FOCUS-ON-FORM AND CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

Summarized by:
Sitti Fatimah Saleng

Uliya Nafida

FOCUS-ON-FORM AND CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK

IN COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

Effects on Second Language Learning

Patsy M. Lightbow

Concordia University

Nina Spada

McGill University

This article investigates the effects on form-focused instruction and corrective feedback provided in the context of teaching program that were based on principle of communicative language teaching (CLT). It examines the relationship between classroom instruction and interaction and the learners’ developing second language ability (especially grammatical accuracy). This research is divided into three sections; review of literature, background information and methodology. The result of this research follows each descriptive section.

PREVIOUS RESEARCH

            Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is a form of language teaching approach that is considered lead to higher levels of fluency and “communicative confidence” in L2 compared to other approaches which are form-focus and metalinguistics in orientation. However, there is a tendency that CLT also cause syntax and morphology is still far below what one might expect (Harley & Swain, 1984 Swain, 1985, 1989).

            Further studies suggest the combination of both, that is investigating the relative contributions of form-focused instruction and communication-focused instruction. It appears that the combination of both create an effective way of learning L2. Several studies prove this concept. Below is the table consisted of several studies conducted on the combination of CLT and form-focused instruction.

No	Researcher	Subjects	Result
1.	Savignon (1972)	Three groups of college students	One of the experimental group which had an additional hour devoted to communicative taks outperformed the other two groups on the “communicative” measures and did not perform differently on the “linguistics” measures.
2.	Montgomery and Eisenstein (1985)	Comparing L2 performance of learners enrolled in an experimental communicative program in addition to their required grammar-based ESL course with learners who were taking only the required grammar course	Subjects receiving the communicative instruction made greater gains on accent, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension than the subjects received only the required grammar course.
3.	Beretta & Davies (1987)	Students of task-based program of ESL instruction in schools in Bangalore, India.	Learners in the communicative (task-based) programs performed better on a communicative test than learners in the regular grammar-based  program, and that learners in the regular grammar-based program performed better on a discrete-point grammar test.
4.	Spada (1987)	Adult learners of ESL programs that were essentially communicative but varied in terms of the proportion of time spent on explicit grammatical instruction.	Learners who received more form-focused instruction perform as well as or better on grammatical measures and just as well on communicative measures as learners who received less form-focused instruction.

From several studies above, it emerges the argument that a “combination of form-oriented and meaning-oriented language teaching was more beneficial than form-oriented teaching alone” (p. 329).

Pienemann and his colleges (1981) propose different prespective on the role of form-focused instruction. He argues that instruction gives influence on L2 performance. Instruction cannot guarantee the achievement of high accuracy in learners who are not motivated, while motivated learners may be able to improve their accuracy within their developmental stage. That is, instruction cannot cause learners to skip a natural stage of development, but once a given stage is reached, instruction may be effective in increasing the likelihood that the stage-appropriate rules will be applied.

BACKGROUND

This research compares the children in intensive programs and regular program. The result shows that the intensive program learners develop significantly higher levels of comprehension ability than learners the in regular program. It is confirmed that the children in experimental intensive programs receive instruction that is “communicative” in nature, instruction that focuses on meaning-based activities, opportunities for the negotiation of meaning in group work, and the provision of rich and varied, comprehensible input.  This research also undertakes a more detailed examination of the amount and type of form-focused instruction provided in this class and in three others that are observed in other schools during the same school term. The question raised by the researcher is that “are there other differences in learner language outcomes that may be related to differences in instruction?” the investigation engages four classes (two at the grade 5 and two at grade 6) and an analysis of the oral performance data of all the students in these classes in terms of (a) the use of have and be as presentational forms; (b) their use of two grammatical morphemes (plural-s and progressive –ing); (c) adjective placement in noun phrases; and (d) the use of appropriate gender in possessive determiners.   

CLASSROOM OBSERVATION

A modified version of the Communicative Orientation of Language teaching (COLT) scheme was used to collect the observation data. It was designed to measure the communicative orientation of instruction at the level of activity type (Part A) and verbal interaction (part B) between teachers and students.

·         In part A, it was used to analyze all the observation data from the four classes (approximately 20 hours per class). It refers to macro-level analysis. The macro-level analysis involved a real-time coding procedure that described classroom behaviors at the level of activity type, participant organization (student/teacher-centered), modality practice (four skills), and content of the activities (focus-on-form/meaning).

·         In part B, it was used with a 2 hour segment of the observation data for each class. It refers to micro-level analysis. The micro-level analysis was used to determine the specific grammatical point that the teacher had addressed (e.g., verb forms or adjective placement).

Results

The macro-level analysis indicated that all four classes were primarily communicative in their approach, and classroom interaction focused on meaning, not form, most of the time.

However the four teachers differed from each other in terms of the total of time they gave to form-focused activities and also the aspect they focused.  The teacher in class 1 devote the most time to form-focus (almost 29 %), teacher in class 2 and 4 spent (13%), and teacher in class 3 spent (11 %).

The micro-level analysis showed that the teachers almost never taugh grammar lessons and rarely presented rules about the target language. Even within a grammar focus, teacher differed in the aspect of grammar to which they reacted. For example, teacher in class 1 had a particular concern to the  students’ use of forms there is/there are.

The researcher hyphothesized that the learner language in each class might show the influence of specific items where an individual teacher had chosen to focus.

LEARNER LANGUAGE

The learners in these four classes began their intensive ESL instruction with very little knowledge of English. It was only about 2 hours a week (or less). Furthermore, these students had no contact to practice with speaker of English outside the classroom.

At the end of the intensive program, they were given a test of listening and reading comprehension developed by the provincial Ministry of Education for secondary school learners.The result of this test are all groups, except class 2, performed substantially better than the provincial average for students finishing Secondary 3 (grade 9).

For the analysis, the learner language data were collected using an oral communication task (Picture Card Game (PCG)). In this task, a learner describe a picture until the interviewer can guess which one of a set of four similar pictures is being described. Audiotaped recordings were made as learners played the PCG. The result of analysis that all students spoke and understood English with confidence and ethusiasm. No students had difficulty completing the task and although there were differences in the speech styles and speech rates, most of the student would be described as fluent.

Result

Accuracy on plural –s

The reseracher use ANOVA to analize the data. The lowest results were obtained by class 4 (plural –s was supplied in only 37% of obligatory context). Accuracy in class 1 was 50%; in class 2 and 3, accuracy was approximately 59 %. The fact that even highly proficient francophone speakers of English often omit the plural in spoken English.

Accuracy on progressive –ing

Class 4 had the lowest accuracy (5.44%), followed by classes 2 (13.16%) and 3 (14.80%). The learner 1 had the highest accuracy  (28.21%).

Number of students with zero accuracy on –ing

 Adjective placement in noun phrases

Learners in class 2 (88.74%) more accurate on this feature than students in class 4 (58.96), who had the lowest accuracy. Students in classes 1 (74.63%) and 3 (74.71%) fell between the two, but were not significantly different from either.

Possessive determiners

The use of possessive determiners in the spontaneous speech of the learners in these four classes was analyzed in two ways:

a.       Group accuracy for use of his or her in appropriate context:

The result are shown that the overall accuracy of class 1 was greater (74.00%) than the other classes. Class 2 (62.90%), class 3 (56.00%), and class 4 (42.00). Strikingly that only in classes 1 and 3 did the majority of students use enough examples (at least three) to make the analysis possible.

b.      The number of students in each class who used both his and her at least once correctly:

The results:  in class 4, 0 of 25 (0/25) students used at least one correct example of his and her, class 1 (8/23), class 2 (4/25), and class 3 (9/28). It is reported that students in class 4 were not only less accurate than those in the other classes, but may also have been at a diffferent level of development from the others.

CONCLUSIONS

• This study is a post hoc description of some specific classroom events and outcomes.
• The classroom observation data are limited and there is no claim that only the instructional variables differ between the classes.
• The profiles of the learner language in these four classes are quite different, eventhough the students had very similar exposure to English both in their extensive ESL program and their limited contacts with English outside school. 
• The differences are also related to the type of instruction provided. For example, in class 1, the most form-focused instruction was provided. The learners were more accurate in their use of progressive –ing.
• Students in class 4 had the lowest accuracy on all the features examined in the analysis of spontaneous language samples. The teacher in this class was the only one who virtually never focused on grammar. Teacher only focus on vocabulary difficulties that students were experiencing. However, students in this class have very good comprehension skills as shown in listening and reading comprehension test. They performed better than both class 1 and 2 (grade 5).
• It can be confirmed that certain teachers seemed to have a particular set of structural features on which they placed more emphasis and for which they had greater expectations for correct use.
• The authors do not mean to imply the instructional intervention in the form of either grammatical presentation or reaction works with all aspects of language form. They suggest that some components of the language may not only be amenable to instructional intervention, but also may depend on further development and improvement.
• The results presented in this study provide support for the hypothesis that form-based instruction within a communicative context contributes to higher level of linguistics knowledge and performance.
• The finding of the study suggest that accuracy, fluency, and overall communicative skills are probably best developed through instruction that is primarily meaning-based but in which guidance is provided through timely form-focus activities and correction in context.