Types Of Form-focused Instruction Research Articles

The effects of different types of form-focused instruction on the acquisition of grammatical gender by second language learners of French

The present study investigated the effects of different types of form-focused instruction (FFI) on the acquisition of French grammatical gender attribution. A quasi-experimental study was conducted with 140 participants in six intact French as a second language (L2) classes. The classes received six 80-minute instructional sessions consisting of FFI on only sublexical cues, FFI on both sublexical cues and pronunciation, or the control condition (two classes per condition). To measure the effects of the instructional conditions, a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest were administered. Results showed that the participants receiving FFI on only sublexical cues showed significant improvement in binary-choice, text-completion, and listening tasks, but not in an oral picture-description task. In contrast, those receiving FFI on both sublexical cues and pronunciation showed significantly higher scores on all tasks after the instructional sessions. The present study highlights the importance of pronunciation instruction in L2 grammar acquisition and its interdependence with lexical and morphological domains.

The Influence of Form-Focused Instruction on the L2 Chinese Oral Production of Korean Native Speakers.

Form-focused instruction (FFI) can help second language (L2) learners notice the forms of language, which is conducive to the acquisition of linguistic forms. Two types of FFIs had been proposed, including focus-on-formS (FonFs) and focus-on-form (FonF). Previously, studies on FFI in L2 classroom teaching have focused mainly on the influence of two types of FFIs on the L2 acquisition of grammar and vocabulary. The influence of FonFs and FonF on L2 oral production, however, has been addressed less often. The advantages and disadvantages of different teaching methods in FonFs and FonF have not been well investigated. On the basis of Schmidt’s noticing hypothesis, VanPatten’s input processing hypothesis, and Long’s interactive hypothesis, we investigated the effects of teaching goals, teaching steps, and interactive activities in FonFs and FonF on the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of 32 native Korean speakers’ L2 Chinese oral production. We found that FFI significantly improved the performance of L2 Chinese oral production, although different FFIs had different effects on complexity, accuracy, and fluency. FonF and FonFs could improve both complexity and accuracy, whereas FonF also significantly improved fluency, which was not observed in FonFs. Furthermore, we found that the level of L2 proficiency could modulate the interaction between instruction methods and learning outcomes. For low-proficiency learners, FonF was more helpful for the improvement of fluency. For high-proficiency learners, FonFs was more helpful for the improvement of accuracy. These results demonstrated that teachers should pay attention to the interaction between specific teaching conditions with different L2 proficiency and learning outcomes when implementing FFI. The findings of this study have important implications for the design of procedures and interactive activities of L2 spoken Chinese teaching.

The effects of the timing of form-focused instruction on EFL learners’ learning of difficult and easy grammatical features: A comparative study

Form-focused instruction (FFI) research has shifted its focus from whether FFI has an effect to what type of FFI is more beneficial. This study compared the effects of three types of FFI on EFL learners’ learning of difficult and easy grammatical features. Three intact classes with similar proficiency from a Chinese junior middle school were randomly assigned to three groups: integrated FFI, pre-task FFI and post-task FFI. All groups received instructional treatments combining meaning and form, but attention to form was given at different times. In the integrated group, FFI was provided within communicative activities, in the pre-task and post-task groups FFI was provided either before or after communicative activities. Two experiments were carried out, one on a difficult structure and one on an easy structure. Treatment effects were measured through an error correction test (ECT) and a timed grammatical judgmental test (TGJT). The results showed that for the difficult structure, pre-task FFI led to better performance on the ECT, and the three types of FFI were equally effective on the TGJT. For the easy structure, post-task FFI was more effective on both the ECT and the TGJT. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research were provided.

Interactions between type of form-focused instruction, type of morphosyntactic form, and type of language knowledge

AbstractAlthough claims about the nature of EFL/ESL learners’ knowledge (i. e., implicit and/or explicit) are essential to many debates in foreign/second language development, few studies have sought to evaluate the effects of linguistic and/or contextual variables on the two knowledge types. This study, accordingly, undertook to examine the effects of different explicit and implicit types of form-focused instruction (FFI) on the acquisition of four easy and difficult forms as assessed by different implicit and explicit outcome measures. The instruments utilized to assess students’ learning were: oral elicited imitation, untimed and timed grammaticality judgment, and metalinguistic knowledge tests. A pretest and two posttests were administered to 150 novice learners immediately after FFI and again after a 4-week delay. Immediate and durable effects of FFI were found for the easy and difficult target forms on both implicit and explicit knowledge measures. Specifically, the study indicated that explicit and implicit types of FFI were significantly more beneficial for explicitly-easy and implicitly-easy language forms respectively. The findings of this study may contribute a different set of insights to our understanding of the efficacy of varying types of FFI on learners’ controlled and/or spontaneous use of easy and difficult structures at early stages of L2 development.

The Effect of Comparative FonF Structure on Learning L2 Verb Components

This study focuses on the impact of the type of form-focused instruction (FFI) on its efficiency in mastering L2forms. The hypothesis that FFI, which induces structural and metalinguistic salience on the basis of contrastiveanalysis of the learner’s L1 and L2, would be particularly effective at facilitating the acquisition of difficult L2 formswas tested in a quasi-experimental study comparing the effectiveness of two types of FFI, one with and one without acontrastive component. The contrastive FFI explicitly drew learners’ attention to the cross-linguistic differences inthe tense-aspect systems of their L2 and L1 while the non-contrastive treatment only focused on the tense-aspectsystem of the L2. The effects of these two types of FFI were assessed by analyzing the learners’ pre-test and post-testperformance on two tasks differing in the extent to which they involve the activation of explicit and implicitlinguistic knowledge: a grammatical judgment task and a controlled translation task. The subjects of the studycomprised of 43 students majoring in English language in the Iranian capital university, Tehran, 22 were selected asfor experimental group and 21 for control group randomly. The results of the study revealed that the quantitativeanalysis of the Grammatical Judgment Test (GJT) data indicated no significant effect of CFFI due to the novelty ofthe translatory technique, or the potential individual differences in the learning orientation of the learners. On thecontrary, the qualitative analysis indicated differential effects of this type of FFI according to the nature of targetform, i.e. CFFI was beneficial in raising the grammatical judgment of Persian Learners of English (PLE) regardingpresent perfect form but not effective in their judgment of ungrammatical progressive forms. In terms of translationtask, the CFFI appeared to be effective in the correct use of the target structures by PLE. This may be mainly due tothe fact that Translation Test (TT) needed explicit knowledge which was presented in CFFI and that translation is acontrastive activity in nature.

The Effect of Comparative FonF Structure on Learning L2 Verb Components

This study focuses on the impact of the type of form-focused instruction (FFI) on its efficiency in mastering L2 forms. The hypothesis that FFI, which induces structural and metalinguistic salience on the basis of contrastive analysis of the learner’s L1 and L2, would be particularly effective at facilitating the acquisition of difficult L2 forms was tested in a quasi-experimental study comparing the effectiveness of two types of FFI, one with and one without a contrastive component. The contrastive FFI explicitly drew learners’ attention to the cross-linguistic differences in the tense-aspect systems of their L2 and L1 while the non-contrastive treatment only focused on the tense-aspect system of the L2. The effects of these two types of FFI were assessed by analyzing the learners’ pre-test and post-test performance on two tasks differing in the extent to which they involve the activation of explicit and implicit linguistic knowledge: A grammatical judgment task and a controlled translation task. The subjects of the study comprised of 43 students majoring in English language in the Iranian capital university, Tehran, 22 were selected as for the experimental group and 21 for control group randomly. The results of the study revealed that the quantitative analysis of the Grammatical Judgment Test (GJT) data indicated no significant effect of CFFI due to the novelty of the translatory technique, or the potential individual differences in the learning orientation of the learners. On the contrary, the qualitative analysis indicated differential effects of this type of FFI according to the nature of target form, i.e. CFFI was beneficial in raising the grammatical judgment of Persian Learners of English (PLE) regarding present perfect form but not effective in their judgment of ungrammatical progressive forms. In terms of translation task, the CFFI appeared to be effective in the correct use of the target structures by PLE. This may be mainly due to the fact that Translation Test (TT) needed explicit knowledge which was presented in CFFI and that translation is a contrastive activity in nature.

Predictors of Language Learners’ Preferences for Isolated/Integrated FFI: Big Five NEO-FFI Personality Traits

<p>With regard to increasing attention to focus on form in English language teaching, there has been a call for an integration of meaning-focused and form-focused instruction in the second language (L2) classroom. In this regard, this study is an attempt to examine the cross-relationship between Big Five personality traits (namely Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) and EFL leaners’ preferences for two types of form-focused Instruction (FFI). The data is collected from 236 Iranian male and female who were EFL learners of different language institutes in Tehran, Iran. Participants were supposed to fill out the adopted Persian version of NEO-FFI personality trait inventory and Students’ preferences questionnaire. To substantiate a correlation between participants’ preferences for isolated/integrated FFI and Big Five personality traits, using 16th version of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), the Chi-square analysis was employed. The results indicated a significant relationship (<em>χ</em><sup>2</sup>(4, n=236)=44.99, p=.001). The results are discussed in the light of this general findings and the study also provides some suggestions for future research.</p>

An Investigation of Integrated and Closely Sequenced Form-Focused Instruction

In this study the timing issue in form-focused instruction (FFI) was investigated from a practical pedagogical perspective by comparing one instructional procedure that integrated FFI into a communicative task and one that provided FFI following a task in a closely sequenced fashion. Learners’ production accuracy on two target forms—situational-the and experiential present perfect—was measured using two pretests and two posttests that imposed pressured and unpressured performance conditions. On situational-the, the only significant mean accuracy gain was recorded by the integrated procedure learners under unpressured test conditions, a gain that was significantly different to that made by the sequenced FFI group. On experiential present perfect, only the gains in production accuracy made by the integrated FFI treatment group were significantly larger than those made by a comparison group. The results challenge Spada and Lightbown’s (2008) assumptions about which type of FFI might be more effective for which type of grammatical language feature by showing that the procedure incorporating integrated FFI was more effective irrespective of language feature type and that the type of knowledge affected depends on target form. 本研究は、教育現場の観点から見た文法指導（FFI）のタイミングについて、コミュニカティブなタスクに組み込んだFFIと、コミュニカティブなタスクの直後に配置した2種類の方法を比較検討したものである。指導の前後に負荷ありと負荷なしのスピーキングテストを実施し、2つの文法項目（定冠詞theと経験の現在完了形）の正確さを測定した。定冠詞の使用については、負荷のないテストにおいて組み込み型指導法のグループにのみスコアの上昇が見られた。経験を表す現在完了においては、組み込み型指導法のスコア上昇のみが対照群と比べて有意に大きかった。本研究の結果から、文法項目の種類にかかわらず、コミュニカティブなタスクの直後に配置した文法指導よりもタスクに組み込んだ文法指導の方が効果的であることが明らかになった。よって、Spada and Lightbown (2008) の、文法項目の特徴により、異なるという仮定は議論の余地があると言える。

형태초점교수활동, 학습자의 인식도, 그리고 제2언어습득

The purpose of the study was two folded: to examine whether form-focused instruction (FFI) with corrective feedback (CF) is effective for the acquisition of the target linguistic forms and to find out the extent to which of the students' perceptions as well as their attitudes towards English instruction that they received. Tests and questionnaires were implemented to 122 Korean EFL students from eight classes enrolled in an English communication course. They were randomly assigned to three groups: the input-based group, who received typographical input enhancement materials, so-called the TIE group, the output-based group, who performed dictogloss tasks, so-called the DICT group, and the control group (CG). The data analysis was made on both tests and questionnaires by using SPSS 21.0 for Windows. The study found that different types of FFI with CF contributed to the improvement of students’ grammatical knowledge and both the TIE and DICT task group students positively changed their perceptions and understanding as well as their attitudes towards the English instruction given, and students in all groups preferred pair work activities. In addition, most of the TIE and DICT students showed their interest and satisfaction with English class, whereas the CG group students did not. Based on the findings, this study suggested that well-planned and properly-chosen FFI in the form of pair work activities should be applied in classrooms with consideration of students’ instructional preference in Korean EFL contextual settings.

Is There a Better Time to Focus on Form? Teacher and Learner Views

This study investigated the views of teachers and learners regarding the timing of grammatical instruction, conceptualized as a distinction between isolated and integrated form‐focused instruction (FFI) proposed by Spada and Lightbown (2008). Both types of FFI are described as taking place in primarily meaning‐based communicative classrooms. They differ in that isolated FFI occurs separately from communicative activities, whereas integrated FFI occurs during communicative activities. Using this theoretical distinction, the researchers developed teacher and learner questionnaires and validated them as measures of both constructs supported by factor analysis. The questionnaires were administered to explore the views of teachers and learners in two contexts, ESL in Canada and EFL in Brazil. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the questionnaire data indicate a distinct preference for integrated FFI across groups (i.e., teachers and learners) and contexts (i.e., EFL and ESL). At the same time teachers and learners also acknowledged the value of isolated FFI. These views recognizing the important roles played by both integrated and isolated FFI are consistent with those discussed in the instructed second language acquisition literature. Teachers and learners also drew attention to contextual and individual differences that may have an impact on decisions about the timing of grammatical instruction.

The role of asynchronous computer mediated communication in the instruction and development of EFL learners' pragmatic competence

This study investigates two types of form-focused instruction on the acquisition of requests by Iranian EFL learners to determine the effectiveness of pragmatic instruction through asynchronous computer mediated communication (ACMC). Three groups of EFL learners, a control (n = 27) and two intervention groups, are included in this study. The intervention groups were matched with US-based graduate ESL Education students (as telecollaborative tutors) to undertake either an explicit or an implicit instructional treatment through ACMC for one semester. The explicit group (n = 23) participated in consciousness-raising activities, received explicit metapragmatic explanations and corrections of errors of forms and meanings. The implicit group (n = 24) received enhanced input and implicit feedback. A discourse completion task (DCT) was used to compare control and intervention groups. Furthermore, students' email communications with the graduate students were used to track their language development. Quantitative and qualitative analysis were used to determine the impact of instructional methods on EFL learners' pragmatic competence. Both treatment groups significantly improved, outperforming the control group. However, the explicit group performed significantly better than the implicit group on both the DCT and email communication measures. These findings are discussed with implications for using technology to teach and learn pragmatics.

Isolated and Integrated form-focused instruction: Effects on different types of L2 knowledge

In this study we compared the effects of two types of form-focused instruction (FFI) on second language (L2) learning and their potential contributions to the development of different types of L2 knowledge. Both types of instruction were pre-emptive in nature, that is planned and teacher generated. In Integrated FFI attention to form was embedded within communicative practice; in Isolated FFI it was separated from communicative practice. Two groups of adult learners of English as a second language (ESL) received 12 hours of Integrated or Isolated FFI on the ‘passive’ construction. Learners’ progress on a written grammar test and an oral communication task indicated no significant differences between the instructional groups over time. However, some advantages were observed for Integrated FFI on the oral production task and for Isolated FFI on the written grammar test. The results are discussed in relation to instructed second language acquisition (SLA) research an transfer appropriate processing theory.

Communicative focus on second language phonetic form: Teaching Japanese learners to perceive and produce English /ɹ/ without explicit instruction

ABSTRACTThe current study examines in depth how two types of form-focused instruction (FFI), which are FFI with and without corrective feedback (CF), can facilitate second language speech perception and production of /ɹ/ by 49 Japanese learners in English as a Foreign Langage settings. FFI effectiveness was assessed via three outcome measures (perception, controlled production, and spontaneous production) and also according to two lexical contexts (trained and untrained items). Two experimental groups received 4 hr of FFI treatment to notice and practice the target feature of /ɹ/ (but without any explicit instruction) in meaningful discourse. A control group (n= 14) received comparable instruction in the absence of FFI. During FFI, the instructors provided CF only to students in the FFI + CF group (n= 18) by recasting their mispronunciations of /ɹ/, while no CF was provided to those in the FFI-only group (n= 17). Analyses of pre- and posttests showed that FFI itself can sufficiently promote the development of speech perception and production of /ɹ/ and the acquisitional value of CF in second language speech learning remains unclear. The results suggest that the beginner learners without much phonetic knowledge on how to repair their mispronunciation of /ɹ/ should be encouraged to learn the target sound only through FFI in a receptive mode without much pressure for modified output.

The relative effects of explicit and implicit form-focused instruction on the development of L2 pragmatic competence

This study evaluates the relative effectiveness of two types of form-focused instruction on the acquisition of the speech act set of constructive criticism by sixty-nine Vietnamese learners of English. Over a 10-week course, the explicit group (N=28) participated in consciousness-raising activities, received explicit meta-pragmatic explanation and correction of errors of forms and meanings. The implicit group (N=19), on the other hand, participated in pragmalinguistic input enhancement and recast activities. The two treatment groups were compared with a control group (N=22) on pre-test and post-test performance, consisting of a discourse completion task, a role play and an oral peer-feedback task. A delayed post-test comprising of the same production tasks was also conducted for the two treatment groups to measure long term retention. The results revealed that both of the treatment groups significantly improved in the immediate post-test over the pre-test, outperforming the control group. The treatment groups also maintained their improvement in the delayed post-test. However, the explicit group performed significantly better than the implicit group on all measures. These findings are discussed with implications for classroom practices and future research.

The Effectiveness of Error Correction on the Learning of Morphological and Syntactic Features

The study investigated the effects of correction of learners’ grammatical errors on acquisition. Specifically, it compared the effects of morphological versus syntactic features. Data for the study were collected from 112 transcriptions of oral interviews with Iranian intermediate level students of English as a Foreign Language. During or following the interview the researcher corrected the participants on their grammatical errors Individualised tests focusing on morphological and syntactic errors that had been corrected were constructed for each participant and administered. Statistical analyses of the learners' scores on their individualised tests were carried out. Results showed that treatment of morphological features was found to be more effective than that of syntactic features. It is argued that morphological features are generally learnt as items whereas syntactic features involve system learning. This finding lends support to suggestions that corrective feedback (like other types of form-focused instruction) needs to take into account learners’ cognitive readiness to acquire features (Pienemann, 1984; Mackey, 1999).

Beyond form-focused instruction: Reflections on past, present and future research

In 1997 I published a paper in Language Teaching entitled ‘Form-focused instruction and second language acquisition: A review of classroom and laboratory research’. The paper reviewed the results of studies investigating the effects of form-focused instruction (FFI) on second language (L2) learning. It was organized around seven questions, including: whether FFI is beneficial to L2 learning; whether particular types of FFI are more beneficial; whether there is an optimal time to provide FFI; and whether different language features benefit more from FFI. In this paper I revisit these questions and reflect on how research on FFI and L2 learning has evolved over the past twelve years.

Developing a questionnaire to investigate second language learners’ preferences for two types of form-focused instruction

Abstract In this paper, we report on the process of developing and validating a questionnaire to explore second language learners’ preferences for two types of form-focused instruction (FFI): isolated and integrated FFI. Three types of evidence regarding the validity of the questionnaire were collected: content, reliability and construct. Content validity was obtained from expert judges and Cronbach’s alpha was used to measure the internal consistency reliability of the isolated and integrated FFI scales. A principal components analysis was used to assess the construct validity of isolated and integrated FFI. The results indicated that the questionnaire was both a valid and reliable measure of isolated and integrated FFI. We conclude by discussing some of the ways in which the questionnaire has evolved since its use in this study, how it has been used in related research and plans for its implementation in future studies.

The His/Her Challenge: Making Progress in a ‘Regular’ L2 Programme

This paper reports on two studies that investigated the effectiveness of a contrastive analysis type of pedagogical intervention, which aimed to promote interlanguage development in the use and understanding of English possessive determiners (PDs) among adolescent second language (L2) learners. The first research question asked whether explicit instruction involving a rule of thumb, contrastive information and repeated contextualised practice of the rule would allow learners with French and Catalan/Spanish native languages in ‘regular’ limited-exposure programmes to make progress in using and understanding English PDs. The findings in both contexts confirm that this type of form-focused instruction, which had proven successful in more acquisition-rich contexts, could also help school learners in ‘drip feed’ instructional settings extract greater benefit from their limited contact with the L2. The second research question asked whether the developmental framework for the acquisition of English PDs, originally created to account for francophone learners' acquisition, was valid for other L2 populations. The findings demonstrate that it also explains patterns of development among Catalan/Spanish learners. The results of the two studies point to criteria that may be relevant in determining the type, timing and approach for focused pedagogical intervention in limited-exposure programmes.

Error correction: Report on a study

ABSTRACT This article reports on a study which investigated the effects of correction of learners' grammatical errors on acquisition. Specifically, it compared the effects of timing of correction (immediate versus delayed correction) and manner of correction (explicit versus implicit correction). It also investigated the relative effects of correction of morphological versus syntactic features and correction of developmental early versus developmental late features. Data for the study were collected from 56 intermediate level students of English as a Foreign Language in Iranian university and private language school settings. Each participant was required to read and then retell a written text in their own words during an oral interview with the researcher. During or following the interview, the researcher corrected the participants' grammatical errors implicitly (using recasts) or explicitly (providing metalinguistic information). Individualised tests focusing on the errors that had been corrected were constructed for each participant and administered. Statistical analyses were conducted on the scores participants received on their individualised tests. Results showed no significant differences for the timing of correction. However, significant differences were found for the manner of correction. Participants who received explicit correction gained significantly higher scores than those who received implicit correction. This finding lends support to the argument of Schmidt (1994) conceming the role of metalinguistic awareness in language acquisition. Correction of morphological features was found to be more effective than that of syntactic features. It is argued that morphological features are generally learnt as items whereas syntactic features involve system learning. Correction of developmental early features was found to be more effective than correction of developmental late features. This finding lends support to suggestions that corrective feedback (like other types of form-focused instruction) needs to take into account learners' cognitive readiness to acquire features (Pienemann 1984; Mackey 1999).

Doing focus-on-form

‘Focus-on-form’ refers to a particular type of form-focused instruction - the treatment of linguistic form in the context of performing a communicative task. This article considers the rationale for this approach to teaching form as opposed to the more traditional ‘focus-on-forms’ approach where linguistic features are treated sequentially. It describes some of the main methodological options for attending to form in communication. These are considered under two main headings; ‘reactive focus-on-form’ and ‘pre-emptive focus-on-form’. The advantages and disadvantages of the various options are also discussed. Finally, some general questions relating to the practice of focus-on-form are identified as a basis for further discussion and research.