2004 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
An empirical study on the effects of focus-on-form instruction on the development of English proficiency
| Project/Area Number |
15520367
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Foreign language education
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| Research Institution | Tohoku Gakuin University |
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Principal Investigator |
MURANO Hitoshi Tohoku Gakuin University, Department of English, Professor, 文学部・英文学科, 助教授 (20275598)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2003 – 2004
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| Keywords | Focus on form / Second language acquisition / Guided summarizing / Cognitive processes / Hypothesis formulation / Cognitive comparison / English proficiency / Content-based language instruction |
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| Research Abstract |
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.
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Research Products
(2 results)
