefly explained the French structure.

Testing Procedure
Target structures were formally tested three times in a translation (first language to
foreign language) format. On each of the multi-item, multi-section tests covering a
variety of material other than that of current interest, the target structure was tested
with one item only. Quiz 1 fell 1 to 3 class days after the structure was taught,
depending on which day of the week it was taught. The average time between
teaching and testing for structures taught with the Garden Path method was 1.25, and
with the Control method 1.13 days. Quiz 2 occurred from 4 to 7 class days after the
structure was taught, with the average time between teaching and testing for the
Garden Path condition being 5.13, and for the Control condition 5.13 class days. Test
3 was either the midterm or final course examination, depending on whether the
structure was taught in the first or second half of the semester. It was given 6 to 27
class days after the structure was taught, the average time for the Garden Path
structure being 17.38 class days, and for the Control structure being 17.00 class days.
Differences between conditions were statistically indistinguishable in all three cases.

RESULTS
The proportion of students who answered each question correctly on each test is
presented in Table 1. Proportions were used because some students were absent
either on the day of teaching or on the day of testing (they are thus not represented in
these numbers). It must be emphasized at the outset that comparing the two teaching
conditions (Garden Path and Control) for one particular structure on one particular
test is not legitimate. For each structure, the proportion for one condition comes from
one class section (fall or spring), while the proportion for the other condition comes
from the other class section, and these class sections were not randomly assigned.
The averages for the two conditions summed across the eight structures are compara-
ble, however, because such summations take advantage of the counterbalancing
procedure. When the Garden Path and Control conditions are compared across all
eight structures with Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests—using the values in Table 1 as
dependent measures—each of the three tests showed an advantage for the Garden
Path condition (p<.05). Of the 24 pairs of scores in Table 1—where 1 pair is repre-
sented by the Garden Path and Control values for one test of one structure—18
display a higher value for the Garden Path condition (two ties, p< .01 Sign Test).
Taking advantage of the fact that each subject performed on multiple items within
each testing condition and test, parametric statistical analyses were also performed.
For these analyses, each subject was assigned two scores—one for the Garden Path
Garden Path Technique 391

Table 1. Proportion of students with correct answers on each structure on each test

QUIZ1 QUIZ 2 TEST 3

GP Control GP Control GP Control

profession .29 36 .69 .70 .94 .73

to travel .53 33 .61 .33 .72 .50
to visit .85 60 .80 .70 .70 .40
to know .95 80 .95 .60 .90 .90

to listen .44 55 .78 .60 .78 .75

age .90 56 .78 .71 .90 .89
to take .55 56 .36 .25 1.00 .94
to drive 1.00 23 .29 .29 .86 .72

Average .69' .50 .66' .52 .85* .72

NOTE Top four structures taught with Garden Path (GP) method to fall section, Control method to spring section. Vice versa
for the bottom four structures.
'Garden Path condition higher, p < .05.

condition and one for the Control condition—for each of the three tests. Each of these
scores was the simple sum of the appropriate four items representing the appropriate
four structures. Since some subjects missed either the teaching or the testing of some
structures, each of these scores was then converted to a proportion correct; that is,
the number correct was divided by the number of those structures for which the
student was present at both teaching and testing. For example, subjects who missed
the first test of one structure taught in the Garden Path condition might answer
correctly two out of three remaining Garden Path structures on their first tests; they
would thus be assigned .67 for Quiz 1, Garden Path condition. The mean proportions
in Table 2 represent the averages of these scores across subjects for the sample as a
whole.
Three / tests were performed using mean proportions as the dependent measure:
one for Quiz 1, one for Quiz 2, and one for the final (Test 3). For each of the three
comparisons, results favored the Garden Path condition. For Quiz 1, f(31)=2.84, p<
.01; for Quiz 2, f(31)=2.66, p<.05; for the final (Test 3), /(31)=2.17, p<.05 (all
probabilities two-tailed).

DISCUSSION
The results of the current study are clear. The Garden Path technique facilitated the
accurate acquisition of some L2 structures that are often involved in LI transfer
errors, and this facilitation lasted for several weeks. We believe that, as in the case of
our similar findings for L2 overgeneralization errors (Tomasello & Herron, 1988), the
best explanation for these results is in terms of the cognitive and social contexts in
which the learning took place.
392 Michael Tomasello and Carol Herron

Table 2. Mean proportions by teaching condition and test for the sample as a whole

QUIZ 1 QUIZ 2 TEST 3

Garden Path .70** .71* .85*

Control .52 .53 .72

'Garden Path condition higher, p < .05.
**Garden Path condition higher,p<,01.

In our view, students learn best when they produce a hypothesis and receive
immediate feedback because this creates maximal conditions under which they may
cognitively compare their own system to that of mature speakers. Such comparisons
are clearly important in LI acquisition. A variety of studies (e.g., Bohannon & Stano-
wicz, 1988; Demetras, Post, & Snow, 1986; Hirsh-Pasek, Trieman, & Schneiderman,
1984; Penner, 1986) have shown that adults provide their LI learning children with
many opportunities for making comparisons just after they have made an error. For
example, when a young child says "The doggie bited me," the parent is likely to reply,
"Yes, the doggie bit you." Several other studies (summarized in Nelson, 1987) have
shown that negative feedback of this type (often called "recasts") facilitates the child's
acquisition of linguistic structures. Nelson (1987) argues that recasts provide maximal
opportunities for cognitive comparison and error correction because they occur (a)
immediately after a child's incorrect formulation, (b) in the same discourse context,
and (c) with an attempt to match the child's intended meaning. It is thus important to
note that these same three conditions hold in the Garden Path technique as well, and
so, in terms of conditions for cognitive comparison, it parallels in many ways the
recast technique that has proved so beneficial to LI learning.
When provided in precisely their LI form, however, recasts do not seem to work in
the L2 classroom (Herron & Tomasello, unpublished data). This is presumably due to
the different social conditions in the two learning contexts. Recasts as they are
typically provided for LI learners are not marked as corrections in any known way.
Children nevertheless note the discrepancy and often correct it, perhaps because
they are used to emulating adults in a variety of situations where there is no explicit
instruction or correction. When L2 students are recast by a teacher, on the other
hand, they do not seem to detect the discrepancy or to correct their error. It is quite
likely that this results from the fact that students in a classroom context believe that a
teacher's positive response indicates that no correction is needed. Chaudron (1977)
provides some evidence for this view by finding that it was only teacher repetitions
with intonational emphasis on errors that were effective in cuing learner error cor-
rection.
This difference between LI learning and L2 classroom situations thus presents
something of a dilemma for teachers: either they do not emphasize student errors
and risk having them fossilize (Rivers, 1986), or they emphasize them and risk raising
the students' affective filters (Krashen, 1985). This formulation of the problem pro-
Garden Path Technique 393

vides a key, we believe, to understanding the effectiveness of the Garden Path tech-
nique. In our technique, student error making and correcting occur in a group
context in which other students are simultaneously making the same error. Moreover,
it is abundantly clear to students during the procedure that the teacher has created a
situation in which an intelligent student will be one who discerns the pattern and
makes the error. The Garden Path technique thus provides an excellent cognitive
context for making comparisons between learner and teacher language, and it does
so in the context of an accepting" social environment in which errors are viewed as a
logical, and indeed inevitable, outcome of active student learning.
The range of situations and structures to which this technique might usefully be
applied is an important question. A brief comparison of our two studies will help
provide an answer. In our first study of L2 overgeneralization errors (Tomasello &
Herron, 1988), students learned a pattern, generalized it to an inappropriate structure
(appropriate given the data available), and were corrected by the teacher. In the
current study of transfer errors, students engaged in translation exercises for which
transfer was an appropriate strategy, generalized the transfer strategy to an inappro-
priate structure (appropriate given the data available), and were corrected by the
teacher. In the case of L2 overgeneralization it would seem that students were com-
paring an L2 structure just being formed with its exception. In the case of transfer,
however, it is unclear on the face of it whether students were actually forming an L2
structure or if they were engaging in something analogous to the "temporary" com-
municative strategies using LI structures. We believe that they were not engaged
solely in a temporary strategy, however, because in the current experimental para-
digm students were given good reason to believe that an LI hypothesis would work in
the domains we taught them, and as Kellerman (1977, 1979) argues, transfer strate-
gies become more prevalent and entrenched in domains for which students have
been given evidence that they work. This suggests that in the current study, as in the
previous study, students were in the process of forming and generalizing an L2
structure when the dissonant structure was presented, and thus the cognitive com-
parison process was of a similar nature in both studies. Whether such comparisons
also assist in the acquisition of the pattern itself—that is, whether "bumping into"
another structure somehow reinforces or helps to delineate the original pattern—is a
question for future research.
Our hypothesis, therefore, is that the Garden Path technique may be effective
whenever the question is one of precisely how far a structure may appropriately be
generalized. And we believe that it should be effective even in cases not involving the
pattern-exception format of our two empirical studies. Thus, the technique might
even be applied in cases involving structures of equivalent degrees of generality—use
of the passe compose and the imparfait in French, for example—which are almost
always taught as completely different patterns to be learned independently. In such
cases the overgeneralization of one structure into the legitimate domain of the other,
and its immediate correction, might serve to highlight for students the appropriate
domain of both structures. This is also a question for future research.
The results of the current study, along with those of our previous study, provide
support for a cognitively oriented approach to second language acquisition, especial-
394 Michael Tomasello and Carol Herron

ly one that emphasizes the process of cognitive comparison. In the Garden Path
situation, learners were presented with the opportunity to actively test hypotheses
and were provided with systematic and timely feedback in an accepting social con-
text. These conditions produced superior learning because, in our view, they effec-
tively engaged the learners' hypothesis-testing procedures and the cognitive compar-
isons on which these rely. While it is possible that L2 learning may occur in some
situations involving input only, without feedback or the opportunity to make compar-
isons, we do not believe that this can be the whole story as theorists such as Krashen
(1985) argue. It is simply not possible to account for all of the existing data on
language acquisition—first, second, or otherwise—without positing some form of
active, hypothesis-testing mechanism. We believe that our findings contribute to a
better understanding of this mechanism by specifying some of the cognitive and
social conditions that facilitate the process of error correction in the foreign language
classroom.

(Received 7 June 1988)

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