| Proponents of the Output Hypothesis (Swain, 1985; Long & Robinson, 1998) have argued that comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985) alone is insufficient and that a combination of input and focus on form is necessary. There seems to be little convincing evidence so far that the combination approach is more effective and efficient. This study investigated whether a combination of input and focus on form was more effective and efficient than an approach that relied mainly on input. The combination approach consisted of extensive reading, summary writing, and rewriting of the corrected summaries. The participants were Japanese female college learners of English (N = 104) studying in an extensive reading program. The Japanese summary group ( n = 34) wrote summaries in Japanese, the English summary group ( n = 34) wrote summaries in English, and the Correction group ( n = 36) wrote summaries in English, received corrective feedback, and rewrote their corrected summaries. All participants read an average of 2300 pages (about 500,000 words) in three semesters, and the Correction group's summaries were corrected 25 times.; The measurements used were a 100-item cloze test, the reading section of a TOEIC test, and a measure of grammatical accuracy (the number of error free clauses per 100 words OF writing). The results of three two by three 2-way repeated ANOVAs revealed that all three groups improved significantly, and there were no statistically significant differences among the groups on the three tests. The questionnaire revealed that the Japanese summary group spent 150 hours reading while the other groups spent about 300 hours reading, writing and rewriting. It was observed that the participants did not fully engage in summary writing and rewriting of the corrected summaries. Interviews revealed that the participants did not like to write a summary for each book they read.; The conclusion was that the combination approach used in this study did not lead to greater accuracy and that it was inefficient. Extensive reading combined with brief summaries in Japanese appeared to be a more efficient means of developing grammatical accuracy in English for low intermediate learners at the university level in Japan. |
