| The study is undertaken to investigate the effects of different timings of form-focused instruction on junior high school students’ learning of restrictive relative clause.The theoretical foundations of the study are Interaction Hypothesis,Noticing Hypothesis and Information Processing Theory.The significance of the study lies in two aspects:it enriches the studies on timing of form-focused instruction;it provides some suggestions in teaching with the expectation of improving grammar levels of students at different English proficiency levels.The research questions addressed in this thesis are as follows:1What is the overall effect of different timings of form-focused instruction on junior high school students’ learning of restrictive relative clause?2.What are the different effects of different timings of form-focused instruction on the learning of restrictive relative clause by junior high school students at different English proficiency levels?1)What are the differences in the effect of different timings of form-focused instruction on high-achievers’ learning of restrictive relative clause?2)What are the differences in the effect of different timings of form-focused instruction on low-achievers’ learning of restrictive relative clause?Participants were 145 Grade 9 students from three parallel classes of a junior high school in Zhang jiagang,Suzhou,Jiangsu Province.Three classes received instructional treatments combing meaning and form but attention to form was given at different timings.The instruments of this study were two grammar test papers and an interview.Before and after the teaching experiment,grammar test papers were given,which would serve as pre-test and post-test in this study.An interview was conducted to investigate students’attitudes towards different timings of form-focused instruction after the teaching experiment.All the data in this study,including scores of tests and results of interview,were collected in time,calculated quantitatively by Excel 2019 and further analyzed by SPSS 26.0 with descriptive statistics analysis,paired samples T-test,one-way ANOVA analysis and post hoc comparisons.The data analysis generate the following major findings:Firstly,different timings of form-focused instruction produce positive effects on student’s learning of restrictive relative clause with relative pronouns in varying degree.Compared to the mean values of each class in the pre-test,the mean values of integrated form-focused instruction class(M=68.92),pre-task form-focused instruction class(M=75.88)and post-task form-focused instruction class(M=74.24)in post-test improve significantly.There are significant differences between pre-test and post-test in each class(p=.000<.05).There is significant difference between integrated form-focused instruction and pre-task form-focused instruction(p=.013<.05)while there is no significant difference between integrated form-focused instruction and post-task form-focused instruction(p=.064>.05)and between pre-task form-focused instruction and post-task form-focused instruction(p=.567>.05).Secondly,high-achievers in three classes could benefit from different timings of form-focused instruction.There is a significant difference between high-achievers’ scores of the pre-test and post-test in each class(p=.000<.05).There are no significant differences between integrated form-focused instruction class and pre-task form-focused instruction class(p=.264>.05)and between integrated form-focused instruction class and post-task form-focused instruction class(p=.144>.05).There is a significant difference between pre-task form-focused instruction class and post-task form-focused instruction class(p=.011<.05).For high-achievers,pre-task form-focused instruction works best,followed by integrated form-focused instruction and finally post-task form-focused instruction because high-achievers are able to process meaning more easily and pay more attention to forms.Same as high-achievers,low-achievers in three classes also show significant improvements in learning restrictive relative clause.There is a significant difference between integrated form-focused instruction class and isolated form-focused instruction class which includes pre-task form-focused instruction(p=.003<.05)and post-task form-focused instruction(p=.031<.05).There exist no significant difference between pre-task form-focused instruction class and post-task form-focused instruction class(p=.417>.05).For low-achievers,pre-task form-focused instruction was the best timing,with post-task form-focused instruction the second and integrated form-focused instruction the last because low-achievers have limited resources to process language forms and meanings at the same time.This study provides some implications.Firstly,both teachers and students should realize the importance of timing of form-focused instruction.Secondly,teachers should take students’ proficiency differences into full consideration in English grammar teaching and employ different timings of form-focused instruction accordingly.For both high-achievers and low-achievers,pre-task form-focused instruction seems to be more effective to learn restrictive relative clause with relative pronouns.For high-achievers,teachers are suggested to use more integrated form-focused instruction to further develop students’ comprehensive abilities;for low-achievers,teachers are suggested to use more isolated form-focused instruction,which is easier for students to keep up with the class and understand target grammar points.There are also limitations in this study.Firstly,the lack of a control class may not comprehensively show the effectiveness of different timings of form-focused instruction.Secondly,the experimental period is not long enough.Finally,the study only examines restrictive relative clause with relative pronouns.Therefore,more empirical researches are needed to focus on different language forms through timing of form-focused instruction. |
