DOES FORM-FOCUSED INSTRUCTION AFFECT L2 LEARNERS PERFORMANCE? FOCUS ON GRAMMATICALLY JUDGMENTS

Abstract

It is one of the goals of research in applied linguistics to gain insight into the process and mechanisms of second language acquisition.  The cornerstone and the single most fundamental change in perspective on the nature of language and language learning is, perhaps, the focus on learners as active creators in their learning process, not as passive recipients.  The present study has two goals.  First, it aims at investigating advanced students’ metalinguistic ability in solving multidimensional grammatical problems.  Second, it is, also, an attempt to highlight the role of focus on form instructions in shaping L2 learners’ performance. The subjects of the present study were forty Egyptian students who were in their fourth year of academic study in the Department of English and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Menufia University, Egypt.  The instrument of this study consisted of (1) pre-test; (2) post-test; and (3) individual interviews.  Two tasks were used: (1) “Sentence Completion” task, and (2) “Error Recognition and Correction” task.  In the first task, a list of 15 incomplete sentences was given to the subjects who were asked to choose the word or phrase to complete the sentence.  The focus, in this task, was on the meaning of the sentence rather than the form, although accurate understanding of the formal properties of language is a must.  In the second task, students were asked to detect the word or phrase that must be changed in order for the sentence to be correct.  A list of 25 sentences was given to the subjects who worked on this task twice.  In the pre-test, no word or phrase was underlined; it is an example of the unfocused correction type.  In the post-test, the same sentences were given to the subjects, with four words underlined, and marked (A), (B), (C) and (D).  It is an example of the focused correction type. Finally, students were interviewed to explain and comment on their performance in the previous tasks.  The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Results were obtained and conclusions were made.It is one of the goals of research in applied linguistics to gain insight into the process and mechanisms of second language acquisition.  A correct understanding of these processes and mechanisms is a prerequisite for an adequate didactic approach.  Relatedly, Morley (1987) points out that during the last twenty years ideas about language learning and language teaching have been changing in some very fundamental ways.  Significant developments in perspectives on the nature of second language learning processes have had a marked effect on language pedagogyThe cornerstone and the single most fundamental change in perspectives on the nature of language and language learning in recent years is, perhaps, the focus on learners as active creators in their learning process, not as passive recipients.  Accordingly, the focus of second language study has shifted from a prominence of contrastive analysis in the 1940s and 1950s and error analysis in the 60s and 70s to interlanguage analysis in the 70s and 80s.  Interlanguage analysis is marked today by “a variety of investigations looking at diverse aspects of learner language” (Morley, 1987: 16).  In this connection, Gass (1983: 273) points out that “it is widely accepted that the language of second language learners, what Selinker (1972 has called ‘interlanguage’ or what (Gass, 1983) has called ‘Learner-language’ is a system in its own right.”  To understand such a system, we should focus on discovering how second language (L2) learners evaluate and correct their own or other people’s utterances, an issue that will be explored in the present study.  In other words, the major point of interest here is L2 learners’ linguistic intuitions and the role of focus on form instruction in making grammaticality judgments.