Application Of Task-based Focus On Form To English Grammar Teaching In Senior High School

English grammar continues to occupy a major place in English teaching.Grammar is the skeleton of a language--the bones that provide a framework that holds individual words and phrases together in a way that expresses meaning.Therefore,for the past decades,many researchers have tried to find different ways to help learners to master grammar more effectively.Focus on Form was initiated by Michael Long in1988.In Focus on Form instruction,learners' attention occasionally shifts from meaning to a linguistic form while the primary focus remains on meaning.This approach has attracted great attention of researchers both abroad and at home since 1990 s because it can not only improve students' grammatical competence but also improve their communication competence.Numerous theoretical and empirical studies on Focus on Form are carried out abroad,but most of them are conducted in ESL(English as a Second Language)setting.Studies in China mainly focus on its theoretical aspect.Thus,this study is aimed at exploring the effects of pre-task and post-task focus on form on learners in learning the attributive clause.The research intends to solve the following two questions:1)Which one is more effective in helping senior high school students' acquisition of attributive clause,pre-task FonF or post-task FonF ?2)What are the effects of pre-task FonF and post-task FonF on different levels of senior high school students respectively?To resolve above two questions,two intact classes with 104 students in grade 10 from Qin'an No.2Senior High School participate in the experiment.According to the results of pre-test,no significant difference has been found between the two classes.Therefore,one of them is randomly assigned to pre-task group(EG1).In the pre-task group,students' attention is first drawn to the rules and usage of the attributive clause and then to communicative activities and tasks.The other one is assigned to post-task group(EG2).In the post-task group,communicative tasks are conducted first and then the rules and usage of the attributive clause are covered.Each group is further divided into a high-proficiency subgroup and a low-proficiency subgroup based on their pre-test scores.Learners' acquisition of attributive clause is measured through post-test after 8 weeks' treatment.Moreover,to get further information about the effectiveness of pre-task and post-task Focus on Form from learners' perspective,an informal interview is conducted after the test.The results of the study are as follows: 1)Both pre-task and post-task FonF can help learners' learningof attributive clause,and on the whole,pre-task FonF is more effective than post-task FonF.Due to the fact that learners have noticed the target form at the beginning of the class and have employed it in communicative activities and tasks,which is very important for language acquisition.2)Pre-task and post-task FonF have different effects on learners with different English proficiency level.For the learners with high English proficiency level,post-task FonF proves to be more effective.In contrast,for the learners with low English proficiency level,pre-task FonF is more suitable.That is because it is difficult for low-level learners to pay attention to both form and meaning at the same time.However,high-level learners possess more knowledge of the target language so that they can focus on both its form and meaning simultaneously.Based on the results of this study,Focus on Form does help high school learners better acquire the target forms.Therefore,to help learners make great progress in both test achievements and grammar acquisition,the teachers should combine these two different kinds of Focus on Form efficiently according to different teaching objectives and different level learners.Limited by the researcher's ability and difficulties of implementation,this study failed to have a control group and the research is implemented in a very short period of time with only eight weeks.Therefore,further studies are suggested to include a control group and conducted in a relatively long period to make the research more credible.