A Study On The Effects Of Focus On Form Instruction On The Acquisition Of English Linking

In recent years, Focus on Form instruction has gradually become one of the hottest research topics in the field of Second Language Teaching and Second Language Acquisition both abroad and at home. Both domestic and foreign researches have shown that Focus on Form instruction can effectively promote the development of the learners’ second language acquisition. However, most studies on Focus on Form instruction have primarily focused on the grammatical, lexical and pragmatic aspects, while English pronunciation is scarcely explored. Therefore, this study, groundbreakingly taking English linking which is a suprasegmental feature of English pronunciation as its target form, intends to explore the effects of Focus on Form instruction on the acquisition of English linking by English majors from the perspective of the perception, identification and production of English linking.The research is designed both in quantitative and in qualitative way. The author chose the four English major classes from College of Foreign Languages, Northeast Forestry University as the research participants, with Class One and Class Two as the experimental group, and Class Three and Class Four as the control group. First of all, the pre-test of the perception, identification and production of English linking was conducted in the experimental group and the control group. Then a 14-week-long Focus on Form instruction on English linking was implemented among the experimental group. After Focus on Form instruction, the post-test of the perception, identification and production of English linking was conducted in the experimental group and the control group and an interview was conducted in the experimental group. The research data was collected by using Audacity 2.1.2 and all the collected data was analyzed by SPSS 19.0.The research results showed that:(1) Focus on Form instruction was significantly facilitative of English majors’ perception of English linking in the listening comprehension; (2) Focus on Form instruction was significantly facilitative of English majors’ identification of English linking in the written texts; (3) Focus on Form instruction was significantly facilitative of English majors’production of English linking in the unspontaneous speech while it was not significantly facilitative of English majors’ production of English linking in the spontaneous speech in a short time.The research results of this study has enriched the empirical researches of Focus on Form instruction in the field of English pronunciation and provided new perspectives for English majors’ English linking teaching, which is of great significance in increasing English majors’ awareness about the use of English linking and ability to actually use it in oral English as well as further promoting the overall listening and speaking proficiency of English majors.