The Effects Of Frequency In Output Practice On The Acquisition Of Wh-Question Formation By Junior Middle School Students

Wh-questions are one of the important grammatical features in the language study. Since syntactic structure of the English wh-questions is different from Chinese wh-questions, the learning of English wh-questions is difficult for English beginners. However, grammatical rule explanations provided for EFL learners in classroom language learning is not sufficient for satisfactory learning outcome. The requirement of language analytic ability is comparatively high under the existing instructional conditions and some means for raising grammar awareness of wh-questions will be necessary to compensate for the lack of language analytic ability. It has been stated that frequency is a key determinant of acquisition of language. The study aims to investigate whether or not practice with increased type frequency and practice with increased token frequency have the positive effects on acquisition of the wh-questions formation, providing the empirical evidence for impact of frequency on the learning of the wh-question formation by junior middle school students in China.This empirical study has employed the instruments of tests, output practice and interviews. The participants are 72 eighth grade students from the Dongpo junior middle school in Sichuan province. Participants are divided into two experimental groups and one control group. Two experimental groups are Type Group and Token Group respectively. In the instructional treatment, Type Group carried out the wh-question output practice with increased type frequency, Token Group carried out the wh-question output practice with increased token frequency. The research questions are listed as follows:(1) Does output practice with increased frequency lead to significant improved performance on the acquisition of wh-questions by junior middle school students in China?(2) Do output practice with increased type frequency and output practice with increased token frequency have differential effects on generalization of wh-questions? If so, what are the differences?The major findings can be summarized as follows: First, output practice with high frequency can lead to improved performance on the acquisition of wh-question formation by junior middle school students. Second, compared to the control group, only Type Group led to significantly greater learning gains in test of wh-questions formation. However, there is no significant difference between Token Group and control group. Under the framework of frequency-based theory,it was assumed that token frequency contributes to entrenchment and that type frequency contributes productivity. Since the learning problems of the wh-questions are concerned with generalization of the wh-question formation, the empirical results suggest that output practice with high type frequency can address this problem effectively. Therefore, output practice with high type frequency has a significant positive effect on the generalization of wh-question formation.The study suggests output practice with rich contexts and diversified types of wh-questions can improve the effectiveness of the learning outcome. The findings of the study shed some light on effective teaching of wh-questions in the L2 classroom.