Effects Of C-R Through FonF To Remedy Fossilization Of Grammatical Errors

This is an empirical study on fossilization of verb errors from the aspect of the grammatical form. In order to avoid the deficiencies of the previous fossilization researches, the author designs a quasi-experiment to investigate the stabilized errors, the causes and the remedial strategy of the stabilized item. The main purpose is to verify the effectiveness of C-R through FonF in reducing the frequency of occurrence of stabilized grammatical errors of the Chinese non-English-major freshmen. This study is based mainly on Selinker's notions of interlanguage and fossilization.In review of the related theories, this research is divided into three stages:1. Establish the stabilized errors and their causal factors. In the first four-week-long stage, the author collected plenty of first-hand data, and found that the errors of simple past tense were the stubborn ones frequently committed by the subjects. Therefore, simple past tense was identified as the stabilized item that became the object of the following research. The author designed a questionnaire to get information on students'personal English learning in school settings and to find the correlation between grammar knowledge and performance of IL. Moreover, the author clarified the multiple causes of stabilization of this type of error according to the Multiple Effects Principle.2. Destabilize the stabilized errors by C-R through FonF. From the perspective of psycho-cognitive point, the author suggests C-R through FonF be a remedial strategy to destabilize based on the causes of stabilization analyzed. In the second eight-week-long stage, the students in the experimental group were required to do three C-R tasks (story retelling, error detection and blank filling) respectively which deliberately attempted to draw learners'attention specially to the formal properties of the target language, and to guide them to observe, induce and use the grammatical rules. The instructor used FonF in the form of implicit negative cognitive feedback (repetition, recast) and positive affective feedback to encourage learners to continually correct the non-target-like forms during the C-R activities. Therefore, in meaningful communicative contexts, this experiment realizes the combination of language form, meaning and use, the balance between fluency and accuracy and destabilization in language learning. 3. Assess the results of the destabilization attempt. The author used longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses (T-Test and Chi-Square-Test) to diagnose the performance of the focused grammatical item in subjects'interlanguage development and to validate the immediate and long-term effects from two types of task: blank filling and classroom composition. Altogether 95 freshmen of non-English majors in two intact classes from NUDT took part in the experiment, one class is an experimental group and the other is a control group. In order to evaluate the effects of pedagogical intervention, tests were taken before, immediately and 12 weeks after the experiment, which were called pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest. Each test was designed in type of blank filling and composition. The descriptive analyses of results and analyses of correlation, T-Test and Chi-Square-Test by SPSS 11.0 were presented in the present study.The results of the study and the analyses indicate that:1. Simple past tense is the stabilized item in Chinese learners'IL system.2. Multiple factors (interlingual, intralingual, psychological, environmental) are the causes of the stabilized item.3. C-R through FonF has the immediate positive effects of destabilization in two types of tests (blank filling and composition).4. C-R through FonF has the long-term effects of destabilization in blank filling test, but not in composition test.The current study is of great significance both in theoretical and pedagogical perspectives. Theoretically, this study verifies the remedial strategy of fossilization from psycho-cognitive point of view in Chinese-context classroom. In practice, the study provides language teachers with another way in the real foreign language classroom to help learners destabilize.