The Effectiveness Of Focus On Form On Learning English Simple Past

Focus on form was proposed by Long in 1991. Long identifies two essential characteristics of focus on form:(1) Attention to form occurs in lessons where the overriding focus is on meaning or communication; (2) Attention to form arises incidentally in response to communicative need. Other researchers (Doughty & Williams 1998; Ellis 2001) point out that "incidental focus on form" is not practical in class. Thus these researchers expand the concept of focus on form, they think that focus on form can be predetermined, and teachers can use some techniques to attract learners'attention in meaning-focused class. Focus on form is different from the traditional teaching approach which centers on the memorization of language structure, and it is also unlike focus on meaning instruction which completely ignores learner's errors during the meaning expression. Focus on form is a kind of approach integrating both meaning expression and target form. There are many theoretical and experimental researches on focus on form abroad, but most of them are set in SLA context. In China, studies on focus on form are mainly postgraduate papers, but their subjects are students from college or middle school. The present study adopts learners of primary six as subjects, and English simple past as target form in order to test the immediate effect of focus on form on the learning of English simple past in EFL context in China.The experiment is designed three stages:pretest, instructional treatment and posttest. The instructional treatment lasts five weeks. The subjects are 80 students from primary six, with 40 in experiment group and control group respectively. The tools used in pretest and posttest are grammar judgment test, written and oral production. Pretest is necessary because subjects have learned English simple past in primary five and the first term of primary six. The data of pretest shows that there is no significant difference between two groups in the proficiency of using English simple past. And English simple past is problematic to them. During instructional treatment, the teacher makes students of experiment group receive focus on form instruction, which means the teacher asks students to perform twenty minutes' dictogloss activity, and produce writing including the target form with a similar topic. Meantime, the teacher should provide corrective feedback to the errors made by students in their writing in time. The dictogloss activity and corrective feedback are means that make students notice the target form in their output, and finally intake it. Students of control group, however, receive focus on meaning instruction, which means the teacher does not carry out dictogloss activity, and only asks them to write the composition with the same requirements with experiment group. After 5 weeks' instructional treatment, the data of posttest shows that for the learning of English simple past of regular verbs, the experiment group outperforms the control group with regard to the accuracy of written and oral production. But for the learning of English simple past of irregular verbs, there is no significant difference between two groups.Therefore, the major findings gained by this study are:(1) In Chinese EFL context, focus on form instruction is more effective than focus on meaning instruction with respect to the learning of English simple past of regular verbs; (2) Focus on form instruction does not have advantage over focus on meaning instruction with regard to the learning of English simple past of irregular verbs. These findings have pedagogical implications for the practice of focus on form in Chinese EFL context. At last, the limitations of the study and suggestions for future study are pointed out.