Relative Effects of Reactive and Preemptive Focus on Form in Promoting Linguistic Gain

Abstract

Two kinds of incidental focus on form, reactive and preemptive, are compared for significant differences in gaining of target grammatical forms and students’ satisfaction. TLU (target-like use) and SOC (suppliance in obligatory context) are the measures employed for the data coding of the two target forms, preposition and article. To overcome the small sample size (n=16), multivariate inequality tests are employed along with the conventional t-tests. The empirical results show more improvement in linguistic gain as well as higher satisfaction for students in the preemptive focus on form class. In terms of comparing across proficiency levels, significant gain of target forms is noted for low proficiency students in the preemptive focus on form class. High proficiency students are less satisfied with the focus on form instruction in general; however, the decline in satisfaction is considerably smaller in the preemptive focus on form class.