An empirical study on the effects of focus-on-form instruction on the development of English proficiency

本研究实证检验了注重形式教学对英语能力发展的影响。在本研究的第一阶段，基于课堂第二语言习得的最新研究成果，设计了一种形式关注教学法。本研究提出的以形式为重点的教学被称为“以形式为重点的引导总结”（focus on form through guided summaries，简称FFGS）。FFGS是一种基于内容的第二语言教学方法，教师引导第二语言学习者总结他们所理解的目的语新闻故事的内容。预测FFGS对二语学习者的发展是有效的，因为它能促进二语学习者注意、假设制定和假设检验（认知比较）等认知过程。在本研究的第二阶段，以27名日本大学生为研究对象，采用前测后测设计进行准实验，考察FFGS对英语能力发展的影响。具体来说，FFGS对两种目标形式（完成被动语态和补语if/whether）、流利性（单词数）和复杂性（每t单位平均单词数）的准确性发展的影响进行了检验。定量和定性分析结果表明，FFGS对英语水平较低的日本学习者在准确性、流利性和复杂性方面的发展是有效的。

This study empirically examined the effects of focus-on-form instruction on the development of English proficiency. At the first phase of this study, a type of focus-on-form instruction was devised based upon the recent findings of classroom second language acquisition research. The focus-on-form instruction proposed in this study is termed 'focus on form through guided summarizing (FFGS)." FFGS is a content-based second language (L2) instructional treatment, in which a teacher guides L2 learners to summarize the content of news stories they have comprehended in the target language. It was predicted that FFGS would be effective for developing L2 learners' development in L2 because it would promote cognitive processes such as noticing, hypothesis formulation and hypothesis testing (cognitive comparison). At the second phase of this study, the impact of FFGS on the development of English proficiency was investigated in a quasi-experiment using a pretest-post-test design with 27 Japanese university students learning English as a foreign language. Specifically, the effects of FFGS on the development of accuracy in the use of two target forms (the perfect passive and complementizer if/whether), fluency (the number of words) and complexity (the average number of words per t-unit) were examined. Results of quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate that FFGS was effective for Japanese learners of English with low proficiency in developing accuracy, fluency and complexity.