The Effect Of Grade Eight Students’ Input Frequency And Grammar Proficiency On Incidental Grammar Acquisition Of Past Continuous Tense

Since the 1990s,the learning effect of incidental acquisition has been the focus of experts and scholars.However,most of the previous studies on incidental acquisition are about English vocabulary.Only a few scholars have studied incidental grammar acquisition（IGA）,so there is still a large space for the research on the influencing factors of IGA.Therefore,this article attempts to explore whether IGA will be affected by input frequency and grammar proficiency,and whether there is an interaction between this two factors for junior high school students.Three hypotheses are put forword as follows:（1）The input frequency of past continuous tense will affect IGA of the eighth graders.（2）The students’ grammar proficiency will affect their IGA.（3）There will be an interaction between the input frequency and grammar proficiency on the IGA of the eighth graders.To verify these research hypotheses,the study selected 46 junior high school students as subjects to carry out an experimental study.The purpose of this study is to discover the internal relations among variables of IGA,and thus provide methodological guidance for the grammar instruction.This experiment lasted for eight weeks: in the first week,to understand the subjects’ knowledge of grammar and divide the subjects into high,middle and low grammar level,the author invited all the subjects participating in the grammar pre-test.From the second week to the sixth week,all the subjects read 5 English readings every Wednesday,and each reading contains 3 sentences of the target grammar item.After reading,the subjects were required to answer three multiple-choice comprehension questions.Then they were asked to complete an instant grammar post-test with the similarity to the pre-test.The participants totally read twenty five readings and encountered the target grammar item seventy five times.At the end of the sixth week,no more input was given to the subjects.In the eighth week,all the participants had to complete the delayed grammar post-test.And the incidental acquisition of target grammar was presented by the immediate and delayed grammar post-tests.The results show that:（1）The input frequency of past continuous tense influences IGA.When the input frequency is within 60 times,IGA is increasing with the added input frequency,but when the input frequency is added to 75 times,the effect is declinig slightly.In other words,it was not found that the more frequently students encountered target grammar items,the better they would acquire them.And the repeated exposure to the target grammar only can improve the learners’ test achievements on receptive tasks,but has little effect on the test of productive tasks.（2）Different grammar proficiency will influence IGA of past continuous tense,that is,students with high grammar level acquire significantly better than those with medium and low grammar level.And the students with high grammar level can improve their performance on both receptive and productive tasks,but only on receptive tasks for those with medium and low grammar level.（3）There is an internal interaction between input frequency and grammar proficiency on IGA of past continuous tense for eighth graders.In other words,for the same target grammar,the IGA of students will be different with the increasing input frequency.Even at the same input frequency,students with different grammar proficiency response differently.Then the author puts forward the following teaching suggestions: Firstly,teachers are expected to integrate grammar teaching methods in and out of class.Secondly,teachers are required to organize and design carefully grammar teaching activities.Thirdly,various grammar learning resources are asked to offer students for better practices.