Effectiveness of ‘Focus on Form’ versus ‘Focus on Forms’ Instruction on the Development of Knowledge of Formulaic Sequences

Abstract

Formulaic sequences are known to be fundamental to the way language is used, processed, and acquired in both the first language and the second language (Schmitt & Carter, 2004; Wray, 2002; Wray, 2008; Meunier & Granger, 2008; Schmitt, 2010) and consequently should be incorporated into foreign language classroom practice (Wood, 2010; Alali & Schmitt, 2012; Hatami, 2015). However, there have always been discrepancies over the best method of incorporating them into foreign language classroom. To this end, the current study compared the effectiveness of two form-focused methods of instructing formulaic sequences including ‘focus on form’ method and ‘focus on forms’ method on the immediate and sustainable development of knowledge of formulaic sequences. The participants of the study were thirty learners of English as a foreign language at the intensive English program of a university in Japan. The study followed an experimental design by dividing participants into two parallel groups of ‘focus on form’ and ‘focus on forms’, administering pre-test one week prior to intervention, conducting instruction for the two different groups at two different levels of explicitness for four weeks, and administering post-test and follow-up test respectively one week and ten weeks following the intervention. The instruments used for data collection consisted of instruction materials for intervention as well as three sets of recognition tests and cued output tests to assess participants’ learning gains as pre-test, post-test, and follow-up test. The results of mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance revealed that both ‘focus on form’ and ‘focus on forms’ methods of instructing formulaic sequences are equally effective for immediate and long-term goals. The pedagogical implications of the findings suggested the incorporation of target language formulaic sequences into foreign language instruction.

Keywords: Focus on Form Instruction, Focus on Forms Instruction, Formulaic Sequences