Improving the first year students’ grammar through focus-on-form instruction at university of economic and technical industries

Chuyên ngành: English Methodology; Mã Số: 60 14 10 Người hướng dẫn: Khoa Anh Việt, M.A Năm bảo vệ: 2010 Abstract: The study was carried to assess whether focus-on-form instruction FFI

of economic and technical industries

Phạm Thu Yến

Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Luận văn ThS Chuyên ngành: English Methodology; Mã Số: 60 14 10

Người hướng dẫn: Khoa Anh Việt, M.A

Năm bảo vệ: 2010

Abstract: The study was carried to assess whether focus-on-form instruction (FFI) can help develop the

first-year students’ grammar mastery at University of Economic and Technical Industries (UNETI) Total

of 26 repeat students at college level in a retake exam class at UNETI were randomly selected to be participants, who were divided into two groups including experimental group and control group in 10 lessons, each of which lasted two hours with fifteen-minute break.The data collection instruments used in the study were tests, questionnaire and interview Initially, two first interview questions were used to elicit information to design questionnaire and identify target structure Similarly, two groups took a pretest in the first class meeting and a posttest of the same content in the fourth lesson The target structure consisting of present simple and present continuous were taught in four first lessons Compared with the control group with no FFI, the learning gains from pre-to post tests indicated that focus-on-form instruction helped improve students of the experimental group dramatically In the last class meeting – the tenth lesson, questionnaire and interview administered after the tests provided necessary information about students’ background, difficulties and attitudes toward to focus-on-form instruction Both questionnaire and interview show students’ positive response to focus on form instruction though some students are unconfident to take part in communication.Generally, quantitative data (from questionnaire and interview) and qualitative data (from interview) support each other to show that focus-on-form instruction helps to improve the first-year students’ grammar significantly Additionally, students showed their interest and agreement with focus-on-form application despite their previous habit of receiving rules and lack of confidence in communication and figuring out rules.Based on the findings, the thesis suggests some tips such as appropriate classroom input, non-stressed activities for eliciting grammatical rules and helping students to take notes of basic knowledge, which enable students to overcome their unfamiliarity when following FFI

Keywords: Ngữ pháp; Giao tiếp; Tiếng Anh; Phương pháp dạy học.

Content:

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

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

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

SD Standard deviation

SEM Standard error of means

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

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

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

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

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

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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