Applying Focus On Form Theory To TEFL Class In Middle Schools

Language form is an important component of language teaching. How language forms can be integrated into communicative language classroom, that is, how focus on form should be implemented, has become a heatedly discussed issue in the study of L2 acquisition and language teaching abroad. FonF is an instruction approach that draws learners' attention to form in the context of meaningful communication and enables learners to develop linguistic accuracy; it creates conditions for interlanguage restructuring, allows learners to take time out from a focus meaning to notice linguistic items in the input, and provides learners with an opportunity to 'notice the gap' between models of the target language and their own language production. Traditionally, grammar teaching centering on discrete language points in isolation from context or communicative activity is called FonFs. Unlike FonFs, FonF encourages learners notice both meaning and linguistic features in language learning.Since 1980s, communicative language teaching (CLT) becomes popular in China's middle school, but there is a dilemma where teaching can't help improve both fluency and accuracy. As a SLA theory, FonF may solve such a dilemma in TEFL in China. The author makes a hypothesis that FonF is an effective instruction to integrate advantages of traditional grammar teaching and Chinese CLT and helps develop learners' fluency and accuracy, explores the possibility of using FonF in current teaching of English in middle school, presents some practical methods of FonF instruction, and conducts two case studies to implement FonF. Research shows that FonF instruction positively promotes TEFL learners' acquisition, because it produces more durable effects in English teaching, in contrast to FonFs instruction and focus-on-meaning instruction.