The Effects of Form-Focused Instruction (FFI) on the ESOL Learners’ Accuracy

of Written Production

Ms. Maria ZaheerCollege of Humanities

Key Terms

Focus on form (FonF) /Implicit “is a type of form-focused instruction (FFI) it “. . . overtly draws students

attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaning or communication” (Long, 1991:45).

Focus on Forms/Explicit “Is evident in the traditional approach

to grammar teaching based on a structural syllabus” (Ellis, R.,

2008:962).

Form-focused instruction (FFI)“is any planned or incidental

instructional activity that is intended to induce language learners to pay

attention to linguistic form” (Ellis, 2001:1).

ESOL English for Speakers of Other

Languages

• ESOL teachers• ESOL adult learners of mix abilitiesThe Participants

• Skills for Life’ centre, Preston College, UK.• Quantitative data collection from teachers’

perspective was carried out in various ESOL centres in UK.

Institutional Setting

• Two teachers with different levels of teaching experience agreed to participate in the study; both were native speakers of English and teachers at Preston College ESOL provision.

ESOL Teachers for the Experimental Study

Effectiveness of FFI on Written Production was gauged by:

Rationale• One of the concerns as an EFL teacher was whether the language learners’ written production should be corrected in terms of the non-targeted forms or not.

• The question then arises as to when to correct, how to correct and what to correct.

• Even by referring to the existing research there are some contradictory findings.

• The noteworthy point is that, considering the results of all these studies, one cannot see concluding results concerning focus on form (FonF) in particular.

• Regarding the comparative studies in terms of the effectiveness of Explicit and Implicit FonF the need could easily be felt to investigate the effects of implicit and explicit FFI and its effects on the written production of ESOL learners at entry level 2/3 or intermediate level.

5

Investigational Presuppositions

Implicit FFI does not affect the linguistic accuracy of the ESOL learners’ written production in comparison with explicit FFI.

To what extent does Form-focused instruction (FFI) improve the written production of ESOL learners at entry level 2/3 or intermediate level?

How do the ESOL teachers perceive the impact of implicit vs explicit instruction for the ESOL learners?

Groups Treatment Tasks types / toolsTime triangulation

3 Test stages

 Experimental

group 1 Implicit FFI T 1: Constrained constructed

responses / gap fill task

 

T 2: Free constructed

response/ free writing

1.Pre-test

2.Post-test (soon after

treatment session)

3. Delayed Post- test (after

a period of 3 months) Experimental

group 2Explicit FFI

Comparative study design

No. QuestionsStrongly

agree (1)

Agree 

(2)

Not sure 

(3)

Disagree 

(4)

Strongly disagree

(5)

1 Formal instruction helps learners to produce written work in correct grammatical language. 13% 29% 18% 33% 7%

2 In case of implicit or delayed error correction a student keeps making the same error. 31% 36% 9% 16% 9%

3Students can improve their writing accuracy through frequent practice of grammatical structures.

13% 33% 11% 42% 0%

4Some errors are susceptible to the teacher’s intervention, while others just resolve themselves over time and through exposure and practice

33% 40% 13% 13% 0%

5 A typical measure of accuracy isPercentage of error-free clauses. 7% 44% 27% 22% 0%

6Students learn grammar more successfully if it is presented within a Complete text in an activity.

44% 20% 22% 13% 0%

7 Form-focused correction helps students to improve their written Proficiency 13% 42% 31% 13% 0%

8Explicit discussion of grammar rules is helpful for students to improve their written proficiency.

16% 44% 20% 13% 7%

Quantitative Data from Questionnaires for Research Question one According to the Sections

Section one: Questions 1, 6, and 8 were formulated to obtain how the teachers’ perception about explicit instruction helps the students to improve their written proficiency. The findings of these questions are illustrated below:

No. QuestionsStrongly

agree(1)

Agree 

(2)

Not sure 

(3)

Disagree 

(4)

Strongly disagree

(5)

1Formal instruction helps learners to produce written work in correct grammatical language.

13% 29% 18% 33% 7%

6Students learn grammar more successfully if it is presented within a Complete text in an activity.

44% 20% 22% 13% 0%

8Explicit discussion of grammar rules is helpful for students to improve their written proficiency.

16% 44% 20% 13% 7%

Section one: Questions 2 and 4 aimed to bring forth teachers’ attitudes or beliefs on implicit correction in their language classrooms. This table clearly illustrates the effects of using implicit FFI:

No. QuestionsStrongly

agree(1)

Agree 

(2)

Not sure 

(3)

Disagree 

(4)

Strongly

disagree

(5)

2In case of implicit or delayed error correction a student keeps making the same error.

31% 36% 9% 16% 9%

4 Some errors are susceptible to the teacher’s intervention, while others just resolve themselves over time and through exposure and practice

33% 40% 13% 13% 0%

Question 5 was how teachers measure accuracy in order to give corrective feedback to the learners. This question was devised to answer research question two which sought to find out which teaching method of FFI is more effective for students. Result of question 5 responses as a percentage:

1 2 3 4 50%5%

10%15%20%25%30%35%40%45%50%

7%

44%

27%22%

0%

Strongly agree Agree Not sure Disagree Strongly disagre

Section two: This section comprised 7 questions on how teachers and learners dealt with classroom difficulties

11%7%

13% 13%

4%7%

4%

51%

58%

33% 33%

24%

31%

53%

11%

27%24% 24%

11%

20%24%

27%

9%

29% 29%

51%

29%

18%

0% 0% 0% 0%

9%13%

0%0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

My students find it difficult to transfer their grammatical

knowledge into communicative language use.

My students are motivated by problem-solving techniques

for learning grammar.

My students prefer to find matches between meaning and

structure for themselves.

My students find authentic texts difficult because of the

wide variety of structures which appear.

My students cannot find form-function matches in authentic texts without explicit direction

from teachers.

My students find it difficult to correct errors of grammar

within a written context.

My students find it difficult to improve the accuracy of their grammatical language without

focus on forms.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Strongly agree Agree Not sure Disagree Strongly disagree

The findings of this section revealed interesting results on grammar instruction in the ESOL sector. Although teachers have a communicative approach to teaching grammar 51% agreed that their students find it difficult to transfer their grammar knowledge into communicative language use whereas 53% agreed that FonF is important to help students improve accuracy.

Illustrates means of Tool 1 and 2; group 1and 2 at all three stages of test

Section two: At the end of the questionnaire a space for further comments was given in order to collect qualitative data about the approach to teaching ESOL learners and any problems which occur in the classroom regarding aspects of FonF. Only 16 teachers out of 45 gave their comments.

The qualitative data were coded by nodes respectively according to responses:

Form-similarities

Form+Function

FonFS

FonF

0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18%

Percentage coverage

All students are different and therefore some will find FonF more effective than FonFs and vice versa. Personally, I agree that FonFs is more effective (see Ellis), but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t use both, and other, approaches in the classroom to teach grammar.

Some qualitative responses from the questionnaire categorised according to the research questions of this study

An ESOL teacher commented on implicit teachingAn ESOL teacher supported the idea of FonFs

Students’ perceptions are important. If they think focus on form is the only way to learn a language then they will not realise they can learn just as well from implicit teaching. Most students will say they want ‘more grammar’ because they don’t recognise they are learning grammar implicitly. A good ESOL teacher should do a mixture of both I think.

The Qualitative Data from the Face to Face Interviews to Triangulate the Questionnaire Findings: The Data presented below demonstrates the responses of 3 ESOL teachers verbatim transcriptions

Participants Questions and responses

 ESOL teacher 1

(an ESOL teacher

for 20 years)

Q: Can formal instruction help learners to produce written work in correct grammatical language?

A: I would probably help some learners different thing help different learners, learners respond to different things in life different points of language learning career so to speak I think I does help some learners some of the time.

 ESOL teacher 3

(an ESOL teacher for

over two years)

Q: Can Form-focused correction help students to improve their written proficiency?

A: Yes, I suppose that the way I would deal with it in a group if any particular point is carrying general problems within the group because it is account..... Then I would probably do a general group sort of lecture on that particular point.

ESOL teacher 2

(an ESOL teacher

for three years)

Q: Is a typical measure of accuracy in grammar a percentage of error-free clauses?

A: Yeah in written work, what we're looking for in entry one’s writing. I want accuracy in simple sentences I only correct errors within the standards of the class I’m teaching.

Conclusion

The ESOL teachers favoured and practice FFI and supported the importance of giving explicit instruction.

However, the experimental study did benefit from FFI and it the effects were not sustained over a period of time. Nicholos et. al. (2001) pointed out that, “those findings to date for negative feedback research are still somewhat inconclusive and difficult to interpret” (cited in Mitchell and Myles 2004:183).

Qualitative data from a respondent evaluates (FFI).

“I think we need to remember that people attend to different things in second languages and also feel different things are useful in their learning, so it’s sometimes difficult to generalise. There’s also the point that where L1 and L2 share grammatical or form-function similarities, then it may be easier to correct errors etc”.

Thank You for Listening!

Any Questions?