A Study On The Effect Of Input Processing Instruction On The Acquisition Of Present Participle In High School Students Based On Field Cognitive Style

Grammar knowledge is an important part of English learning in high school.How to carry out grammar teaching more effectively has always been the concern of English teachers and researchers.On the basis of the input processing theory,Van Patten proposed the Input Processing Instruction,a kind of explicit grammar teaching,which is different from the Traditional Instruction that only focus on the explanation of grammatical forms and the output exercises followed.On the contrary,it focuses on meaning guidance,trying to establish a connection between form and meaning,changing the way of input and trying to understand what is being input.It performs comprehension exercises by interpreting the target grammar and using structured input activities.Van Patten’s Input Processing Instruction captures the attention of scholars and front-line teachers to the role of input,and relevant studies began to emerge.Most of the studies compare the Input Processing Instruction with the Traditional Instruction to find out a more suitable way to grammar teaching.However,the research subjects mainly focus on native English speakers,and few studies involve the effect of Input Processing Instruction on Chinese people’s English grammar learning from the perspective of psychology.Based on students’ field cognitive style,this study compares Traditional Instruction with Input Processing Instruction to answer the following two research questions: 1)What are the effects of Input Processing Instruction on the understanding and output of present participle in high school students? 2)What are the effects of Input Processing Instruction on present participle acquisition for students with different field cognitive styles?In this study,214 students from two parallel classes in a high school in Shijiazhuang were selected as experimental subjects and randomly divided into experimental class(PI class)and control class(TI class).In the experiment,PI class adopted the Input Processing Instruction,and TI class adopted the Traditional Instruction.The two classes received corresponding teaching intervention with the present participle as the target structure.The teaching duration was both two periods,a total of 90 minutes.After the experiment,immediate post-test,delayed post-test and interview were conducted.The whole experiment lasted for about one month,and the collected experimental data were analyzed by using SPSS23.0The results found that 1)the Input Processing Instruction is conducive to high school students’ understanding and production of present participle.However,compared with the traditional teaching method,PI has a greater advantage in promoting the understanding of present participles,and TI has a better effect than PI in producing target language.2)The promoting learning effect of PI is more lasting than that of TI.3)PI can promote students with different cognitive styles to understand and produce the present participle,and its promoting effect on the understanding of the present participle is greater than that on the production.Moreover,it has the greatest effect on field intermediate students,followed by field independent students and field dependent students.This empirical study is a useful exploration of the Input Processing Instruction in grammar teaching,which confirms the role of the Input Processing Instruction in promoting the acquisition of English present participle by senior high school students,and provides a reference for the relevant study and application in grammar teaching.