Improving the first year students' grammar through focus-on-form instruction at University of Economic and Technical Industries

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS vi
LIST OF TABLES vii
LIST OF FIGURES viii
INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Significance of the study 2
3. Aims and scope of the study 3
4. Research methods 4
5. Organization of the study Error! Bookmark not defined.
DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1.1. Grammar 5
1.1.1. Definition of grammar 5
1.1.2. Kinds of grammar 5
1.1.3. Effect of grammar instruction on students‟ grammar mastery 6
1.2. Focus-on-form instruction (FFI) 9
1.2.1. Focus-on-form, focus on forms and focus on meaning 9
1.2.2. Definition of Focus-on-form instruction 10
1.2.3. Kinds of focus-on-form 12
1.2.4. Focus-on-form teaching techniques 16
1.2.5. Focus-on-form previous research 21
1.3. Summary 23
CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 24
2.1. The experimental setting 24

2.2. Participants and material description. 25
2.2.1. Participants 25
2.2.2. Material description 26
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2.3. Research questions and hypotheses 29
2.4. Target structure 29
2.5. Research design: experimental research 31
2.6. Research procedure 32
2. 7. Data collection instruments 36
2.7.1. Questionnaire 36
2.7.2. Pre-test and post-test 38
2.7.3. Interview 48
2.8. Data collection procedure 49
2.9. Summary 51
CHAPTER 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 52
3.1. Statistical analysis 52
3.2. Results 52
3.2.1. Factors relating focus-on-form instruction to develop students‟ grammar 52
3.2.2. Improving students‟ grammar through focus-on-form instruction 61
3.2.3. Applying focus-on-form instruction to improve UNETI students‟ grammar 72
3.3. Discussion 76
3.4. Summary 79
CONCLUSION 80
1. Review of the study 80
2. Findings 80
3. Pedagogical implications 81
4. Further research 82
BIBLIOGRAPHY 83
APPENDIX 1: PRETEST I

APPENDIX 2: POSTTEST II
APPENDIX 3: PHIẾU KHẢO SÁT III
APPENDIX 4: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE V
APPENDIX 5: CÂU HỎI PHỎNG VẤN VII
APPENDIX 6: INTERVIEW VIII
APPENDIX 7: STUDENTS’ RAW SCORES IN THE PRETEST - POSTTEST IX

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LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS
CO Control group
CR Consciousness raising task
EFL English as a Foreign Language
EA Error analysis task
EX Experimental group
FFI Focus-on-form instruction
GT Tense gap-fill task
IELTS International English Language Testing System
L1 Native Language
L2 Second Language; Foreign Language
MCR Multiple-choice recognition task
M Mean (average score)
N Number
P p-value, probability value
PC Present continuous tense
PS Present simple tense
S Student
SD Standard deviation
SEM Standard error of means
t t-value

T Teacher
TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language
TOEIC Test of English for International Communication
UNETI University of Economic and Technical Industries
% mark Percentage mark

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Grammar focus in the course book New Headway Pre- Intermediate (Liz and John
Soars, 2003) 28
Table 2: The list of grammar points tested 41
Table 3: Percentage marks of grammar points tested 42
Table 4: Proportion of grammar points tested 42
Table 5: The same content of pre-test and post-test 43
Table 6: Students‟ profile 53
Table 7: Descriptive statistics on pretest overall scores for experimental group (EG) and
control group (CG) 61
Table 8: Learning gains difference of posttests between experimental group and control
group 62
Table 9: Learning gains from pre- to posttest for experimental group 62
Table 10: Learning gains of experimental group from pre- to posttest for the multiple-
choice recognition task 63
Table 11: Learning gains of experimental group from pre- to posttest for the error analysis
task 64
Table 12: Learning gains of experimental group from pre- to posttest for the tense gap-fill
task 64
Table 13: Experimental group‟s development means on three subtasks from pre- to post

tests 65
Table 14: Students‟ grammar improvement basing on pass/fail criteria 67











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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Students‟ response to previous grammar learning experience 54
Figure 2: Students‟ final target of learning English 55
Figure 3: Students‟ reasons for grammar learning 56
Figure 4: Students‟ attitude to the importance of grammar learning 57
Figure 5: Students‟ difficulties in grammar learning 58
Figure 6: Factors developing students‟ grammar 59
Figure 7: Experimental group‟s development means on three subtasks from pre- to post
tests 66
Figure 8: Students‟ attitude to grammar framework 68
Figure 9: Students‟ attitude to communication in FFI activities 69
Figure 10: Students‟ attitude to deducing rules through communication 70
Figure 11: Students‟ preferred practice kind 71
Figure 12: Students‟ difficulties in drawing out rules with teacher‟s assistance 73
Figure 13: Students‟ frequency of taking part in FFI 74

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INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In modern times, English is an indispensable tool for those who want to communicate well
in international working as well as achieve success. To have good knowledge of a
language in general and English in specific, a learner has to master four language skills
(listening, speaking, reading and writing) and three language aspects (vocabulary,
pronunciation and grammar). In learning English, language skills and language aspects are
interrelated each other, thus, cannot be separated. Specifically, language aspects help to
perfect the language skills. Learning English well requires students to use appropriate basic
and structural patterns to master grammar and vocabulary.
Grammar is an important aspect for forming words and building English sentences.
Chomsky in Radford (1988, p.3) states that grammar is a model (systemic description) of
those linguistic abilities of native speakers of a language which enable them to speak.
From the Chomsky‟s point of view in the above explanation, grammar is the most
important aspect to communicate with other people, because grammar can show our
meaning in communication so that other people can understand our message. Grammar
includes phonological (sound), morphology (word composition), and syntax (sentence
composition) (Hall, 1993, p.3). Generally, learning grammar is essential since it helps
students to achieve their short term goal of passing grammar-based exams and the long
term goal of using English in real life situations for future jobs.
For over three years of teaching English at University of Economic and Technical
Industries (UNETI), I have worked out that grammar plays such an important part in

assessing students because it is a major component in any tests - about ninety percent of
criteria. Additionally, students also perceive grammar as the first element to master.
However, learning grammar well seems to be threatening with most students. Unlike
specialized students of high motivation and hard work, non-major ones feel bored with
learning by heart so many complicated and boring rules and structures mechanically but
not meaningfully and communicatively. Additionally, a deductive approach to grammar
method commonly applied at UNETI is not interesting, thus learners feel bored. In
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teaching grammar, the teacher shows the rules directly, thus students do not understand the
use in sentence or context. Moreover, the students are usually confused of rules and the
uses of tenses. Accordingly, they get bored, frightened and even ignore learning grammar.
As a result, a lot of students have low scores on English caused by the failure in mastering
grammar.
To improve students‟ English, I have experimented many ways to deal with this problem.
Finally, I have found focus on form instruction as the most appropriate solution to this
problem at UNETI. Beneficially, characteristics of focus on form both help students to
achieve their goals of grammar and enable them to use it in communication. To make use
of communicative grammar teaching techniques with purpose of helping students to be
interested and inspired to learn grammar, I have decided to conduct a study on:
“Improving the first year students’ grammar through focus-on-form instruction at
University of Economic and Technical Industries”
2. Significance of the study
In the context of English learning and teaching at UNETI also exists a problematic gap
between communication –based course book and grammar- based examinations. The
completion of the research will not only solve the problems for classroom practitioners but
also benefit students, administrators as well as researchers working on related fields.
Besides, the research can reveal much useful information about the actual situation.
Additionally, together with the tendency of the world the university tries to improve
students‟ ability to meet the requirement for TOEIC (Test of English for International

Communication) so that educated students can communicate well in international
communication working. The research finds a way to combine both grammar and
communicative approach to teach grammar. In other words, the research tries to teach
grammar through communication.
More importantly, results in this project can, hopefully, be the first steps to further study or
discovery to let students learn English with their desires, needs and interest, which build
their motivation and confidence. If the research has effective effect on students, it will
surely open a new door to inspire students to love grammar – the matter used to be so
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boring and discouraging with them. Above all, the study results will prove the efficacy of
focus-on-form instruction on students‟ grammar mastery.
3. Aims and scope of the study
Aims of the study
The research aims at making use of focus on form instruction to improve students‟
language structural patterns while they remain primarily focused on meaning or
communication. To serve this purpose, the research seeks information to:
 Describe factors helping the first-year learners to develop their grammar
 Experiment whether the use of focus on form instruction can improve the first
year students‟ grammar
 Anticipate students‟ difficulties to apply focus-on-form instruction to
teaching grammar
Scope of the study
For the time, material, ability and thesis limit, the research tries to improve the grammar of
the first year students at UNETI – the beginners who are thoroughly affected by the first
impression of learning grammar, which is a decisive element for their English learning
success in a long run. I have no ambitions to enable students to achieve both long term goal
of communication jobs and short term goal of grammatical exams, thus the thesis aims at
developing students‟ grammatical patterns to achieve their soonest goal of passing
grammar-based exams. Accordingly, “grammar” in the research mentions structural

patterns to complete mechanical grammatical exercises in UNETI final exams well.
Grammar here does not mean communicative grammar competence which helps students
to use grammar in real life situations.
Among many grammar points, the research pays attention to the verb tenses, especially
present simple and present continuous raised in the course book “New Headway Pre-
Intermediate” by Liz and John Soars, Oxford University Press. It is because present simple
and present continuous tenses are rather common but confusing for starters like the
freshman, which is also the reason to choose these two verb tenses to be target structure.

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4. Research methods
The study uses experimental method as the research method to test the causal relationship
between focus-on-form instruction and students‟ improved grammatical competence. The
research aims at checking the hypothesis whether the independent variable “focus-on-form
instruction” has any effect on the dependent variable “students‟ grammatical competence”.
The experimental study uses both quantitative data through pre-and post tests together
with questionnaire and qualitative data from structured and semi-structured interview.
5. Organization of the study
The study is divided into three main parts with three development chapters as follows:
The first part is Introduction which provides the background information including
rationale, significance, aims, scope, research method, and organization of the study.
The second part is Development, which is the main part of the study, consists of three key
chapters including Literature Review, Research Methodology and Results with
Discussion.
The first chapter “Literature Review” reviews literature related to the study including
grammar notion with classification, focus-on-form instruction notion, activities, teaching
techniques and previous research which would hopefully provide the readers with a
detailed background to the research.
The second chapter “Research Methodology” describes the research method, the research

procedure, the detailed description of data collection instruments and subjects of the study.
The data collection instruments consisting of pre- and post tests, questionnaire and
interview are thoroughly presented with rationale, description and the way to use
instruments to collect data.
The third chapter “Results and Discussion” summarizes the results of the study in relation
to the research questions and hypothesis presented in Chapter 1. Additionally, the results
are discussed and compared with other previous research findings.
The last part Conclusion summarizes the study‟s findings, discusses pedagogical
implications, and suggests areas for future research.
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DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Grammar
1.1.1. Definition of grammar
From Celce-Murcia (1988, p. 16) “grammar is a subset of those rules which govern the
configuration that the morphology and syntax of a language assume”. It also means that
grammar is a field of linguistics that involves all the various things that makes up the rules
language.
Ur (1988, p. 4) defines that “grammar may be roughly defined as the way a language
manipulates and combines words (or bits of words) in order to form loner units of
meaning.” Afterwards, in 1996, he stated, “grammar is a set of rules that define how words
(or parts of words) are combined or changed to form acceptable unit of meaning within a
language”. Clearly, grammar makes up all the words and structures in a sentence. There is
a set of rules which governs how units of meaning may be constructed in any language.
According to Silva, Joyce, and Burns, 1999, p.4-5 “grammar is essentially about the
systems and patterns we use to select and combine words ” To some extent, this definition
agrees with the view in 1996 by Ur. Additionally, Nunan (2003) defined the grammar of a
language as “the description of the way in which words change their forms and are
combined into sentences in that language. If those rules are violated, communication

suffers”. This is also the definition used in my study. In short, grammar is the study of the
structure and features of a language. Grammar usually consists of rules and standards that
are to be followed to produce acceptable writing and speaking.
1.1.2. Kinds of grammar
Like “grammar”, kinds of grammar are classified according to various criteria. Jacob, R.A
distinguishes three types of grammar: mental grammar, descriptive grammar and
prescriptive grammar. In Encarta Encyclopedia, grammar is considered in terms of five
approaches: prescriptive, historical, comparative, functional and descriptive. Despite these
ways of classification‟s difference, they all share the two same types: descriptive
grammar and prescriptive grammar.
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Both are concerned with rules but in different ways. A prescriptive approach to grammar
presents authoritative norms about the structure of a language and determines language use
correct or incorrect, good or bad according to those sets of rules. It condemns all styles or
dialects of a language except the standard or classical type. These rules were further
subdivided by Vavra (1996) into rules and syntax. Usage includes rule about concepts like
rhetorical questions and slang words. Syntax encompasses rules of sentence structure and
its component parts. Most of the “rules” people learn in grade school are of this kind.
Descriptive grammar tries to look at how language is actually used by native speakers
and from that draws the rule of language use. The latter is usually bound to a particular
speech community and attempts to provide rules for actual language use which is
considered grammatically correct within that community.
From a pedagogical point of view, it is not surprising that prescriptive remains common as
a huge majority of ELT teachers are non-native speakers, who are by no means in constant
contact with actual target language use. A prescriptive grammar is then a reliable resource
to draw on.
It does not mean that descriptive grammar has no place in grammar teaching. With the
prevalent teaching and learning a language for communicative purposes, learners are
encouraged to be exposed to authentic language – the language used in real English –

speaking context. Yet, prescriptive grammar is a subset of actual language use.
Practically, in the study, descriptive grammar with authentic language is made use of as a
way to motivate students to figure out prescriptive grammar with structures and rules.
Hopefully, this mixture of two grammar kinds will improve non-major freshman students‟
grammar mastery at UNETI.
1.1.3. Effect of grammar instruction on students’ grammar mastery
1.1.3.1. Negative effect of grammar instruction on grammar mastery
Since 1970s, with the arising of communicative language teaching and “natural” method,
whether grammar instruction should be included in second/foreign language teaching has
been a focus of debate (Ellis, 1999a, p.1). An anti-grammar movement arose, in which
Krashen was the chief advocate (Hedge, 2000, p.143-144), who thinks that there is a
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distinction between “learning” and “acquisition”, that “Learning, …, cannot lead to
acquisition” (Richards & Rodgers, 2000, p.131), and that “formal instruction in grammar
will not contribute to the development of „acquired‟ knowledge the knowledge needed
to participate in authentic communication” (Krashen, 1982, cited in Ellis, 1992, p.232). His
view was supported by many people, such as Skehen (1998) and DeKeyster (1998). In
1997, the Natural Approach was developed by Tracy Terrell and Stephen Krashen, starting
in 1997. The Natural Approach bases on the following tenets: language acquisition (an
unconscious process developed through using language meaningfully) is different from
language learning (consciously learning or discovering rules about a language) and
language acquisition is the only way competence in a second language occurs (the
acquisition/ learning hypothesis).
 Conscious learning operates only as a monitor or editor that checks or repairs the
output of what has been acquired (the monitor hypothesis)
 Grammatical structures are acquired in a predictable order and it does little good
to try to learn them in another order. (the natural order hypothesis)
 People acquire language best from messages that are slightly beyond their
current competence (the input hypothesis)

 The learner‟s emotional state can act as a filter that impedes or blocks input
necessary to acquisition (the affective filter hypothesis).
In the Natural Approach, the teacher is expected to be the provider of comprehensible input
in the target language, emphasizes comprehensible and meaningful practice activities
rather than production of grammatically perfect utterances and sentences.
Thus, now formal instruction in grammar is not needed in first language, nor is in second
language acquisition (ibid.). Also, Prabhu succeeded, in some degree, in showing that
“learners can acquire an L2 grammar naturalistically” by attending classroom “meaning-
focused tasks” (1987, cited in Ellis, 1992, p.232).
1.1.3.2. Positive effect of grammar instruction on grammar mastery
However, in recent years, some other researchers and methodologists hold new
perspectives towards grammar instruction. They have argued, theoretically and
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empirically, that “grammar teaching does aid L2 acquisition” (Ellis, 1992. p.232). As early
as in 1988, Long thinks that formal grammar teaching aids learners to acquire L2 more
rapidly and get higher achievement (cited in Ellis, 1999a: 3). Celce-Murcia also concludes
that “some focus on form may well be necessary for many learners to achieve accuracy as
well as fluency” while “grammarless approach, …, can lead to the development of a
broken, ungrammatical pidginized form of the target language beyond which students
rarely progress” (1991). For this view, Nassaji & Fotos (2004) summarized four reasons:
Firstly, some researchers, such as Schimidt (1990, 2001), proved that “noticing” is one of
the necessities in language learning, compared with the theory that language is not learned
consciously, but acquired unconsciously.
Secondly, some methodologists, such as Pienemann (1984), have found that though the
sequence of acquisition in grammar cannot be changed, grammar instruction can accelerate
the process of learning some structures.
Thirdly, due to the fact that communicative language teaching has not produced ideal
outcomes in its practice, which lays emphasis on the meaningful communication whereas
ignores the structural forms of language completely, Swain (1985) and his colleagues

concluded that the most effective way to improve the ability of using grammar accurately
is to use formal instruction after they did the research on “immersion programme” to some
English learners, and found that though they had been exposed to considerable corpus, they
still could not use some structural forms correctly.
Fourthly, for the last 20 years, considerable empirical classroom teaching research has
demonstrated that classroom grammar instruction has great effect on second language
acquisition. For example, Doughty (1991), in her empirical study of SL relativization,
illustrated that “second language instruction does make a difference.”
Thus, based on the research up to date, Ellis concludes that though it does not enable
learners to change the natural order of acquisition, grammar instruction has an effect in
helping learners to make more rapid progress along it, and has lasting effect when it is
indeed effective on learners (2002, p. 50).
In modern times, basing most exams for non-major students in Vietnam in general and
University of Economic and Technical Industries (UNETI) in particular, grammar is the
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main criterion to assess students. It means that English course at UNETI emphasizes the
positive effect of grammar instruction which helps students not only to pass the grammar
exams but also to communicate well. The thesis also supports for the view of teaching
grammar to improve students‟ grammar mastery.
1.2. Focus-on-form instruction (FFI)
1.2.1. Focus-on-form, focus on forms and focus on meaning
In the literature of grammar teaching, three notions: focus on forms, focus on form and
focus on meaning have become widely used and often-heard. However, sometimes, three
notions can be misunderstood and misused. Thus, in order to get deeper insight into focus-
on-form instruction, it is essential to have a clear cut view of three notions:
Firstly, focus on forms (plural) is a traditional way that is, according to Long, limited to
instruction on discrete points of specific language form in isolation, with no apparent focus
on meaning. In university language teaching, teachers focus on the explanation of the
words, sentences and the main idea of the text by translation. After having understood the

different forms in the texts, the students have no chance to practice speaking and listening.
The problem of focus-on-forms is to lay emphasis on language structures than students‟
comprehensive abilities of using foreign language. Consequently, students become almost
“structurally competent but communicatively incompetent”
Secondly, focus on meaning is a student-centered teaching which draws students‟
attention to meaning. Focus on meaning based on the notion of communicative
competence asserts that the primary objective of a second or a foreign language program
must provide language learners with the information practice and much of the experience
needed to meet the communication needs in the second or foreign language. Focus on
meaning views language as a tool for communication, insists that inter-action speaking in
classrooms be instances of real communication and ensures that students have sufficient
exposure to the target language. In brief, focus on meaning is an effective way to improve
students‟ fluency while neglecting the grammatical accuracy. However, focus on meaning
stresses the need to foster communicative competence before the mastery of accurate
language forms, which makes students ignore grammatical errors, which can be
“fossilizing” errors. These fossilized errors have become ingrained language habits after
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prolonged usage are extremely difficult to eliminate. Hence, it is impossible for language
learners to achieve high level of accuracy or native-like proficiency if they follow only
focus on meaning instruction.
Finally, focus on form is a bridge over focus on forms and focus on meaning. In other
words, it is the mixture of focus on forms and focus on meaning. Ellis indicates that:
“focus on form entails a focus on meaning with attention to form arising out of the
communicative activity”. Thus the use of focus on form instruction in the classroom allows
the teacher to instruct students to both accuracy and fluency. Additionally, it emphasizes
the accuracy of language forms in communicative classrooms.
The crucial difference is that focus-on-form instruction intends to draw the learners‟
attention to specific language forms within naturalistic communicative contexts in the
process of linking form and meaning.

Doughty and Williams capture the relationships among all three approaches very well in
their forthcoming book (Doughty and Williams, in press-a): " focus on forms and focus on
form are not polar opposites in the way that 'form' and 'meaning' have often been
considered to be. Rather, a focus on form entails a focus on formal elements of language,
whereas focus on forms is limited to such a focus, and focus on meaning excludes it. Most
important, it should be kept in mind that the fundamental assumption of focus-on-form
instruction is that meaning and use must already be evident to the learner at the time that
attention is drawn to the linguistic apparatus needed to get the meaning across."
In brief, both focus on form and focus on meaning instruction are available, according to
Long (1991) and Long and Robinson (1998), and should complement rather than exclude
each other. Significantly, focus-on-form instruction maintains a balance between the two
by calling on teachers and learners to attend to form when necessary, yet within a
communicative classroom environment.
1.2.2. Definition of Focus-on-form instruction
Originally, the term “focus on form instruction” is defined as an attempt “overtly draws
students‟ attention to linguistic elements while they arise accidentally in the lessons whose
overriding attention is on meaning or communication” (Long, 1991, p. 45-46).

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Besides, Doughty and William (1998, p.5) point out that “there is considerable variation in
how the term focus on form is understood or used”. In many of the studies which appear in
an edited volume by Doughty and Williams (1998), focus on form instruction is not known
as something incidental (contrary to Long‟s original definition of the term); rather it is
treated as a proactive or intentional attempt to teach certain linguistic forms
communicatively.
In Long‟s definition, the main focus or objective of the lesson is on meaning or
communication. Incidentally, students acquire linguistic elements. In other words, in focus-
on-form instruction, communication comes first focus on form comes second. It occurs just
when a student has a communication problem, and so is likely already at least partially to

understand the meaning or function of the new form when the student is attending to the
input.
Long‟s definition above identifies two essential characteristics of focus-on-form: (1)
attention to form occurs in lessons where the overriding focus is on meaning or
communication, and (2) attention to form arises incidentally in response to communicative
need. The advantage of this orientation is “the learners‟ attention is drawn precisely to a
linguistic feature as necessitated by a communicative demand” (Doughty and William,
1998). From this definition, it can be seen a link between communication fluency and
grammar accuracy. Hence, through this orientation, students can get grammatical accuracy
through effective communication, which is especially useful for non-English major
students at UNETI taking English communicative course book to overcome grammar
based exams.
Later, Ellis (2001) considers “focus-on-form instruction” as “any incidental or planned
instructional activities that induce language learners to pay attention to linguistic forms”
(p.1-2). It means that this attention to form should take place within a meaningful,
communicative context, making it an extension of communicative language teaching not a
departure from it. From two adjectives in Ellis‟s definition “planned” and “incidental”, it
proves that Ellis agrees with Long that the incidental attention to form is entailed when
overriding focus is on meaning. Creatively, Ellis added the second kind of this instruction
“planned attention to form” to the definition of focus-on-form instruction.
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Commonly, the term “form” has been used to exclusively refer to grammar, but this is not
really what is meant by form. As Ellis (2001) argues, the term “form” in focus on form
instruction “is intended to include phonological, lexical, grammatical, and pragmalinguistic
aspects of a language”. With a view of improving students‟ grammar, the term “form”
refers mainly to both grammar and meaning. In other words, the term focus on form has
always been used to refer not just to form but also to the meaning that a form realizes.
All in all, among the definitions of focus on form instruction, my thesis gets the notion by
Ellis (2001) as the theoretical background of my study. It is because the definition has been

built by the synthesis and combination of other definitions. Hence, it gives such a clear,
sufficient and scientific view of focus on form instruction.
1.2.3. Kinds of focus-on-form
Following Long‟s (1991) original definition of FFI, where attention to form arose
incidentally, there existed only incidental FFI. Later, subsequent studies expanded the
definition to include attention to form that was preplanned. Hence, two kinds of focus on
form have been distinguished in the Literature (Ellis, 2005): planned focus-on-form and
incidental focus –on-form.
Planned focus-on-form involves targeting preselected linguistic items during a meaning
focused activity, either through enrich input (input flood or input enhancement) and
meaningful production (e.g. corrective feedback on errors in the use of pre-targeted forms).
Introduction involving a planned focus on form frequently makes use of enriched input.
Like structured input, enriched input consists of input that has been specially contrived or
modified to present learners with plentiful exemplars of the target structure. The aim of
enriched input is to induce noticing of the target form in the context of meaning-focused
activity.
Various options exist for enriching input: input flood, input enhancement and focused
communicative tasks as follows.
Input flood includes plentiful exemplars without any device to draw attention to the
feature in order to expose students to target feature. Hence, acquisition occurs as a result of
frequent exposure to a target feature (N. Ellis, 1996). For example, Trahey and White
13

(1993) and Trahey (1996) developed materials consisting stories, games and exercises to
simply expose learners to adverbs.
Input enhancement (Sharwood Smith 1993) involves some attempt to highlight the target
feature, thus drawing learners‟ attention to it. For example, Leeman et al. (1995) enhanced
input by highlighting instances of Spanish preterit and imperfect verb forms in the written
texts used in content-based instruction.
Thirdly, focused communicative tasks are tasks that are designed to elicit production of a

specific target feature in the context of performing a communicative task. However, in
contrast to communicative tasks in general, focused communicative tasks intended to result
in learners‟ employing some features that has been specifically targeted. The primary focus
is on the meaning of the form.
The second kind of this instruction is incidental focus-on-form instruction. Contrary to
planned FFI, in incidental FFI the linguistic items arise spontaneously in the course of
meaning-focused activities. The option relates to two kinds of incidental focus on form:
preemptive and reactive. Both kinds of incidental FFI can arise either because there is a
problem of communication (the interactants have not understood each other) or because
there is a problem of form (the interactants have understood each other but nevertheless
wish to focus on some form that has arisen in the course of communicative activity).
Reactive FFI occurs when a learner has said something erroneous and the teacher or
another learner reacts to this error by correcting him. Thus this kind of focus on form is a
good source of supplying learners with negative feedback or evidence.
Like reactive focus on form, pre-emptive focus on form is problem oriented. However, the
nature of the problem that is addressed is somewhat different. Whereas reactive FFI
involves negotiation and is triggered by something problematic that an interactant has said
or written. Pre-emptive FFI involves the teacher or learner initiating attention to form even
though no actual problem in production has arisen. To put it another way, pre-emptive FFI
is an attempt by the teacher or a learner to initiate explicit attention to a linguistic form to
prevent the occurrence of an erroneous form. William(1999) looked at the ways in which
learners initiate attention to form in learner-learner interactions, reporting that this occurred
most frequently when learners requested assistance from the teacher. A very clear example
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of pre-emptive FFI occurs when teachers or learners ask questions: “How do you spell…”
or “How do you pronounce …” to preempt probable errors.
In brief, reactive focus on form addresses errors which have emerged in the context of
meaningful communication. Preemptive focus on form, on the contrary, addresses
problems which are predicted to occur and thus block communication.

Reactive focus-on-form has received much more attention. It consists of the negative
feedback teachers provide in response to learners‟ actual or perceived errors. The negative
feedback can be divided into two types including implicit negative feedback and explicit
negative feedback.
Implicit negative feedback appears “when learners supply a linguistically incorrect
response in reply to a teacher initiation … the teacher tends to avoid direct, explicit, overt
negative evaluation” as commented by Seedhouse (1997a). In this view, “implicit” can be
understood indirect, implied or hidden. Hence, the learner is told indirectly or implicitly
about their errors. Additionally, the teacher displays a general preference and relies
extensively on recasts which are defined as reformulations that negotiate form and
negotiation of meaning as involving confirmation checks used to clarify understanding. In
other words, without directly indicating that students‟ utterance is incorrect, the teacher
implicitly reforms the students‟ errors or provides correction. Notably, a number of studies
(by Long et al. 1998; Mackey and Philip, 1998) have concluded that recasts assist
acquisition.
Farrar (1990, cited in Braidi, 2002) remarks that recasts include additions, substitutions,
and reordering. These matters are shown in this example from Farrar (p. 612).
(1) Addition
Child: Phone ring.
Mother: The phone is ringing
(2) Substitution
Child: I can move.
Mother: You will move
(3) Reordering
Child: It is raining.
Mother: Is it raining?
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Some other implicit options are available to teachers such as requests for clarification
and repetition (often with the learner‟s error highlighted by intonation). Clarification

requests, as stated by Lyster (1998), require learners to clarify what they said by the uses of
phrases and sentences like “Excuse me?, Beg your pardon?.”. Lin Giong also claimed that
clarification request calls for teachers to use strategies as “Pardon?”, “I‟m sorry?” for
clarification when the learner fails to comprehend due to the phonological problems in
turn-taking. This strategy also aims at pointing out the wrong expressions of the learner to
enable the latter to clarify his incorrect expression by repetition, explanation, addition,
expansion and so on.
For example: S: can, can I made a cake with … for my mother on her birth…day
T: pardon?
Experimental type studies of clarification requests involving type 2 FFI (Ellis &
Takashima, 1999; Noboyoshi &Ellis, 1993) have also provided evidence of long term
effects on acquisition.
Repetitions appear when the learners‟ errors highlighted by intonation including the use of
raising tone, repetition of the incorrect part of the learners utterance to attract his attention.
For example: S: the … the foreigners?
T: the foreigners?
Explicit negative feedback, as indicated by Long and Robinson, is when the learner is
told directly what the error is or is given metalingual information relating to the correct
form). “Explicit” in this notion means direct, fully expressed, defined or formulated.
Explicit feedback draws students‟ attention to the error directly. Accordingly, the explicit
feedback is dis-preferred in all types of focus-on-form instruction. This direct feedback is
clearly more obtrusive than indirect feedback. However, nowadays, teachers are advised to
view errors positively, which reflects a sociolinguistic need on the part of teachers to
protect the face of their students.
Lyster and Ranta (1997) identify a number of explicit options. “Explicit correction”
occurs when a teacher clearly indicates that the learner has said something wrong and
provides the correct form. “Metalinguistic feedback” consists of “comments, information
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or questions related to the well-formedness of the students‟ utterance” (p.47). Teachers aim

to clarify the nature of the error and elicit the information from the learner.
For example, S: uh m, the tiger. The tiger growls
T: “do you say the tiger?”
“Elicitation” constitutes an attempt to directly elicit the correct form from students. The
teacher uses questions to elicit the learners to recast the correct form or make use of such
strategies as pausing for the learners to fill in and complete the utterance.
For example: S: well there‟s a stream of perfume that doesn‟t smell very nice
T: So a tream of perfume, we call that a …?
Importantly, Samuda (in press), in the study referred to earlier, found that explicit feedback
involving metalinguistic comments and elicitations was necessary to prompt students into
using the feature targeted in her focused communication activities
1.2.4. Focus-on-form teaching techniques
Several strategies for integrating form and meaning in instruction have been presented in
the literature as kinds of focus on form instruction. In fact, the implicit explicit continuum
persists within the body of techniques used to draw learners‟ attention to form.
Implicit focus-on-form techniques can include input flood, input enhancement and
task-essential language.
In the input flood technique, students are presented with a text that contains many
instances of the target form, with the expectation that students will notice it. The technique
aims at flooding learners with specific forms. The rationale for such an option is that
acquisition occurs as a result of frequent exposure to a target feature (N.Ellis, 1996). For
example, students can be provided with stories, games, songs or films with high
appearance of past simple tense to expose students to this tense. Hence, they will take
notice of past simple tense.
In the technique input enhancement, forms are highlighted with different colored inks,
bold lettering, underlining or other cues intended to raise students‟ awareness of a
structure. For example, the song “Don‟t cry Joni” used as input enhancement requires
learners to read and listen the song and underline the past verbs to draw students‟ attention
to using past simple tense with regular and irregular verbs.
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The task-essential language technique includes activities that elicit specific linguistic
features. For example, students compared 2 cities. Pairs of students told each other about
features of familiar cities and record the information on task sheets. They were then
instructed to write sentences comparing the cities according to the features they had
described. Students were not explicitly taught comparative forms at any point during the
task, but they had to use comparative forms to complete it. Afterwards, their instructor
taught a lesson on comparatives and students rewrote incorrect sentences, did more
production exercises and read stories that contained frequent instances of the comparative
form.
Explicit techniques include consciousness-raising task, focused communicative task,
input processing
In consciousness raising tasks (CR tasks), learners are encouraged to determine grammar
rules from evidence presented but not necessarily encouraged their production right away.
To put it in another way, consciousness raising task involves drawing learners‟ attention to
formal properties of the target language, generally through inductive means whilst
retaining the option of some deductive explanation. The desired outcome of a CR task is an
awareness of how a language feature or features work (Ellis, 2003). Ellis justifies CR
activities as tasks on the grounds that they require learners to talk meaningfully about a
language point using their own linguistic resources.
The focused communicative task (Ellis, 2001, p21) is designed to bring about the
production of a target form in the context of performing a communicative task. The task is
designed in such a way that the target feature is essential to the performance of the task.
For example, a task may require one student to give another student detailed instructions to
make a birthday cake. The first student will likely feel a need to use adverbs such as first,
now, then and next to talk the second student through the sequential steps of the task.
Input processing helps learners to recognize and understand grammatical forms through
clear examples and explanations.
Interaction enhancement includes interactive problem-solving tasks guiding learners to
use target forms in realistic discourse.

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Dictogloss technique may include a short dictation to students that encourages learners to
collaboratively reconstruct the text presented including the target form. For example, the
teacher read three times a text containing the target structures. The participants initially
listen to the readings, next make notes, and later check their notes with other members of
their group. Subsequently, through pair work or group work, the participants reconstruct
the original text.
Error correction strategies are another way to explicitly focus on form within a primarily
meaning-focused activity, in that they help learners notice differences between their
production and the target (Doughty & William, 1998).
Negotiation refers to interaction and requests for clarification designed to call attention to
specific target language forms. In other words, it includes confirmation checks used to
clarify understanding. Negotiation is defined by Pica as “interactional strategies which are
used in order to search a solution to a problem in the course of communication”. In order to
receive and comprehend the language in a better way, students must negotiate for meaning
and form. It means they ask for clarification or reformulate the produced error, through
which students can pay attention and learn from specific target language forms.
Recast is defined as reformulations that negotiate form. It aims at guiding learners to
notice their production of non target forms, leading to reformulation with correction.
Specifically, without directly indicating that the students‟ utterance is incorrect, the teacher
implicitly reforms the students‟ error or provides the correction.
For example: S: Maple sap?
T: Maple sap. Good.
The garden path technique introduces a grammatical rule and then leads learners into
situations in which they may over generalize errors and then teachers point out the errors at
the time they are made. Nation & Newton (2008, p. 140) give the following example of a
typical garden path technique:
Teacher: Here is a sentence using these words: think and problem. I thought about the
problem. Now you make one using these words: talk and problem.

Learner: We talked about the problem.
Teacher: Good. Argue and result.
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Learner: We argued about the result.
Teacher: Good. Discuss and advantages.
Learner: We discussed about the advantages.
Teacher: No. With discuss we do not use about.
In the example above, the grammar rule “to verb about something” is introduced by
making sentences following model examples. However, the student is corrected and
thereby is made aware of the exception to the grammatical rule. Celce- Murcia (2007)
suggests that, instead of creating grammar correction exercises using decontextualized
sentences from learners‟ writing, teachers should create short texts that include common
error types made by students in their writing. Students can work together to edit the more
authentic texts, which helps them learn to correct their own work more successfully.
Larsen-Freeman (2003) discusses and gives examples of the focus on form production
techniques. Collaborative dialogues (p. 94-95) are conversations in which students work
together to discuss and use a new form, constructing a sentence together.
Another technique, prolepsis (p. 95-96), is an instructional conversation that takes place
between a teacher and a student. The teacher coaches the student through the process of
writing or saying something in English, perhaps incorporating the use of a new form. In the
following example of a proleptic conversation, a teacher (T) talks with a student (S) at a
low intermediate level who is writing a description of an important event in her past.
(S writes “I got score three.”)
T: Oh, you were sad. And then?
S: I cry.
T: I see. Why don‟t you write it down?
S: I can say it, but I don‟t write.
T: Just try it. Write what you know.
(S writes “I cry.”)

T: Good. Ok, cry when? Now?
S: No, I cried.
T: Yes. Go ahead and write it. I‟ll help.
(S writes “I cryed.”)
T: Right. But remember what happens to the “y”?
(S erases “cryed” and writes “cried.”)
T: Right. What happened then?
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In the conversation above, both teacher and student are engaged in the story. The teacher
directs the student to focus also on the formation of the past tense but does not simply tell
her to use the past tense form of cry, nor does she tell her how to spell it. In other words,
the teacher defines the parameters of the problem for the student but encourages her to
come to the answer on her own.
The language experience approach (Larsen-Freeman, 2003, p. 96) is a technique, in
which learners dictate to the teacher something they would like to say in English. Despite
students‟ errors, the teacher writes students‟ messages in correct, grammatical English and
gives them to the students. For example, a student might say or write, “I late the school for
the bad weather.”
The teacher would write the sentence as, “I was late for school because the weather was
bad.” With the corrected text in hand, students have the opportunity to compare what they
said or wrote with the correct form of the messages they wished to convey, ask questions,
and learn.
According to Doughty and Williams (1998), there is a degree of obtrusiveness of attention
to form depending on different focus on form techniques as follows:

Unobtrusive <─────────────────────────────> Obtrusive
attention to form

Input flood X

Task-essential
language X
Input
enhancement X
Negotiation X
Recast X
Output
enhancement X
Interaction
enhancement X
Input processing X
Dictogloss X
CR tasks X
Garden path X

Doughty & Williams (1998)