Inductive instruction at beginner level: the contribution of metalinguistic awareness at the earliest stages of adult L2 learning

While there is evidence for an association between metalinguistic awareness (MLA) and second language (L2) achievement, no study has investigated the facilitative potential of MLA in an inductive instructional approach that encourages learners to focus on form to arrive at metalinguistic generalisations. We developed a short suite of online lessons in beginners’ Polish targeting two morphological features. International volunteers (N = 108) aged 18–62 with differing levels of language learning experience and language-analytic ability participated in inductive lessons and subsequent attainment tests; a sub-sample (N = 27) provided qualitative data by articulating their understanding of the target features and their perceptions of the learning materials. Our results confirm a positive relationship between metalinguistic awareness and L2 attainment. At the same time, participants’ metalinguistic awareness was relatively low in both quantitative and qualitative terms, pointing towards the challenge of an inductive approach at beginner level when relatively little input is available. Differences in hypothesised learning difficulty between the two target features were reflected in learners’ self-reported ability to identify the underlying patterns, but not in their L2 attainment or metalinguistic descriptions. We argue that a quantitative step change from a smaller to a larger number of inflections may have led to a boost in MLA.