The Application Of Focus On Form To Incidental Vocabulary Learning In Junior High School

Vocabulary is integral to language knowledge.It is also the basis for the development of language understanding and expression ability.Traditional teaching method emphasizes direct vocabulary learning or de-contextualized vocabulary learning,which separates words from sentences and vocabulary learning from context.As a result,students passively acquire vocabulary in an inefficient way on a long term basis.In recent years,the discussion on Focus on Form instruction(FonF)has continued unabated.However,little attention has been paid to applying FonF to the incidental acquisition of non-targeted features.This study applies FonF to the incidental vocabulary learning(IVL)for junior high school students so as to improve the efficiency of vocabulary teaching and students’ vocabulary knowledge level.These questions are studied in the research:(1)How does the application of FonF in IVL affect junior high school students’ interest and methods in English vocabulary learning?(2)How does the application of FonF in IVL affect junior high school students’ receptive vocabulary learning?(3)How does the application of FonF in IVL affect junior high school students’ productive vocabulary learning?A16-week teaching experiment was carried out in two eighth-grade classes.The experimental class read texts and completed a series of communicative tasks that not aimed at vocabulary learning,where FonF was adopted.For the control class,teaching techniques such as repetition,interpretation,exemplifying through sentences,making sentences,vocabulary exercise,etc.were adopted.Research instruments such as tests,questionnaires and interviews were used.Excel and SPSS24.0 were also used for data processing and statistics.Conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)The application of FonF to IVL has a positive impact on junior high school students’ interest and vocabulary learning.More of them like to read words aloud,and their awareness of actively paying attention to new words has also increased.On the other hand,more of them agree that in addition to memorizing words intentionally,they can also learn words through other activities by various ways.(2)The application of FonF to IVL has a positive impact on the receptive vocabulary level of junior high school students,for the scores of the experimental class in the receptive vocabulary level post-test have significantly improved,with the average higher than that of the control class.(3)The application of FonF to IVL improves the subjects’ productive vocabulary level,for the results of the experimental class in the controlled productive vocabulary level post-test have significantly improved,with the average higher than that of the control class.To conclude,with the application of FonF to IVL,the use of various FonF teaching techniques to enhance students’ attention to form is conducive to vocabulary recognition and meaning extraction.At the same time,students use the target words repeatedly in a communicative context,which promotes their understanding and acquiring word meanings,and helps them produce productive vocabulary expression in written and spoken language.