The Effects of Form‐Focused Instruction on the Acquisition of Subject‐Verb Inversion in German

Abstract

AbstractThis study examines the effects of form‐focused instruction (FFI) on the acquisition of subject‐verb inversion word order in declarative sentences in German. A group of U.S. college students who participated in a semester‐long study abroad program in Germany and were comparable in terms of preprogram oral proficiency levels and accuracy scores in the use of the target structure in spontaneous production was split into experimental and control groups. During one‐hour sessions outside of the regular, content‐based courses, all students engaged in incidental FFI. The experimental group also received short treatments of instructor‐planned FFI on inversion during these extra sessions. Official ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interviews were used to obtain spontaneous speech samples before and after the program, and data on frequency and accuracy in the use of the target structure were extracted from these samples. The experimental group had significantly higher accuracy scores than the control group at the end of the program. The findings suggest that isolated FFI provided in intensive, planned lesson modules targeting a specific structure may help learners progress faster toward accurate use of this structure in spontaneous speech.