The Effects of Various Kinds of Form-Focused Instruction on Learners' Ability to Comprehend and Produce Polite Requests in English

Abstract

This study involving 60 Japanese learners of English investigated the effects of various kinds of form-focused instruction on learners' ability to comprehend and produce polite requests in English. Each treatment group received one of the following: (a) deductive instruction; (b) inductive instruction with problem-solving tasks; or (c) inductive instruction with structured input tasks. These tasks all involved explicit input-based instruction and were intended to test for differences in deductive versus inductive treatments. Treatment group performance was compared with that of a control group on a range of input- and output-based pretests, posttests, and follow-up tests. The results indicate that the three treatment groups performed significantly better than the control group, suggesting that in this study explicit input-based instruction was effective both deductively and inductively for learners' comprehension and production of English polite requests. There was also some indication that inductive treatment may be superior in the longer term.