Bibliothèque de L'IMIST/CNRST

Sous format papier

Université Mohammed V - Souissi

Although there have been several attempts to look into the potential benefits of focus on form in second language acquisition (SLA), there is still a wide range of issues that call for more investigation. The present study is a contribution in this respect. It is an attempt to investigate and compare the potential effects of four instructional treatments within this framework. These concern meaning-oriented instruction, implicit instruction through input enhacement, explicit instruction through rule explanation and implicit instruction combined with rule explanation. More specifically, it purports to examine their potential effect on Moroccan 1st year Lycee students’ acquisition of the English present perfet tense. Also, it tries to explore the differential effects of the four treatments on both comprehension and production skills. Finally, the study intends to investigate the amount of noticing induced by the four treatments as measured by a feedback questionnaire. One-hundred and thirty-seven EFL first year Lycée students, who belonged to four intact classes, participated in the study. Before the treatment, all subjects took a pre-test to make sure they all have the same level of proficiency and the same knowledge of the form in question. Immediately after the treatment, they took a posttest which aimed at measuring the hypothesized induced effects of the four treatments. Following this stage, a feedback questionnaire was administered to measure the subjects’ noticing level. Results of the pre-test and the pottest were submitted to One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and the Scheffe post-hoc test. Results of the pre-test revealed that all subjects had the same level of proficiency. Concerning the pottest results, it was found that the rule-oriented and the rule-oriented plus input enhacement groups performed higher than the meaning-oriented and the input enhacement groups on both comprehension and production tasks. The two groups similary showed considerable amounts of noticing as evidenced by their responses ont the feedback questionnaire. However, the rule-oriented plus input enhacement group demonstrated higher levels of noticing than the rule-oriented group. The study concludes by arguing that Focus on For mis a considerably relevant approach that needs to be taken into account in classroom research. Il also provides some relevant pedagogical implications for classrooum practise as well as suggestions for future research.