Effect Of Form-focused Instruction On Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition

Vocabulary, as a fundamental aspect of second language acquisition (SLA), has always been a concern of L2 learners and researchers. In recent years, more concerns have been shown on L2 lexical competence development in Chinese classroom setting. Those researches are mainly focused on the aspect of incidental L2 vocabulary acquisition and how pedagogical approach facilitates learners'L2 lexical competence and enhance L2 vocabulary retention (e.g., Wang, 1998; Lv, 2000; Wu, 2001; Shen, 2003; Huang, 2004). However, there is no theoretical breakthrough on the study of L2 lexical retention and the effect of different instruction on L2 vocabulary retention has been scarcely investigatedBased on the theory of attention, this study investigated the effect of form-focused instruction on L2 vocabulary acquisition. The subjects of this study are 90 non-English majors of Chongqing University. They were assigned to 3 groups with three types under three types of instruction conditions: (1) focus-on- forms instruction; (2) focus-on-form instruction; (3) focus-on-form instruction + focus-on-forms instruction. Three types of instruction were carried out in a 45-minute-lesson respectively and the subjects took one pre-test and two post-tests (immediate post-test and delayed post-test). Subjects'activities were recorded and then transcribed to have an analysis.One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and T-test were made to analyze the data of immediate post-test and delayed post-test. Results show that there is no significant difference in immediate post-test with three types of instruction; but different instruction has impact on delayed post-test. Both focus-on-forms instruction and focus-on-form instruction have positive effect on immediate retrieval of L2 words; however, focus-on-form instruction is more effective on promoting delayed retention of target words. Limitations of the study and the implications of the importance of task-based form-focused instruction for research and teaching are also discussed.