The Impact Of Focus On Form On The Accurate Production Of Third Person Singular-s

In recent years, in the field of second language acquisition the debate over the role of form-focused instruction has centered on how best it facilitates second language development. Long (1991) argues that attention to form will work most effectively for acquisition if it occurs in the context of meaning-focused communication rather than in instruction that is specifically directed at linguistic forms. Long (1981, 1983, 1996) also argues that a crucial site for language development is interaction between learners and other speakers, especially between learners and more proficient learners.Based on information processing models, Interaction Hypothesis and Noticing Hypothesis, the present quasi-experimental research examines the impact of"focus on form"(Long, 1991), which seeks to incorporate form-focused instruction into meaning-oriented instruction, on Chinese EFL student's accurate production of third person singular–s, of which the students have had prior knowledge. Specifically, this study pursues the following questions:1. Do learners who have received focus on form treatment show a higher awareness of third person singular–s than learners who have not?2. Do learners who have received focus on form treatment exhibit a greater ability of accurate production of third person singular–s than learners who have not?This study adopted a pretest and posttest design, with seven pedagogical sessions between the two tests. Participants were 95 non-English-major sophomores in a Chinese university, forming two intact classes. The experimental group consisted of 51subjects, who must finish a focused communicative task each week in 30-40 minutes and at the same time received focus on form instruction. The control group was made up of 44 subjects, who must finish the same task each week, but did not receive the same pedagogical treatment. Instruments used to pretest and posttest the participants included a grammaticality judgment task, written and oral narratives elicited by cartoon strips. To preclude a practice effect, test materials used on the posttest were replaced, but without changing their format and complexity. Results revealed that focus on form has positive effects on the development of third person singular–s in the participants'interlanguage in that (1) it heightens the learners'awareness of the target form, (2) it facilitates declarative knowledge to become procedural knowledge and (3) it improves the quality of language input.Furthermore the study discussed the factors that may affect the functioning of focus on form. In this study, three factors– developmental readiness, consistent focus and intensity, may have made the subjects notice the mismatch between the form in their interlanguage and the target linguist feature, and may have reinforced the change in language awareness and performance. These three factors together constituted a set of interdependent factors, which appeared to have affected the effectiveness of focus on form.This study also suggested two significant pedagogical implications.First, focus on form is plausible in Chinese EFL classrooms. Although only a few students'errors were treated with negative feedback in each instruction session, it seemed that all the students benefited from the instruction.Second, error correction is necessary. Ellis (1985) points out that nontargetlike output of the students may serve as improper input for the students themselves. In this study timely negative feedback proved to be effective in developing the target form, thus proving the necessity of error correction.Despite the positive findings, generalizability of the results has to be tested by replicating the study in ways that differ from the present study. Because of the limitation of using intact class, experimental studies are needed to testify the results obtained in this study. Further, the positive results observed can not be assumed to transfer to other tasks, nor can one assume that focus on form has an equally positive impact on other linguistic features. The durative effect of focus on form should also be investigated in studies that employ a pretest, posttest, delayed posttest design.