An Empirical Study On The Application Of Focus-on-form Instruction To English Grammar Teaching In Junior Middle School

Grammar is an important part in English learning.Learning grammar is beneficial to improving language proficiency,and it can make students better understand and use the language.After anti-grammar movement in 1980 s,Long(1991)reconsidered the role of language form in foreign language teaching and proposed the Focus-on-Form teaching method.It not only affirms the important role of grammar in foreign language teaching,but integrates the principles of communication-task language teaching.Meanwhile,it combines the communicative approach with grammar learning,providing a reference for activating English grammar teaching.This research attempts to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of Focus-on-Form instruction to English grammar teaching in junior middle school.The study is based on interaction hypothesis,noticing hypothesis and constructivism theory.On the basis of existing research,this experiment lasts four months.Therefore,the research presents two questions in the following.1.Can Focus-on-Form instruction arouse students' interests in grammar learning and help them establish confidence in English learning?2.Can Focus-on-Form instruction help students facilitate their grammar learning?Two parallel Grade Nine classes of Sanquan Junior Middle School in Xinjiang of Shanxi Province are randomly selected as experimental class and control class.In the experimental process,the control class takes Focus-on-Forms instruction,while the experimental class uses the Focus-on-Form instruction.Tests and questionnaires are used to collect data in this experiment.Two grammar tests are conducted to all students before and after experiment in order to testify whether students' grammar scores are improved and there is significant difference between two classes.In case of the practice effect,test papers are different with the same difficulty levels but different items.What's more,the pre-questionnaire is to understand the current state of students' grammar learning,while the post-questionnaire aims to find the students' changes in grammar learning under the guidance of Focus-on-Form instruction.The data from questionnaires and tests are analyzed and discussed by using the software SPSS20.0.The results of tests show that the mean scores of students in experimental class have greatly improved and are higher than those in control class.The results of questionnaires show that Focus-on-Form instruction can arouse students' interest and help them establish confidence in English learning.In addition,the application of Focus-on-Form instruction not only promotes students' initiative learning ability,but also improves the way of teachers' grammar teaching and the effectiveness of students' grammar learning.It is beneficial to enhance the level of grammar learning.Thus,it can be seen that the application of Focus-on-Form instruction is feasible and effective to English grammar classes in junior middle school.Although there are some limitations in this research,some suggestions are also proposed for the further research.