The Effects Of Processing Instruction And Meaning-based Output Instruction On The Acquisition Of The English Passive Structure

One of the most debated issues is grammar instruction in second language (L2) classrooms. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in comparing the relative effects of Processing Instruction (PI) and Meaning-based Output Instruction (MOI) on the acquisition of L2 grammatical structures. Benati (2005) and VanPatten et al. (2009) claimed that PI had a more beneficial effect than MOI in second language acquisition. However, Birjandi et al. (2011) and Farley & Aslan (2012) argued that MOI played a greater role in linguistic development. The results of these studies fail to reach a consensus. In addition, previous studies mainly investigate the acquisition of target structures such as subjunctive mood. simple past tense, clitic direct object pronouns in L2 classrooms and most studies are restricted to interpretation and production tasks at sentence level. Therefore. this thesis intends to test the effects of PI and MOI on the acquisition of the English passive structure at sentence and discourse level in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classrooms.The research questions include:Will PI and MOI lead to great gains on the interpretation and production of the English passive structure at sentence and discourse level? If the answer is affirmative, are there any significant differences between the effects of PI and MOI? The participants were 186 learners from three intact classes in No.1 junior high school in Yongcheng, Henan Province. They were assigned into two treatment groups of PI (n=62), MOI (n=61) and one control group (n=63). PI group received instruction which aimed to push learners to alter non-optimal processing strategies to make more correct form-meaning connections. MOI group received meaning-based output instruction that pushed learners to produce the English passive structure to convey meaning. Control group did not receive any special treatment about the English passive structure. An experimental design with a pretest-treatment-immediate posttest-delayed posttest sequence was adopted. All tests contained both interpretation and production tasks at sentence and discourse level.The results indicated that both PI and MOI groups performed significantly better than control group to interpret and produce the English passive structure in immediate posttest and delayed posttest. For interpretation tasks at sentence and discourse level, PI and MOI groups made significant gains in improving learners’ ability to interpret the English passive structure, and there was no significant difference between the two experimental groups. For production tasks at sentence and discourse level, MOI group was significantly better than PI group in facilitating the learners’ performance to produce the English passive structure. The results of this thesis illustrated that meaning-based output practice could push learners to pay more attention to the form-meaning connections, and to reflect upon the usage of these grammatical structures.