Effects Of The Focus On Form Instruction On Junior High School Students’ Learning Of English Simple Past Tense

This study was investigated the overall effects of Focus on Form Instruction on the learning of the simple past tense of junior high school students in terms of comprehension and production.The theoretical bases of the this study are the attention hypothesis and the interaction hypothesis.The significance of the study lies in two aspects:it enriches the studies on Focus on Form Instruction;it provides some suggestions in teaching and learning with the expectation of raising students’ simple past tense level in Focus on Form Instruction properly so as to improve grammar proficiency.The research questions to be addressed in this study are as follows:1.What effect does Focus on Form Instruction have on junior high school students’comprehension of simple past tense?2.What effect does Focus on Form Instruction have on junior high school students’production of simple past tense?The Participants in this study were 60 seventh grade students of Chengguan Middle School in Pingding County.The instruments of this study were two tests and a questionnaire.The control group adopted the Focus on Forms Instruction,while the experimental group adopted the Focus on Form Instruction.Before and after the corresponding teaching method was adopted,which would serve as the pre-test and post-test in this research.A questionnaire was conducted to investigate the students’ perceptions of Focus on Form.All data in this study were collected by their teachers in English class.Data analysis involved double scoring,calculation and comparison.All items in the two tests were scored by the researcher and her classmate with the same rating rubric,which includes two key rating categories:comprehension and production;The SPSS25.0 was employed to calculate and compare whether there was any significant difference and whether Focus on Form Instruction effected junior high school students’comprehension and production of the simple past tense.The main findings from this study are as follows:Firstly,Focus on Form Instruction has effect on junior high school students’understanding of learning the simple past tense.Quantitatively,the mean of the post test scores of the students in the experimental group increased by 4.07 points compared with the pre-test scores,and the standard deviation decreased compared with the pre-test scores,indicated that the improved scores are more stable,while the improvement of the control group was worse than that of the experimental group,and the standard was.001 level,there was a significant difference.It can better improved students’ understanding of the simple past tense and was more conducive to students’ mastery of simple past tense.Secondly,Focus on Form Instruction was more effective than Focus on Forms Instruction in improving students’ ability to generate simple past tense.When the pre-test scores of the control group and the experimental group were at the same level and the teachers were the same,the performance of the experimental group was improved more significantly.The overall average score was 5 points higher than pre-test scores,1 point higher than the average score of Focus on Forms Instruction,and the score distribution difference was small,indicated that the whole experimental group was more stable while improving the score.This study provides some pedagogical implications.First,Focus on Form Instruction is not only a teacher-led teaching,but also a process for teachers and students to improve their comprehension of teaching content in both directions.Second,teachers should guide learners to pay more attention to the accuracy of production and gradually take into account both meaning and form in the process of production,so as to achieve the purpose of improving the production of English teaching.Finally,Focus on Form Instruction produces a positive change in students’ attitudes towards learning the simple past tense.How to improve students’ interest in learning,change their learning attitude,and improve their enthusiasm for the content of learning is a problem that every English teacher should think about.This study provides some implications.The research sample is too small,and a larger-scale and more in-depth study is needed to fully reflect the overall situation of Focus on Form Instruction on junior high school students’ learning of simple past tense grammar.