The Effects Of Output On The Production Of Target Linguistic Forms By Chinese College Students

The early 1980 s witnessed the naissance of Input Theory proposed by Stephen D.Krashen(1985)in second language acquisition(SLA)field.However,as there is an increasing number of published works in SLA domain,many scholars voice their doubts about Krashen's theory.Against this backdrop,Merrill Swain(1985)advances another theory,Output Hypothesis.There are four functions relevant to output: the hypothesis-testing function,the noticing function,the fluency function and the meta-linguistic function.Among them,theoretically and pedagogically speaking,the noticing/triggering function,assuming an important position,has received a great deal of ink in SLA scholars' works which mainly deal with pedagogical or linguistic issues.Most previous studies are concerned with noticing and acquisition of target linguistic forms.There is usually a posttest in these studies to test whether learners acquire these target forms or not.Strictly speaking,the period between the posttest and treatment is not long enough in these studies,so it may be difficult to prove the acquisition issue.These linguistic forms are relatively difficult grammatical structures or new low-frequency vocabulary which second language learners seldom use in their daily life.In addition,many researchers utilize more than one type of output-based task in their experiments.It is not clear whether the previous output task has priming effects on the following task.Furthermore,the topic of output tasks in these researches may not interest all the learners,for the designers of these experiment may not take learners'(participants)background and knowledge into consideration.Last but not least,there is no consensus among researchers concerning the noticing function of output.Based on the same theoretical framework,the present study,employing mainly quantitative research methodology along with qualitative methodology,aims at testing the effects of output on the improvement of production of target linguistic forms by Chinese non-English-major college students.To be specific,theoretically speaking,this study investigates the role of output in the meaning-based situation in facilitating learners to notice the gap between their interlanguage(IL)and target language(TL).Noticing the gap generated by output assists them in shifting their focus mainly from on meaning to mainly on form(broadly speaking,“focus on meaning” and “focus on form” is a group of concepts which are different from Michael Long's “Focus on form”.His Fon F is associated with “Focus on Forms”),which can contribute to the production of linguistic forms.From pedagogical perspective,the current study is designed on the basis of the current writer's observation in the classroom.According to the observation,the majority of students know the meaning of some target linguistic forms,but they cannot produce them automatically in their own writing or speaking.They usually produce the linguistic forms which have the same meaning with that target linguistic form.The current study is conducted to address this pedagogical issue.Bearing both theoretical and pedagogical perspectives in mind,the writer of the current study puts forward two research questions:(1)Do input-output activities result in improved production of target linguistic forms?(2)Do output-input-output activities result in more production of target linguistic forms?The current study hypothesizes that input-output activities can lead to less production of target linguistic forms.It is also predicted that output-input-output activities can result in producing more linguistic forms of target language.According to the design of this study,55 sophomores of non-English majors attend the experiment,with the average age of 19.These students are recruited from a homogeneous and intact class in Lanzhou University.In terms of English proficiency,Lanzhou-University-administrated placement test ranks them among the highest level – the Third Level.The treatment in this study consists of two phases – Phase 1 and Phase 2:In Phase 1,participants,firstly,are requested to read a short passage(Input 1)with approximate 140 words.In advance,the participants are informed that they have a limited amount of time to read the passage.When finishing reading,they hand over Input 1 to the researcher.Then Output 1 starts.During this period,participants are required to recall the content of this passage in ten minutes as accurately as possible.In Phase 2,in the first place,participants read the same passage(Input 2).After finishing reading,these participants hand over Input 2 to the researcher.Then,the participants are required to accomplish Output 2 in ten minutes.The direction of the Output 2 is similar to that of Output 1.In an attempt to make analysis of the participants' production during Phase 1 and Phase 2,the researcher collects participants' output during two treatment periods.After collection,the author compares and scores them.Additionally,after the main treatment,the participants are required to fill out posttreatment questionnaires,which work as a complement to the analysis of results.The current author mainly collects part of data from participants' output and some responses from questionnaires for quantitative analysis.Other part of data drawn from questionnaires is utilized for qualitative analysis.Regarding statistical analysis,the statistic package SPSS 23.0 is employed to analyze data collected from participants' output and questionnaires.What's more,Office software Word are used to present the study's results concisely and conveniently.The major findings of the present study are briefly summarized as follows:(1)When learners are instructed to read a text and reconstruct it,output which is not followed by the subsequent exposure to target linguistic forms does not lead to more production of target linguistic forms.(2)When learners are directed to read a text and reconstruct it,if the text appears twice after reconstruction,learners would notice the gap between their interlanguage(IL)and target language(TL).Then learners would shift their focus mainly from on meaning to mainly on form to cover the “gap”,which contributes to the production of target linguistic forms.Firstly,the results of this experiment is theoretically important.It proves the noticing function of output.Based on the results,this study also has some implications for English teaching.Pedagogically speaking,teachers should effectively design classroom tasks and activities by employing output tasks to assist students in establishing the form-meaning connection of target linguistic forms,which can contribute to the production and acquisition of target linguistic forms.In particular,the results of the study indicate that input-output-input-output cycle can facilitate the production of linguistic forms.