A Study Of The Effects Of Timing Of Form-Focused Instruction And Language Proficiency On The Acquisition Of English Attributive Clause In Senior High Schools

Based on the shortcomings of the previous grammar teaching which ignored the meaning of language in reality,Long proposed Form-focused Instruction,which has been widely acknowledged.Spada and Lightbown further proposed the Timing of Form-focused Instruction,which is divided into isolated and integrated Form-focused Instruction(Is FFI and In FFI for short respectively).The results of domestic and foreign researches show that two forms of timing can effectively promote grammar teaching,but no consensus has been reached on which one may bring about better teaching effect.In addition,few scholars investigate the teaching effectiveness of integrating timing with language proficiency.It is,therefore,necessary to further the research in this area.On the basis of Noticing Hypothesis,Interaction Hypothesis and Information Processing Theory,this study carried out teaching experiments in two parallel classes of a senior high school in Zhangzhou City.Class 2 of Grade1 was the first experimental class,where Is FFI was adopted and mistakes in communicative activities were not corrected,while Class 4 of Grade 1 was the second experimental class,where the In FFI was adopted and errors in communicative activities were corrected.Students were divided into high,intermediate and low-level groups respectively to learn grammar of “restrictive attributive clauses”.We aim to explore two questions: 1)What is the immediate effect of Timing of Form-focused Instruction and language proficiency on the acquisition of restrictive attributive clauses? 2)What is the delayed effect of Timing of Form-focused Instruction and language proficiency on the acquisition of restrictive attributive clauses?The results show that: 1)Both Timing of Form-focused Instruction and language proficiency have significant main effects on immediate performance(p=.003 and.000respectively),indicating that both have significant impact on the immediate acquisition of restrictive attributive clauses.The interactive effect between the two variables on immediate performance is significant(p=.018).The immediate acquisition effect of In FFI is better for high and intermediate level learners,but there is no difference in the immediate acquisition effect between Is FFI and In FFI for low level learners.In general,In FFI has a more positive immediate acquisition effect on most of the learners.2)Both Timing of Form-focused Instruction and language proficiency have significant main effects on delayed performance(p=.001 and.000 respectively),indicating that both have significant impact on the delayed acquisition effect.The interactive effect between the two variables on delayed performance is significant(p=.006).The delayed acquisition effect of In FFI is better for high and intermediate level learners,but there is no difference in the delayed acquisition effect between Is FFI and In FFI for low level learners.In general,In FFI has a more positive delayed acquisition effect on most of the learners.Based on the research results,two corresponding teaching suggestions are put forward: 1)In FFI can be adopted in English teaching class with varying language proficiency,and close attention should be paid to error correction during communicative activities;2)Low level learners’ recognition of common errors of relative pronouns ought to be reinforced in a targeted way to improve their ability of using language.