On The Influence Of "Focus On Form" In Classroom Spoken English Teaching

With the college English teaching reform, oral English teaching is becoming an important component of the scientific study of second language acquisition. The instructors and the researchers have paid growing attention to the learners' competence of correct and fluent oral output. The traditional forms-focused language teaching method puts more emphasis on grammar but less on communicative activities. Therefore, the meaning-focused communicative language teaching method is introduced to promote the oral ability. After the teachers provide great amount of understandable input and communicative opportunities, both the students'ability to understand and their fluency of speaking are improved, but the accuracy and complexity of the expression is not satisfactory. This conflict calls for the necessity to "focus on form" as an integration of "focus on forms" and "focus on meaning" teaching methods. Meanwhile, oral English teaching and learning mainly occur in classrooms, especially by the way of group discussion. Thus, it is of great significance to research on the influence of focus on form in classroom group discussion with communicative tasks.Based on the Interaction Hypothesis and the Noticing Hypothesis, the present study carries out among English major freshmen from two classes with different instructions. This study is designed to find out:1) How to carry out "focus on form" instruction in group discussions and 2) How does the "focus on form" treatment influence the accuracy in group discussions? In this study, the experimental class is provided with focus on form instruction during group discussions with different topics, while the control class only focuses on the communicative discussions. The oral production of the subjects is recorded by MP3 player and transcribed to be analyzed. An oral pre-test, the oral and written post-tests are carried out to compare their different performance in accuracy after focus on form instruction. After that, a questionnaire is provided to measure the methods to focus on form. The results of the study suggest that:1) Focus on form instruction has positive effects on the improvement of oral accuracy.2) Of the methods used in the pre-discussion period, "request to the teacher to confirm the doubted expressions" is preferred by the subjects.3) During discussion, "ask the teacher for help" is more accepted than other methods.4) "Ask the teacher for the correct expressions" is preferred to use in the post discussion period.5) Pre-discussion is regarded more valuable than others by the subjects.6) Subjects mainly depend on the instructor to correct the errors.This study also provides pedagogical implications:1) Error correction is necessary for improving accuracy; 2) Objects clarification is important for the students to improve the accuracy; 3) other ways of correction should be encouraged, except teacher correction.